How Two Women Built a $200K+ Design Summit (From Scratch)

when the pandemic HD in 2020 we kind of saw the design Community freaking out the best things about this Summit is the people we get from all around the world last time we had 130 countries and then as time went on we were like we could make more like a evil thing going on there wait money what's this James Barnard is an A+ speaker he delivers on time God I hate him okay so speakers in the past who have just let us down or been a bit difficult to work I'm going to ask you to Spill the tea right now this is unusual podcast cuz it's very rare that I actually have more than one person on two different feeds rather than me tell you about who they are uh and there's something that I'm involved in we'll talk about a little bit later why don't you guys introduce yourself first like why don't Emma you introduce yourself and then we'll switch over to Anna cool thank you well hi everyone I'm Emma Kate I'm a graphic designer turned web designer and I Mentor other designers into how to build a web design business um and together with Anna da I have the designer boss Summit in the upcoming design camp and I'm Anna da I am also a mentor for graphic designers I'm what they call a seasoned Mentor a seasoned designer sorry I've been a designer for over 25 years now I've been running my own business for 15 years I basically Mentor designers to help them work smarter in their businesses and and I have created the designer boss Summit together and we're very lucky to have Chris um join us at design kit so what's interesting is we're kind of like workshopping ideas that we can talk about that I think would be of interest or a broader audience it's not that often that we have female entrepreneurs but two female entrepreneurs coming together to do a summit I feel like and I'm I'm sorry if I'm saying things that might hurt people's feelings it's kind of a boy club it feels like so let's talk about the uniqueness and your perspective and why you created this Summit to begin with em and I worked together for a little bit I was her mentor and we had a really good connection and when the pandemic hit in 2020 we kind of saw the design Community freaking out everyone you know there was a whole sense of the unknown are we going to survive this and Emma and I had been playing with the idea of a summit and when we started to see everyone freaking out we were like we need to do this now we actually made it happen super quickly and I think it's really good that we didn't overthink it because if we sat in it for a while and thought about it like all the moving pieces we would have talked ourselves out of it but um we just made it happen really quickly and the response was amazing and that kind of just kept propelling us to the next one and the next one and the next one and that's how it started and you know we thought you know we can list build this will be great for list building for our own businesses and we didn't really think about it any more than that at that point and then it was it was really surprising when it happened just the amount of like the community and the amount of people who were just like oh this is so awesome and all the connection I wish I had have had this when I first started my business to have all these designers that you could connect with all these awesome talks and people they could learn from for free as well obviously there's an as an upgrade option but you know 90% of what you get at the Summit is completely free so it was a really good sort of entry point for newer designers as well and people all around the world so it was pretty surprising and yeah we thought list building build Authority you know like get our name out there a bit more um we weren't doing it we're like oh if we earn like 5,000 that would be awesome you know um but we were just blown away initially we're like oh wow we're not expecting to earn that much and so it sort of got bigger and better every time there are a lot of conferences um fewer Summits and I'm not sure what the differences between one and the other but I hear conferences and there are festivals too and I'm like okay what are all the differences so for someone who doesn't know what designer boss Summit is how would you explain it to them what makes it different and unique let's start there so the designer boss Summit essentially our summit's all online obviously it's not a you need to rock up in person as much much as that would be lovely one of the best things about this Summit is the people we get from all around the world last time we had was it like 130 countries or something like there was people from everywhere and it was really amazing to have yeah communities from everywhere all around the world the summit I guess it technically would be a conference I don't really know what the difference is uh but it's where people can come you watch talks from all the speakers there's a live Q&A with all of the speakers as well so you get the chance to ask them questions or just like listen to other people's questions as well uh there's the Facebook group where you can connect with other designers there's lots of competition and prizes and you know Facebook Liv there's like lots of stuff going on this time we're having a scavenger hunt as part of the design Camp so there'll be like a digital scavenger hunt there's all that kind of stuff going on okay so there's some differences here already it's online and because it's online there are some disadvantages but a lot of advantages you can attend from anywhere in the world it's friendly for people who are on a budget especially because as you explained before for most of it it's free some of it is paid but maybe you need to explain that so that people can