S5E5 – How to Boost SaaS Sales with Virtual Events With Michael Tucker

• (00:42) – Show intro and background history
• (01:52) – Deeper into his background history and business model
• (05:12) – Understanding his SaaS business strategies
• (11:52) – How this company makes money
• (14:41) – A bit about his business numbers
• (20:26) – Deeper into his business tactics
• (21:54) – A key takeaway from the guest
• (27:09) – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Intro

Introducing Payback Time, the podcast for entrepreneurs looking to build and scale their startups, gain access to actionable tips, proven strategies, and valuable data that can help you avoid mistakes, skyrocket sales, and optimize profits. Your business breakthrough may just be an episode away. Do you have a SaaS or a tech company and you want to generate more leads and increase sales? Well, my next guest is a specialist at virtual events. In this episode, he talks about how they bring more people into each event, how they generate more sales at the end of the event, and he shares a case study on how he helped a SaaS business increase their MRR by over $8,000 per month. All right, let’s get to it. Please welcome Mike Tucker.

[00:00:42.110] – Sean

Mike, welcome to the show.

[00:00:43.620] – Mike

Man, so excited to be here, Sean. I appreciate you.

[00:00:46.030] – Sean

Thanks for joining me. So before we dive into your background, can you tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know?

[00:00:52.730] – Mike

Is it okay if I go funny here? Not funny, just a little bit different. I don’t know. Please, do it. I don’t know your guess. All right, cool. Love it. So I actually got married in the US and in Africa. And I don’t tell people that much often. So my wife and I, we had a ceremony here in America. And then the next day, we went on a trip. It was like a mission trip over into Africa. So the day after we got married and the locals in Africa actually hosted a wedding ceremony for us when we got there. So it was super cool, super unique, and not many people know that. And so I tell people I got married in Africa, and they’re like, What in the world do you mean? So that was pretty cool. Fun fact about me.

[00:01:30.560] – Sean

That is fun. Real quick question about that, and then we’ll dive into your background here. What country or what city?

[00:01:37.080] – Mike

Uganda. So a little small, tiny village in the middle of nowhere, Uganda, Africa.

[00:01:42.470] – Sean

I asked the question because shout out to our social media promoter. His name is Jibril. He’s actually from Kenya.

[00:01:49.300] – Mike

Oh, nice. Yeah, right down the road from Uganda. So awesome.

[00:01:52.460] – Sean

Cool. All right. Well, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background, and then we’ll get into what you’re doing today to help startups.

[00:01:58.840] – Mike

Yeah. My name is Michael Tucker. And man, I never thought I would be in marketing, in business, helping startups. But my background is right now we’re currently, we own and operate a marketing company where we help business owners, scale their message, scale their income through virtual events. And so that’s what I do right now full-time, is we just work with business owners around the clock, helping them take their influence to the next level online through virtual events. And I I love it. I never thought I’d be in this space, but that’s what we do right now currently.

[00:02:34.280] – Sean

Nice. And then take us back in time here through your career journey. You can take one, two minutes high level and walk us through. Do you have a marketing background, sales background? What did you do before?

[00:02:45.080] – Mike

A great question. So I’ll try to make this super short, but I went to college for business. And when I got out, like most college individuals, you’re like, Okay, what do I do now? And that was me. I was in my senior year of College. I was like, I went to school. I have no job. I have nothing. I’m like, I got to find something to make a dollar, right? So like many people that are listening to this, you may have experienced the same thing. I tried everything and anything just to make a dollar. I was starting businesses here, left and right, but nothing seemed to work. And then one day, my friend said, Hey, why don’t you get in real estate? Now, I know this is not a real estate podcast, but he said, Why don’t you get in real estate? At the time, I just got out of college and I was dead broke, okay? I’m talking about dead broke. Just got married to my wife. We were living paycheck to paycheck. And I said, You’re going to tell me I can get in real estate without any money? He’s like, Let me show you.

