00:00

Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

00:45

welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself. Polly Lavarello, Evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer, and today on the show, we have Katie Colella. I know I couldn’t resist Polly Lavarello And Katie Colella, you couldn’t make it up, could you? Katie is a multi award winning, certified business strategist and mentor, as well as a meta ads manager with over two decades of entrepreneurial experience, from launching her first venture at just 18 to successfully exiting multiple businesses, both product and surface, based online and offline, she’s done it all. She loves helping, mainly female service business owners to grow their lists, get more leads and sales into their businesses, helping them grow a business they love. That is their version of success. You can tell I resonate with that. Alongside this, she is also the founder of LSC rm and all in one sales and marketing software for all you need to run your business in one place. I have invited Katie onto this show. I always like to add a little back story to this, because if you’ve been listening to this show for a while, you know, I don’t invite anyone on just for anyone’s sake. You know, there are, unfortunately, a lot of people in my inbox who get refusals from me, because I really, really value this. You my listener, and I really value the time you take to listen to these conversations, so I want them to be valuable now. Katie, if you know anything about my experience with ads, I know, I know good ads. I’ve run an agency. I’ve run millions of pounds. Well, not run millions pounds, run hundreds of 1000s of pounds of ads budget through, you know, ads manager over the years, on behalf of other clients and supported multi seven figures in AD results. So I know what makes a good ad. And I have run various audits on behalf of various seven figure, multi six figure business owners who wanted to understand if all the pieces in their business were working correctly. And Katie, on various occasions, was the ad manager whose ads I was auditing on their behalf to ensure that they were doing all the things they needed to be doing. And every time, I was blown away by Katie’s results, so much so I reached out to her and said, I need to connect with you, because I you know, this is the second or third time now that I’ve seen your ads and seen how great they are, and beyond that, because we developed such a great relationship. From there, I invited her to be the resident expert on ads inside. Never have I evergreen. So not only are Katie and I collaborating in that regard, I wanted her to come on this podcast and help you understand that really tricky space between knowing that you’ve potentially capped out your potential when it comes to organic marketing, but perhaps advertising feels a little bit stretchy, a little bit scary and a little bit uncertain. On today’s episode, you’re going to learn so much about how to remove that fear, remove that angst, and take the assertive action that’s you’re going to be thanking yourself for very, very soon. Anyway, without further ado, welcome Katie. Welcome Katie. To make more money without selling your soul before we get started. Who are you and what do you do?

03:51

Oh, wow,hello. Thank you for having me. I’m Katie Colella. I do lots of different things. I’ve been self employed like forever, since I was 18, pretty much for most of my adult life. And currently I’m a Facebook Ads Manager, and I still say Facebook not meta, because most people kind of gel with that. I’m a certified business strategist. I do a little bit of business mentoring, and I do some WhatsApp automation, and I’ve also just launched my own CRM program called Ella. So yeah, lots of different things.

04:17

Oh my gosh. So how many years have you been self employed just over I mean, I’m 43 and I had a stint of employment in my 20s for about four or five years. So around 20 plus years, I’ve actually been doing something or other for myself, lots of different things, amazing. You do not look 43 i It’s obviously good. It’s kept you young, whatever it is you’re doing. Thank you. Oh my gosh. So the main premise of today’s call is, I want to talk to you about all things Facebook ads, but at the same time, when you mentioned CRM, I can’t resist, before we get into Facebook ads, can you tell me a bit more about this CRM thing you’ve developed? Because, yeah, sure,