fully understand this because everybody's little cost is like free can it be good if it's free can you address that you basically sign up to get your free ticket the free ticket will get you most presentations so design Camp's going to be four days this is the first time we've done it over four days before this time we've done it over 3 days basically you get to see 90% of the presentations for free and there's some huge names for free we've got Alan Peters for free we've got Christy Campbell for free like they're huge names they're people that you can learn so much from and then we have the option to upgrade to the boss bundle and basically every speaker that is in the summit has given us a free res not a free a resource for designers a resource that they sell on their own website and basically when you buy the boss bundle you're getting all of those resources for like a much lower price than you would if you went and bought them individually this time when you upgrade to the boss bundle you get to attend a live workshop with Cristo and a live workshop with polisher and a live panel with um Christy Campbell and James barard so and the price of the boss bundle is really low it's $88 Australian dollar which turns out to be like $50 so it's really affordable it allows a lot of designers access to knowledge that they may not be able to afford and go you know by a $3,000 ecourse they're getting access to so much for such a little price basically I'm going to nerd out with you a little bit on the business component of it it seems like we're in the season where I'm interviewing people who are just kicking major butt and they explained to me their big concept their business model so you don't mind i' like to go there so just quick summary though for most people that want to attend and don't want any of the bonuses or the interactive stuff that you're talking about then they just watch it for free and they just need to register to get a ticket cool not a big deal then you get some digital products that are available through the bundle and you get access to certain talks or workshops that seems like a bargain and a half why did you decide to position it this way when you could have gotone all free sponsored paid or some other pay to play model or something like that what was the decision making process when we started this it wasn't about money it was like money is a bonus basically and then as time went on we were like oh we're making money from this we could make more that like a Dr Evil thing going on there wait money let's make more more honestly our last Summit just kind of blew our mind MoneyWise and I will let Emma talk about numbers and things because that's her thing but pretty much the whole time we were just like holy holy crap what have we done what have we done it kind of like just blew up to a point where we were absolutely freaking out but we wanted to keep at that lower price we wanted want it to be a no-brainer we have o our last Sumit we had 12 a half th000 people sign up for a free ticket I would say not even half of them upgraded but we decided that with this next Summit by adding those VIP workshops even if we got half the amount of people to convert to buy the bundle we would double what we made last time and we want to keep it that low price so it's accessible because that's why we started it to begin with you know and so that it's a total Nob brainer who wouldn't want to see Chris do live for $50 us it's a morgain come on guys we have that huge audience now and we're just we're aiming to move the needle slightly that's all we want to do before I pull into this talk about numbers and sents and all that stuff what are your target goals for this year how many people you think are going to register for the free portion how many you think will convert into upgrading I would love to hit the same amount of um free ticket holders like the same amount of ticket holders 12 a half thousand but I would like to see 50% of them convert let's talk at number numbers here so you said like last year your minds are blown like wow could this happen what kind of numbers are we talking about we all had 2,000 over 2,000 orders 2,186 orders um and so we have obviously the bundle price of like $88 is what people get offered for 30 minutes once they get their free ticket so that's like the cheapest you're going to get it and then it goes up and the price sort of varies as the summit goes on obviously the longer you wait the longer the higher the price is it sort of maxes out at just over $200 Australian dollars so it's not crazy you know it's in to get on it right away and then we have you know little sort of like aut bumps and stuff to get like previous Summit replay packs and stuff so there's a little bit of that in there of like lower price point stuff uh but essentially what we did last time is we had we had 23 speakers and our gross sales were over two two 213,000 Australian dollars and we ended up paying out to Affiliates like we had our highest cuz all speakers can get affiliate cash as well for all the people that they send to the summit so there's a lot of obviously that's an incentive for speakers to be a part of it because they're giving all of this away for free it's really nice of us to be able to pay them and give them some money for their their time and our biggest affiliate last time earned $ 13,000 Australian dollars so that was just from sharing it on you know Tik Tok Instagram that kind of thing and that was James barard and he wanted me to mention him in this podcast we know who it was but I was like are they going to say his name and then boom it just happened okay why did you mention his name shout out so James wner I think he did one instagram reel and he made $133,000 