[00:03:38.820] – Mike

And he said, It’s only this much per month. Here’s my services. And I was like, I just told you I got no money. He was like, Oh, yeah. He was like, Duh, yeah. He was like, Well, how about we do this? How about you work in my company and then I’ll coach you for free? And that was my first official break into marketing sales was being more of an apprentice in somebody else’s business. And so I tell all beginning entrepreneurs or even entrepreneurs here that are just starting in their business or just have a startup idea is like, Hey, figure out ways to barter, because that’s what worked for me. I bartered my time, my energy, And I worked in his business, and he coached me on a skill that could help me forever. And so from there, I ended up helping him grow his business. It’s a long story that goes with that, but it all started with a barter between two friends.

[00:04:30.010] – Sean

Nice. Do you still invest in real estate today?

[00:04:32.810] – Mike

Yeah, I do a little bit. We have our agency, and then we do that on the side part time.

[00:04:37.060] – Sean

Okay, good for you. We won’t dive in a real estate. We got to dive in your business here. Okay, so how long have you had your agency? And before you get into that, what’s the name of it?

[00:04:45.910] – Mike

So we go by the Funnel Pros. So we primarily build out sales funnels and virtual event funnels for our clients. And we’ve been operating for about five years now.

[00:04:56.690] – Sean

Five years? Got it. How many employees?

[00:04:58.980] – Mike

We got We have a very tight ship, less than 15. We go between 10 and 15.

[00:05:05.530] – Sean

Okay. And are these employees or contractors?

[00:05:09.060] – Mike

A mix of both. A mix of both. Cool. Okay.

[00:05:12.660] – Sean

All right. So our listeners, and really the focus of this podcast, it’s tech. And whether you’re building a SaaS business, could be B2B, could be B2C. You could also have an e-commerce company. You could also be building some other tech platform, like a marketplace. Think like an Airbnb, right? Where you have two audiences on the same platform. So who do you ideally work with?

[00:05:34.480] – Mike

Yeah, we’ve worked with SaaS companies. We’ve worked with info product businesses. We’ve worked with a plethora of people. And I love, to be honest, I love the startups that have a monthly recurring revenue behind it. Somebody that can come in and we can go ahead and drive tons of trials, tons of new members. We work with a lot of people in the info product, but we have helped tons of SaaS SaaS companies scale up their revenue in their user base just through virtual events. And one specifically, because I know you guys like case studies. We have one individual, he has a SaaS company. For for info product businesses. But it’s like a mid-tier. It’s a few hundred dollars a month. And we used or have used virtual events to grow that audience base. I’m not going to say easily because So it’s not been easily, but with the right systems, it’s been pretty fun to see it grow so fast. And so virtual events are my favorite because you can bring your potential audience into one space, train them, and teach them on your systems and processes. And at the end, it’s almost a no-brainer for these individuals to work with you and to take you up on your offer once you educate them the right way.

[00:06:54.990] – Mike

And so that’s what we’ve done for some of our SaaS companies.

[00:06:57.810] – Sean

Got it. So that’s the what. Let’s dive in into the how. What are you doing for these businesses to help them? Because that’s the biggest thing a lot of people are looking for, and it’s the biggest pain point, it’s sales and marketing. A lot of tech businesses are always asking a question, How do I bring in more customers or leads? How do we bring in more leads and convert them to customers? So, yeah, break it down for us a little bit. How are you doing this?

[00:07:21.060] – Mike

When we first started out with virtual events, I was horrible. I didn’t know anything about it. But once I actually started diving into the power behind them, I was like, oh, wait, this is something else. So whenever we talk about virtual events, there’s a plethora of different types of virtual events, right? And you all know that as well. There’s virtual conferences, there’s summits, there’s webinars, all these different things. But what we really like to focus on are webinars in VSLs, Video Sales Letters, okay? Those are two of our very favorite. Now, we do have a third that’s called an online challenge model. And this is only for the online challenge model It would only fit people that have more education based around their SaaS or their tech business. But we use mainly those three. So a video sales letter, a webinar, and then an online challenge model. And if you aren’t familiar with online challenge model, it’s just usually a five-day virtual event where you take people through a process of education, and then at the end, you present your opportunity, your offer. And so those are three of the ones that are most popular.

