Meet Your Hosts

Kathi 
Well, hey friends, welcome to the writing at the Red House podcast, where we gather at the table to break bread and tell tales with some of our favorite writers and creators who share their wisdom so we can all share our story. And I am back with one of my favorite creators. Uh, guys, she was the, she was the producer of this podcast for years and years and years and years.

She has gone on to bigger and better things, but we’ll still come back and hang out with us. You guys, it’s Tiffany Jo Baker. Tiffany, welcome back to the podcast.

Tiffany Jo Baker (01:09.154)
Oh, I always love our time together. Thank you for having me.

Kathi (01:12.494)
And I know you go by Tiffany Jo, but I’ve always called you Tiffany. I didn’t mean to do that. You know, it’s so funny when I hear other people in our team, they call you Tiffany Jo and I’m like, I should have done that. I apologize. So I’m going to try really hard, but I know you also answered to Tiffany. So we’re going to do, we’re going to do our best. So the reason I wanted to bring you on as you know, but I’m also going to introduce this for our listeners is Roger and I were talking about.

Tiffany Jo Baker (01:28.666)
Absolutely.

Kathi (01:40.138)
Like when we started, when we started and we didn’t have people, we didn’t have money, we didn’t have anything except for a can-do spirit and a willingness to just dig our heels in. That’s why we’re doing this DIY series. And the DIY I wanted to talk to you about is online event creation. Because you’ve done this a number of times. You’ve also helped me do it on occasion. And there are…

I will say there are a lot of coaches out there saying, here’s how you grow your platform to be absolutely huge. Host an online event. It’s gonna be the best thing you’ve ever done. You won’t have to do anything, which I think is a bit of an exaggeration maybe. But I wanna hear what you consider an online event and then why would you do one? Take it away.

Tiffany Jo Baker (02:34.778)
Great question. So an online event is simply, let’s break it down simply, is having people show up to a place online and getting information at a specific time or day. And the reason that you would wanna do that, so that could be, let’s give a couple examples of what an online event might be. That could be simply a 30 minute workshop that they sign up for. That could be an all day conference. That could be a three day summit.

It could look very different, but you’re basically using technology to do like what we do when we get on Zooms or whatever platform you’re going to do. People show up to see you or hear you and get some great, great information. So the reason creators and communicators would want to have an online event is because it gives you the opportunity to share your greatness. It gives you the opportunity to share your genius. It gives you an opportunity to.

grow your email list because when people sign up for it, they give their email so they can get the information. You could also grow your bank account because if you put money attached to it, you get paid when you’re doing it. You could grow your evergreen shop because after it’s done, it’s recorded and you can continue to offer that as a paid resource.

in your shop. So there’s a number of reasons that you can use it. There’s a number of ways that you can do it, but at the heart of it, you’re gathering people online virtually to get some kind of great information.

Kathi (04:10.782)
Okay, I love it. And I’ll add one to that. We use it as an incentive for our paid programs. So if you are part of our paid program writing at the Red House Collective or our paid program, Clutter Free for Life, we put on an online event in March and you are able to attend that for free because you have signed up for one of our paid groups. And

That seems to be a great, it’s a great way of getting content. It’s a great way of really encouraging, giving a shot in the arm to both of these communities when they’ve been a couple months in. It’s a great way for them to meet some of the leaders in our community as well. So it has a lot of things that it does for us that we couldn’t accomplish other ways. So you, okay, so how do you conceptualize an event? What, you know, choosing the right,

theme or format for your event. And the other question is, how do you determine your target audience? Maybe I should switch those questions because probably you wanna know your target audience before you really design the event. So, I’m gonna go ahead and start with the target audience.