he's very good at it and he he is freaking good I hate him yes he's been a speaker with us since the beginning like he has been there with us since we were not making big dollars we didn't have a huge audience and yeah it's been awesome that he stuck with us through all of that I want to commend you for a couple different things one is your ability to mobilize and get something up and running and we wouldn't be talking today if the first one was a failure so every time you learn something you grow and you do that and it's such an important part of the entrepreneurial Journey for folks to say you know everybody's sitting on a multi-million dollar idea but that's all they do they just sit on it they don't take any action because they're afraid like what if I fail what if it doesn't work out exactly the way it's supposed to here's a spoiler alert it never works out the way it's supposed to it's better and sometimes it's like you got to take a couple of bumps to figure it out the next thing I just want to talk about is the fact that you have designed a business model that seems to be very Equitable for all parties involved number one larger design Community wherever you are in the whole world you can eat 90% of the meal and not have to pay anything that's freaking awesome and number two is that you say well the speakers are coming up and speaking for free but we got to figure out a way to let them uh participate in some of our proc Prof and I think that's a really awesome thing so if we win you win and the more you help us win you win more and one of the biggest bones of contention that I have with creative Summits or conferences is they pay next to nothing and I keep thinking how do we as leaders in the design Community talk about a sustainable practice when we're basically getting everyone to bleed for free and don't understand that so I like that when people such as yourself think about how do we make this work for everybody and we have to eat too that's the other thing a lot of these things are volunteer organizations and no one's eating and it's like why are we doing this this seems to be perpetuating this idea that you have to be a starving artist and that's the model I want to break so kudos to both of you for doing this I'm just curious though was there anything in your stories individually or together where you thought Hey There are rules and we have to meet this for us to make this make sense otherwise there's no point to do this was there any kind of clear defining moment in either of your stories or how it overlaps that that became very clear I honestly feel like we created our own rules from day one which is and I think there's kind of comfort in doing it together it's like when you do it alone it's the the fear of failure is so much greater but when you're doing it together we can kind of bounce ideas off each other and you know is this a good idea I tend to get excited by things and Emma's like well are we going to make money by doing that and it's kind of good to have that per other person to bounce off I feel like we have learned something every single Summit this is our ninth Summit and we're still learning things and changing things but I don't feel like we ever felt like we had to adhere to any rules I mean initially we were like we wanted to be about showcasing women in design and even still I would say 70 to 80% of our speakers are women but I think I think over time we've included more men in the speakers lineup wait before Emma jumps back in Anna I have to ask you this question okay there's this decision initially to feature more women tell me about why that's important to you and what that meant it's important to me because as a mentor for other graphic designers I work with all women and women struggle to show up they just do they are Frozen with impostor syndrome they question everything they do and I feel like men don't do that as much I feel like men are already ahead of the curve and women need that help more than men in the industry and there are a lot of huge male design influencers out there with hundreds of thousands of followers who have no problem with imposter syndrome who have the confidence SL ego to put themselves out there and I feel like women need help they need to see other women kicking ass in the design industry other women who are normal that aren't perfect you know I think women fall into the trap of I have to look a certain way I have to act a certain way I need to do all these things in order to be successful to get re reach those Milestones of x amount of followers or x amount of dollars and you don't and I really want women in design to see they don't need to do that they just need to show up and be themselves so that's why it's important to me and I when we um convince Paul a shirt to be part of our Summit that kind of was like the cherry on top for me like she is the mother of design and I feel like having her be a part of our Summit will hopefully let a lot of women see that it's not just a boy club you can be in it too and do it your way you don't have to do it the same way they're doing it so you mentioned things about like representation allowing people to see different versions of successful women that don't fit any particular mold that the letting go of that Perfection concept and and asking people like it's okay just to be yourself and I'd like to talk about that a little bit more but I'm going to put a pin on that to throw this over to Emma and see if you wanted to add something one of the sort of calls we've made over you know the years and working with people is like we've got to feel like the speakers are a good fit and we like their vibe there have been some speakers in the past who have just let down or being a bit you