Episode 38: Exponentially Grow Your Business Using Facebook Ads with Claire Pelletreau

Monica Froese  00:04

You’re listening to the Empowered business podcast. I’m your host, Monica Froese, a mom of two and your secret weapon to creating a six figure digital product business. I’m on a mission to help 1000 Women make $100,000 a year. That’s right $100 million towards financial independence for women. As an online business expert, I am teaching you everything I know, right here week after week. So you can join us on the journey to $100 million dollars. Sound good? Then let’s jump in. There’s always that moment when you remember where you were when something big happened in your life. And my guest today is part of that moment for me and she didn’t even know it. So today I’m talking to Claire Pelletreau. Oh, and she is the host of a amazing podcast called The get paid podcast, where she asks really tough questions out of entrepreneurs, really peeling back the onion on things that we hear in the industry that aren’t always true, like was your launch truly a six figure launch? And she asks the hard questions. And back in 2015, I remember driving to my first mom conference by myself, and binging her podcast. And I said to myself, one day I’m going to get on her podcast. And then about two years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet her. And she invited me on her podcast, so it felt like this full circle. And now I have a podcast. And I’m inviting her on. And this is just such a great episode because Claire is an amazing person who has a lot of knowledge. Her expertise is actually in Facebook ads. So Claire is a Facebook and Instagram ad expert and conversion optimization expert. Her mission is for you to actually see a return on the money that you’re putting into the Zuckerberg machine without the expensive help of an outside ad consultant. Fortunately, Claire’s ad trainings are famous around the interwebs for being ridiculously easy to understand and then implement. Claire also loves talking about money, which includes Profit Loss, and the whole shebang. She asked her guests how much they charge and how much they earn on her show at the get paid podcast. So let’s turn the tables now and interview Claire. Claire, welcome to the Empowered business podcast.

02:30

Thank you so much for having me, Monica. I’m excited.

Monica Froese  02:33

I am very excited. And after you answer my first question, I’m going to tell everyone why I’m excited that you’re on the podcast. But we always get started with explaining your entrepreneurial journey, basically, like why you’re an entrepreneur, how it started, and then what you’re working on today. Okay,

02:50

I never thought I would be an entrepreneur growing up. Like I figured I’d be a social worker or a teacher or maybe a lawyer or something like that, like every single other person and my very extended family. But I found myself teaching English in Argentina like to escape the real world. And I met the man who would eventually be my husband. And he helped me transition from like running around the city, teaching English classes all over the place making. I mean, okay, money to freelancing, and then working for his startup. So that’s I like entered the startup scene. That’s how I learned about like Facebook ads and Google Analytics and more about blogging. But then, when we realized that we wanted to stay together, and therefore we couldn’t work together, I started looking for a full time job. But we were I forget, we were in Chile. And then we were about to go to Spain with like his work, that I had to get something online, I had to find some kind of remote job. And that’s where I landed at LKR social media, which eventually pivoted to the social media scheduling tool, Meet Edgar. So I feel like I got my master’s degree in online business. I had not heard of B School. I thought entrepreneurship was like tech startups. And you know, you have to code something. If you’re not a developer, you’re screwed. So when I started learning about online courses, it was fascinating. And this was a time where Facebook ads were just starting to become really a thing. And about 14 months into my job there. I had already started running ads for people on the side because this was just like, it was the thing I loved. Well, then I got fired. And that was super smart. Because my boss could see, I was basically starting a job on the side and she needed a different kind of person in our company. So I looked around I cried real bad. And then I looked around for about five minutes online for jobs. I think at this point, yeah, just when I’m back in Argentina, and I was like, Alright, we’re gonna make a go of this And I just started looking for more clients that one retainer client I have at the time, less than one lunch. So I had to go at it fast. But I actually ended up launching my Facebook ads course fairly quickly for like a quote unquote, new entrepreneur. And then I just went back and forth between selling courses, running ads, selling courses, running ads, and at this point, I no longer run ads for anyone, except for kind of my friends. I just can’t get away from it. Monica, I love the ads manager.

Monica Froese  05:30

Well, okay, you taught me Facebook ads, which I welcome. You. Thank you. Yeah, you’ve made me hundreds of 1000s of dollars. Yes, thank you. Okay. What year was it when you got fired? Essentially?

05:46

 May 2014. Okay.

Monica Froese  05:49

So when? When did you put out the Facebook ads course for the first time? September 2014. Okay, so like pretty quick after? Wow, because I bought it. I’m pretty positive. I bought it in like, who? You know, it was 2016 Summer 2016. And I feel like I paid 197 or 297.

06:10

Monica, I want to look it up. Oh, no. You know what, you probably got it in 2016.

Monica Froese  06:18

Yeah, in Columbus when I got it. See, it’s so weird. I have like a visual memory with things I’ve done related to Claire. It’s a little creepy. So I was telling Claire. This is Claire’s like that, like the beginning drug to my entrepreneurship almost. So I didn’t even know how bad is this? I didn’t really know what podcasts were. I mean, I’ve heard the term I got the gist. But I never listened to podcasts until I really started like really wanting to quit my corporate job. And you were one of the first podcasts that I found, of course, I found like the typical Amy Porterfield podcasts and all that. But I benchers on a road trip I live in Buffalo, I was going to Pittsburgh. So it’s like three and a half hour drive. I was by myself because I was going to like my first mom conference, and I binge your episodes. And I loved them. And I said, I’m going to be on this girl’s podcast because she’s amazing. But of course you have to like have made money to do that. So like I knew I had I had a road ahead of me. But that was like my intro into following you. And I remember buying the Facebook ads course and not telling my husband because he like I was nowhere near ready to run Facebook ads to run Facebook ads to. But it was like I just knew that I would need it. And it was in 2017 that I went to a mastermind. And so I was away for three days. And I said I am going to learn Facebook ads. I’m going to take Claire’s course, I dedicated my three days to it. And at the end of that I had launched my first ads and now I’m like an ad addict. You know? So yeah, you did you. You taught me. You taught me Facebook ads. So it was very fascinating.