[00:08:34.680] – Mike

I really like for people starting out to use the VSL or webinar model. Vsl meaning that it’s a short sales letter of you speaking and you talking about the benefits of your program, talking about how you do, what you do, and at the end, give them a call to action to move in a certain direction. Normally, those are anywhere between, I’m not going to say they’re super long, but those could be, it’s a five minute video all the way up to a 30 to 40. We like to see around 15 to 20 minutes on our video sales letters with a clear call to action at the end. And then the webinars, I know I’m going fast here, but I just want to make sure. This is good. Providing a lot of value. The webinars, we usually do a 90-minute webinar, okay? The VSLs and webinars can all be automated, all right? The one thing we focus on is coming in, building out a webinar, building out a video sales letter that converts super high. We’ll run a webinar live a few times. And once we get one that really resonates with the target audience, then we’ll turn it evergreen.

[00:09:41.070] – Mike

And so you can have a webinar. You can have all these going on autopilot, driving your ad traffic to it, driving your organic traffic to it, and you never have to show your face again, which is super powerful because you can bring new clients into your business on autopilot. So I know that was very fast there. I apologize. Guys. Once I get going, I don’t want to stop.

[00:10:02.570] – Sean

I love it. It’s rapid fire. Let’s give people a ton of value here. So the common thread I’m seeing with the… And we do webinars as well. We do some video sales letters, but the common thread there, it sounds like with all three, you have your VSL, your video sales letter, your webinar, and your online challenge, it’s probably free content, like educational content up front, and then a call to action for something that’s monetized thereafter. Is that correct?

[00:10:30.170] – Mike

Yes, that’s correct. You can go free or you can go paid on the front-end, right? You could sell a training or one of these events on the front-end for $20, $30, $50. I think it just depends on everybody’s business models, right? And your front-end and back-end acquisition model. But I’ll say for most businesses that are just starting out, leads is what they want, right? I mean, you need leads because they’re a lifeline of your business. So I would say start out free. But as you scale up and you have more market budget, maybe try to jump into a paid on the front-end as the gatekeeper to get some more qualified people in your pipeline.

[00:11:10.980] – Sean

Right on. Okay. All right. So that’s the video side, the webinar side. I assume you and your team help with the evergreen tech. You probably pick some software platform and set that up for the customer. Is that correct?

[00:11:24.020] – Mike

Yeah. And there’s tons of softwares out there you all can use. I’m just thinking of some off the top of my head, like WebinarJam, WebinarFuel, and some of those. There’s even for VSLs, you can go into… This is very specialty software, but it’s called eBoov, E-B-O-O-V. And that is more of customized for certain business owners. But yeah, tons of softwares, and we help set up that evergreen.

[00:11:52.710] – Sean

Now, to get people… This is the big one. This is what people really want to know, is getting people to the VSL or the webinar or the online challenge, are you running ads on Facebook or Google, or are you tapping into channel partners or affiliates? How are you getting more leads into the funnel?

[00:12:11.350] – Mike

All of the above, right? And so we look at every client different. So I’m not going to say you’re the same as mine because we all have different models and different audiences, right? And we’re at different parts of building our business. But I like to tell people, start out with what you have. So if you start out and you’re like, Hey, I don’t have 50 $30,000 a month, $100,000 a month to put in ads, start out with your organic audience. Do you have an existing email list? Do you have a social media presence? But one of the big ones that’s been working really well for us is strategic partnerships. And so that could be finding people who they have a niche that complements ours. So I’m just going to give an example. Let’s say you own a tech company where your software… I’m just making this up. You have a website building platform where you have something like a Wix or something like a Squarespace or WordPress. You could actually go to other people that maybe have audiences like business owners, right? And you could do webinars and trainings to those audiences. And so partnerships have been really really good for us.

[00:13:16.390] – Mike

If you can find a way to build a win-win-win relationship with them, meaning you win, they win, and their audience wins, then it’s over, right? And so we generated millions of dollars just through that alone. And And that’s one of my favorites.

[00:13:32.090] – Sean

I would agree. That’s always the biggest driver. There are a lot of small business owners that all gravitate towards advertising like, Hey, that’s how you grow. When you work for large companies, that’s only a small sliver. It’s partnerships as they phrase it. It would be channel partners or distributors. That’s where you get the massive traction. With that service, do you guys actually… Do you have a sales team or maybe somebody in your somebody that reaches out to potential partners, or do you put that on your customer? You got to line up the partnership and we’ll do the heavy work thereafter.

