Scaling Your Business: Why Facebook Ads Are A Non Negotiable

Your Dream Business

English - November 06, 2023 00:00 - 49 minutes - 44.9 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
Careers Business Marketing Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Beyond the Hype: What You Really Need To Know About Using AI and ChatGPT in Your Business

Next Episode: Keeping It Real: Navigating Authenticity and Self Expression in Online Branding

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Michelle McCance, where we take a deep dive into why and how you should be using Facebook Ads to grow your business, after you've achieved organic social media success.

Michelle is passionate about making advertising accessible to ALL businesses, no matter their budget or tech ability and she is keen to share her knowledge with as many business owners as she can. So tune into this episode and happy advertising!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

What you need to get right before you run Facebook Ads
The mindset challenges you need to overcome to run successful Facebook Ads
The minimum budget you need to run a Facebook Ad and when you should outsource
What you need to think about and include when planning your Facebook Ad

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Michelle on Instagram at The Small Business Ad Club or Tiny Shell By The Sea

Join Michelle's Email List

Check out Michelle's Billy Basics Meta Ads Course

Find out more about outsourcing your Ads Management to Michelle

Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. And as always, I'm your host, Teresa Heath Wareing. How are you doing? So as I mentioned last week, we had our first interview back and I have another interview for you this week. And actually I've forgotten how lovely it is to do interviews.

And how easy, and I mean that in a nice sense, not in a, I can't be bothered to do podcasts, but like how easy it is to do the interviews because it's just so nice to have a conversation. And today I've brought you another expert and another amazing human. So we are going to be talking to the amazing Michelle McCance, who is a Facebook and Google ads manager on a mission to make advertising accessible to all businesses, no matter what their daily budget is or their tech ability.

Now, Michelle has a business called Tiny Shell Media because she is tiny and she lives by the sea. That makes perfect sense. And Shell, Michelle, I mean, it's, she didn't just make this crap up. You know what I mean? This is like some serious thinking. She's spent 15 years working in agencies across the UK and basically knows ads in and out.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

Join Michelle's Email List

Check out Michelle's Billy Basics Meta Ads Course

Find out more about outsourcing your Ads Management to Michelle

Since then, she has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on ads in 17 different countries and has worked with businesses of all shapes and sizes with her done for you service as well as offering training as well on how to do your own Facebook ads. She's super passionate about making advertising accessible to all, no matter, like I said, their budget or their takeability.

And she's keen to share her knowledge with as many business owners as possible. So I am super, super glad to have her on the podcast today. Michelle, welcome to the podcast.

Michelle: Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me.

Teresa: My absolute pleasure. So, I knew straight away that I wanted Michelle on because I have been doing some work with Michelle myself, and she is currently helping me with some ads for myself because I went to the Kajabi conference back in, I think it was June, I think, or roughly around that.

And I had this sudden realization, which quite frankly, after nine years in business, I probably should have had it a few years back, but I had this sudden realization that I had taken my business as far as I could take it organically. And the only way that I'm going to take it to that next step is through ads.

And all the people that I sat and watched and all the experts that were there, they ran ads. All of them. It wasn't one person who didn't, who had a considerably bigger business than mine. So. I A wanted to speak to Michelle straight away to be like, okay, we need to sort this out and how is it going to work for me?

But B wanted to bring you guys or put Michelle in front of you guys so that we can talk about ads. Because if you have a business and you've done really well organically, then brilliant. But actually, is it now time to step into ads? But before we get cracking on that, Michelle, I've given a brief kind of overview of your bio, which I am pretty.

Well, I was gonna say I'm pretty impressed that I didn't completely make a hash of it because I did read a bit of it, but tell us kind of like, what made you kind of get to this point here now?

Michelle: Yeah. So for me, it's been a bit of a journey really, as everyone, but I started off, as you mentioned, in digital agencies and I was actually originally a project manager.

Loved it. Absolutely loved it. But the 80 hour weeks eventually became a bit of a problem. And when I had my little girl, 80 hour weeks were just not conducive with it. And I saw so many parents putting their kids to bed over FaceTime. And I just didn't want to be that person. So, and I also found out around the time my daughter was two, that she was autistic.

She got diagnosed around that time and I realized that going back to work full time was just never really going to be something that I was able to do. So I found myself thinking, well, what should I do? And I took a bit of a whistle stop tour into upholstery and actually spent a year renovating vintage furniture, which I loved, but then got into social media and then quickly realized that as much as organic social media, and you will talk me to hear me today, talk about why it's really important.

It wasn't the thing that I loved. What I actually loved was the data, really, and being able to say, did this thing that we do cause this action? And I love the fact that with ads, you can track everything that you do. There's no just putting things out there and hoping it works, hoping the right person at the right time sees your post.

