EP # 212 - Behind the Scenes: My First 10X Expansion Retreat Lessons

Ever wondered what it's really like to host your first business event? 

In this candid behind-the-scenes episode, Maggie shares the raw, unfiltered lessons from organizing and leading her very first in-person retreat—the 10X Expansion Retreat. From last-minute planning to unexpected challenges, discover what worked, what didn't, and what she'd do differently next time.

What You'll Learn:
• How a client's casual suggestion turned into a transformative business event
• The 5 critical areas every event organizer must master (theme, venue, food, flow, vendors)
• Why starting small was the best decision for a first-time event
• The unexpected challenges that no one warns you about
• How to turn your long-term vision into immediate opportunities
• Real lessons from venue selection, timeline management, and vendor coordination

Key Takeaways:
✨ Always visit your venue before booking (learn from Maggie's leap of faith!)
✨ Less content is better than rushing through—plan for participation time
✨ Food elevates the entire sensory experience for attendees
✨ Over-communicate with vendors—assumptions lead to surprises
✨ Small, intimate events can be more powerful than large conferences

Perfect For:
• Entrepreneurs considering hosting their first event or retreat
• Business owners wanting behind-the-scenes insights from event planning
• Anyone curious about turning vision into reality
• Service providers looking to add events to their business model

Episode Highlights:
• The serendipitous venue discovery story
• Why the 10X theme created perfect client attraction
• How meditation and grounding transformed the day's energy
• The vendor management lessons that only experience teaches
• Why this "accidental" event aligned perfectly with long-term vision

Featured Concept:
The 10X Expansion philosophy based on Dan Sullivan's "10X is Easier Than 2X"—why thinking bigger requires becoming a different person, not just doing more of the same.

Connect with Maggie:
🌐 Website: hhtps://stairwaytoleadership.com
📧 Email: maggie@stairwaytoleadership.com
📅 Free Consultation: https://calendly.com/maggie-s2l/discovery-call

Have Your Own Event Stories?
Maggie would love to hear your event organizing experiences and lessons learned! Reach out and share your stories.

More Episodes: Subscribe to Diamond Effect Podcast for weekly business growth strategies, client success stories, and entrepreneurial insights.

Transcript

EP # 212 - 10 X Retreat - lessons learned

Audio Only - All Participants: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to Diamond Effect Podcast, episode 212. A week ago I led 10 x expansion retreat. My very first in-person event, which was an intimate event for. My clients and some of my past clients, and I want to share with you some lessons that I've learned through organizing this event and some reflections that I have a week after the event.

Before I share with you some specific lessons and reflections and specific areas of the event, I wanted to say it was a great and amazing day. I had the perfect group of women entrepreneurs whom I already knew because they were my current clients or my former clients. I have a relationship and connection with them, which I thought for the first [00:01:00] time was actually a great thing. Because it made me less nervous about the event, so I could focus just on delivering value and use a bit of nervousness, but I had to channel it to be focused and do my best.

The way it fell was just perfect. The universe wanted everybody to have a great experience. The weather, the venue, the flow of the day worked really well, which then led to big breakthroughs, aha moments, some great deep conversations between all of us.

The participants were so supportive of each other. Some of them knew each other, but some of them didn't. So seeing them interact and support each other and challenge each other was amazing. And the magic about the events, the really good that give you breakthroughs like you were. [00:02:00] Energy's renewed. You're motivated in your business so much more than when you were when you came in, so I already know that less than a week later, my clients are already taking action on the ideas that came from this event.

As I mentioned, it's the first in-person event I've ever organized from the beginning to an end myself, and it wasn't fully planned in a way that I didn't have that in my strategic plan of 2025 to organize such an event. When I did that plan last year, I remember last year working on my long-term vision, I.

Have put organizing retreats and events that are aligned with what I do, my mission, but also my love for nature and growing sustainably and self-development. So that long-term vision was there, but in my mind, [00:03:00] those events were maybe a few years away and I was thinking of creating like big events with a lot of people, which I'm glad that didn't work that way.