know difficult to work with that kind of thing or they just I don't know they've just got to gel we got to trust as we just have to trust our intuition a little bit and so over the years we just really like we have kind of made a vet call if one of us wants someone we're like you know what I really I just don't think they're a good fit for our model because the whole like we've spoken about the whole model of this Summit is everyone should win people that attend should get really good value the speakers should get really good value and we should get good value as well as the summit host so if we feel like a speaker is not going to contribute maybe they're not going to share as much as the other speakers and therefore they're kind of winning off everyone all the other speakers but not doing their part then we don't want them to be part of our sort of community it's all about collaborating not competition so that's one thing that we've been pretty good at in the last sort of few maybe like the last half of the Summits is being really picky about the kinds of um people that we have jump on board you mentioned it a couple times and I'm going to ask you to Spill the tea right now so you're like other speakers suck wrong Vibe not there for the community poor values whatever it is can you describe their behavior or their attitude their mindset so that if we're thinking to ourselves I don't want to be that person what are kinds of things that pop to your mind we won't be dropping names we take the high road and not all of them so don't anyone go through past Summits and think oh that person was invited back there bad that's not necessarily do a profile right now I'm going to figure no no no no that's definitely not it um but there are some bigger names that mostly it's not it's about not sharing we really stipulate like if you want to be part of the summit these are your you know what you have to do and you have to at least do one email blast you have to do one post you have to do so it's fair otherwise you can just like ride off the back of everyone else so we have that it's all stipulated people have to like you know tick a box and like say they um confirm and yet Anna and I will be chasing them being like we noticed you haven't shared yet you know and it still it gets to the final day of the summit they haven't shared and it's like well okay you know so that's that's one thing another one is gathering content from them as well there are just some speakers that just nail it we have it really set up really well with contents there it should be really easy for everyone to add their stuff and some speakers just need a lot of handholding and a lot of followup a lot of pushing and it just turns into not being worth our while so that's a tip if you know you ever get an opportunity to be part of something just make it really easy for the people organizing it they don't want to be chasing you up there's been people in the past who kind of didn't believe in our model of earning via Affiliates and you know asked for a set fee we agreed to a set fee but then like within the first week they exceeded the set fee in affiliate earnings and then they were kind of like oh I want to change the deal now I don't want the set fee I want to just make affiliate earnings and that was maybe because they underestimated us but yeah we're flexible we were like yeah okay we can switch it to affiliate earnings if that's what you want instead but yeah there's been people who have maybe underestimated our conversion rates when someone didn't fulfill their end of the deal they didn't show up for the live Q&A when they had already agreed to the time and then it turned into a massive dispute and this person just kind of like was talking badly about us publicly and that was that was a down up that was the first time we'd ever felt that and we were like oh man now we really need to be choosy about who we Peach that sounds like General flakiness and we put it all in one category don't be a flake fulfill your commitments make your slides or get it all ready and show up when you're supposed to show up right which is a hard thing for a lot of creative people it's like flakiness is their middle name okay we get that part we didn't mention any specific names but based on the profile that you said I I have some ideas on who it might be now I think their name might r with tames but we won't exactly say who it might be we just put it out there tell James barard is an A+ speaker he delivers on time don't say that God I hate him okay so if you if you agree commit show up do the work don't be flaky and everything's going to work out just fine I'm curious since her name has been mentioned more than once here Paula share is perhaps the most famous female designer in the world she's had a TV show on her and she is a principal or partner at pentagram and she is a much on after speaker very difficult to get a hold of how did you get her degree I watched that episode of abstract on Netflix about Paula and I messaged Emma and I was like we need polisher and she was like okay go for it and I go I actually Googled what is Paula Show's email address and it came up I um sent an email uh no response I sent another email and her assistant replied and said Paula wants to talk to you and we were like what we booked it in honestly it got rescheduled twice I think the call and we were like don't know if it's going to happen you know um and meanwhile I'd been emailing her assistant really telling her about how where about women in design spotlighting them um letting them see that you can succeed in this industry all that kind of stuff giving them my you know my Ted Talk on it and the third time we jumped on zoom and we were talking to Paula Shar in her