Hello! I’m so excited to team up with you to (attempt) to pull off something that’s going to be incredible, thanks to you! It's another of my hare-brained schemes, but I think the material will be extremely useful to interpreters - and it was successful in 2021 and 2022, so here's hoping we can replicate that next year!
TerpSummit 2023: Coopetition is a 3-day event that will help interpreters become more confident, marketable and resilient with a comprehensive toolkit of strategies to help them polish key skills and nail their marketing strategy - without stabbing each other in the back!
That sounds like marketing-speak, so I'll be clearer: I think many colleagues are struggling with how to stand out and compete ethically in a now-global marketplace - so I'd like to help them learn how to co-operate to lift each other up, and how to do well even in a crowded market.
The summit itself is free, because I wanted the content to be accessible to everyone. If attendees would like on demand access to the replays for 12 months, as opposed to 24 hours, and lots of other useful extra materials, they can upgrade to a paid pass called the Interpreters' Toolkit for Success.
On this page, you’ll find all kinds of resources meant to make your life as a speaker as easy as possible and answer any questions you might have. If you run into a question I didn’t answer, email me at info@theinterpretingcoach.com. I'll be emailing any important information to speakers so no-one misses anything.
As a speaker, you'll also get free access to the Interpreters' Toolkit for Success, which is the paid version of the Summit. It includes all the replays, worksheets, and a host of bonuses kindly provided by you all!
Here's a quick summary of how the whole thing will work.
The event will run from 9th-11th January with several live presentations running each day between around 12 and 7 pm GMT (London time). These presentations will generally include 20-30 minutes of content (with up to a 3-minute pitch if you have a product or service to promote) and a live Q&A. You'll appear on screen (video on) - a bit like a Zoom session - and attendees will comment in the chat box.
One or two of you are producing pre-recorded presentations, in which case I'll ask you to attend your presentation time live to interact with attendees in the chat box. There is no video component if you're just present in the chat, so attendance in pjs is recommended
Along with the live presentations, there will be a Facebook group for attendees, where they can hang out and ask all of us additional questions. (I know not all of you are fans of Facebook, but the past two years have produced a lot of useful advice and tips, which is still visible to members of the group, so I decided to keep it despite my dislike of Meta). If attendees have good questions while your presentation is going on, you’ll be able to go live in the Facebook group for a bit of an encore to answer those questions, connect with the attendees, and provide even more valuable advice.
Having said that, the additional Facebook live is not required. But attendees will love the personal touch.
Leading up to the summit, we’ll have two weeks of promotion. You’ll be provided with email swipe copy, social media swipe copy, and social media graphics to make it all easy (well, as easy as these things get!).
During the promotion phase, as the summit is running, and for a week after the summit is complete, we’ll also be promoting the Interpreters' Toolkit for Success (the paid version of a summit ticket). This includes an All-Access Pass for the replays, worksheets, bonus materials from speakers, and entry to the prize draw, which includes free membership of courses, 1-1 strategy sessions, and more. This will provide immense value to our attendees, and with a bit of luck will help to make the work of promoting and creating a presentation worthwhile by allowing you to bring in affiliate commissions. Fingers crossed.
All of this sounds great, but what kind of work does it require of you? My goal is to make this all as easy as possible so we can all have fun on the day while providing great value to attendees.
It's inevitable, I'm afraid, that you'll receive a lot of emails from me. I'll try to keep the process as simple as possible, though, and to distinguish between routine updates and important information (including deadlines). Thank you for your patience!
The first thing I’ll need is some very basic information from you so I can finish creating our registration page and Speakers page. [these pages are unfinished; I'll update them as soon as possible.]
This information includes things like:
The next thing I’ll need is for you to schedule your presentation slot! You can do that here.
During this slot, you'll either be presenting live on air (video on) and using the chat box, or your presentation will be pre-recorded, and you'll be in the chat box while it's running. Afterwards, you’ll also be able to jump into the Facebook group for an encore (by doing a Facebook live) and to answer any great questions that weren’t answered in your presentation.