07:46

I love to hear it. You are some of like, you know, just reading your posts about the success of your ads were so great. Because the problem with ads, I mean, this is anything that you teach right is, you know, what percent of your students are really, really going to be successful? Well, for a lot of courses, it has to do with like the work that they put in with Facebook. Oh my gosh, I’m holding back on the expletives so bad because every time I think about this stuff, it just makes me want to curse. But yeah, like there’s, there’s so much that you and I and all my students have zero control over right. So it just kind of makes those wins extra sweet. Like not only does Monica have like great offerings, but the Zuckerberg Gods actually smile upon her and her ad account. And you know, she’s making money. So that’s what I was having about?

Monica Froese  08:42

Well, and at the time, too. I remember Oh, like, pixel issues I’d run into I had nowhere else to ask questions. I was always asking questions, your crew. And I always got responses, and you were thorough. And you know, you don’t find that in every course. As you know, we both know, and I paid you once like 197. You know, that’s pretty. That’s pretty incredible. And I’m forever grateful for that. So thank you. Okay, that’s not the price anymore. I’m just not and it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be because because ads are complicated. And you know, my audience knows that I used to teach the Pinterest ads for four years. And, you know, teaching ads to me just became a lot. And I have podcast episodes about why I pivot it and all that. But you know, it was like constantly I’m sure you feel this way teaching it. It was constantly being at the mercy of something I had no control over. And on top of that, I’m also trying to get people results. And it became like a pressure cooker that I just wanted out of, to be honest with you. Have you felt that way with teaching it?

09:45

Absolutely. And there are things that I have done to feel less of that. One is I’ve had to just like work on being detached from other people’s outcomes. You know, it is hard and also getting really clear in my marketing. And I think I’ve done this in like my overall brand. Also on the sales page of all my stuff is like, here’s who this will work for who this will likely work for. And it’s not a silver bullet, Facebook ads or I always say Facebook ads are like Viagra, they will give you a boost, but they will not make you good in bed. So if your business is great and not if your business is not good in bed yet, like you can’t convert, because you just haven’t. You haven’t gotten there yet. And guess what I was there too. I was the one on webinars not selling anything, I was the one sending out emails that didn’t get opened or didn’t get clicks. It’s once you like, nail down how to sell that ads will give you that boost, you know, so get good and bad people and then turn on the ads.

Monica Froese  10:57

And so this was my major issue with Pinterest ads, students would come without a converting funnel. And it was the most painful thing ever. And it was so out of the scope. I couldn’t teach you how to have a converting offer. And of course, it was meant for Pinterest ads. And we tried so many times fill this gap. We even launched a whole new product about it. But it got to the point where I just burned out on Pinterest in general. I mean really because now what we teach is to create this converting funnel because it was so aggravating watching people put money down the drain. And it was like that, like it wasn’t my job to really review their funnel, but almost every ad review turned into telling them okay, it’s not the ads like I got it. It was like a funnel review every time because, you know, without a converted, please i that is the biggest PSA that we could give. Please do not run ads without a converting offer that you’ve proven, please.

11:48

Okay, and can I piggyback on that? Yes. I don’t know what you do with your students. But I have a new soapbox that I’m on. Oh, I want to hear seven days a week, 24 hours a day, which is do not build a funnel without testing the top of it with ads.

Monica Froese  12:10

Interesting. Okay, tell me more.

12:12

Let me tell you. So I have this evergreen funnel. Alright, it’s a webinar funnel, it converts. It’s beautiful. It changed my life. Right? I get five to 10 signups for that funnel or some some opt in on my site a day, right? I have Google traffic, that’s not a ton, right. But from that I was making four to eight sales a month from organic traffic, guess who spent more than $20,000, probably closer to 30,000. Trying to make that funnel profitable with ads. This girl because I was I was like fiddling with everything. Monica I was improving and paying copywriters to improve the sales page improve the emails, I don’t even think I actually touched the webinar itself. But what I kept seeing was that I could not get the cost per lead down on the actual sign up for the webinar. So the math just didn’t work out. Even if I had like a 1% conversion rate, my cost per lead was so high that I wasn’t going to make very much money on these ads. I did get it to breakeven, the price of the course had gone up and up like to make that happen. Also, we had a pandemic and people started like I need ads. But what I never tested was changing the name of that webinar, the five ad formula to sell online courses on autopilot, snooze or refresh. Okay, people wouldn’t click, I know how to run ads, and I couldn’t get my cost per lead down. It’s because of the offer. Alright, so about $30,000 and all those tests to maybe at the end breakeven with like people buying later in launches or things like that. Last week, I built a quiz in a day. In another hour, I had ads running to it $150 I spent to learn that this is also not the top of the funnel. I didn’t build any emails, the responses to the quizzes were like super basic, okay. $150 And about three hours, I realized this is not the thing. So the things that work for organic traffic do not always work for ads. And that’s why my clients, they test the top of their funnel before they build up anything else with ads.

