197: Why We’re Hosting a Black Friday Summit (and Why It Matters for Your Business)

Dolly (00:01.333)
Welcome to the systems and workflow magic podcast, where I help small business owners transform from feeling scattered to becoming streamlined in their creative businesses. I’m your host, Dolly DeLong, a wife, mom, believer, family photographer in systems, workflow, and launching educator. Now this podcast is your go-to resource for mastering the back end puzzle pieces of running a successful business.

Whether you’re just starting out or are an intermediate business owner looking to refine and elevate your systems, workflows, and operations, you’ll find practical strategies and advanced insights here to take your business to the next level. Each episode is designed to feel like a strategic mastermind session, guiding you through smarter launch planning, more efficient systems, and greater clarity in your business operations. Together,

We’ll explore how to organize, streamline, and grow your business with intention so you can achieve sustainable success without the overwhelm. I’ll also take you behind the scenes to uncover what it’s really like to run a business as a solo entrepreneur, sharing honest insights and actionable strategies. Plus, I’ll bring on expert guests who will share their advanced tips and proven methods

to help you unlock new levels of clarity and efficiency in your business. So are you ready to simplify your backend, elevate your operations, and launch with purpose and confidence? Let’s dive in and create some strategic workflow magic.

Dolly (01:45.59)
and welcome back to another episode of the Systems and Workflow Magic podcast. I’m so excited because this week is like the week that we have been talking about all summer, guys. And I have Mara and Becca on the podcast with me. We are so excited that this week the doors open to the Black Friday 2025 virtual summit. I’m pumped. I mean, it’s been such a long time coming because we, I think last

Black Friday was the first time we just briefly mentioned this summit and then planned a bunch of it in February. So we’ve been talking about this for such a long time. So listeners, I know if you are OG listener, you’ve been like listening in every week to like some sort of talk about how to get ready for Black Friday. But we just thought it would be interesting to give you all a sneak peek behind the curtain as to why

The three of us decided to lead the summit and like where the idea came from, just all the stuff, because sometimes it’s fun to have a little bit of BTS as to what’s going on in the online business world. also like having online business friends has been so helpful and fun for me personally. And so I just love having these talks with Mara and with Becca.

I’m also really proud of Dolly because this was not on the agenda today. And Dolly is somebody that is by the book, has everything written out, like plans. This is why she’s like an integrator, right? And I’m the one who was like flying by the seat of my pants. And she’s like, you guys, what if we change the topic from what we were going to talk about to just do like behind the scenes? And I’m like, yes, Dolly, I have converted you. So I feel like I’ve made a difference in your life. Well, I feel very unprepared and very nervous, but at the same time, very excited.

You don’t know what you’re going to hear, we’re going to chat all things. I guess, okay, so really for me, I had, because the three of us had done something Black Friday related last year, meaning 2024. And it was so much fun for me. I enjoyed working with the two of you a lot. the three of us had planned listeners, the three of us had planned to get together in February of 2025 at beginning of this year, just for

Dolly (04:09.006)
what we called our own version of the mastermind without the high ticket price. And so we met in Arizona, three of us flew in and it was kid free and it was so much fun. We all love our kids so much, but we just, sometimes we needed a little break from our kids and to dive into our businesses. And each of us wanted to take a deep dive into something very specific in our business. And so we walked into that weekend, that mastermind.

like with that goal. And one of the goals for me was to hash out the Black Friday Summit for 2025 with Becca and Mara. And I felt like I like was pitching it like, hey guys, I have this idea to lead a summit and I think we should do it in August. And so I want to know like what you both of you were thinking when I was like, okay, this is what I want to do. What do you think? I was honestly all for it because

I find summits so interesting and they can be really helpful from like the audience perspective. Like I’ve attended summits and learned a ton, but it’s something I personally could never execute on my own. have a ton of client work. I have a one year old about to have a new porn. So like I was like, Ooh, I really need Dolly’s summit expertise because Dolly has been through trainings. You’ve run summits before. Dolly has also run like a ton of bundles, which in a lot of ways are very similar of you have to pitch people.