04:52

yeah. I mean, we all, I think, in our world online, kind of business, you get asked all the time, who do you recommend? What do you recommend? And this is going. It kind of started, I was, like, a big, Active Campaign fan, and the prices just started going up over the last two years, and things like that slightly kind of happening to clients. Like, who do you recommend now? Where should we go to we’ve all got our favorites. I think you could stick, you know, 10 different people in the online world in a row. We’d all have different opinions about how user friendly things are, and all the rest of it. But I was finding a lot of them were going more expensive, and we were just needing more and more and more, even like something very simplistic, like a QR code generator, I was ended up paying like, $20 a month. And at the time when I was like, oh, suddenly 10 or $20 it’s fine. And then the list was growing and growing and growing, and you’ve got to make a speak to B, and all the rest of it. So it was getting kind of more complex. And then I saw that I could kind of start my own. It’s a white labeled go high level. And I just thought, actually, it has pretty much everything in there. So I’ve been using a variation of that myself for about 18 months, two years. And then thought I’m going to just do my own for clients initially. And then thought, actually, loads of other people can use it as well if they want. So yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at with it. It’s very new. I’m very, kind of transparent as a person anyway, so I’m kind of saying to people, look, it is very new. I’m finding my feet with it. But yeah, I’m really enjoying it, to be honest, and I’m learning loads as I’m some of my clients that have come over with me, just because I’ve worked with them so many years, they’re like, Yeah, we’re all in coming over, and it’s so much more cost effective, and having things in one place makes it easier, obviously. So they’re finding it really good so far. So, yeah, it’s something exciting, something different.

06:25

Yeah, amazing. So listening to what you’re sharing like, obviously, everyone has their different motivations for why they go into running their own online business. It sounds to me, knowing, obviously, with my background, with Facebook ads and what a headache they are, the fact that you kind of delved into CRM and, you know, ads, you know, is tech and systems. Is that something that lights you up? Or, you know, what is it about Facebook ads and all this kind of tech stuff that kind of lights you up?

06:53

I think for me, I was very much self taught. So my last business was e commerce, and I built that from scratch. And what I probably didn’t realize at the time, it was just on that cusp of social media kind of starting and Facebook ads and email marketing and all the things. So I literally was like whistle gum with all the different heads, learning all these different skills myself totally. And I did really enjoy the tech side of it, so completely self taught initially with Facebook ads for that business. And if it wasn’t for Facebook ads, I wouldn’t have been able to build my business as big as I did. So I could really see a direct kind of growth on the back of Facebook ads. I was, oh, okay, these are really cool. When I sold that business, I was going to go into some business mentoring and maybe a bit of VA work. I wanted something I could do a bit more hands tied, tied by my back. I didn’t want to go into product. I wanted to make service based from home. And I started a little bit of VA in initially. And then was like, Oh, actually, I can run ads. I’ve done this myself for like, five, six years, successfully in my previous business. So did Up skill to make sure I was doing them correctly. And then started off in that there’s a service, and I love it, because I often work with, I work with, mainly women in business and mainly women in service based businesses. And I was finding they were very, very creative. Could create content out of their ears all day long. But hated, hated, hated the tech side of things. And because I’d been doing it for myself, I was like, Oh, I can do that. I can do sales funnels. I could do the ads. It’s all fine. So that’s kind of where I ended up getting into that tech side of things, and then the CRM, because I’m used to using so many different softwares for so many different clients, I kind of started feeling once you’ve got your head around one or two, you can use all of them. Yeah. I mean, I’m very much like, oh, I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out. And that’s my kind of outlook on things. So yeah, I’m kind of like, Yeah, it’s fine. I can do that. So kept getting asked for all this other techy stuff. And I was like, Yeah, that’s fine. Yeah, sure, I’ll figure it out. And that’s where I ended up, really. So yeah, I do like the tech side of stuff.

08:47

I love that. I love that. And I actually do think that about tech. It’s interesting, isn’t it, it can bring out such a strong emotional reaction in people tech. And I’m similar to you, in that I’m kind of immune. I’m always like, Well, if that doesn’t work, let’s play around with this thing. And like, if I just keep on trying something will work at some point, but I do see for a lot of people, they’ll kind of have an emotional meltdown before they even get that far.

09:07

Exactly that, yeah, the word tech, tech hates me. I hear that with daily basis. And I’m like, it’s not just you when texts, you know, play it up. Text playing up for everybody. I’m not immune to that. It’s just that I’m a little bit like, oh, refresh or shut it down and come back later, or whatever that might be, yeah. I think, I think it scares an awful lot of people, yeah. So actually, that leads me really nicely on to the conversation of Facebook ads. And obviously you just mentioned that you support people who you know, often, service providers. Yeah, women, service providers. And there is that sticky middle I find in online business where you’re not in a position yet to necessarily outsource your ads management, yeah, but at the same time, you’ve kind of reached the kind of you’re hitting the ceiling as to what you can achieve organically. And as you said, when it comes to tech, sometimes people can have really strong. Wrong emotional kind of massive fear around tech or tech hates them. What would you like? What would you say to that person who’s like thinking of, what argument would you share to that person who’s avoiding ads, who would be probably better off doing them? And how would someone identify when is the right time to start running ads? I guess that’s my question. So that’s a really around the house way of saying it’s the best time to start. Okay, so