Monica Froese  14:43

Okay, I like that. No, that is a very, very strong point. And I’ve never thought of it like that before but I always appreciate when someone comes in and is able to give me a different way of looking at it and I understand what you’re saying. I do. I am Well, I was gonna say like how people find you organically to I think does does matter as well, like I have a very strong, warm audience. And I know, as I’ve seen it many times how what my audience responds to is not the same thing as cold ads. For me. It’s like, I do know that. I guess it’s like some qualification if like, what do you consider, like warm? Like someone on my email list? who’s engaged with me is warmer than someone who might have found me on Google? Likely, you know? So?

15:29

No, you’re absolutely right, the funnel, it’s not as if the ads, the ad traffic and the organic traffic converts at the same rate, not at all, but like two to 3% on organic. And you know, probably people, people recommend me in Facebook groups, there is a lot of Google traffic, which is not high quality, you know, so certainly, there are different conversion rates. But I know that I don’t want to be blogging constantly. I don’t want to be on that content creation hamster wheel. I love my podcast, but even recording two episodes a month sometimes makes my schedule a little unbearable. So I want my business my leads to at least break even from ads. So that I don’t really have to worry about that. And I have, like, I make the money off with the higher ticket thing.

Monica Froese  16:16

Okay, so you mentioned already, they don’t run ads anymore for people. Okay, like, you’ll help friends. But you’re in the teaching game at this point.

16:25

Yeah, I’m in the teaching game, in sort of like a little bit of the done with you, but I myself, and less hands on because now I have coaches who are doing that. I have two coaches, one who is an ADS coach, and one who has a copy coach, because that’s also what I’m sure you know about Funnels is like the conversion to really rest on super incredible copy. And that’s it’s just a hard thing to master.

Monica Froese  16:50

Oh, yes, it is. Oh, and finding I mean, outsourcing something like that we this, this was a recent topic that we had, we were talking about what the next role should be that we hire for and our needs. And one of the most prevailing needs we have is conversion, focus, copy. And it’s painful. It takes a toll on a small team, because it just feels like it’s very draining, especially if it’s not the thing that lights you up, you know, and it’s hard to find someone that’s affordable at all levels, that that’s the thing that lights them up. I mean, conversion copywriters are expensive as they should be, because they make you a lot of money.

17:27

Yes. Can I tell you how I solved that problem? Oh, please. People are like, how are you getting like a conversion copywriter on your team for? Well, I won’t say how much because it’s not my business to share what she makes, but it’s not the price of a sales page. I’ll tell you that, you know, she’s in a little bit of a hybrid role where she’s a coach. So she’s not spending all of her time with me, writing, she gets to flex her coaching muscles. And she’s fantastic at that. And it was just kind of like part of the job description. So part you know, you’re going to be like halftime coaching and halftime writing, writing our like marketing assets. So yeah, I mean, I feel like the first month that she was with us, she wrote maybe six emails to drive applications for our program. And oh, my god, the ROI on that investment in her was insane. So yeah, I really hope Yeah, no, I just like I it is hard. In fact, that was like almost the role that I was hired for in my last job, except I had no experience with conversion copywriting. And I think that was just one of the areas where I didn’t live up to it. Now that may be another reason why I was like, though, but

Monica Froese  18:46

So you mentioned that you like you love the ads manager. I know we say that a little bit tongue in cheek, probably because we can also hate the ads manager depending on the day.

18:55

Well, I hate when I have to update all my courses. But if I’m just in there, I can find things. I love it. Monique, I was just telling my husband, How can I get more involved in my clients at managers? And he was like, I think that might be a terrible idea. I don’t know.

Monica Froese  19:10

Well, okay, so but what was your driving decision to stop having clients if you love it so much?

19:16

The money? The money? Yeah, yeah. My favorite client, who I worked with for years, even that, like, I would say, she was probably taking up about a third of my headspace. Not even like on the actual work, but thinking, checking, communicating, you know, and that was not a third of my revenue by far. And I have no interest in building an agency. So in order to scale that kind of work, its agency direction. I kind of didn’t want to just increase my prices because I could have I was at like 2500 a month and I could have gotten to 3000, maybe even 4000 But at that level people are expecting Images copy, I was making 2500 a month to not write any copy. I was basically the strategy, and the person clicking around in the ads manager and choosing the audiences, which is so much fun.

Monica Froese  20:13

Audiences are fun. Yeah, one thing I definitely like, Yeah, that’s so

20:17

Yeah, that’s so funny. There’s, there’s like, 1% of us that feel this way.

Monica Froese  20:20

Really? Oh, it’s so fun. When you uncover a new one. It’s like, oh, you can target this.

20:25

I know, it is really, it’s fun to see my clients when they discover their like, inner ad nerd, when all they wanted was just more leads, you know? And then they’re like, Oh, my goodness, I didn’t know I could look at data. 1 in 100.

Monica Froese  20:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think that’s kind of what makes me good student for a lot of these courses. Because I like data, and I’m very inquisitive, and I do the work, when I want something to happen, I do the work. And a lot of people show up to courses don’t do the work. And there’s a lot of, I’m actually really on board with the fact that like, you can’t have a junk course and then blame the people who join it. Like, that’s not fair. I wholeheartedly do not believe I have a junk course whatsoever. Like I poured my heart and soul into it, I want to see people succeed. If someone’s unwilling to show up, that is on them, you know, if they don’t want to do the work and open it up, and I can’t make them. We’re all adults, we have to also have, you know, our autonomy about us. And so there’s like that. I’m like, on board with the fact that we’re equally responsible. So when I show up for my part, you have to show up for your part, you know, and you have an opinion. I mean, I’m cool if you do.