[00:14:08.530] – Mike

Yeah. Primarily what we do is a lot of the tech on the back-end, and we provide a lot of the heavy lifting. We like to leverage existing relationships that are already in place if possible. If there are new relationships to be formed, we’ll provide guidance, some resources. We don’t do the actual reach out, but we do provide guidance and assistance in helping get the company in that right direction. Tools, templates, things of that nature, the coaching to go out and do it.

[00:14:41.130] – Sean

Awesome. If we can, I’d like to dive into some of the numbers here, and you don’t have to say any of your customer names, but do you have an example of maybe an email database of maybe 10,000 or 25,000? What revenue you generated against that? That’ll give my audience an idea Okay, so I’ve got an email list of this many. Here’s what results we could potentially generate.

[00:15:05.830] – Mike

Yeah, and I like the question, and it’s hard to answer because everybody’s email list is completely different, right? Of course. You may have an email list of 10,000 people, But only 5 % of them open an email. You know what I’m saying? So it’s very, very, very obviously based on the email list. But let me do this instead, because I would like to show you what is possible when you get people into the event. And so you could say, Hey, if If I get this many people into an event, this is maybe what I can see. So what we did is for a recent event we did, which this offer was, again, the monthly recurring revenue. It had a software/ membership-based platform behind it. And the product was $39 a month. So it was a lower ticket, $39 a month with a dollar trial on the front-end. So we ran this event and we had Right now, I want to go back and look, but I think we had 1,300 people. So it was a decent side event, but it was a free event. So we had about 1,300 people register. All right. And so they registered.

[00:16:14.840] – Mike

It was free. But what we did is we had that software and we had that membership as an upsell. And so if you wanted VIP in the event, in the challenge, or even if you want to do this via webinar, you could get the… You just opt in to the membership for a dollar, right? Most people have a dollar. So out of that 1,300 people, I think we had around 300-ish opt in to a VIP into that one dollar trial. And then from there, I think we had close to about 70, 75 % stick rate after. So once that actually the trial went through, I think the trial was maybe 14 days. So after 14 days, I think roughly 70 % of those people stayed around and actually are paying monthly now at this moment. So through… Sorry, were you going to say one thing?

[00:17:09.220] – Sean

I was going to say out of the 300, you had 75 % They opted into the 39 bucks a month. That’s great.

[00:17:19.810] – Mike

Yeah, 100 %. And so people are… I just checked on it yesterday, and I’m giving them coaching. And so obviously, that first month is just the beginning of the journey, as you and I both know, right? Getting them to stay is the fun part. But yeah, so that’s just one example of many… And then we have not only the 70 % of that 300, I’m not even going to do the math here, but you have those people But then you still have the 1,000 other customers that didn’t buy that you could be remarketing to and you could be getting your sales team on and trying to close deals on those 700, 800 other people that did not take the offer. So that’s why I love virtual events. Just so much you can do with them. And that’s just one of many examples.

[00:18:05.190] – Sean

Just to run the math there for the audience, if they’re thinking through it. So of the 300, 70 % brings you to 210. Take that to 10 times 39 bucks a month. That’s over $8,000 per month. So over $8,000 MRR. That’s solid. Very cool. Love the case study. Let’s dive into your pricing model Do you charge a monthly fee? Do you do maybe a lower fee, but with a success bonus built in? Anything like that?

[00:18:39.700] – Mike

Yeah. So primarily with our events, that’s how it works, is we just operate on a Revenue share model. So we operate that if you make money, we make money, but there is a minimum on the back end. So we have this threshold that we have to make at least this much per event that we do because we do have a pretty decent-sized team that We set up all the emails, we set up all the text message, all the tech, all the graphic, everything that you need, we set it up and you just pretty much are the face. Your company pretty much just steps in as the face of this event. And so with that being said, we operate on the revenue share, and then with that minimum on the back-end.

[00:19:18.620] – Sean

Are you able to reveal that minimum?

