Why you don’t need paid Ads

Nine To Thrive Episode 7

[00:00:00] Nicky: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to Nine To Thrive: Lead Generation Uncovered with myself, Nicky Williams business mentor, and Laura Burnett, marketing extraordinary and incredible tech geek. Um, and we are both from the Thrive Business Academy, our wonderful monthly membership. We’re here to tell you about the seven biggest lies that you are being told about business, but leaders don’t want you to know about, and we’re on number seven, we’ve covered a large proportion of them.

[00:00:29] Laura and I are passionate about telling you the truth about online business, how it is, how to support you, your lead generation, your business, your growth and income. 

[00:00:40] Okay, so we’ve covered why we don’t want to have an ideal client, there’s no winning formula, we don’t need flashy tech, you don’t have to be visible everywhere, we’ve talked to you about pricing, and what we think about passive income. 

[00:00:58] And today we are gonna be talking to you about Facebook ads and whether we think you actually need Facebook ads. 

[00:01:06] Laura: Yes. So we are told often, that we need to start investing in Facebook ads. Facebook ads is the way to go for your business.

[00:01:16] Um, it’s how you are gonna up level your business and actually start getting the income that you desire and dream of. And it’s just not possible through organic reach. This is what we’re getting told, but we believe this is a lie. This is a lie. I know this is a lie. I have evidence that this is a lie.

[00:01:34] Um, you do not need paid ads. So Facebook ads, Google ads, LinkedIn ads, TikTok ads there’s ads everywhere. You do not need to have them to be a success. So you’ve got advertising, which this is. And you’ve got marketing, which is what I like to call your organic reach, like stuff like new posting yourself on LinkedIn and creating reels and TikToks and things. And they’re two different things. 

[00:02:02] So it’s all about, we personally believe, you have to be nailing that marketing first and your audience before you even think of investing in ads. So if you’re a new business, listening to this and you are thinking, right, I’m gonna, this is what we do. We start a new business and we think “What’s the quickest way of me getting income? What’s the fastest pathway for me to do it?” And then the thing that comes to mind straight away is ads. Right? I’m gonna dive in at ads cuz I don’t need an audience, which is actually a lie in itself. I’ll talk about that later. Um, and I don’t need to actually, you know, I can just throw some money in at these ads and they’re gonna be fantastic these ads and that’s it I’ve skipped the hard work. This is what we think, but it’s impossible to skip that hard work. Absolutely impossible. Um, and I’m quite certain, Nick would say, you have to nail your audience first. Is that right? 

[00:02:55] Nicky: Yeah, definitely. Well, you have to get your foundations right, first of all, about your business, you know? You’ve gotta set your business up for success and that is your planning, your foundations, and then you ‘re focusing really on that know, like, and trust factor. Which is gaining an audience getting known as the expert, people liking you and wanting to be in, in your world. Okay. Before you could even start selling. So that you cannot go past these basic steps. Um, as we always say, there’s always one person in the millions that can do it and, you know, spend £10,000 on ads and make hundreds of thousands but most people need an audience first. Um, and that takes time. 

[00:03:48] Laura: It does, it takes time and with how ads are developing now is very different. So we now live in a world where ads are less successful in a way, because you know, you would’ve all had it now, if you’ve got an iPhone. You get an inquiry, you get a pop up saying, do you want it to track you?

[00:04:05] So people are getting less tracked now due to data protection. So what this means is when you used to be able to do ads, you used to be able to put an ad out and say, I want this Facebook ad to be sent to anybody who is a business owner. Well, actually Facebook doesn’t know who’s a business owner a hundred percent of the time now due to the privacy settings, which means your ad might not be going in front of business owners.

[00:04:26] So how people are getting round this though, if they’re using their current audience. So you you’ve got a current audience and you’ve got an email list, for example, you’ve got a thousand people in this email list, you can actually put that email list into your Facebook ads and say, I wanna target them. And you’ll know their your ideal client cause obviously they’re signed up through your email list and that does work, but you’ve gotta have that audience. You’ve got to have built that audience up. You, you know, it doesn’t just come over night. Anybody building an email list will know you don’t just suddenly get 200 subscribers over night.

[00:04:58] You know, you don’t just suddenly get a list of thousands. It takes time and this is why you can’t skip that. You’ve got to do the audience building. Cause if you are planning on doing Facebook ads, that’s the way to get the best success out of Facebook ads by actually having an audience. Cuz what you can also do with that is called lookalike audiences, which we are definitely not diving into. Um, but it does come in very, very handy. And I don’t know if you’ve heard of that before, Nicky? 

[00:05:25] Nicky: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve heard of all sorts of things over the years really. And I think the thing is here, the key is you can pay with your time or your money, is usually the, the statement I would say, but if you pay with your money, you are wasting that money because you have not narrowed down who you are talking to. You don’t know whether what your offer is in that Facebook ad is matching that audience. You haven’t even tested it. So you don’t know because you haven’t tested it with an audience yet. So there are so many things that you need to put into place to ensure that you know that they’re a match, and there’ll be lots of testing within Facebook ads and no doubt spending a lot of money for it to really fall short, because what you wanna do is you, whatever you are offering on Facebook or on any advertising is it has to be absolutely what your audience is striving for and wanting right here and now, and you have to lead them into something and have all the systems and processes in place. So there’s no point going all the way to Facebook Ads. When you’ve got the, the latter part of the strategy, not in place as well. 