21:34

No, no, no, not at all. I think what I when I think about the courses that I have not, there are courses that I have bought, not opened, right. But I’m thinking one in particular, it was not a junk course, it was actually on writing Facebook ad copy, because I knew that I remember being trying to get this cost per lead down. Oh, my gosh, writing copy is not my strong suit. So I couldn’t get through 20 minutes of the first video, it was a guy talking. It was just him talking in the video was about an hour and 20 minutes. So that’s my learning style. Right? That’s about like, I took 10x emails from Copy Hackers. Hmm, it’s video short videos. But also you can just read the entire script, it was wonderful. That course with the ad copy, maybe is fantastic. But I didn’t, you know, investigate, I didn’t look into whether or not it was going to match with my learning style, I probably could have requested a refund, I didn’t even read the terms. It wasn’t too expensive. So sometimes I get it, my course is not all video. And some people really hate that. So I try to make it super clear on the sales page. But not you know, people don’t always read. But one thing that I’ll say this last thing, one thing that my mindset coach has taught me is that sometimes people need to invest in something to learn that that’s the wrong investment. You know, I can understand

Monica Froese  23:00

You know, I can understand that I can relate. Okay, so the other like hybrid option to is mean, you are in a mutual program, that I have not implemented a single thing. And we’ve paid 10s of 1000s of dollars to be in this program. I have no regrets whatsoever, because it’s almost like the up leveling of the people that you meet. And I’ve always been a firm believer even at my worst investments. And I’ve only asked for a refund in like, seven, eight years once. And I probably should have asked for a refund many more times than that. However, even in bad situations where it was like, like the person who took the money, I don’t even know how they slept at night like like those kind of situations. The people I met down the road always paid off almost 100% of the time, the relationships that I formed, and so that there’s other things to get out of joining. It’s almost like essentially, when corporate what we call buying yourself into the room. Hmm, that’s a lot of what online business is.

24:00

Yes. Yes, it is. And that, that feels tricky. I have given that advice. When I used to run this program about like building an ad management business. I remember that program. Oh, yeah. And I remember doing a video about that. And I had learned that from other people, and then I saw it happen. And I had a lot of feelings about people who had just invested a significant amount with me and telling them by yourself into these other rooms, but especially ads managers, especially people if you are in I mean, I realized that most of your audience are more like you know, of course creators and things like that, of course because I love you come learn from me. But b2b service providers, buy those courses, if they have a group, be active in the group be ridiculously useful, which is my motto and you’re gonna get clients.

Monica Froese  24:54

Yeah, that’s a good ethical point. Yeah, it is a tricky thing too, because you know When I started, and when many people start, you’re not buying, most of us are not buying ourselves into $10,000 rooms. And there’s a whole separate conversation to be had about that, too. There’s a part of me that sometimes feels like I’m accepting of things because of the culture in corporate that I grew up in the things I was forced to accept in my 20s, that I’m just still unraveling about really inappropriate things that happened with men with the power that they had, that I’m not even ready to publicly talk about, I don’t know if I ever will be probably should go to therapy for it. And I think I actually kind of blocked it out until recently, where I’ve kind of just been unraveling a bunch of stuff, in general that has happened in life and buying yourself into room could be a symptom of like, the culture they’ve created that kind of seeped in. One of the saddest things for me with online business was when I left corporate, I thought I was escaping this world that you know, was very skewed towards a certain type of person, definitely not welcoming of working moms, which is where we’re redefining mom was born out of, and a lot of it followed me into the online business worlds, like the way people play, the business game didn’t really change all that much. And I think that was very disheartening for me. I wanted it to be different. And I still want it to be different. And like what that looks like, I don’t know, I think I’m still working on that, I guess.

26:20

 It’s really interesting that you mentioned that a lot of the the rooms that like my students would buy their way into were led by white dudes. Yep. And I learned from Rachael Rogers, who I know you’re also a fan of like, these are not the only rooms. And that changed. That changed a lot for me, because I was I was looking towards these male these white male leaders, mentors, and it was a full why there are other rooms and those rooms, not that I’ve gotten into them have been like, incredible, more supportive, more fruitful, in a way. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there. I know, that wasn’t, ya know, something really not we go.

Monica Froese  27:06

Yeah, something weird that happened to me was, I was so burned out with working with men and corporate heads with bad experiences that I intentionally avoided them in my business. Then I entered this period, where I felt like I was intimidated by men. And I said this to him peer mastermind. And they all I could see all their eyes on Zoom. And they’re like, Monica is intimidated by men, cuz I’m so loud and opinionated. If you really know me, like, I don’t hold back, typically. You know, in my personal life, I don’t hold back how I feel. And they’re like, You are intimidated by men. And I’m like, Yeah, it’s like a real issue. So then I thought I had to hire a male coach to like, push myself. And it was actually a real bad mind game that was being played. But I will say the one thing I took away from that is, there’s no need for me to be intimidated by men. It reaffirmed though, to me that like, I don’t need to play in their same rooms or sit at their same table, which is why me and you are in like Rachel’s membership, and we’re in, I try very hard to be more diverse, buy my way into rooms that are more diverse, which I historically have just not been exposed to, especially not in the tech world in corporate. And so that is encouraging. You know, that’s a good spin on like, how I was discouraged by this environment for a while, but now the tides are turning and that that is very, that is very encouraging. Now. Yeah, we just got to keep buying, like buying into the right rooms and supporting the right people.

28:27

Yeah, keep taking my money. Rachel does, yes. Let’s get on, you know, like, Ach, whatever you want to call it.