Tiffany Jo Baker (05:23.874)
Yeah, so I like to break down as a DIYer, online community, online creator, I like to break these type of projects down to five keys. And so I usually do the why, what, how, who, and when. So starting with your, I would say start with your why. And so what is the purpose and the goal of this online event? And you also gave some other amazing ways, I love how y’all use.

these online events for your memberships, for ongoing content, for introducing the speakers and the experts. So why are you doing this? Are you doing this to because you just have a heart really to serve and you want to teach women how to study the Bible? Are you doing this to grow your email list? Are you doing this to make money? Are you doing this as a grand experiment because you know later you want to do something?

bigger, like a big summit or conference. And so you want to go ahead and just do something small to try. So what is the goal of it? So I think that’s going to help you then determine who are your people, who is the audience then that you’re going to be talking to, who are the speakers that you are going to enlist to be a part of your event or events. So I always want to go back to the why it’s so important.

Kathi (06:46.216)
Okay.

Tiffany Jo Baker (06:47.55)
on knowing our why, knowing our purpose and our goal, and that will then help you determine the rest of it.

Kathi (06:54.142)
And then that leads you to your who, because you may know what you wanna do, but you have to come up with a very specific target audience because if you advertise to everybody, you’re advertising to nobody. So how do you determine your who for an online?

Tiffany Jo Baker (06:56.57)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany Jo Baker (07:12.358)
So when we’re creating, we’re always creating with a problem in mind. Right. So when you’re thinking, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve? That’s usually attached to a group of people. Now, if you have a broad problem, a broad problem that you’re solving, it’s maybe like how to create more income and you need to niche that down a little bit more. So how to create more income for

Christian women entrepreneurs. So really niching that down to determine who your audience is. So what problem are you trying to solve and what group of people are you wanting to speak to, to solve that problem? I think that’s very helpful as we’re determining our who.

Kathi (07:56.11)
Yes. How do you determine your objectives? You know, I guess it’s, it’s kind of the what, what you want to accomplish. I mean, yes, the what is the event, but what, you know, is it, is it, I guess it would determine on, you know, you talked about, it could be money building, it could be list building, it could be an incentive. So, um, are you, how are you keeping that in mind as you’re planning this event?

Tiffany Jo Baker (08:26.542)
Yeah, I think you always are thinking, you’re thinking about the problem you’re solving, and then you’re thinking, what do you want them to come away with? When they leave after having that event, what do you want to have them knowing, thinking, and doing? So then you can start to build around that gives you the basis of content, of the type of speakers that you have, of what now you’re starting to actually create, you know, the what, what the event is and what the content.

Kathi (08:30.442)
Mm-hmm.

Kathi (08:34.356)
Okay.

Tiffany Jo Baker (08:55.966)
involves. You’ve got your why, the problem you’re solving, you’ve got the people. Now, what do you want them to come away with? And so you’re starting to build out this, this DIY online event creation.

Kathi (09:08.194)
So let me ask, is there a time that you have found that’s better or is that kind of dependent on the audience? Are you doing things during the day, after work hours? This is something that I know for sure. I live in California. What works for me isn’t going to work for my friend in Pennsylvania. We sometimes have international audiences.

Kathi (09:37.71)
understand that we are planning for a United States audience, but maybe not always. How do you pick a day and time in order to do this?

Tiffany Jo Baker (09:47.042)
Yeah, I think if you ask five people, you’ll probably get five different answers for something like this. But that’s one of the beauties of having online events because you can offer it live and then most people know you’re going to provide the recording. Now, sometimes you’re providing the recording for 24 hours free or 48 hours free. And then after that, there’s a charge or something like that. But for the most part, most people try to show up.

Kathi (09:51.062)
right?

Kathi (10:01.678)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany Jo Baker (10:16.598)
live if they can when you host it. You’ll have the greatest number of people who actually follow through are the ones that show up live. Now, however, we’ve also been conditioned that there’s replays. So a lot of us are like, I can’t make it live, but I’m going to sign up because I know I’ll probably get the recording and then can watch it at my convenience. So I think that’s a win-win for deciding when you’re going to do an event is because…

Kathi (10:38.983)
Mmm, yep, okay.