You have to have this very long timeline, which Dolly is amazing at of like, here’s the six month plan and every week we’re going to do a little bit because we did everything for the summit on our own, by the way, like the three of us, which thank goodness there were three of us. But there’s a ton behind the scenes of figuring out who’s going to talk, figuring out the content, setting up the tech. So my first.

reaction was just, yay, finally someone who’s like no summits wants me to be in a summit and I can take advantage of her brain. Yeah, I think, I think maybe I had a little bit of pushback only because a couple different reasons. One, I was like, how does Black Friday and what I’m teaching in Black Friday play into my world? Like as a website designer? Like how does that work for YouTube?

Dolly (06:31.97)
and what you guys do, like weaved in really nicely, right? But then, I mean, like I said, my pushback was minimal because I’m mostly like, just wanna hang out with you guys and work with you guys. So sure, I’ll do a summit, whatever. But so there was that side that was like, I don’t know how this is gonna weave into my world, but I think when it comes to entrepreneurship, you have to be open to different opportunities that present, even if maybe they don’t look like they align perfectly with your business model, because it’s so fascinating to see how things change and you just don’t know.

Always like, if you’re just starting your business, maybe consider DIYing your website because I highly doubt what you’re doing in year one is gonna be exactly what you’re doing in year two. And if you just dropped $10,000 on a website, you’re not buying a new website. That’s just how business is. And so I was also really open to this and I’m like, who knows, maybe I’ll become that Black Friday expert. you just, I’m very open to opportunity. So there was that. And as I got into the summit world and doing these things, I am in true awe.

of anyone who ever runs a summit by himself because it is an extraordinary amount of work. I’m doing all of the graphics. the sales pages, which you would think just one sales page, right? Where they land on there, like, would you say like 15, 20? Well, no, there’s one for each speaker. There’s like 40 different website pages that are required for this summit. It’s absolutely crazy. And then all of the Canva graphics for speakers to promote.

for email, like just the graphics, which is what I’m doing is just so much work. can’t imagine doing that. Plus doing, you know, all the speaker presentations. We all pitched separately. So like, I don’t know, we probably pitched 40 people or something. And we just divvied that up between us three, but I cannot imagine, Dolly, you’ve done this by yourself. I am just like, I mean, granted you’re very streamlined and you’re like pretty good at like putting hours and getting work done quickly, but wow.

I mean, of all people who run summits. Well, I will say this and compare like I have run summits in the past alone by myself and I don’t say that listener is wearing badge of whatever a badge of honor. I don’t even know what people call it, but it has been so nice like co-hosting this with the two of you. It is there is a lot of work that goes into a summit and having you two alongside me.

Dolly (08:59.408)
in this Black Friday Summit journey has been so helpful. And it makes me even more excited for the summit because in the past, like being alone, operating everything on the backend, and then also showing up to market other virtual summits, I’m like worn out by the time the doors open. I’m like, I have to now promote it, like, and be, have so much energy. But like for this one, I’m like genuinely pumped.

about everything. also want to give like a little plug here because all three of us have been a part of summits and bundles. So we have seen the behind the scenes experiment experience of like, it’s really stressful when you don’t get swipe copy or people don’t communicate like I’m talking about the summit hosts and I think that happens because people get really busy. But we already have gotten some compliments on how we’re communicating with our speakers. There were people that we

pitched, which we pitched primarily in April and May. I feel like some people might think that’s crazy. But a lot of people we talked to were like, I would love to be a part of this, but I’m already booked out. So just so you know, we so we pitched at least 40 people, it might be more 19 people, 19 amazing people are speaking. But that’s just the reality of online business, people get booked so early. So I’m really excited for this summit also from the viewer perspective, because there’s a few things we’ve really talked about around like, how do we make it actionable? How do we

make sure people have takeaways because I think all three of us have been to summits where it was a lot of information and a lot of it was good, but it was like so overwhelming. There was no way you could ever go through it all. seemed like there was like talks on overlapping topics and we were so careful about what people were talking about and trying to cover every element of Black Friday.

and but not have one person or have 10 people speaking on the same thing. Like I think there’s only one person really speaking on AI and then there’s like Becca, you’re speaking on SEO. So like each person is diving in really deep to one thing to do with Black Friday. There’s even somebody who’s talking about, should you even run a Black Friday sale? if you are like a listener, if you were like, man, I don’t know. Well, one, the summit is free. So you can just sign up and listen to that one talk.

