While speaking at Bernadette Doyle’s virtual summit called Event Money Machine, I shared how much it’ll cost thought leaders, change agents and messengers if they set up their own virtual event or telesummit.

According to a recent survey I conducted, I discovered that people are spending 6-15 hours per week setting up their own telesummit or virtual event.

Since you need 12-weeks to plan a profitable virtual event, that’s 72-180 spent setting up a telesummit.

For those who need concrete numbers, take a look at the formula below.

Let’s just say you want to make $100,000 over the next 12-months. To determine your hourly rate:

• You first need to figure out how much vacation time you want to take in that 12-month period. Let’s just say you want to take 4-weeks vacation. That means that out of a 52 week year, you have 48 working weeks.
• Next, how many days do you want to work in the weeks you work? I work Monday to Thursday which is 4-days a week, so let’s use that as an example. So, 4-days per week x 48 working weeks per year is 192 working hours in the year.
• Okay, now we have to determine how many hours do you want to work per day. I like to work no more than 6 hours per day, so let’s use that as a benchmark. So, 192 working hours x 6 hours per day is 1,152 working hours in the year.
• Now, divide the number of working hours per year by the amount of money you want to earn in a year and you’ll get your hourly rate. In this case, $100,000 / 1,152 is $86.81 per hour.

As I shared above, planning, setting up and producing a profitable telesummit or virtual event takes anywhere between 72-180 hours of work.

If you do it yourself at $86.81 an hour, it’ll cost you between $6,250.32 to as much as $15,625.80 of YOUR TIME.

It’ll be cheaper for you to hire a Virtual Event Manager or even get your virtual assistant to set up your telesummit or virtual event so you can go out and make your hourly rate.

Most virtual assistants start at $45-$50 per hour. Virtual Event Managers charge by the project and the range is between $3000 to $5000 with a percentage of revenue.

Plus, when you work with a Virtual Event Manager, things go much more smoothly because they can anticipate the mistakes before you can. Virtual Event Managers also use a proven process so you make back your investment 3, 4 even 5 times over.

It’s your choice.

Spend up to $15,000 of your time organizing your own telesummit. Or, hire the right people for way less so you can spend your time on more profitable tasks.

Which is it?