kitchen and it was just like what and she was so humble and lovely and I kind of gave her the spiel about we would love for you to be part of this and and she was just she just said to her assistant Olivia can I do it on this date and she was like yep she's like okay yes I'll do it we kind of jumped off the call and just jumped around and screamed a bit and yeah it was amazing and she said yes like we of course offered her money and she accepted it but there was no like back and forth but I feel like yeah it was kind of like a dream what is the lesson that you can peel away from this that could be broadly applicable to someone in their creative Pursuits maybe they're not trying to book polish a for their Summit but it's just about a thing that you think might not be possible but pursue in a particular way ask the question and that's the same with You Chris because you know in Our Last Summer Liz Mosley was a speaker and she was talking about her rejection Challenge and it was about you and um you know I was talking to Liz after the summit and I was like I'm going to ask Christo and she's like do it like what's it what's the worst that could happen he could say no that's it and then you know the same thing happened when we emailed you and you replied we freaked out but ask the question if you don't ask the question you don't get and the worst that can happen is a no and then you just move on but you know I feel like we paid our jees you know I knew that you were a numbers man and when I emailed you I made sure I included numbers you know and we couldn't have spoken to you five Summits ago you've been on our sort of wish list for you know probably since Summit number two or three but it's just like no we're not ready like we're not at that point we probably could have asked and just got a know that would have been fine but we knew we didn't have you know the backing behind us and stuff and then when the last Summit in February just went off the Hulk we're like okay we can do this now I'd like to to point out a couple things about what I'm hearing here like to magnify some of the things I'm hearing number one is that sometimes we have such big ambitious dreams but we're not ready and we ask too early and that could be as big of a mistake as not asking at all because there are people are like yeah Chris I'm three podcasting can have you as a guest I'm like how about you do like 50 and then work out the Kinks in the system like I don't want to be number four that doesn't make sense to me right so there's that and there's this thing that you in in many instances for people you're targeting you do your homework you do your research you figure out like what does each person want and it's going to be different for each person and again I want to commend you for this because I do in my inbox get all these requests and it's vague generic language and most times I don't even bother reading I just hit delete because there could have been a beautiful offer there but I couldn't see it now you're not respecting my time so let's get the details out and and it's unfortunate that we live in such a society that people are kind of using deliberately vague language to get you on the phone with them so that they can do a pitch sale thing not really good for anybody and as such I have to be very protective of my time like what is the collaboration partnership that you're talking about oh no you want us to hire you I say no goodbye so you guys came in you did your homework you're like here's something that if this interests you let's Elevate this to the next level and let's have a conversation if it's appropriate and I like that it's like you're a professional and you're going to take treat people the right way so that they can make a decision otherwise you get stuck in that weird place like I wonder why that person didn't respond I wonder what's happening it's because your offer stinks are there any other big lessons that you've learned that you wish you knew Summit one the first summit cuz we just like did it so quickly I thought I'll just like request all the stuff we need via email from speakers you know that was just a nightmare because we had over 20 speakers and then I was having to chase them up and like all that back and forth and one of our speakers for that summer was actually James Rose from content snare who founded content snare and he's like content snare would be perfect for this and I'd used it in the past for like my design business but not for speakers um for the summit so since Summit 2 we use content snare and oh it's just like total game changer for that kind of stuff all automated all that kind of thing so the amount of hours like hours and hours and hours of followup and stress and spreadsheets to figure out what content I'd got and which speakers I was waiting on that was um that was a big thing from Summit number one which I wish I had have done I feel like the first Seven Summits were all pretty cookie cutter like there were the same promo images um I feel like I got lazy honestly like not lazy but I was kind of like in my little box like design wise and then in February we decided to give the summit a theme and that was kind of like a game changer like in February it was a slum L party y 2K party which meant speakers wrapped up in their pajamas and all of our attendees were taking selfies in pajamas and it was just like it added a whole different level of fun and it kind of blew up our Instagram like it just went nuts and this Summit is design Camp which has a really fun theme as well like around you know um sitting around the campfire toasting sores and your your Camp cup client horror stories Beau for merchandise but by just adding like we're designers for God's sake of course