How Laura Agar-Wilson Hosted a Successful Virtual Summit
If you’ve been dreaming of hosting a virtual summit as a way to grow your email list, but the idea feels a little too big (too many moving parts, too many people to manage, too much everything), this case study is going to feel like a deep exhale.
Laura Agar-Wilson, founder of Wholeheartedly Laura, hosted her first Simple Audio Summit and used it as a pre-launch runway for a new course. She kept it small, adjusted on the fly when life got hard, and still walked away with strong results, plus a big confidence boost.
Meet Laura Agar-Wilson (and who she helps)
Laura is a business mentor for highly sensitive and heart-centered Health and Life Coaches.
She works with coaches on the full picture of building a business, including:
Messaging
Marketing
Sales
Back-end organization and systems
Her work is grounded in helping coaches build successful business-to-consumer coaching businesses, in a way that fits their capacity and values.
You can find Laura at Wholeheartedly Laura, and her show is called The Wholehearted Business Show (she shares it across YouTube, podcast platforms, and her blog). That multi-platform approach matters, because it ties directly into the theme of her summit.
What sparked Laura’s desire to host an audio summit
Hosting a summit had been on Laura’s list for a couple of years, but she hadn’t pulled the trigger. The main reason was confidence. The familiar worries showed up, like “Am I a big enough deal to host something like this?”
The timing finally clicked because a few things lined up at once:
She wanted to grow her email list.
She had a new program she wanted to launch, called the Search Funnel Method.
She saw my “low-lift audio summit” format that felt doable, not like a huge production.
She wanted support to keep the plan clear, because even a simple event has a lot of pieces.
There was also an audience fit piece that mattered. Laura’s people are often sensitive, heart-centered, and neurodiverse, and she wanted a slower, steadier kind of marketing event that didn’t rely on constant social posting.
Summit overview: name, theme, and why it made sense
Laura’s summit was called Search & Connect. It was designed to support her launch of the Search Funnel Method, which is based on her core content system:
Start with one long-form video
Turn it into a podcast
Pull short clips from the video
Create a blog post from the same content
On paper, that might sound “simple,” but the real value is how she teaches it to coaches who feel nervous about content creation, or who do not want to be everywhere online.
The core theme: marketing beyond social media
Search & Connect focused on helping people understand the power of non-social-media marketing platforms. Laura wanted attendees to see that if Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok don’t feel good (for pacing, mental health, or ethical reasons), they still have options.
The summit spotlighted platforms like:
YouTube
Pinterest
Blogging and SEO
Podcasting
The goal was to give a high-level view that got people excited, while also naturally leading into Laura’s course for those who wanted a repeatable system to tie everything together.
Timeline and structure (and how long it took to plan)
Laura and her on-person team put together a clear timeline before anything went live. From the time she decided to do it to the event itself, she was about 6 to 8 weeks out.
She originally planned a five-day summit, but changed it to three days which made the event easier to manage, easier for attendees to keep up with, and more realistic with everything else happening in her life.
In the end she had 9 speakers sharing 3 topics each day plus some bonus sessions from her to spotlight her expertise. This was the sweet spot for Laura because it felt big enough to feel collaborative and valuable, small enough to manage without a full production team.
The real challenges (and what she did instead of panicking)
It’s easy to look at a summit that went well and assume it was smooth behind the scenes. But we’re also humans running these businesses and whenever collaborations are involved, things can quickly start deviating from the plan.
Challenge 1: finding the right speakers
Laura needed experts in specific topics: YouTube, Pinterest, SEO, blogging, and podcasting.
What surprised her was how hard it was to find specialists in her circle. And even when she found people, not everyone could say yes and some who did say yes weren’t able to follow through.
YouTube was the biggest sticking point. It sounds like it should be easy to find a YouTube speaker, but for this summit, it was tough.
Her solution was simple and practical: she adjusted and filled gaps herself where needed, including stepping in to talk about YouTube to keep the summit balanced.
Challenge 2: personal life hitting hard right before launch
Two weeks before the summit, Laura’s son had a seizure and was later diagnosed with epilepsy. That kind of thing doesn’t just take time, it takes emotional energy and focus.
Instead of trying to pretend everything was fine, Laura communicated honestly with her speakers about what was going on, and what might need to change. In the end everything came together nicely, but it wasn’t ideal timing in retrospect.