10:25

I think there’s two sides to this. I get told all the time when I’m doing, like, free master classes or a little bit of basic training and ads, oh, I’m not ready just yet. But I always spin it around a little bit and just question, okay, can you tell me the reasons why you think you aren’t ready? Number one, my own research and curiosity for my own messaging going back out, but also, because it’s really interesting, what blockers people put in their way and think they’re not ready. So they kind of feel they have to be doing huge amounts organically. And have had huge like financial success a lot of times where they can even afford them, because they have this story in their head, you have to be spending shit loads of money on ads, which, again, I don’t, a lot of them feel like it’s something business owners do years down the line. And I’m like, well, actually, let’s just reframe that. You know, if you’re launching something great, if you’ve had an organic launch, and you’ve got the proof and you’ve got the statistics, you can see what’s working. So then, yes, you can see, actually, if I have these numbers, let’s reverse engineer it. If I got this number of people, then I’m in theory, I can convert this amount, and you’ve got your figures and all your statistics and your data, great. However, sometimes it’s really hard for people to even kind of get momentum with that in building an email list, and that’s the thing, some people block themselves from using ADS, when actually they’re really, really powerful in helping you get more visible and growing that email list in the first instance. So it’s a bit of a weird one, because I think people think they need to spend loads. And sure, big agencies are charging, you know, big money for ads management, and yes, then you have to have the investment as well. Lots of smaller agencies or freelancers that are ads, managers are not charging anywhere near that amount, not ready to kind of outsource even to the smaller ads agencies or freelancers. Look at learning it for yourself. You can start small, even if it’s just growing your email list or growing a little bit of awareness and maybe putting some ads on so you’re showing up over time and building that awareness and relationship with people. We’ve all seen business change over the last 18 months, two years, everyone has taken so much longer they needed more touch points. So even using ADS from that capacity to keep showing up in front of your audience and trying to nurture them and giving them more touch points and showing them what you’re all about, I think is really, really valuable. So I think long, to be honest, and then because people are taking longer, if you wait until all that, I hate that phrase, but that low hanging fruit is, you know, all your warm audience, you’ve kind of exhausted, and you wait right until you’re kind of like, Oh yeah, I’m at the stage now. I’m just not reaching anybody. Everyone’s fed up me. I need new people. How long is that going to take to nurture them? So I kind of think start before you’re ready, to a certain extent, before you feel you’re ready, because people could be in your world a year before they take a next step. You know, it’s not standard that we see somebody once and then go, Oh my God, yes, wow. How can I pay you 5000 pounds? Yeah, like that. We tend to be in someone’s world quite a while with quite a lot of touch points. You know, it’s 28 plus, depending on what you read now. So I think a lot of the times start before you’re kind of ready, before you’ve exhausted that existing, warm audience.

13:27

Yeah, no, I love that advice. And I think one of the things that I regularly think about as well is people’s definition of free because a lot of people lean into, I don’t know, free software, free, you know, free marketing, because, you know, posting on social media is free, and there is that fear around paid ads because they’re paid. But I think, you know, ones we have to think about is, you know, like, what is the value on your time when you’re sharing stuff on social media? I think it’s so, so powerful, but I do see that, like, sticky middle piece, where they’re just getting started. And I love your advice around list building, because it can sound kind of unsexy. A lot of people don’t necessarily even appreciate, like, why you’d have a list, or the value of having a list, but ultimately, like you say, that’s your insurance policy for your next launch, and something we don’t necessarily think about until that launch comes around. Yeah, and like you say, if you’re in a position that you, you know, have exhausted your existing audience, to feel the confidence to then suddenly invest in ads, I can imagine could feel enormously stretchy. So if someone were starting out and wanted to do it in the most kind of unintimidating way, yeah, what would you when you when you talk about list building? Is there a particular type of list building campaign that you see is working really well right now? I’m thinking like quizzes and checklists. What do you think works best? If someone will get started with ads?