Monica Froese  28:34

And we’ll link i’ll link in the podcast notes to Rachael Rogers membership. She has a book too, and we’ll link to that we should all be millionaires, cuz we should and she’s amazing. I have nothing but good things to say about her. And she’s taught me a lot too. So. Okay, the two things I just want to I want to cover. We haven’t said it yet. But you have a podcast called Get Paid podcast that we’ve mentioned, I’ve mentioned that that’s I binged your podcast. But here’s the thing. The get paid podcast is where you ask tough questions about entrepreneurs. You want to know the nitty gritty, the stuff that nobody talks about in their marketing material? Like, are your launches really profitable? Are you lying to us and you go there. But I mean, that is a disconnect. I know you’ve struggled with the disconnect between the content and your podcast, to the fact that you teach Facebook ads. So you paused it. I know for about a year ish, maybe two, three, okay. Oh, wow. Okay, three years. I missed you. And then…

29:30

You discovered it a little later. So you probably didn’t realize how long it was on?

Monica Froese  29:34

Yeah, maybe. And I think I actually ever listened to episodes. So you pause it. Why did you bring it back?

29:41

Well, in February 2018, I was in a peer mastermind, like meetup the first one I’d really done in New York City and in my hot seat, it became clear to me somebody said somebody who I really respect said, I don’t really feel like you have a brand And she was right. Like I was just kind of hiding behind these tutorials. These like how Facebook how tos, the podcast stopped when I had my first in 2016. And then I just felt like it didn’t really make me money. It was I had stopped blogging, which is what gave me a lot of SEO juice, yada yada, it just felt like this isn’t the thing. Because I didn’t talk about Facebook ads on it. I didn’t write even I never talked about me on the show. So a friend of mine, later said, you know, she said two things that were really important. She said, One, you know, you can pay people to help you with branding, right? And I forget, like, two years later, I think right? When you and I met in person, my new site went live. It did the week that we were together. Exactly, having spent a lot of money on branding was awesome. But like one year later, after that mastermind, it because it took me a year to plan it and think about it, I brought the podcast back because that was the most me that I had ever been in business. And this is what my friend said to me one of she’s the reason Kira hug. She’s the reason why the podcast came back. And what I just decided was that I could no longer worry about having the right people on the show. Or, like, kind of, I just remember interviewing one of my guests and really wanting to know how she was having a sex life while being a single mom traveling around Asia. And I’m thinking, what if my listeners don’t want this? What if they’re like, we just want the business talk, we just want the business talk. And then I was like, Ah, I can’t run this podcast. If I can’t have the conversations that I want. It doesn’t make any sense. So from that day forward, I was just like, I’m going to ask some people about money. I’m not going to ask everyone about money, I’m going to do what I want, and just have the conversations I want. And and I think the show kind of really gained a lot of momentum. Once I started doing that.

Monica Froese  32:08

I like that. And the other thing is to your episodes go long, and I’m Have you gotten a lot of do people criticize that? Just my husband? Oh, okay, good. Because I like it. I feel like you give such good context. And they’re great conversations. And, you know, if you’d have to know that you can always speed us up to like, I speed up podcasts, you know, so like, if you have you just did a great episode with Jordan Gill, two hours, but you know, I sped you guys up. I listened, but I set you guys up.

32:37

I mean, you didn’t listen to it in one sitting, did you?

Monica Froese  32:40

It took about two of my walks.

32:43

That’s the thing, like I am much more inclined to go out on a walk, or actually do the dishes without grumbling, if I have great stuff to listen to. Yeah, and for me these like 25 minutes, you know, just like, little highlights, three tips to XYZ. It just doesn’t do it for me. So again, I created the show that I would want to listen to.

Monica Froese  33:05

And that’s why you’re motivated to show up for it. I mean, that makes perfect sense. So now you’re honoring yourself. And okay, that so it was a mindset thing where you felt like you’re always kind of on guard about you wanted to please everyone almost

33:19

Yeah, that’s a story of my life right there, Monica. Always wanting to please people and and so the other thing that I changed into in 2019 is I started talking more about my work, I started promoting my own my own evergreen webinar funnel, instead of like acuity, which was my lovely sponsor for a while but you know, that has a top once they pay you that one time that the way we had it set up that has that as a top. So it was really funny because the month I brought back the podcast, I was like dealing with infertility. It was one of the worst months ever. I could barely get out of bed except I got out of bed for these interviews. And we launched the podcast with these ads to my funnels when I just got this influx of sales. It was this if my listeners who actually kept the podcast in their phones for three years, which was them.

Monica Froese  34:11

No, I mean, I can see why.

34:13

It was as if they were like, Oh, I didn’t know Claire knew about ads. Okay. Here take my money. I didn’t know that you did that. Oh, now that I know. Here you go. It caused a flood of sales.

Monica Froese  34:25

Let me thank you for this because I remember when your podcast came back because you were still in my phone. And I listened to the episode where you talked about I’m not having sponsors. I’m sponsoring my program is sponsoring this. And when I set up this podcast, I knew immediately I would not take sponsors and I knew that the calls to action. Were going to be about our business, our funnels and that’s because of watching you burn out take your break and then come back and state that and that is why I structured this The way I did so thank you.

35:01

Oh, you’re so welcome. Do you ever run ads to episodes?