[00:19:20.640] – Mike

Yeah, the minimum normally… I’m going to say it’s customized for each individual. It normally is around 3 to $5,000, but it just depends on each client because they’re completely different. And some people come to us and they’re like, Hey, we already have an event we’re about to run. Can you step in and consult? And so many different avenues there. But yeah, we do take that minimum or the percentage, whatever is higher.

[00:19:47.540] – Sean

Yeah, nice. Let’s take a quick commercial break. Do you feel like stock investing is too confusing, too time consuming, or too risky? It doesn’t have to be. If you ever considered investing on your own but don’t know where to to start, I welcome you to check out Tykr. Tykr guides you through your investment journey by steering you towards safe investments and away from risky investments. I created Tykr because number one, I wanted to remove emotions from investing, and number two, I wanted to save time. If you’re interested, you can get started with a free trial. Simply visit tykr. Com. That’s T-Y-K-R. Com. Again, Tykr. Com. All right, back to the show. And then do you have a qualifying a list. If somebody were to reach out to you, do you ask a series of questions such as, how big is your email list or what is your current MRR? Just to really qualify them, because obviously, you would probably get really excited. This is where I would be, if somebody came to you with, I’ve got a list of 50,000 people. We’ve got an open rate of 20, 25 %, really strong nurturing campaign. Everybody’s highly engaged.

[00:20:57.710] – Sean

You’re going to be like, All right, so we can run a Rockstar kick-ass campaigning, or we can both come out big winners, as opposed to somebody who’s like, I just started a tech startup last week, and I’ve got 10 people in my email list.

[00:21:09.960] – Mike

Yeah, we definitely sit down and we have a virtual coffee together and talk about the resources you have at hand. So things like your social media presence, ad budget, existing client base, what that looks like. And so, yeah, we go through and map that out. And if you aren’t a good fit, we do direct you to resources that can help you get off the ground even without jumping into something like that.

[00:21:32.960] – Sean

Awesome. Well, I see a lot of value in what you’re doing here, especially for a business that has a little bit of momentum. They have a list, they have some revenue. You could really help them level up. Yeah. And I really like the idea with partnerships as a founder, and I always tell founders this, you want to be building relationships from day one.

[00:21:52.250] – Mike

A hundred %.

[00:21:53.080] – Sean

Right. Right on. Before we jump into the rapid fire round, is there one key takeaway way you can give our audience, maybe a marketing tip or sales tip, maybe something we did not talk about yet?

[00:22:05.510] – Mike

I could probably sit here and give out a lot, but I would say this, if you’re not utilizing virtual events for your business, I want you to find a way to put it in your business the most simple way possible, right? And you may not have… You may just be a new founder, like you said, just started your business two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Just put it in your marketing plan somehow, and just test it out. Do a few. Your first one It may not be the best. I’m going to be honest, my first virtual event, it was horrible. But you learn from it and you tweak, you adapt, and you keep running. So I would just recommend that everybody, because you can sell via sales call, have a sales team, but There’s something powerful when you get a group of people in the room together and you can build really good engagement and really good energy. Side note there, that’s the key to a good virtual event is the right energy and the right engagement. And if we could get the people in the room and foster that, there’s something powerful about it.

[00:23:00.870] – Mike

I’m not saying get rid of a Salesforce. I’m just saying add this into it, and it can be a great machine for you. So that would just be what I would say.

[00:23:08.080] – Sean

I love it. I really love the highlight there on energy. I assume you probably do a little coaching there with the founder or the leadership team be like, I need you to show up, but I really need you to show up. Do you understand what I’m saying?

[00:23:22.630] – Mike

Yeah, 100%.

[00:23:23.950] – Sean

It makes a difference. You may not be Tony Robbins, but I need you to be in this framework.

[00:23:30.530] – Mike

Work, right? Yeah. I mean, ultimately, it comes down to your belief and your passion about your product. And if you truly believe your product and your service that you offer can change somebody’s people’s life, why wouldn’t you want to show up to the event or whatever you’re doing with energy and excitement and getting people engaged? That is contagious, right?

[00:23:53.830] – Sean

Right.