[00:06:34] Laura: Yes. And you also don’t even need Facebook Ads. So, you know, you’ve got paid ads and you’ve got stuff what people would refer to as organic reach, which that means, things that you don’t pay for to get peoples into your world, really. So we’re talking about posting on LinkedIn, creating a TikTok, creating a, you know, Instagram reels, whatever it’s gonna be, creating a Facebook group. All these things that you’re not paying for are organic reach. And I know hundreds of business owners that are successful, but I don’t have Facebook ads. They’ll literal to just use organic reach. 

[00:07:06] I know someone successful in business. I’d class them as a leader in the industry, they don’t do Facebook ads. They just use organic reach. It’s so… if you nail your organic marketing strategy and you have that strategy, you’ll know what platform you are focusing on, you know what you’re gonna do each day. I’m gonna log in, I’m connecting with my connections. I’m gonna go engage. We are making my post. And you do that consistently. You won’t need Facebook ads because that will actually start bringing in people into your world. 

[00:07:38] It’s another thing with ads it’s it is a test it’s not investing into the stock back into it. You’re always told, do it with money that you’ve got a spare because you can’t guarantee the results. You just can’t. You cannot guarantee the results, but I can guarantee, that if you were consistent on social media and actual engaged, connected, and posted. And that doesn’t matter what platform you’re on. Doesn’t matter if you’re on TikTok – still TikTok, you need to follow others, get connected. You still need to engage with other people’s videos and you still need to post your own videos. It’s it’s same as Instagram, no matter what platform you’re on. Them three things happen all the time and you’ve just got to make sure you’ll do that consistently. And then you probably pretty much can guarantee provided you’ve done the basics that Nicky mentioned. You call it the foundations, don’t you?

[00:08:25] Nicky: Foundations. Yeah. Getting all of your ducks in a row to make sure that your content and your marekting, everything is completely aligned. It makes everything flow later on down the line, really setting your goals and understanding. What you are talking about what you are offering and really what we always say is give insane value, isn’t it? So everywhere we go, we give, we don’t hold back on any information. We, we try to support wherever possible. 

[00:08:52] Laura: Yes, we do. That was just Bella in the background.

[00:08:57] Nicky: She knows it’s our last recording of the day. So she’s like, right. Okay mother, let’s get out. 

[00:09:02] Laura: Yeah, that’s it. But no, and it is, it’s like in our membership for our business academy, if anyone’s ever struggling, we always say. Go back to the foundation. So Nicky has an amazing training. She recorded on it and say, go back to them foundations. Check! Right. So, you know, going through, why are you in business? What is your aim? What’s your mission, your value? What’s your ideal audience you’re gonna be aiming at? And things like that. What’s the platform you’re gonna go on? And then if you just be consistent, then, once you’ve got your foundations in place, you’ll get the results.

[00:09:31] You, you, you don’t need the paid ads, but I totally understand why people wanna go into paid ads. Cause it does make life easier when you do get it working for you, but don’t do it until you’ve got your audience nailed. Until you’ve got your organic marketing nailed. And then you can go on to things like Facebook Ads.

[00:09:51] Yeah. And 

[00:09:52] Nicky: actually, if you do have any spare money, put it into, uh, outsourcing something that isn’t your zone of genius to allow you to spend more time doing what you love to do. Um, so, uh, it wouldn’t be the first investment I would ever suggest any business owner made at all. It would probably be the last suggest.

[00:10:12] Laura: Yes, a hundred percent. 

[00:10:13] And that pretty much brings us to the end of this one and actually the end of the seven biggest lies. Isn’t it? This is it. This is the end of it. So. This was about, you need to have paid ads to be a success, and no, you do not need to have paid ads to be a success. There was lot of the people out there who are successful in business without paid ads, it takes a lot of work to understand paid advertising.

[00:10:38] So instead focus on organic and marketing and natural going on social media and nailing your marketing strategy and your audience and the foundations of your business before even considering going into advertising because that’s just a whole new world and you don’t need it be a success. And no matter what, you can’t skip the hard work going- diving in a thousand pounds, straight into Facebook ads. Not doing anything else beforehand is not gonna get you success. It’s just not, there’s no shortcut unfortunately we would love there to be a shortcut in business, but unfortunately there isn’t. So that can be, you know, it could be lie number eight. There’s a shortcut to business there isn’t is there? There’s no shortcut. Would you agree, Nicky? 

[00:11:19] Nicky: Totally. Yep. Just crack on, get your head down. Focus every day. Even on the days, it feels a little bit dull and boring. Keep on doing it because it will, you will reap the rewards of your efforts. Um, and as I said, just outsource if you want to. Um, but other than that, just head down.

[00:11:37] Keep on showing your awesomeness, you know, to your audience, keep on showing up and, um, you know, you really will benefit from it long term. 

[00:11:47] Laura: You a hundred percent will. Well, so if you’ve been enjoying the podcast, please make sure you’ll follow and subscribe otherwise you will not be notified when our lovely voices pop up into your platform on a Wednesday morning and then make sure to join our masterclass on the 9th of September, um, which is at thethrivebusinessacademy.com/masterclass. Can you imagine if I had to spell that out, that’d be a long URL. Um, so make sure you head over there to sign up and if a master class is done and dusted, there will be another masterclass there for you to sign up. And of course, do not forget to check the show notes for our link to the free Facebook group and join us over in our free group, where you can get to know us more and get some more help as well and get to show us your business as well.

[00:12:30] And for now that is it. And then we’ll see if our episode eight next week.