there should be a theme or that kind of fun quirky element to it and it just has like given it new life I think and I get excited about like what's the next theme going to be how can we make it more interactive how can we get people taking photos of themselves and sharing and getting into the spirit like one person has already sent me an email saying um I've bought a smalles kit for the summit so I can make smalles while I'm watching and like having that kind of element to it has taken it to a new level and I feel like a bit of a dud for not thinking of of it sooner but I think we get into our rut like this is working so why would I change it but it kind of just took it to a whole new level having that theme and that fun and designing for designers is really hard hard it's like so stressful for me and taking that risk I feel like it's paying off there's the gentleman you might know who he is his name on Instagram is Elliott is a cool guy he deliberately makes bad design so he can get away with whatever he does he does a lot of designer memes you know the last one I read from him is pretty funny he all graphic designers are secretly interior designers who want to be graphic designers what yeah go look at my couch look at my wall I'm trying to be an interior designer but I'm failing and I'm trying to put graphic prints there's some truth to that and he's funny there's a lot of sarcasm there so maybe the way you get around this is you're like it's anti-design it's bad design on purpose it's a little I think is it kit or camp or something yeah it's something like that so this year's theme is Camp does that mean we have to wear something or how do how do we all participate in this other than somebody roasting s'mores or whatever when we get closer to summer day there will be uh a digital Survival Guide that you that our attendees will be able to download and in the survival guide is lots of fun stuff like there's a packing list there's a camp map there's a bunch of quizzes there's just like a whole heap of fun stuff to get into the theme um and you know throughout the summer there's the whole section about like send us your designer confessions and we'll talk about it around the campfire like all of these really fun things that we'll do there's a scavenger hunt there's just like we're trying to make it really interactive and fun I like that idea of having themes and ways to encourage attendees to participate even though it's virtual so you're trying to make it as real as possible my my challenge to you is this is that these ideas sound really cool I want to experience it in person that'll probably wreck your business so don't listen to me you're like well we had a good thing and then we went on this stupid podcast we made it real and now we're both in the PO house now I'll tell you something years ago I was very intentional in crafting the culture of our service design company called Blind and we would have weird themes to do all kinds of stupid stuff and we would have like pajama day and everybody show up in the pajamas and then there was some kind of weird twin dress up day and so you had to find somebody in the company to dress alike so that you can come to the office and be the same well we had one person who is kind of a kudin one of my older creative directors and he's like I'm not just playing your stupid game and so you know what five of my interns and a couple other members dressed just like him so he had to participate so instead of having one twin he had like five or six other Twins and like he's like I don't understand you goes oh so immature you know but it's that kind of stuff that make you smile and I I might forget about the projects and some of the deadlines but I won't forget some of those moments and I think the Human Experience craves things like this that stick to us so when can we commit to an in-person event ladies when are you coming to Australia let's look you in okay let's do it you you put it on and I will show up I honestly feel like Emma and I are quite introverted and in person kind of freaks us out a bit we've been asked many times it would be it would be awesome to do obviously you're not going to get 12,000 people though you're going to get a lot fewer people but you know we could still obviously broadcast it around the world and that kind of thing which would be awesome all right before we get out of here I have another question to ask of you you've been doing this eight times I think the last time you did it you came up with a theme and it was a lot of fun so you want to continue that spirit I want to ask you the people who attend paid or not paid what have been some of the most tearful heartfelt stories testimonials you've gotten from people whove participated either as a speaker or as an attendee a couple that's come to mind like one is designers who are a bit more seasoned like been in it for quite a few years to just be like I so wish I had have had this when I first started out like all this gold that I'm getting all these awesome talks all the great stuff that's in the bundle the mini courses the Workshops the templates all that stuff that it really just it's it's really inspiring to hear that from other people CU I I know I would have loved to have this starting out as well uh I still learn stuff every time as well but then there's also people who are just starting out and also who we we do get people from you know the Middle East and Africa and you know poorer Asian countries and stuff where they just can't afford a $2,000 course or you know ,000 they just can't afford that stuff so to be able to give them so much value for free or for the cheaper price if they do decide to upgrade uh like there's a lot of testimonials and stuff that we have like