So I didn't have it in the plan. In 2025, however. One of my clients, my current clients in Diamond Effect group, was coming to Canada to visit her family from Dubai, where she now lives and operates her business. And she suggested that we should do a mega day. We should meet up and maybe do some coaching in person.

So I took that idea and decided to run with it, and it was relatively last minute where. We really thought through it and decided and organized everything, or I organized everything within couple months, maybe even less.

I'm so grateful I took this opportunity to run this event on a small scale because I can't even imagine how [00:04:00] difficult it would be to organize. A large event when you've never done something like that before. So this event taught me a lot of great lessons of how to go about it if I ever wanna continue and grow those events for the years to come.

So let's start with my reflections and lessons, and I categorize them in five groups. First being. Theme, then the venue, then food, then flow of the day, agenda, and then vendors. So let's start with the theme. I loved the theme and picking that theme made me excited about the whole venture. Made me excited to promote it, made me excited to work on the content

overall, of course, the theme is what attracts the perfect ideal client, right? Because if I've chosen a different theme, [00:05:00] then maybe different people would've come or nobody would've come if it wasn't a theme that was attractive to my ideal audience. The theme was 10 x expansion, and this is not about doing 10 x more.

But about dreaming big and challenging yourself to think differently and have a different perspective to then figure out what would I need to do to achieve those big goals? Who would I have? To become in order to do it. And that idea comes from a book by Dan Sullivan, 10 x. It's easier than two x. And the core concept of it is that if you're thinking about just doubling your business, then doing a little bit more of what's working and improving even more on it, then easily gets you there.

But if you want, would like to [00:06:00] 10 x your business, let's say then. Doing more of what you're already doing is impossible, right? We usually are full in our schedules, so 10 xing your actions and output. It's just not possible. Therefore, you need to think differently. You need to become a different person in order to achieve that 10 x growth.

And I love the concept for myself. It's definitely something. I wanted to challenge myself with as I was thinking about it, and I wanted to challenge my clients with it.

Of course, theme of the event is key. This is what primarily will attract the clients. This is what, of course, needs to be in alignment with what I wanna teach, how I want to bring value to the clients. I want to be new and fresh. Something I've never done before, or not in that format that there were.

Components to the content of [00:07:00] the day that I've taught before, but I've taught them differently. I've taught them in a different agenda, right? And challenged myself to think about other concepts that I haven't thought before, and then teach that and discuss that with my clients. I haven't decided in the future events how I'm gonna change the themes, how I'm gonna renew it, but that's definitely a big portion of the event that has to be amazing because this is what attracts the right people.

The second thing, the venue, and it's also a key important things for any event, and I've attended multiple. Conferences, three day events with my own coaches, with my own mentors, where, the venue made a lot of difference or contributed to the entire experience. So for the 10 x retreat, I call it [00:08:00] serendipity, how the venue came about.

So when I decided to organize a retreat, I asked. One of my assistants to start looking for the venue and at first I thought that maybe, a nice hotel or a nice venue somewhere in Toronto, somewhere central, where people could come would be great.

At first, and at the same time, it's summer. It's nice and beautiful. I love nature and the way I envisioned the retreats When I was creating my long-term vision last year. Last year, I was thinking about places that have a lot of green Were. Me and participants could also go outside and endorse, which is not possible in a hotel in Toronto.

So I wasn't too excited about it. But that's where, at first the research led. And then just a couple of days before I was going to decide on the venue, I received [00:09:00] a cold email from the venue that we ended up with promoting that particular. Property and place for retreats, and I started looking just at the website and the promotion material.

I've never been there even though it's 30 minutes away from my house, and I thought that's it. It was just a perfect combination of what I wanted the event to be in terms of the venue. Great value for the price with, food included and everything, and I said, yes, this is it. I booked the venue before I actually went and visited it, which I don't highly recommend.

It turned out to be really good and perfect. I wouldn't have found anything better given the short timeframe I had, but definitely this is one lesson. Two, check the venue before I commit [00:10:00] and book. And what led me also to that lesson is that after I booked and committed, I did go to the venue to create some footage and check and get a feel of the place to then help me with the agenda.