You know with certainty that it's getting out there, and I can see it got in front of X amount of thousand people, X amount of thousand people click through to a website, and personally, I just love that fact of it, and actually, I think it allows you to be really quite creative as well, and that's sort of like, it's sort of I don't know, it's sort of like, it scratches both of those itches for me.

Cause I actually started out as being a developer. So, you know, the actual, it scratches the tech itch and the creative itch for me. So for me, it's the perfect sort of thing and I love it, you know, and I've had the pleasure of working with One Man Bands, you know, people who are just, you know, like a little local business who are happy to stay a local business right the way up to global companies that want to get people, you know, they want to dominate the world and get people buying their products all over the place.

So, you know, I've had a lot of experience with a lot of different types of people and I love that variety.

Teresa: That's so cool. There's a couple of things I want to touch upon there. I worked for an agency. I've worked for a few agencies actually. And what is it with the big agencies, wasn't this when I was at a smaller agency, that they...

It's almost like a badge of honor to work that many hours.

Michelle: It's definitely the culture of it, and it's encouraged. And there is this whole culture of work hard, play hard. You know, everything became around, let's go to the pub after work, or on a Friday, we'll buy you some beers afterwards, or the drinks trolley will come out at three o'clock, or we'll buy you a pizza, but we'll expect you to give your life in return.

And I must admit, I made some of the best friends of my entire life in agencies, but it all focused around work and at the time those people were so important to me. But it's, but years down the line, I'm in touch with a few of them, but very few of them, you know, and given we were, we spent hours and hours and hours together, they weren't really true friends, but you sort of like, hoodwinked into thinking they weren't really were your friends, and you were happy to commit that time and give your life up because you got the social element too, and But yeah, it's, it's this real culture of you're expected to do it and I was one of those people who, you know, when someone had a child, when five o'clock would come, I'd be like, Oh God, they're leaving in the middle of the day, you know, and I'm embarrassed to say that now.

Looking back, I did judge those people at the time, you know, and your bosses judged them, and it was very frowned upon to just leave work on the time you're supposed to leave work, you know, so agencies, they have a habit of chewing you up when you're young and spitting you out when you're coming up to middle age and go, go figure it out yourself because you don't want to work in agencies anymore.

Teresa: But honestly, what a weird, now we have these businesses and we have our lives that we have. It feels like the most bizarre concept, and I remember like, the pride in almost people having to pull all nighters because there was a pitch that they had to get ready for, and it's like, when did someone decide that that, like, if you didn't have long enough for the pitch, or if you weren't organized enough, or there's not enough team.

Then surely you sort it out. But no, it was just madness.

Michelle: Yeah, it's the way. It was so fun. I get it time. But yeah, not sustainable for long-term life and not sustainable with having a young family as well.

Teresa: No. And then the next bit I need to pick up on is your furniture upholstery, which Brilliant. And I am in awe of people who can do stuff like that because like I'd love the idea of it.

I do not have the patience. Did you sell furniture? Is that what you did? You sold or you repaired people's stuff?

Michelle: I repaired them. So it was always a case of taking something that had been chucked in a tip or was about to be thrown in a bin. Like, you should see the state of some of the frames in my garage, which my husband goes mad.

I won't get rid of them because I'm like, one day I'll get to them. I actually have like a sofa, which was owned, which is like 102 years old, this sofa, or it was when I got it even a few years ago. It's got no base in it, nothing, it was just falling apart. It's a wooden frame, basically, and I would build them back up.

But yeah, I loved it. I loved it. But I could, I did sell, try and sell those things, but I could never get quick enough to make enough money from it because it's actually really expensive to get something upholstered because there's so many materials in it. And the people I learned from, they could. You know, took a sofa out in a couple of hours, that would take me a month to do it.

So I just couldn't earn the money from it. Loved it, but just couldn't. Couldn't sustain it, really.

Teresa: And I think that's the thing, isn't it? That is an amazing thing, but as a business model, it's a really hard one to try and manage, like, it's not the easiest way of making money. And often, and especially in the world we're in now, people don't want to pay for the time that it takes you to do something.

Like it's a, it's, it's going to take ages, but they won't want to pay that because they want the quick and dirty and cheaper solution, really, don't they?

Michelle: Yeah, but people only really want to do that if it's like something which is really sentimental or they've had it, you know, for a long time, it's a heirloom, you know, so that's why I tend to focus on my particular addiction was around mid century furniture.

Get me a mid century chair. Oh God, I'll buy it straight away. Like, but you get bargains for it. And that's why my garage is like a graveyard of mid century furniture that's not been finished.

Teresa: That is brilliant. I love it. I love it. So let's talk about ads. Like I said, at the beginning, I had this realization, which I totally should have had many years ago.