This is one of those moments where “keep it simple” stops being a cute strategy phrase and becomes the only reason you can keep going.
Challenge 3: the confidence spiral (“am I big enough?”)
Laura named a fear that a lot of people keep quiet: “Are people going to say yes? Is it worth their time? Am I professional enough to run this?”
What helped was the way I like to reframe your summits as a relationship-building exercises, not just a marketing play. When you treat speakers like humans, keep communication clear, and stay honest, you can take a lot of pressure off trying to look perfect.
And if things need to shift (like shortening from five days to three), you shift.
Behind the scenes: how she put it together (without a big team)
Laura didn’t have a big team running this.
She had a VA who supported her with pieces like:
Creating the opt-in page
Putting together email sequences
Laura handled the key part herself: reaching out to speakers one by one and managing the relationships. She wanted that direct connection, and it also helped her build real network-style relationships that lasted beyond the summit.
Her biggest surprise was how manageable it felt once the plan was mapped out.
The work wasn’t so much in “hard tasks,” it was in the lead time you need when other people are involved. Speakers need time to record, submit, and confirm details, and that’s where planning ahead saves you.
A smart add-on that helped promotion (and speaker goodwill)
Laura also invited summit speakers to be guests on her own show (podcast, YouTube, and blog). That did a few things at once:
It gave speakers more exposure
It strengthened relationships
It created natural moments to mention the summit in the weeks leading up to it
It’s this kind of simple bonus that can make your event feel more like a shared project, not a one-time ask.
Results: subscribers, sales, and what the summit did for her launch
Laura’s summit results were strong, especially for a first event that stayed intentionally small.
The numbers
342 subscribers joined Laura’s summit
She launched her Search Funnel Method course the week after
That launch brought in 17 participants
For Laura, that was a great outcome for her current level of business, and it was a mid-ticket offer. She ran it as a live round over the summer, like a “summer school” format.
Why the summit helped the launch convert
The summit didn’t just add new subscribers. It also warmed up the people already on her list. It did the education piece that a launch often needs, helping people understand:
Why non-social platforms matter
How these platforms can fit different energy levels and preferences
What options exist if social media feels bad
So when the cart opened, the audience wasn’t starting from zero. They’d already spent three days hearing conversations around the exact problem her course solved.
The “extra” wins: confidence and connection
Laura talked about results beyond metrics, and honestly, this is where hosting your first summit can pay off in ways you don’t expect.
Confidence was a major win. The event had challenges, and she still handled it and felt stronger having done it even through the hard parts. That proof sticks.
She also built genuine relationships with her speakers, which matters because online business can feel lonely. Collaborations like this can be a real antidote to that isolation.
What surprised her most (and what she’d do differently next time)
The biggest surprise was speaker selection.
Because Search & Connect was built for a specific launch, she needed very specific topics. That made it harder to find the right people. If she hosts another summit, she’d likely pick a broader theme so she has more flexibility, and can include more of the great business owners she already knows.
She also mentioned how much she enjoys creative, interesting summit themes, and how exploring that more would be fun for a future event.
Picking the right topic is so key to attracting right-fit speakers and audience, so spending time to really nail that topic upfront can save you a lot of stress down the line!
Laura’s advice if you’re thinking about hosting your first audio summit
Laura’s take is simple: do it.
Especially if you feel nervous. Especially if you’re not sure you’re “big enough.” Especially if you’ve been putting it off for years.
Her key reminders:
Let it be small if it needs to be small.
Pick a topic where you can actually find collaborators.
Don’t judge the event only by subscriber count or sales.
Treat it like an experiment, because experiments always give you data and learnings.
Or, in her words, “Let it be what it’s going to be.”
A simple next step if you want to host your own
If you want a pre-launch event that stays light on tech, light on overwhelm, and heavy on real connection, that’s the entire point of Simple Audio Summits course.
It’s a step-by-step system for hosting a strategically simple audio summit that grows your list and warms up future buyers, without needing to build a giant, exhausting production.
Conclusion
Laura’s Search & Connect summit is a great example of what a successful virtual summit can look like when you keep it focused, make space for real life, and stay honest with your speakers and yourself.
She grew her list by 342 subscribers, rolled straight into a course launch the next week, and made 17 sales, all while hosting her very first collaborative event and navigating personal challenges.
If you’ve been waiting until you feel “ready,” this is your reminder that ready usually comes after you do the thing.