Monica Froese  35:04

I have one running right now. Um, yeah, I have like this whole waterfall like attempt going on where for years, my unique content was being put out in two ways. Behind a paid firewall, I would say like 85% of my effort was behind the paid firewall of my courses. And I had given up blogging so then the other effort went into my email list now, like for years that that was all I could, you know, I just didn’t have the bandwidth to do anything else. And my courses were making money. So this is where my attention why. So emails though we all know like, you’re lucky if you get to 20 25% open rate, and that’s probably on a resend. And it was like one day dawned on me. I’m like, so I’m reading these amazing emails, which people resonate with people, we get great responses built, really loyal following, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Besides, I was gated, it was gated. And I was like, what, and so I wanted to launch podcasts for a very long time. But you know, bandwidth, bandwidth, it was always an issue. And then, you know, this year was like, the year when we pivoted away from Pinterest ads that I was like, I have to get back, you know, without a firewall. And so now that this is like the primary mode of me putting out free content, I don’t know it took me a while for it to dawn on me that, oh, why am I not running really cheap ads to this content, and then retargeting that audience with the offer? Because they’ll be cheaper, my cost per lead will be cheaper, which has proven to be true so far, but in very micro kind of tests. I tasked my operations manager with doing new like graphics for different podcast episodes and audio grams and stuff. So we’re gonna robot to make this a much bigger like thing. Yeah, but now even I think about when I go to record a solo show, I’m even thinking like, well, what’s a good topic that we can run ads to?

36:49

 I have two words for you. Okay. carousel ads. Okay, choose your own adventure. If you want. They could all be solo episodes, if you like, I’ve done it with guests. Okay, so I picked like six episodes. And I mean, the art that I use in the ad, not the art that we have, like on the site or anything like that. And it’s just kind of a very click bitty headline. The one that I will never forget, because this is the one that one was Darisha Hawk, her in her episode, she talked about having a 60k a month from her side hustle. So the carousel ad, Facebook will show different cards in the carousel to just to test out to see which ones were getting the most clicks. And now, or at least until I stopped running that particular ad, because those episodes are so old now. Darisha was the one that people clicked on the most. And so that was like the cheapest. And it was, it’s a great episode. I’m great in it. Like I talk, I actually talk about my work. And so we saw a lot of a lot of sales coming off of those ads.

Monica Froese  38:02

I love it. Okay, and I will put that in my arsenal. This is why I like talking to ad experts, you know, because when you stop teaching it to even though I taught Pinterest and not Facebook, a lot of the data I was seeing, I don’t see now. And that’s like I did realize what I didn’t, well, I I realized now what I didn’t realize when I shut down the course was how much data I actually had that informed my decisions, even in my own business. And I’m like, well, dang, now I’m just kind of like left out, left out in the pasture just like figure out what works now, you know, so thank you. I will definitely try that. That’s good tip. Okay, I have then one other question for you, which is when the pandemic it, and everyone was like, oh, so we’ve never run online businesses during a pandemic before? What’s going to happen? Correct me if I’m wrong, but this coincides with I remember, I’m almost positive as podcast episode you did where you talked about how your sales pretty much shut off that march, march 2020. It was like you’re, you’re getting those, you know, tripling of your organic sales. And they were adding up to a decent baseline because your course was 1497. Okay, yeah. So 8 sales times 1497. That’s not a bad baseline. And then suddenly, the world shuts down and it shuts off. And you were pregnant. Very pregnant. Right.

39:21

At the time, I was six months pregnant.

Monica Froese  39:25

Yeah. So I mean, you’re like, Yeah, imminent maternity leave coming right now. Right. Wait, we got a pandemic going on. And you made, in my opinion, a pretty genius pivot, which was into workshops. Mm hmm.

39:38

Yes. So it was three weeks of no sales, right. And it started at the very beginning of March. So we didn’t even go into lockdown. You know, until what? That 14th, 17th, something like that, right? We’re talking about March 4 was like my last sale, and then nothing and I just didn’t know. I didn’t know what was going to happen. So I had at the time a list of I don’t know, 6000 people. And I had this course, which at the time was, you know, $1,500, great course lots of support. But like most people on my list, were never going to buy that. But Facebook ads, especially, I mean, suddenly costs with ads dropped. So it was just a really great time to be running ads, but not a great time to be selling a $1,500 product with all the uncertainty. So I put together a $97 workshop, I kept it at 30 people, and they sold it out in about 45 minutes was one email to my list. Oh, one email was like a pre like, Hey, are you interested in this, and then the next email, sold it out. Okay, that’s cool. It was a three day workshop. And then I sold five off the back end of that like, is the upsell five people took me up on the offer to join my course. And then I did it again. And it might have taken like two hours for the next one. And it was 40 spots instead of 30. So yet, the in the course of about three weeks, I think I made $15,000, just from workshop sales, and upsells. And the beauty of it, which I didn’t know this was gonna happen is that suddenly, the sales started rushing in for my funnel again. So that was just like a nice resolution to that. But yeah, I then launched a course called workshop magic about how to do this, it’s a ton of email templates, so that you don’t have to write all of the emails, because there aren’t a ton of emails to sell it. Because it’s really for somebody who has an existing audience, like, you know, Monica, if you did this, you’d probably make $100,000 just off of the ticket sales,

Monica Froese  39:44

We do workshops, and we do pretty well with them.