14:53

I think something, at the moment, it seems to be going what I’m seeing a lot of the time. And there is no, you know, this is no kind of right over. Wrong of what’s working right now work for nine people, not the 10th, all the rest of it. But I’m seeing stuff kind of almost go backwards a few years, like the really tangible stuff that you can download quite quickly and get some value from quite quickly, whereas it definitely seemed to step away from that type of, you know, freebie, if you like, and went very much towards master classes and challenges and all those touch points. And I’m not saying they’ve gone completely, but there’s a lot of them at the moment. So actually, some of the freebies and things that I’m seeing do really well for list building are the stuff that was kind of doing amazing, like, six years ago, yeah, like checklists and just something like I said, it’s just so tangible, bite size. People started giving away too much and huge bundles. And again, I’m not honestly ordering down to testing, obviously, as you know, but sometimes it’s too overwhelming, and then you open something you think haven’t got time to absorb that right now, and realistically, how many of us then go back to find time to absorb that? So I think sometimes it’s just like a little checklist, which seems a little bit basic, but actually, we forget when you’re starting off with a new skill, you do need the basics and the starting points, and you forget that sometimes you kind of presume people have got a next level kind of understanding, because you might know that topic very well, but actually, most of the time they do want the basics. I think, yeah, I would. I would be testing kind of white entry level getting started, checklists, PDFs, little workbooks, something that people can is just tangible, gives them that little bit of help and value straight away.

16:29

I love that advice. Funnily enough, we’re about to launch a funnel, and that’s exactly what we’re leading with a really like light touch kind of top of funnel, as it’s referred to, lead magnet for people. But then, then on the other side of that, we have what we call a warm lead magnet. So once they’re in your world, you then make the invitation for them to watch an on demand webinar, because that’s what we’re seeing working as well. And so I think that’s such good advice. And the beauty of that, of course, is it doesn’t take more than one afternoon to build or develop a lead magnet like that. And I love what you just said about people, not, you know, saying I’ll come back to it, but they don’t. I think the whole, like, I use the kind of 15 minute rule, where I’m, like, if it takes more than 15 minutes, probably, I mean, 15 minutes is probably being generous, like, maybe 10 minutes. So it takes more than 10 minutes for someone to look at they’re probably going to put it down, say they’ll come back to it, and they never will.

17:18

I think there’s, there’s also something in that with, like, something evergreen. If you are doing, like, a little mini, let’s not even call it masterclass, but some kind of value filled video or something you’re sending, I want to watch everything on 1.5 or two speed. Yeah, I haven’t got time to watch it full speed, so I’m definitely going to try and save myself some time in doing that. And I think that’s also something with a live master class and things like that. Sometimes people are, you know, they speak fairly slow and deliberately, which is absolutely fine, but why? When I want to absorb that information and value quickly? Because I’m doing other things and in a rush. Actually, I’m a fan of watching it on replay, because I can speed people up. So yeah, there’s lots of different kind of things to think about in there, but I think you’re right. 10 to 15 minutes is probably kind of where people’s attention spans are at.

18:04

Yeah. I mean, obviously, as you and I both know it varies depending on who it is you’re calling in and what it is that they’re seeking. But I think the one thing that back in 2020 people used to argue the whole like people have got time, and if they’re beginners, they want to sit and learn from you for an hour. But I would argue that that is less the case these days, because there’s just too many demands on our attention these days. I don’t know about you, but my WhatsApps got about 50 messages right now because there’s just too many things. Yeah, you know, an inbox that’s bursting. You know, school pings and all the rest. It’s a lot. But, you know, but like you say, the importance of getting visible at the same time is more important than ever. You know, with Instagram constantly making all its changes, one of the most fail proof strategies you can have is an ad strategy. So you mentioned earlier that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get started with ads. What would you if, you know, if someone were thinking, Okay, what would I need to be putting aside, let’s say, on a monthly basis, to have any kind of impact. What would you recommend they get started with?