Dolly (11:15.796)
And after listening to the talk about should I run a Black Friday Summit, you can go from there and see if you want to incorporate. But then there’s even somebody talking about what do you do pre-launch summit? What do you do post-launch to recap? There’s like just all these details, or sorry, post-launch of your Black Friday sale, all these details, but they’re all different. And so you really, I think that’s how you have success with summits is you probably aren’t gonna watch all 19 trainings, but pick.

what applies to your Black Friday sale and go from there. I think you could also find business owners that are like you at this summit, because we were really careful about there’s some people who are making more money. There’s some people that run a smaller business, honestly, by choice, because they’re a mom and they don’t have full-time child care. As I’ve been learning about the insides of everyone’s businesses, as I’ve been listening to their talks, it’s super interesting how much

things are different in how large of a team they have, whether they’re running it solo, all different things. So think that could be really cool too, of find someone who has a similar business size as you, and then just listen to what they do for Black Friday. Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up, Mara, because I just want to be clear with the listeners, this is not a summit that promises you, when you watch this Black Friday Summit, you will have your first six to seven figure.

Black Friday lunch, like we are not, like that is not it. We just wanna help equip you to get ready, to prepare, to be proactive, not reactive, but proactive for how you plan out and map out your Black Friday and specifically Black Friday for 2025, because every single year it changes, like the strategies change, marketing change. Like this past year, AI has changed the whole layout of everything.

And so that’s changes the way and shifts the way people market that changes the way people shop. And so we know like, most likely I I’m like putting this out there and we’ve talked about this. So I’m not like surprising Becca and Mara with this, but we’ve talked about like leading this summit every single year. So this is something like, we’re like, okay, is this something that we are going to do every single year? And I have a feeling we will be. I’m just saying, I’m just, I want to.

Dolly (13:39.188)
do this with the two of you every year. Yeah, I think some of the talks I’m most excited for are the ones where people are explaining what they did in 2024. Not that 2024 is the exact as 2025, but if they were to talk about what they did in 2020, that does not apply anymore. So I’m really excited to listen to those talks. And then a lot of the people are in the launching world in different capacities, whether they’re an integrator or a copywriter who writes copy for launches like

They’re in this launching world. so whether they run a Black Friday sale or not, or did one in 2024, they have the knowledge about launching in 2025. And me personally, as a small business owner, launching in 2025 has been very, very difficult. And so I am excited to hear what is working and just listening to even one of the talks by Brenna, who does tons of launches, like she was just talking about.

incorporating AI and but like also in 2025 people want one to one and it’s this weird like polarity of like people want one to one and they want the streamlined like AI approach and so is there a way that you can incorporate that as like a bonus let’s say or something like that so there’s just so many creative ideas that people are doing that are really working for them. I want to give a huge shout out to our official Black Friday Summit 2025 sponsor Cubicle to CEO.

Hosted by the brilliant Ellen Yin, Cubicle to CEO is a globally charting top 10 business podcast for 1 million downloads. Now, Ellen is known for asking successful founders and CEOs the business questions you cannot Google. So if you’re tired of surface level content and want real, financially transparent data-backed strategies, this is a podcast for you.

Cubicle to CEO has supported over 14,000 entrepreneurs through their educational products and live events. And I’m so grateful they’re sponsoring this year’s Black Friday Summit of 2025. So go give Cubicle to CEO a follow, subscribe to the podcast and show them some love for helping make this free summit possible. And don’t forget, you can save your virtual seat for the Black Friday Summit of 2025 happening August

Dolly (16:00.628)
26 through 28th. The link will be in the show notes. Now Mara, Becca, and I will see you there.