41:48

Okay, great, great. So, and then I just added, like, when I actually went from having these self study courses to like a hybrid coaching and training program, I, I put that in. So now this is this is how we get people to sort of validate an offer before they build a funnel around it. And some people some of my students are just using it like to replace their launches, because they’re making the same amount of money off of a lot less work, a lot less work. And now that’s not to say that, you know, like, I have one, I have one client who did a launch in January, and I think she was a little bit disappointed with the results, I think she brought in 50k. But considering her audience and the work involved, right. And then she she did a $97 workshop, plus an upsell into her $1,000 course, and got the exact same results. So doesn’t mean she’s gonna stop launching, because I think, you know, she hopes these launches will be in the six figure mark and things like that. But it’s a great way to test a low price offer and get paid to pitch your your services, or you know, your bigger offer your signature program, I just feel like the engagement, the the act of like getting to experience somebody live. The upsell, conversion rates are just so much better than like a live webinar that you send them a zillion emails about to fill, to try to get people to show up. And then there’s no real winner. It’s you know…

Monica Froese  43:24

So we were doing Oh, man, we’re doing a lot right now. And so I’ve always wanted to do a high ticket, but I pivoted the whole suite of products. And the first two rungs of the other three products total that which will end with the high ticket, the first two products, you know, it’s been since last October of us getting it all up in, we’re at a good place right now with it. So I kept thinking like, oh, my gosh, I’m like, kind of burned out from all the content I just had to come up with in the last like, you know, nine months. And so I took a calmer approach for once and I said, Okay, well, what’s gonna be like the first, essentially part of the framework of what my high tickets going to be. And I’ve made it a workshop. So it’s the next logical step for current students. And I mean, there’s a lot of people on my list who are just going to simply be interested in it too. So we made it a workshop opened 100 seats, sold them out, you know, and now I’m getting paid to create the first part of the framework and you’ll never get it that cheap again, it’s gonna be in a high ticket. So it’s kind of like a win win. And like you said, you know, people in the workshop, we’re doing a three day pop up group. So my people are always engaged when I when I give them FaceTime. And so I have no doubt it’s going to lead to you know, people being interested in the high ticket. We also decide it for the like the middle rung of our letter. It’s called the Empower Business Lab, which is like the self study there’s some support in the group will be nothing like the, you know, there’s not like dedicated coaches and stuff like we would get in high ticket. We decided this August, which when this airs, it will have already happened. So we’ll see how it turns out you guys are here. It’s a kind of like, it’d be backwards be talking about it. But I’m curious what you’re gonna think about this because it’s kind of been a little bit of like, all the rage lately, we’re gonna do what people would coin is a paid challenge, but we are not calling it a challenge. I don’t like the word challenge. I think it’s like a stopper word, you know, it’s like, it indicates it’s gonna be hard, we don’t want to be hard not to be fun. So we’re calling it an experience. But it’s not the cost of workshop, we’re gonna do early bird at $19 for a week and a half. And then next week and a half, we’ll just go $10 will be an order bump for lifetime access, this even might change. But right now, this is the plan. I really feel like when people are pay, they’re more likely to show up and be engaged. And so your back end conversions are higher. And I’m really curious how it will play out compared to like, this workshop model? Because it’s not quite the same, but it is similar, you know, so it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be interesting. I don’t know if you have any thoughts on like, that like being lower price, or if you’ve seen it work for any of your clients or anything like that.

45:58

So I have one client who has been doing pay challenges now for a couple of years. And the first one she did was nine $9, I think and she had this insane conversion rate into her membership. Okay, I want to say she spent in total $5,000 on her ads. That’s not this. No, no, she I mean, she made money off of the page challenge. There was a, there was an order bump level plot. This time, she had much bigger goals. So we did the numbers, we calculated a much lower conversion rate, much lower. The pay challenge was $19, I think and we helped her spend $50,000 Wow, on ads. Yeah. And she made money, but she didn’t have the like, percentage ROI that she did the first time. But it was kind of like that getting paid to grow your list, which is sort of my whole thing. Because then she’s gonna open up her like certification in a couple of months. And now she has all these leads. I think she got 1600 people into the pay challenge.

Monica Froese  47:11

When Yeah, well, yeah. 2007.

47:14

So that 50,000 in ad spend, and I think, I think like cash in hand revenue was only 85,000. But then there’s the recurring because it’s a membership. So it’s like, okay, I know, she was hoping for a higher like, return on investment immediately. But if you sort of look at it from the like, this is just growing the list before the certification. And like a fun way, because her challenges so fun. Yeah, it’s, it’s great. So just like, I mean, I think all I’ll say, as I’m sure you know, is like what is the the CPA that you’re going to go for? And is it more important for you to get numbers in, or to have like a low CPA? CPA is cost per acquisition. So if you have to spend 50, you know, $25 to get the $19? Sale? How does that work for you as you scale?

Monica Froese  48:04

Yeah, that’s actually a really good point. Well, we’ve always had profitable launches. I’ve always been conservative with my ad spend. So like, we had our first six figure launch in April, which, prior to this airing, I will have actually finally recorded the podcast about it, which I put off for ever. It actually was probably one of the hardest mindset launches, we had. Funny how that works. But we crossed the six figure mark, we spent 17 grand in ADS. So I am not that person ever. That’s like I have great launches, but I spent on I’m not that person, like we are profitable, because I you know, I’m not doing this, I’m not profitable. I’m very open about that. Like, I mean, they’re making money for my family and supporting my employees and, or we’re not doing it like, you know, so you know, it’s it is gonna be interesting, gave me something to mull on how much I want to put up for Facebook ads this time and what that means, because we’re not going to get as many people I mean, we’d have to assume we’re going to get me we had 3500 People in the challenge in April. So I’d have to put I have all the numbers in the spreadsheet. But you know, we had 3500 people in, and I want to say we had like a 2.5% conversion rate, which is not bad, but we don’t know what the benchmark we should be going for when paid. That’s the wild card. That is the wildcards. We’ve never done it before. You know, and so it’s almost like when we’re trying to we’re trying to set our goals the other day for how many people do we want to pay for the experience, but it’s like, well, what are we predicting a 15% conversion rate? Why don’t we all love that, you know, but

49:32

it’s not gonna happen. She had a 9% conversion rate, which

Monica Froese  49:36

is that we can both agree that is good, you know? Yeah, yes. So I mean, I definitely anticipate the conversion rate being higher than it was for the free version of the challenge and we are revamping the content and stuff but I you know, for a long time, I get stuck in my own head and I’m resistant to change and I’m like, I just, I get burned out and it’s like I don’t want to do a new, new way of launching was gonna do it the way we’ve done it. But you know what, I don’t know what kind of got into me. And I was just like, I’m sick of doing the same old thing. I want different results. And I want to be the person that tests and so, you know, we’re running the workshop and this experience like back to back, which is a little nutty. I don’t know why I decided to do that. But we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.