19:03

I would say the minimum that I would recommend when you’re doing it for yourself is primary, probably around the 10 pound, $10 a day mark. And that’s enough to either build out a bit of a lead campaign, where you’re getting building your list, or, like a client attraction code, where you’re putting some content in front of somebody and then you’re taking them through a bit of an online journey, or that online funnel, because we think of funnels as email marketing, actually use them in conjunction, if we can get people on our email list, and then we can keep showing up and building that relationship online as well. And that’s a really nice way to get started if you are doing that, and you’re not obviously seeing necessarily the list built inside of it, just because you’re doing the awareness piece. I think people struggle sometimes to get their head around spending out like 300 pounds a month without an immediate ROI. And I think that goes back to a bit of an educational piece. Then with you can’t expect an immediate financial return on ads or anything. It takes time. It. Takes that time and investment to build that relationship and that rapport with people, and that goes for organic normally, you don’t post something once and again you get people come running. It’s normally built up that relationship over time. I did. I had a client, VIP day yesterday for Facebook ads, and she was telling me, just in chatting, she’d probably been in my world four years. And she said, Yeah, I knew I wanted to run ads at one point. Should I followed you for that amount of time? I’ve had a couple of conversations with you over the time, or a couple of just chats in Instagram. Didn’t really know her particularly well apart from that, but she said, I knew you well enough I’d been watching your seen on I’ve seen some of your ads, I’ve seen some of your organic your email list, and I knew enough about you to know that when I was ready, you’d be the person I’d go to. And that was a four year journey. And I don’t think that’s unusual.

20:45

No, it’s really not. I mean, that’s the beauty of being in business a while, is that, you know, sales sunny start to feel easy every so often. And that’s because, like you say, you know that we get the beauty of not just those who are ready to jump in right now, but those who’ve been considering slowly in the background or waiting for the right time that they jump in. And I also think the other thing we have to be so mindful of, like in response to what you were just sharing, is that a lot of the time we’ll see those successful funnels that are doing amazingly, that, you know, people are sharing stripe, you know, their little stripe snapshots and kind of saying, look at all these cells coming in. But none of them got there without testing first, and you won’t have known that they were testing, because probably whatever they were testing wasn’t working, so you probably didn’t even see it. So you only, they’re only kind of coming onto your radar at the same time that they’re doing really, really well, which can make it appear like it’s overnight. And I don’t have my ads agency anymore, but the one thing I remember that used to frustrate me monumentally was the amount of clients that come on board and say, Can we skip the testing phase? Yeah, you know. And what you were just sharing, like, you know, testing, like testing is, nobody likes the word or the phrase, what it is. But like you say, when even with organic marketing, we’re always testing. We just don’t call it that. We just call it, you know, a post that flopped, or a poster, oh, well, nobody’s

22:07

seen it. That’s that, and it’s and there’s still an investment, you know, of time or whatever, into that and energy. I think you mentioned earlier, you know about people kind of look for the free things and the free organic and so forth. But realistically, as business owners, I mean, I don’t know the word should, but it’s helpful to have a little bit of a budget, a marketing budget. However, which way we look at that? A lot of people go to events, for instance, there is an investment in that, and that is to a certain extent, yes, you’re getting value back, but that’s also a marketing tool, that you’re meeting people, you’re connected, you spend a minute conversation and travel and everything else, and they’re all just all part of our bigger visibility and marketing strategy. And I know you exactly the same. You know, there’s never a magic wand. It’s never just about ads or anything else. It’s always, I’m always very much add to just one part of your bigger strategy. Yes, they’re powerful and amazing, and I believe they can work for most people. It’s not like a magic wand, like, I can go, Yeah, I’ll set your ads up. There we go. You’re a millionaire. Congratulations. You know, if that worked, then we’d all be kind of doing that. It is. It’s a time investment as well as a financial investment. And it takes patience, doesn’t it? And like you said, with the testing phases and stuff, we’re always testing, it doesn’t really end, you know, it does take patience. And those funnels, like you said, the your CM, that are just, oh my goodness. These are working beautifully. They haven’t just happened overnight. They’ve been, you don’t know how much people have invested in ads, organic or time or whichever forms of marketing beforehand. So yeah, it’s never just a magic wand, unfortunately. Yeah,