Tiffany Jo Baker (10:46.427)
Yes, you’ll have people show up live, but you’ll also be able to provide the recording to everybody who signed up

Kathi (10:51.53)
And I love that 24 or 48 hours, it gives it a sense of urgency because we’ve had people ask for a recording six months after the event. And I’m like, I barely remember the event. At that point, no thank you. Yeah, no, I think that gives us a sense of urgency. Now I know from working with you for six years that you are a natural planner and organizer. And if not, you make it look like it. Okay, so how do you start planning and organizing

Tiffany Jo Baker (11:00.286)
Oh, wow. Yeah.

Kathi (11:21.854)
this event? Are you using software? Are you using different tools? You know, how are you putting this into place?

Tiffany Jo Baker (11:31.502)
Yeah, for me personally, I am a big Trello fan using Trello for project management. It’s having a board just for this event, for your online event, where you can put, house your ideas, where you can put your emails in there, where you can actually set up due dates and you can put the information that you’ve collected as far as event description or.

logo for the event and graphics and things like that. So having a one hub or having our online event hub, DIY hub using Trello, cause it’s free. You can use the free version is something that I always, always am going to recommend. Now some people love paper and pen and that’s great, but I think the point is to have one place, one hub.

that you’re keeping everything organized that you can continue to go through. And if you’re having people help you, if you have a virtual assistant, if you have somebody that maybe you’re hiring just to help you for this, or who’s maybe does your graphics, then they’re also able to get all the information in one safe place and add to it as well.

Kathi (12:42.582)
Yeah, we call that a single source of truth. So you’re not looking on seven people’s computers for that document or that email from the guest speaker or things like that to have one place where you can put all the things. Do you do like a burn down?

Tiffany Jo Baker (12:45.485)
Hmm.

Kathi (13:04.142)
Calendar or you know, like okay six weeks out we need to do this five weeks out. Do you do anything like that? I know that there and they’re probably resources online where you can find some of those things

Tiffany Jo Baker (13:15.67)
Yeah, I’ve seen those and, you know, in general, I think that’s in my brain, but I don’t know that I’ve ever actually written it out and given myself that specific on what to do. Now I’ll know like, you know, I want to start advertising a month ahead of time. I want to, you know, I want to start doing signups this time. So those kind of things were actually date purposed. Yes. But as far as

Kathi (13:21.9)
Yeah.

Kathi (13:41.582)
Hmm.

Tiffany Jo Baker (13:43.002)
giving myself six weeks to create assets or a month to record the interviews or whatever. I think I do that naturally, but I don’t know that I’ve ever actually ran it out.

Kathi (13:54.034)
Okay, for us less gifted, it might be helpful for you to have a burndown calendar where you can say, you know, so you know not everything is falling to the week of because there’s a lot you can do ahead of time. There’s some stuff you can’t do ahead of time. And so really laying that out is gonna be incredibly helpful to you.

Tiffany Jo Baker (13:56.069)
Hehe.

Tiffany Jo Baker (13:59.735)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany Jo Baker (14:07.173)
Yes.

Tiffany Jo Baker (14:16.438)
Yeah, I definitely for clients, I always recommend, and I do this, I usually break things in phases. So phase one is like the preparation or the recordings. Phase two is the launch. Phase three is the aftercare and evergreen leveraging, things like that. So if you break it down to phases, that’s another way to do what you’re saying.

Kathi (14:39.426)
That’s a great way of doing it. Yeah, because it helps you really see the entire project. Okay, you guys, if this is exciting to you, you’re like, oh, this is something I could definitely do or something I’ve thought of before, you’re gonna wanna come back next week because next week we’re gonna continue our conversation with Chiffney Jo Baker, and we’re gonna be talking about how do you create engaging content and then how do you let the world know

Tiffany Jo Baker
Mm-hmm.

Kathi 
that this is actually happening and get them to sign up. So, and then we’ll talk about the nitty gritty of hosting the event and post event activities. So you’re not gonna wanna miss any of this. Tiffany Jo, thanks so much for being here.

Tiffany Jo Baker 
Thank you, Kathi

Kathi

 Friends, you’ve been listening to the Writing at the Red House podcast. I’m Kathi Lipp. Go and create work that will go and change the world.