50:22

This is kind of like a question I would ask on my show. But do you know, and most honestly, most business owners do not know this. So I’m not trying to like, pickle you, you know? Do you know what the ROI was on that 17 case specifically, like, of the people who came in from those ads, what their conversion rate was? Was it all kind of 2.5%?

Monica Froese  50:47

Okay, so here’s the hard part with marrying that up. This is what I do. Now. My opt in always has a tripwire behind it. So we were profitable, slightly profitable. With the tripwire we track all of that, even if it doesn’t report into ads manager because I have a whole separate funnel that runs for Facebook.

51:03

That’s what I like to hear.

Monica Froese  51:06

So I am pretty good at knowing this. But the hardest part is did I type up v lookups when I was on your show, and you’re like, v lookups? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we did you and I have to go and look, because we take the form that they come in, from the Facebook ad to the people who bought but it always throws us off, because you know, those people were on your list, three to four times three to four email addresses. So it’s not perfect. But I want to say we out of those leads, there was like, for some reason the number 1191 leads is sticking out to me. I don’t know why I was looking at the launch spreadsheet not too long ago. That’s what we got through Facebook ads. And so you know, but the exact number of the buyers that came through that funnel is a little murky because of this hole. And you know, people often have like my Thinkific schools been around since 2016. So I have people on I think if ik school has like nine accounts, you know, and it’s just so hard to marry that up. It’s painful. But um, yeah, so that’s something I have to dig a little further because I can v look up it and all that stuff. But

52:13

Yeah, it’s never it’s never perfect. I think the only reason I I bring that up is to sort of to bring awareness to the whole, like, once again, that might be your like 2.5% might be an average of like a higher conversion rate from your already like your existing warm audience or like semi warm. Again, slightly lower with like, you know, stone cold, but I love that you have separate funnels, I love that you’re making the money back on the tripwire. It’s amazing.

Monica Froese  52:43

Yeah, that’s like, my students, I do want to move because we I positioned ads is not the main deliverable that I teach. Now. We, I’m good at it. So we have it as a bonus, it’s an option for them to feed their funnel, but like it is not a core deliverable of my program. One of the main things I am constantly repeating is you are building the funnel twice. And you’re just duplicating everything. Thank you part of your process. It will your life is just so much better when you do that.

53:16

Let’s get tattoos. Duplicate the funnel.

Monica Froese  53:21

Probably learned it from you, Claire. I mean, I don’t I don’t remember exactly where it came from. But like, let’s be real. I clearly have been following you for a while. So it likely came from you.

53:31

So good. I you know, it’s it’s funny, like you think it’s something everyone’s doing and they’re just like, oh, no, is that new? Let’s just duplicate. I should do gotta make a video

Monica Froese  53:42

1. I wonder if like that would be a good lead in for your stuff.

53:47

Whoa, well, I here’s the thing. I won’t make the video until I actually test it with that new policy.

Monica Froese  53:56

I can guarantee you my students will start hearing so Claire said and I think that’s because you’re you know, I really do. I think that’s a very smart, very smart idea. Now at this point, my program is for lower priced digital products. So it’s a little I’m not dealing with students right now. They’re launching $1,400 products and it’s a little bit different. But you know, it’s still a good point. Okay, well, this is I always love talking to you.

54:22

Yeah,

Monica Froese  54:23

Thank you for coming on the show. Where okay, I know people are gonna love you as much as I love you. So what is the best way to find you and connect?

54:32

Oh, gosh, I don’t even know. I mean, come listen to my podcast. Since you’re already in your podcast app just like search get paid Claire. That’s going to be the easiest way to find it in your favorite app. And then if you are like well I want to learn how to test the top of my funnel before I actually build it. Just head over to Claire Pels calm and you’re gonna see a couple different options to work with us as the one I recommend for basically for Monica students. If you’ve worked with Monica already come and join us inside the lead lab. That’s our like coaching plus training program and where I may or may not want to get on the back end of your ads manager, at least at least on our calls.

Monica Froese  55:12

Yes. Yeah. If you I would agree of students at work with me. Oh, definitely love Claire. I mean, in for Facebook ads Absolutely. Like without, without you, I I don’t know where I’d be probably still trying to blog and get organic traffic. Thank God, that’s not the case anymore.

55:32

And if you do come after listening to this podcast, please let me know. So I can give Monica some affiliate money. I mean, she didn’t ask she didn’t ask. But like, I’m gonna have to send something.

Monica Froese  55:43

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. This is really fun.

55:47

It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Monica Froese  55:50

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Empowered Business podcast. If you want to get started creating your own digital products and don’t know where to start, we have a brand new training that can help. It’s called a passion to profit. How to discover your unique million dollar digital product formula, head on over to empowered business.co forward slash profit to join the training for free. Plus, we’ve added on a private podcast feed to make consuming the content even easier. You can choose to consume it via video or a private podcast feed. I can’t wait to see you back here next week.