23:34

and it’s its own unique approach, right? Like, I think you learn really fast. So like, for example, when I say unique approach. I mean, I’ve seen people who’ve got millions of followers on Instagram, but what works organically with their reels isn’t necessarily going to apply to how they promote their lead magnet. They may need a totally different angle, because people are discovering them in a different way, and so there’s a need to more clearly be able to position themselves and the problem they solve, also to ensure that the leads they’re bringing in to their ads are a good fit, right? Like, if we’re really broad and unspecific, yes, you may be filling your mailing list, but it may be a whole bunch of people that will quickly unsubscribe because it’s not what they’re there for. So there is a whole different way of approaching your marketing and thinking about your marketing, which is different with ads, just because ultimately, you’re getting in front of people who’ve never seen you before, know nothing about you, and need to within a very short, I mean, like, millisecond, millisecond, yeah, yeah, exactly. Ascertain. Like, you know, I’m all bright pink and a bit like bold with my branding. I’m pretty sure that’s very Marmite. I’m sure some people see that and go, she looks like a fruit loop. Scroll on by, but that’s fine, because I like being a fruit loop and having fun and attracting the people who go. She looks a bit eccentric. I’m interested to know more, you know, like it’s a choice. So I think that, you know, with advertising, I know there is that vulnerability, that fear of being more visible and strangers seeing you again. One of the things I’d hear people say is like they were nervous. Trolls would be commenting on their posts. Um, so I think there’s outside of the practical stuff with tech, there’s that kind of yeah mindset piece about having that extra level of visibility, right? Visibility,

25:11

yeah. And actually, that is very relevant, because on Friday, I got trolled. So I had some ads run in for Ella, the new CRM, and I decided I was opening up to men as well. Like I said, I quite not always, but traditionally, I’ve worked mainly women, and I got trolled and told and I sat on a beach recording a video completely like genuine when I was away in the summer, recorded a video about the CRM, so I had, like a summer dress on. It was boiling, a cap and sunglasses, because I’m on a beach, and I was talking about the CRM just doing some content recording, and that ad went out last week, and on Friday, got trolled by somebody telling me I’d never be successful in business, because the way I dressed, I dressed like a chav. And what did he say? You needed to be in a suit. Basically, 99.9% of people won’t be ever speak to you. You’ll never be successful, especially in tech, especially in software. And I started replying, getting drawn, and I had a bottle of wine, so I needed to, just like, refrain and just like, Okay, I’m gonna step back now and stop this argument and just end up blocking him. And my 15 year old daughter, bless her, got quite irate and decided to take it upon herself to message him and tell him exactly what she thought of him and how ridiculous he was as a as an adult. Um, messaging people about that. But again, that belief is so ridiculous that, you know, we buy into certain things, and we do buy into certain things. Clearly, he’s not my ideal client. He never will be my dad trying to buy into me because they like seeing me on a beach, and they’re thinking, Oh, look at the freedom and everything else that goes with that, and the fact I’m happy to show up, literally as I am, and I haven’t got the airs and the graces, because I’m fine with that, you know, I’m okay with putting some people off, and I’m okay with the people that I attract in and like, said to him in response, you know, my dear clients are quite happy to buy from me. Thank you. But yeah, like, like yours, you know, you do, and that’s all very it is bespoke and it is custom. All about your branding, you your messaging. You know, so many different variables even more. So, like I said on ads, you know, there’s just so many different variables. Yes, we can all go and get cheap leads for somebody, but are they any good? Are they quality? Are they people that actually want to be on our list? So, yeah, there’s so many different variables and variations to things, I think,

27:17

yeah, and I’m sorry you had that experience, I mean. But then it’s one of those things I always just tell myself, and obviously my clients, that it always says a lot more about them than you, right? They’re just jealous that they can’t be making money from a beach, you know, like it’s only, yeah, I’ve had that as well with posts where people will troll me because they can’t believe that I’ve managed to create what I’ve created. And it’s funny, because I am on those people who can be a bit more withdrawn about sharing my success, but occasionally one of my mentors will give me a kick up the bum and say, celebrate. I want to see celebrities, so I’ll share a celebration. And, yeah, I think one of the most recent times I did it, I got massively, like some said, You’re a con artist, and obviously, you know, we know that’s not true, but at the same time seeing that was, you know, it’s always unsettling. We don’t pleasant,