screenshotted on the website and everything of just people going like it's like a Christmas it's like Christmas morning opening this bundle and seeing all the amazing stuff inside and how it really helps transform their business and get them excited about it again I think that's a big part as well is we can get kind of in our little bubble and a little bit of a rut and to get excited and pumped for business again and inspired to charge more and do better and that kind of thing is really awesome Anna what about you I saw you scratching your neck because I think you were like what I going to do how do I answer this question no no I was writing stuff down um because my thoughts they disappear quickly I love seeing our audience take real action like last time we had James Martin as a speaker he had a really fun presentation in it he talks about how designers are a mother bridge between clients and you know if you know James Martin that's how he talks but just seeing our designers in the audience then creating reals based on his presentation was pretty amazing like he to the point where he inspired action in people which I think is pretty amazing also there's group chats from the summit that are still going from you know the group chat started in February and people are still jumping in there asking questions and talking to each other and supporting each other that's pretty awesome um and with our Summit in February we also had a section you know do you want a pen pal and we thought no one in a sign out for this because we we didn't think about it logistically like how are we going to match people we just thought you know maybe five people will sign up and like 500 people signed up for a pen pal like people love the community I think that's the best part for me and just seeing people take inspired action is pretty awesome too I'm I lied I have one more question for you and I'm going to put you both on the spot okay we're going to go Anna first and then we're back over to Emma I want you to think for a minute and then I don't want you to overthink it cuz as soon as I finish the question you have to answer it okay but we're going to go Anna first and Emma I want you to reflect back on the previous eight times you've done this I want you to think about the one person who just knocked out of the park who are they and what did they do in 30 seconds or less I would say Liz Mosley she was real she was authentic 100% herself people resonated with it when you're real people resonate she wasn't one of our big speakers and people really loved her and I did too I love her and yeah I think Liz gets all the points for showing up and being real well that ties into the thing that you said about being yourself so you're consistent with that very nice all right over with you Emma well initially I was going to say James Barner but we've spoken about him too much this time so the next one that came to mind was Nikki Hamilton last time talking about Ai and how she created her own custom G PT to create strategies for clients and copywriting for their entire website and we were just all like like it was insane like I just went right ahead and bought them I was like yes I need these like it was just incredible what she'd done and I think it really opened so many people's minds to how we can use Ai and yes since then inspired me to start creating my own custom gpts just for myself just to like make things easier and yeah so stuff like that where you just like people that are really jumping on AI or something that's really Innovative and just blowing your mind showing a demo of how they can do stuff that's really awesome good job good job ladies I think you could not have answered that better than I would have hoped for because to kind of book in our conversation today in the green room we were talking about the different roles that you play and Annie you talk about more the creative person the marketing and then you you really kind of talk about how when people show up that really resonates with you and then how was like really good with tech and doing the web stuff and she's like you know what the best thing is ai ai forever everybody like it's so perfect we see what we see right it could be more different but such a reflection on your personalities consciously or unconsciously there we are I'm sorry I probably insulted both of you I love that cuz I remember when Nikki's presentation happened and it's like yeah I don't get it Sor true yeah she's a sky is coming stop it okay I'm listening to this and this broadcast goes out to a lot of people people from all over the world people that are part of the demographic the larger Community what do they need to do where do they go so they need to go to designer boss.co that's where you can get your free ticket to join the summit uh and yeah get your free ticket you'll get the calendar invite everything like that you'll get all the Goss on the summit and obviously you'll get given an offer to upgrade to the bundle if you so choose and obviously in that bundle you get all the goodies from the speakers but also you get to see the amazing Christo's live Workshop as well as Paula sh's live workshop and the live panel from Christy Campbell and James Barnard as well what a bargain everybody I mean come on 50 bucks I feel like cheap now all the come on come on ladies it was fantastic talking to you I had a great time I hope you did too and I want to just send my warm wishes to you and every every person who's involved in helping you make this real I I want to encourage you to keep doing this and I can't wait to do a themed event with you at some point in the future yay awesome thanks Chris thanks so much for having us so fun my name is Anna da and I'm M listening to the Future