And I realized that the venue definitely couldn't hold more than. 15 people comfortably, even though, they were saying we could accommodate 2025. But after seeing it, I would say no more than 15. Otherwise it would be squishy. Now everything fell perfectly. We had just the right amount of people, everything, but for the future, wanting to grow and scale the events, this is important thing for me because I've seen different venues and how they can affect people, how they can affect the whole experience.

With the venue, it needs to be really aligned with the theme of the event. It needs to have the right price, right? Because [00:11:00] if it's too expensive, then it. Elevates the price for the clients for the event, and you might be out pricing yourself for certain clients and also makes it so much harder to make the event profitable, which already is challenging because everybody I've talked to, even my coaches and mentors.

A lot of people say that it's very hard to make events profitable. They're more for, giving value to the clients. And then from that maybe,

and then giving a great experience. And from that, creating more marketing to attract more clients to coaching or other offers that those mentors have. So the price, it's a delicate balance that is difficult and very challenging to achieve. And I realized that before just by attending events, but I also realize it even more now.

So having the [00:12:00] perfect venue, the right price, and the alignment of with the theme, and also the right size where you can accommodate people comfortably. So where you can accommodate the amount of people that are coming comfortably without being too squished.

The couple of challenges that I've seen the organizers have by just attending events is that, for example, the venue was beautiful, amazing, great experience, but also very expensive, which made the event quite expensive. There were multiple days where you would have to book hotels and, feed yourself, and that just elevated the cost of the whole experience in my case.

For the 10 x retreat, the food was included. It was one day event, so it definitely lowered the cost for the participants. That worked well, but I know it can be challenging. Another challenge, which of the events that, again, I've experienced as a client was [00:13:00] worthy? Venue wasn't the, wasn't giving the value for the price that the organizer paid, right?

So maybe it was accommodating the number of people, but then the pricing versus the value offered was not in a good balance. So I know finding venue is challenging, and especially when your group starts growing and you're trying to accommodate more and more people, it becomes more of a challenge.

The food, our food was delicious. It was just yummy, and at the same time, super healthy and nourishing. Which reminded me how important it is to have great food at the event. And ideally, I would love to continue feeding my audience.

You lose some opportunities when that happens, but I also are gonna understand why organizers opted [00:14:00] out from, feeding the participants. So with us, we had a very healthy, nutritious snack in the morning with coffee, tea, when participants are, were arriving, pseudo getting settled and one, which was great because for example, even for me, mourning is a very.

Important part of my day. My brain works really well, therefore I need to feed it. And if I don't feed it well, then I become hangry. And the last thing you want is having the participants who are having maybe sugar loaves being hangry in the event because as they were arriving, they didn't have time to eat breakfast, and then you're not feeding them at all there.

So I thought that was a great idea. And then we had. A lunch that was just delicious. Savory and so tasty that it reminded me that another thing is that when you feed your clients, the experience [00:15:00] expands to all the senses, right? So when you have the beautiful venue and you have, great content, then your clients experience, the visuals, the mental stimulation, the.

Smell like in our, venue, there was a lot of nature and flowers. So you could smell the flowers, the grass, the forest water. It was just beautiful. But then with the food, you are adding additional sensory experience, but also taste. So you are just expanding how the clients experience the whole day.

And then the last benefit of feeding your participants is that during the lunch or even the snacks and the breakfast. They can connect at a different level than when they're in the sessions and discussing things. There was relationships built, and I remember even me going to [00:16:00] coaching conferences, the best friends that I made during those events happened not because we were in the sessions together very often, we weren't.

Were, separating to the groups is we connected during the meals or events outside of it. So it just adds a level of experience and additional value for connection and relationship building for the participants.

The fourth area is agenda and the flow of the day, and that in itself is a challenge when I was preparing the content and thinking how I would like the data flow. What I loved with the idea of starting with a meditation and a quick grounding practice and introductions, this allowed us to move from settling and eating

to really then be grounded and focused to start the day because it was not just health and wellness retreat, it was a retreat for personal development that [00:17:00] required focus, that required reflection, that required being vulnerable. So a introducing the participants to each other to create that initial connection, create safety, and then doing.