28:04

is it? No, we don’t, because I think as humans, we do want people to like us and and I think, you know, we’ve both shared story there. You know, that’s probably the worst it’s going to get for anyone that does have a feel about a little bit of trolling. You know, I ended up replying then just blocked. And actually, do you know what? It provided me, a great bit of content that went had a lot of engagement on Facebook, on Instagram, shared it, then on LinkedIn yesterday. Actually, it’s been a great bit of content. So that’s how I’ve turned it around, and just sharing about the fact my lessons from that, and kind of, actually, I don’t care. And yeah, it just went not viral, but, you know, mini viral for me. And I just thought, actually, that’s my way of just turning it around, but genuinely, that’s the worst you’re going to get, really, isn’t it, and just block somebody and and move on by because they’re not your people

28:47

exactly. I actually just felt sad for this man, because I thought it shows that he just doesn’t even think living like that and earning like that is possible. How sad, and it increased my kind of vision for how I want, I don’t want anyone to not be aware of what’s possible for them. And I want them to, I want to make it as accessible as possible. Oh, so like you say, you know, like, these things happen. We survive them, we carry on. And the most important piece is that we are reaching the people who do need us. So I love everything we’ve covered, we’ve talked about that you don’t need to be spending loads of money to be running ads that you know, starting running ads. It can be as simple as growing your mailing list to begin with. To support those launches, support all the pieces that you’re doing, being honest about the fact that, like you say, people do need a lot of touch points. People are, generally speaking, buying slower or in a different way. Yeah, you know, I do find things like, like mini trip wise can do really well, but they are their own art form. And we’ve talked about the importance of, you know, ultimately, you know, what is the value of the time that you’re investing in your marketing? And when we do look at it through the lens of the value the investment in that time, would you not be better off basically creating that kind of long term insurance policy in your business by. Investing and advertising, and obviously, the great thing is, once you’ve got started, it’s not that long till you can feel confident about hiring someone else. It’s all all that, okay, amazing. Is there anything you feel you’d like to add to any of those pieces, to that person who’s about getting started? Is there anything else they need to hear?

30:18

I really feel that you shouldn’t dabble. I get told all the time, I’m going to dabble in ADS this year, I’m going to dip a toe in. I’m like, Don’t bother. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your money. Because I think you need, not necessarily need to excel in ADS management. You know, you need some help to get started, whether that’s a, you know, a low cost, course, whether that’s free resources on YouTube or wherever, but by jumping in completely blind, especially if you don’t feel you’re a kind of techie person, actually, you’re going to cost yourself more and waste more money in the long run, you might not have tracking setups. That’s the first thing I always, always say to people, please have that don’t kind of blindly jump in. Get some help. And secondly, the importance of probably adding the pixel. And again, the pixel is like this word that just scares people. And I’m going to confuse the issue even more and say it’s just change names data set, but people still refer to the pixel as the kind of the main word. And again, it’s not actually as techy as people tend to have a perception of. And just making sure you’ve got that pixel installed everywhere. So even if you’re not running ads just yet, get that pixel installed, start collecting data, because it’s really powerful. So you can, you know, you need the pixel to track. You need it to create, look like audiences, and collect data about your audience and retarget. So even if you’re not quite at the stage where you’re doing ads, get the pixel installed to start kind of collecting that data now as well.

31:35

Yeah, I love that advice. And also, what you said about dabbling, I think is so true. One of the things I regret not doing early on in business was just committing to a budget on ads and holding the outcome of those ads really loosely, not kind of feeling fixed to what I needed to see on the other side, but to simply trust in that additional visibility. And what I think is really important beyond visibility, is the learning piece, like, if you are leading with a hook organically that you think is doing okay, my ads will tell you really quickly whether it’s actually working or not, because and that is so, so valuable, I think that one of the things I often kind of say to people, if they don’t get results immediately in terms of what they’re seeking financially, I’m like, you might not be getting the money you want yet, but you are getting the learnings, and those learnings will help you make more money. And with organic, you never know, was it because I wasn’t dancing? Was it because I didn’t time it for three seconds long? Was it because it wasn’t B roll contact? You can ask yourself so many things, well, with that, you know, let’s talk about nuance. And, you know, all the different things we have, the variables we have to consider with advertising, I would actually argue that they are less with advertising than they are with organic. There are, you know, just a few benchmark marks you need to be watching right to understand what is and what isn’t working well with organic, there’s so many things that can be impacting whether something works or doesn’t work that