[00:23:54.590] – Mike

That’s what leadership is, is the transfer of belief. And so if you can transfer your belief to other people, it’s going to be over for you. You’re going to see it. It’s going to be amazing.

[00:24:04.540] – Sean

I love it. I love it. Awesome stuff, Mike. All right, let’s dive into the rapid fire round. This is the part of the episode where we get to find out who Mike really is. If you can, try to answer each question in about 15 seconds or less. You ready?

[00:24:18.070] – Mike

I guess we’ll try.

[00:24:19.320] – Sean

Let’s do it. All right, here we go. What is your favorite podcast?

[00:24:23.620] – Mike

Favorite podcast would be Ed Milet podcast. I like the different variations, but that’s just one of of my favorites.

[00:24:30.970] – Sean

Ed Milet, good stuff. All right. What is a recent book you read and would recommend?

[00:24:35.180] – Mike

I took myself back to The One Thing. I don’t know if you’ve ever read that before. I get very distracted, and I tend to jump on a lot of opportunities too much, so I had to go back to The One Thing. That’s one I’ve read recently.

[00:24:46.660] – Sean

Awesome. All right. What is your favorite movie?

[00:24:49.910] – Mike

This one, my wife asked me this all the time, and I tell her I don’t have one, but I would say probably Black Hawk Down. I’m a big war movie fan.

[00:24:59.130] – Sean

Ridley Scott Classic. Good choice. All right. What is the worst advice you ever received?

[00:25:05.600] – Mike

Worst advice I ever received. Now, this would probably be… It’s a little controversial, and I think for some people it’s good, for others it’s not. But I think For me, I look back and I’m like, I wish I would have been directed to start my business before college instead of after college. I’m not saying I was super pressured to go into college, but for me at the time, it wasn’t a good fit. And I am all for college in the in the right circumstances. But for me, it just wasn’t. And so that put me back financially a lot of time that I did not use wisely in college. So I would say it wasn’t wise to get that guidance at the time for me.

[00:25:43.130] – Sean

Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Flip that equation. What is the best advice you ever received?

[00:25:48.810] – Mike

Yeah, best advice I ever received would probably be, and this is going to be a little bit different, would probably be to slow down in business and take time for what matters. Over the past five years, gone very hard, as most founders do, right? They get in, lock their eyes in on something, especially when you have family. It’s easy to forget what really matters. And so when someone comes to you and say, Hey, you need to slow down, don’t forget what life is all about. That was some of the best advice. Just focus on family and focus what matters.

[00:26:18.900] – Sean

Yeah. Amen, brother. I love that. All right. And last question here, the time machine question. If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?

[00:26:28.940] – Mike

I would probably take I took myself back to about ’22, ’23, right when I was learning marketing and sales. And I would tell myself, don’t undervalue your talent and your knowledge. A lot of times, it’s easy to get in this mindset in this mode that I’m not good enough. And I’m not going to say I was telling myself all the time, but what I was charging for services, what I was charging my business, and it just didn’t match my talent. I was charging down here, but my talent, my skills were up here. And so I would go back and say, Michael, don’t be afraid. To be bold, be confident with yourself, and you can charge premium because you are a premium person.

[00:27:09.140] – Sean

Right. Love that. All right. And the last question here is, where can the audience reach you?

[00:27:14.990] – Mike

Yeah, a few different places. You can reach out on Instagram. I’m there pretty actively at official Michael Tucker. Or if you just want to chat about virtual events, no sales or anything, you can just go to thefunnelpros. Com, look a call me, and it’s literally a calendar directly to my calendar, and we’ll just sit down and chat it up. Hear about what you have going on. No sales involved. If I feel like we can help you, we’ll dive into it. If not, we’ll just get to know each other better. Sure.

[00:27:42.320] – Sean

Love it. Well, thank you so much for your time, Mike. This is great.

[00:27:45.500] – Mike

All right. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

[00:27:47.100] – Sean

We’ll see you. Hey, I’d like to say thanks for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts you could be listening to, so thanks for spending some time with me. And if you have a moment, could you please head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a five-star review? The more reviews we get, the higher this podcast will rank. All right, stay tuned for the next episode. We’ll see you.