Next is your presentation! This is a 20-30 minute talk, for most speakers, that is meant to be more friendly and casual than academic in style. We want our attendees to learn something really useful, while enjoying the process. Some of you are doing something longer, or perhaps a Q&A after their talk, or a taster session.
Please structure your content in a way that allows attendees to walk away feeling like they've really learned something, rather than a webinar format where they feel like they're missing something that they need to buy from you asap.
No matter what format you choose, you are free to re-use your presentation however you’d like in the future.
Your presentation should include practical tips and advice. Here’s a possible format, although telling this to interpreters is a bit like teaching grandma to suck eggs:
Recorded presentations are due by 15th December please (if you're talking live, obviously I don't need a video in advance).
Find a PDF download with all this info here.
The Interpreters' Toolkit for Success will be a huge addition to the presentations we’re running. To make it even more valuable, I’d love it if each of you was able to provide one resource to add. This includes things like:
E-books or short handbooks, summary sheets or exercises are great for everyone who purchases the Toolkit.
On the other hand, if you're offering something like a 30 minute free discovery call, or a 1-1 strategy session, you can't offer these to everyone (there aren't enough hours in the day!); the best thing is to make them part of the prize draw we'll be holding.
It’s totally up to you to decide whether you’d like to create something new or provide something you already have. While this isn’t required, I'll be very grateful (and so will the audience!) if you participate.
Anyone who does contribute a premium resource (aka not something you're giving away for free somewhere else) will get a 50% affiliate commission on sales of the Interpreters' Toolkit for Success, rather than 40%.
Information for these resources is due on 15th December, please.
The power of an online summit comes from a group of experts coming together for a single cause. The joint promotion that happens because of that is a huge benefit to everyone involved.
Because of that, I'd be really pleased if you felt able to share on social media and to email your lists during the promotion period, starting on 23rd December.
I'll provide you with an affiliate link so you can get in on the 40% commission that will come from any sales of the Interpreters' Toolkit for Success (50% if you've contributed a premium bonus). Last year I was able to pass on several thousand euros to affiliates in the form of commission payments.
You’ll find swipe copy and graphics to help you in the Resource Vault below.
Last comes participation during the week of the event. I expect it to be a rather hectic time, but hopefully for you it will mostly just involve your own presentation + chat box.
It would be great if you could interact in the Facebook group throughout the week to help attendees stay excited and engaged.
I know you're all busy people and won't be able to attend many of the events of other speakers, but it would be great if you could drop in on some of them! We’ll be able to get some good discussions going about the topics being presented, or you may pick up some very interesting tips on Day 1 (self-care - focusing on voice and hearing this year).
Summits are great for visibility and making new connections, but a little extra income never hurts either.
That’s why I’ve set up an affiliate programme for the Interpreters' Toolkit for Success, where you’ll receive a commission from all sales from traffic you refer to the event.
What this means is that if you use your special link to publicise the event on social media and someone buys a ticket, my system will track that sale and you will receive a percentage of the revenue. Payouts will be made by 23rd January.
I realise not everyone is active on social media or has a mailing list to promote the event to, and that's fine! It's up to you how much promotion you want to do, but obviously I'd love the summit to be a big success.
The commission structure is as follows:
The pricing structure of the Interpreters' Toolkit for Success will be:
To make it as easy as possible for you to publicise the event and (hopefully!) generate extra income, the Resource Vault includes things like email swipe copy, social media copy, and social share graphics. However, you’re more than welcome to write your own copy and even run your own Facebook ads.
Just remember to use your affiliate link, which I'll provide you with in due course.
As with all affiliate promotions, be sure to disclose that you’re an affiliate when sharing with your audience.
Now for those resources I promised to make your life as easy as possible.
In this folder you’ll eventually find the following resources (still a work in progress!):
View the resources here.
And in case you don't want to dig through a folder, here are direct links:
Phew, that was a lot to cover! Well done on making it this far 🙂
For the sake of clarity, here are your current action steps:
Feel free to grab your to do list and get things added to your calendar. Because if you’re like me, if it’s not in iCal it doesn’t exist.
Here’s a roundup of our key dates:
You can sign up as an affiliate here!
Something I missed? Email me at info@theinterpretingcoach.com!