32:57

you can’t really monitor. You’re right. It’s really powerful to look at it like that as well. Totally going to use that phrase for clients if they’re not seeing results immediately, because I think that’s a really powerful way of looking at it. You know, you are getting other things. And it’s just goes back to everyone kind of thinking they have to have that immediate return on investment, I think especially,

33:13

yeah, Amazon Prime generation, yeah, if it’s not in the post the next day, it’s not working. It’s not how life works, not how anything works, right? Like, I often talk to people about this in business, where I’m like, you know, it’s like a recipe you wouldn’t try cake for the first time and be like, well, that cake recipe didn’t work because it’s a bit squidgy, or it didn’t rise the way it did, or it doesn’t look like the recipe book. It’s like, No, you just need to try it a few more times, and you’ll probably recognize like, oh, I want to add nuts, or I want to add this. And you’ll add your own. Flair, but it helps to start with a recipe, and you do need to be patient. And some people will have more of a natural flair. Some people will jump into these things and make it look easy, bastards. And there’ll be others who will need to but, you know, ultimately, when we persevere with the correct recipe and not ultimately, advertising is a recipe that works. It’s going to work for you at some point, but it’s, you know, it’s removing that sense of, I’m a failure, or ads are horrible. It’s those absolutes, right that don’t help us when we’re like, I can’t do tech or ads hate nuclear

34:10

exactly that we hear all the time, don’t we? And I heard someone talk about it recently, and they said, it’s not that the ad hasn’t worked for you, that particular ad, and what you were leading to or selling, or whatever the you know, you were doing didn’t work right here, right now, with all the other variables, it’s not that ads don’t work, but that’s what the stories kind of get repeated, oh, ads don’t work. And, yeah, like you said, it is a final statement. And now it’s actually not.

34:33

It’s just very now, you know. So, yeah, it’s learning. When you see all the leading kind of like, you know, coaches in this space running ads all the time. I think we can be pretty certain that they work very, very well, but else they wouldn’t be using them. And you know, I think again, that’s where we have to be so mindful of our echo chamber of people saying it doesn’t work, we can start to believe that, and then equally, turn around the corner and see someone celebrating a million pound launch using ADS so but anyway, talking. Echo chambers. One of the reasons why I invited you onto today’s podcast is because you are the resident expert on ads inside. Never have I evergreen. So I wanted to introduce you to my listeners, some of whom may already be inside the container, others who may be thinking about it. If you enjoyed listening to Katie and hearing all Katie’s amazing advice around advertising, that’s one way you’d get some access to Katie, because she does her monthly clinics. But if someone is thinking, I need more help than that right now, where else can they find you? And how can you help them?

35:31

So Katie cola social.co.uk is the website, and I’m on pretty much most social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Just come and connect me. With me. There’s not too many Katie Collelas around all the L’s and the O’s, but yeah, there’s not too many of me around. So come and connect with me wherever you like. And I’m always quite open to have a chat and help as much as I can as well, amazing.

35:50

Well, thank you for sharing all your wisdom with us today. I really, really enjoyed this chat.  Thank you for having me

35:55

Well, I hope you found that conversation eye opening and exciting and invigorating. I know I did. It was one of those conversations I felt like we could have gone on for hours. But, you know, short and sweet, I like to keep these episodes super snackable. So there we have it. If you enjoyed that conversation around ads and would love to kind of understand even more. Do reach out to me in my DMs or hello@polyleveralo.com I always love to know what episodes really support you, inspire you and invigorate you to take action, because that’s what I’m here to be supporting you to do, to support you with momentum. Because money isn’t made in our sleep, unfortunately. I mean, it is eventually, once we’ve got those foundations in place, but those foundations need to be in place in the first place. That’s what I so often say to people, if you want success, you’ve got to design it that way. It’s not just going to land in your lap anyway. Hopefully today’s episode has supported you to think about how you can design your success so you can wake up to sales in your sleep. Next week, I’m going to be back talking about how to make everyday sales without the everyday hustle. Super excited about this episode. I’ve just created the most amazing free resource to accompany it, so you’re going to be the first to hear all about it. Next week, I’ll be in your resume. And as always, if you found today’s episode helpful, please do drop me a review. Leave a few stars, you know, ideally, five below whatever it is that you can do to share this episode and help it reach more people. It’s really been doing a lot better in the charts recently, and I would love to see it continue to do that way. Thanks for your support, and I’ll be in your ears next week.