A quiet grounding practice. Meditation not too long, just, made that even deeper. But I remember when I was creating the content, what I would teach, when the participants would have breaks for self-reflection or maybe conversations and so on, I was worried that I didn't have enough, that we would be done halfway through and I would know what to do.

And it turns out that I had to, towards the end, rush my content to ensure that I would finish everything. In time because some participants could not stay longer, even though I could, or maybe some others could. So I wanted to finish within the timeline that I provided, [00:18:00] and I found that is definitely not only my challenge.

Again, in many events that I participated very often, we would go over time and then rush through the content just because it's hard to gauge. The part where I'm speaking, I'm teaching, it's hard to gauge the level of participation that will end up being during the event.

How long the conversations between the participants will be, you don't wanna interrupt that when the participants support each other, when they're vulnerable, when they're sharing, you wanna give them ample time to do that. You don't wanna interrupt that because that just breaks the energy and so that's is hard.

Definitely my lessons from it. The less is better and more, and maybe in the future having the core light kind of content and then maybe additional things just in case things go faster [00:19:00] than I thought would be a good improvement from how I structured the day. But overall, this time we definitely went through everything.

We had ample time to do conversations and reflections, but there were moments where I had to rush and rethink, especially towards the end, how I would run that part.

The last part is vendors, because this event was small and it was my first one. I, let's say, organized that by myself with the help of an assistant and then manage the small amount of vendors that I had myself, which wasn't a lot. I believe in simplicity to keep things as simple as possible, especially the first time you're trying something to make it as easy as possible for you to go through till the end to, execute as well as you can with the resources that you have.

I'm glad I did that. Because I definitely see the value of the event planners [00:20:00] and them dealing with whole organization and the vendors if I'm going to make it bigger and then potentially have more vendors to manage, event planner will be amazing because that's not something that I.

Fully enjoy. I can do it if I have to, but it's not my passion. My passion is to create a content and an agenda and think about my clients and give them reflections and those things rather than the little details. So maybe you know how the chairs should be set up.

What else do they need? What questions to ask the vendors about their way of working or thinking through that. So that is one of the biggest lesson in terms of vendor management and managing the vendor organization, event organization outside of what I need to prepare as the facilitator.[00:21:00] 

Now the good part about it is that for this event, 10 XI had very limited vendors. There were great people, we're really connected. We've met multiple times, discuss things, the dos and Dons, but there were a little things that slipped that came out during the event that definitely, now that I know about them, I'll know for the future.

I don't think if those could have been prevented ahead of time just because not having organized events before, I wouldn't have known to ask those things ahead of time. So experience makes master when you do things over and over. Definitely hiring an event planner. They have experience in that, helps you prepare even better.

That also shows how communication is key, and even though you think you communicate enough. It's usually not enough. You need to over communicate. Do not assume, ask questions, go through the flow of [00:22:00] the day, ask What about this? What am I missing? What about this? So that's a lesson for me, which then also brings me to the.

Conclusion. Then of course, if I'm going to do another event, hopefully next year in a couple of years, giving myself a little bit more time than a month and a half to organize, it allows you to have more of those discussions, have more of those meetings, think through more. But regardless of that, event was amazing.

It went really well. Majority, 99% of the things were great. There was little things that came up that we dealt with in the moment, but then we know for the future, how to improve on them or avoid certain things or, be more prepared for certain things.

Overall, I'm really glad that I did it. And that reminds me of the power [00:23:00] of having a long-term vision for your business and short-term plan having a long-term vision for a business that dream and really being clear on what it is, allows you to be open to the opportunities that you didn't think maybe would happen in your yearly strategic planning, but then grab onto them because you know that they're a part of your long-term vision.

And that's exactly what happened with this event. I'm so grateful that it did happen that I jumped on the wagon, I organized it. I'm so grateful to all the clients that came and trusted me with their first event ever. I'm so grateful for their participation and support of each other. And grateful for the vendors that helped me make this event amazing and possible.

If you have any questions or if you have some fun stories from your own events that you might have, [00:24:00] organized or the lessons that you learned, I would love for you to reach out and share. 'cause I love to learn from others. So thank you for listening.