Dolly (16:10.396)
Okay, another question. Again, I cannot believe like I’m just doing this off the cuff and listeners are probably laughing at me, but this is really hard for me. This is so hard. I like to be very structured, but just off the cuff. What do you two know what you’re going to be launching for Black Friday? I do. And I actually at the very end of my summit talk, I go into details because I think it’s so interesting to know what people are launching for Black Friday. And I’m kind of

nerding out right now because it’s July so all of my one-to-one clients were figuring out what they’re launching for Black Friday and I just really like talking about it. So I will give, so in my talk I go like behind the scenes of exactly when I’m sending emails that sort of thing but I am launch, I’m not launching, I’m resell, I’m putting on sale, I have a money workshop that’s called Behind the Scenes of Six Figures. The title sounds cheesy but basically I’ve consistently made six figures in my business for

I think at least five years now, I’m mostly a solopreneur. I’m the breadwinner of my family. My husband works so, so part time, which Becca and Dolly know, because sometimes it’s stressful of not having time together because he’s our primary childcare provider. So I have a workshop. It’s fairly cheap, but it just goes behind the scenes of where I keep my money, all my income streams, what my team looks like. And I’ve sold that for years. It’s going to be on sale for Black Friday. I picked it because it’s super

easy for me to sell it already exists. I’m going to have a newborn. I’m going to have a three week old you guys during Black Friday this year. So I picked it because it’s an easy yes for people and it’s going to be easy for me to set up. And it’s also a pretty low ticket offer. It’s going to be $9 and that just felt good this year. I have a Squarespace SEO course that’s been around since I think 2019 or so, obviously it been updated. But so I did that last year for Black Friday and

It’s 250, I’m not sure if I’m gonna put it on sale or if I’m going to do bonuses or like a one-to-one or incorporate AI. I’m not sure what, how it’s going to be, but it’s probably gonna be the SEO course that is being offered for Black Friday. Awesome. I’m coming at it from a photographer standpoint. And so I think I might do a Black Friday offer.

Dolly (18:28.616)
that sells sessions for my slower months in January, February, and March. So pre-sell those out and give a specific Black Friday discount for only those months to be used. Which is a really smart strategy. Last year, did you do your mini sessions, Dolly, and didn’t you sell them out? I did that for branding photography, and I did sell. And it was a big package and two people purchased, which was very surprising to me versus

not as many people purchased the digital product. It was the branding photography that they wanted. So Becca and Mara, if somebody’s listening in, why would you encourage them to purchase the All Access Pass versus just watching the presentations for free? Because again, you can watch all the presentations for free. They’re available for 24 hours depending upon when they’re posted, but

what in your mind, because you two have seen like the behind the scenes of what’s going into the All Access Pass. Instead of me talking about the All Access Pass, why would you encourage somebody to consider the All Access Pass? I’m so so excited for the private podcast. So for the All Access Pass, put you get all of the videos, you can watch them all, you get all of the resources and you get extended access to be clear. So you get access through December to everything. But there’s also a private podcast so you can

click on the special link you’ll get and then it goes directly on your phone, which for me is huge. My capacity for listening to stuff when I’m at my computer is pretty low, but times when I’m hanging out with a toddler, I’m walking a dog, I’m cleaning my house, I have like oodles and oodles of that sort of time. So I just really encourage, it’s also pretty low ticket, just so people know we’re not out here selling like a $600 all access pass. Basically the all access pass is covering the cost of

the technology behind it and some of the other costs of running the summit. But then you get all of the talks as a podcast on your phone, your tablet, however you listen to things. And then you can listen in your car while you’re on a walk. I think it’s going to make it so much easier for people to actually implement the strategies from this talks versus trying to watch them as fast as possible before they expire. Yeah, I agree. And I think I was very surprised and excited to see

Dolly (20:55.636)
all of the contributors that added bonuses for the all access pass. Dolly, Mara and I all planned on doing a bonus. So like I have a SEO checklist for your Black Friday sales page, but I did not expect so many people to offer paid like resources that are not free for these. So like the bot shop was, which is 10 custom GPTs pre-trained to handle like the tasks that slow you down. It’s a $97 value. I think Mara and Dolly, didn’t you guys both buy that?