And I probably did. I probably, I think I was like a lot of business owners of trying to deny I needed to do it and thinking I could do it without it.

Michelle: And I think there's a lot of mixed messages out there, aren't there? And, you know, like I say, I am massively a fan and believer that you have to do things the organic way to begin.

You need to figure things out. You need to get your messaging right. Your organic social media page needs to act like you're shop front. You know, when we don't have a physical store. We need to think of our profile page as our store. That's what's giving that first impression. So I totally believe you should not skip the organic step.

But there are a lot of voices out there, aren't there? And there are a lot of people who hang the hat on, you don't need ads, you don't need ads. I had a 20k launch and I didn't run a single ad. But those people have spent years, maybe months if they've been lucky, you know, if they're on social media continuously.

But they spent months, if not years, building up an audience and building trust and loyalty with those people. And that's brilliant. That's absolutely amazing that you've been able to build an audience like that and monetize it and get that income. But what happens when the next launch comes, you know, how fast can you rebuild that audience?

If you're not relying on ads, you know, do you need to wait months or years again before you've got enough fresh people in your pot to ask for another sale, you know? And that's where. If you're an online business and you want repeated sales with repeated, fresh people coming into your world, it's very hard to do that organically unless you're going to spend your whole life on social media.

And let's face it, we don't have our online businesses to spend our whole life on social media. You know, if you want to... Brilliant power to you, you can definitely do it, but you are going to have to post every day, you are going to have to show up every day, you're going to have to be doing engagement, outreach, all these sorts of things, if you don't want to spend money on ads.

And even then, you are going to be a bit limited by scale, you know, so.

Teresa: There's no guarantees that.

Michelle: That's it. But, you know, there are many people out there and I see it all the time. I had this launch without using ads and I'm like, brilliant, that's amazing for you. But for most business owners, that's not the case, you know, and It's very, very hard to replicate that sort of success, and the sort of people I am seeing replicate that success have audiences of hundreds of thousands of people, you know, so if you don't have that, you've got to do something different.

Teresa: Yeah, I saw, I saw something the other day, someone sent an email which actually really resonated, so I replied to it, where they had, it was to do with, I'll just say actually, it was to do with ManyChat, they were doing a conference, and they showed two case studies by Amy Porterfield and Jenna Kutcher, And talked about how they'd organically got, like, I don't know, a ton of people into their ManyChat and into their DMs, obviously not, if you don't know what ManyChat is, it's basically an automated, like, it's AI really, it's a bot that you can have manage your DMs.

And they talked about this and it's like, and the person who wrote the email was like, I was livid at the fact that ManyChat went, look, you can do this. Because the fact is very, very few people can do that. The reason Amy and Jenna were able to do it, 'cause they have massive audiences, humongous audiences.

So again, it's that, it's that of like, and often the other thing that people don't talk about is when they talk about successful launch or when you see, and we've all done it, I used to do it all the time of like work at the math, right? So like you would watch like. You know how on lots of these launches with the big people, they'll have like post-it note for each person.

So then you hold the screen and you roughly work out. I wondered what's on there, honestly. And the other day I was looking at Facebook groups and I stumbled across a Facebook group that is for a paid product and the prep paid product is like two grand and there was 4,000 people in there. Right? So of course you'd do the math and you're like, oh my gosh.

But what you don't know, and I have been in conversations with some of these big people and they have divulged what they spend on ads. They spend an absolute fortune on ads to get that level. Because like you said, the thing that is the success of all businesses, but especially online businesses is your audience is getting more people in front of you.

And that way is the way you're going to be able to keep launching, selling your thing, showing up, doing all of that. So I think, I think let's talk a little bit about the fact of. You know, what is people's hesitancy to running ads? Why, even though deep down we know that these people run ads and we're served ads all the time, why don't we think we need to run ads?

Michelle: It's a funny one, isn't it? Because I think, my personal opinion is, I think there is a bit of a hesitancy because this was once something we had for free. And Facebook and Instagram and other platforms, they let us have all of this and they let us build a business for nothing. And then guess what? They're a business and they said, we want to monetize this and now we're going to make you pay.

And I think a lot of people really struggle to get their head around that. It's a bit of a blocker. And they almost like, well, I don't want to give them my money. Why should I pay for something that was once free? And. It's a bit harsh to say, but they don't owe you a business. They are a business themselves and maintaining these servers that, you know, allow us to use these platforms and get in front of our customers all the time are a bomb, the teams that have to go into managing them.

You know, there are huge, you know, huge, humongous teams, the research that goes into all of these things, it's an expensive business running a social media network and they have to pay for it one way or another, you know, and I do think I can understand it and I really do understand and empathize why people are frustrated

Twitter Mentions

@theathwareing