We did. did. did. did you. I did it. Joyce, one of our speakers, and she’s amazing. She’s like a chat GPT expert. She has two young kids. And just give Joyce all the credit. She’s really like a proponent of Save Time with chat GPT, and she’s really good at it. yeah, Dolly and I have both previously bought her product, and then Joyce just was phenomenal and was like, I’ll give it away to anyone who buys the app. I will include it in the All Access Pass. I shouldn’t say give it away.

but add that as a perk, which is huge. Because it’s more, that product is more than the cost of the All Access Pass. way more. Yeah, like triple. And then like Jenna Bonham Carter, I think that’s how you say her name, has ran some very successful Black Friday promotions. She talks about Black Friday, that’s like a main thing. And she is doing like an unfiltered debrief of her record breaking 2024 Five Days of Deals Black Friday campaign. So I’m just.

I’m always about trying to get a little sneak behind people’s businesses. So there’s that. There’s even like Cliff Notes that are fillable with worksheets free to like we again, we want to make this super action packed. there’s a lot that we did us three, but then yeah, there’s just so many amazing bonuses from many of the contributors. So I’m excited to dive into those. I am an educator at heart, I know the two of you also love learning. I want to point out to listeners like we’ve tried to meet

diff like learners where they are. So if you need to read the transcriptions, we have that option as well. If you’re more of an audio learner, that’s why we’re doing the private podcast feed. And if you need to like actually take actually write it out, what you’re learning, we are also including like fillable worksheets that you would print off.

Dolly (23:15.742)
and then you would watch the presentation or listen to and then fill it out as you go. Because again, there are different learning styles. I haven’t figured out how to meet you, what’s it called? the, not the touch type of learning, what’s it called? The tactile learning? Yeah, kinesthetic. We are just mainly trying to meet you and serve you at your specific learning style with the summit.

I think it’ll be great. Okay, so listeners, if you are listening to this live, everything starts, everything kicks off August the 26th, and we have three days of summit talks. So you can still watch everything for free. Otherwise, if you want to learn on your own time, then grab the All Access Pass and you all, is such a low price and it is all, it will give you extended.

access to all the talks and to everything until December. And the reason why there’s that hard cut off on December is because the Black Friday happens like the week before December. So that’s why we want you to apply everything that you’re learning to your Black Friday strategy for 2025. So that’s why there’s that hard deadline of December. Do you two have anything else to add before we leave? I’m excited to see everybody that joins. Mara, Dolly and I will all be active on

you know, email, social things like that. And so we’re just excited to engage with you guys and see what you think of all the presentations and which ones are your favorites. Yeah. And just to read, I know we’ve said this a million times, but the actual summit is free. That is something that was super important to us. And so it’s, I consider it just like a no brainer to sign up and at least get the summit emails, see everyone who’s speaking. Of course, you can go read the registration page. There’s some really juicy talks. We just finalized.

what everyone’s talks are officially, officially about. And there’s some really good ones that I didn’t realize when people said they were going to give a talk that they were going to like, give us something this juicy and detailed. So go into your email, you’ll get all of the reminders about what’s happening, the schedule, when to watch talks, like all of that stuff so you can pick and choose what you want to do. Well, thank you so much for listening in. And I hope that this kind of like

Dolly (25:38.618)
untraditional episode of seeing behind the scenes of what has inspired the Black Friday virtual summit was encouraging to you. thank you again, Mara and Becca for joining me. And don’t forget to grab your free virtual summit ticket. We’re so thrilled to be hosting this summit with the three of us. It honestly is super fun, by the way, to host a summit with two of your friends, which is how this summit was born in case you guys didn’t know we’re all friends. So

All of the links will be in the show notes. You can go click the link, sign up for the summit, and we will see you on August 26th. Also, shout out to Cubicle, to CEO for sponsoring our summit. And we’re so thankful for Ellen and her team for stepping in and sponsoring. just we’re so thrilled. I will talk to you all later with a brand new systems and workflow magic podcast. Until then, stay streamlined and magical, you amazing muggle you. And we’ll see you at the Black Friday Summit.

Thank you so much for tuning into the systems and workflow magic podcast for the full show notes from today’s episode. Please visit www.systemsandworkflowmagic.com forward slash podcast. Now, if you’re enjoying the podcast, it would mean the world to me. If you subscribed and left a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, your support helps more amazing listeners like you discovered the show.

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Until next time, go make some strategic workflow magic.