Investing in ads: What I learned
Today we’re going to talk about what spending over 30k in ads and ads management has taught me and the best way for you as a business owner to get a return on investment on your investments.
Investing: The 3 Different Paths
You probably have taken one of three paths in your business when it comes to getting help to build your business, and when it comes to building your skill sets.
Path 1: Hope
You’ve been not investing anything in your business and just hoping it all works out… You are dabbling with free resources you’re downloading, and just trying to exhaust every webinar you can watch and just really taking the approach of “I hope it works out. I’m going to kind of guess my way there.”
There’s nothing wrong with guessing your way there… No matter what you’re going to have to try, test and tweak things…
But there could be a more efficient path.
Path 2: Investing in done-for-you services
Path two is you invest in somebody to do the work FOR you.
For example- you hire somebody to do your ads, you hire somebody to do your sales calls, etc.
Path 3: Investing in learning the skills yourself first before outsourcing
This path allows you to broaden your skill set, know-how, & ability to lead others you outsource to in the future.
Which path is best for you?
Each path has different pros and cons. However, I personally think path 3 is important when investing in something technical or really important in your business. Learning the SKILLS before investing in outsourcing to someone else allows you to accurately judge if you’re hiring somebody properly, measure the right key metrics, and communicate with them about what you’re looking for.
Path 1 is of course the slowest path because you are solely relying on hope and lots of your own time.
The Cost of Shortcuts
If you simply rely on others to build your business for you right away before you truly know what your brand is about, what forms of lead generation are indicating progress, and how to do the basics in your business… You might feel like you’re taking a “shortcut” but it could be costing you.
And the reason why I say that is because learning marketing, and sales, even though you probably don’t like it, is essential if you want to be more equipped to communicate with a team & make sure you’re setting up your team with the right information.
It’s kind of your job to fall in love with sales and marketing and take it upon yourself to learn those skills because they will create an ROI for you for the rest of your life. And I think if you are going to choose to pay someone to do those things for you, you have to be able to know what you’re looking for & what qualifies someone as a good marketer or salesperson for your team.
You also don’t want to feel so incapable of something in your business that you’re “stuck” relying on someone else for the rest of your life to do it for you. If you don’t learn the basics first, there could be costs down the road that you’re not even thinking about… Not to mention, you might hire the wrong person due to lack of knowledge about what makes a good hire, and that wastes time and money.
Investing in Ads: My Story
Hiring the wrong team members due to lack of “know-how” is something I’m familiar with. That’s kind of what happened with my ads journey… I’m going to tell you my ad story. And then I’m going to tell you about a client of mine, who also took the time to learn the skills and how that ended up saving her a lot of money in the long-run.
So here’s what happened… I was at a place in my business in which I felt like I had my organic marketing figured out… And that’s what I help clients with a lot of the time. That was my jam, but I knew I wanted to amplify my business more with ads.
And normally, when I choose to do something, I do learn it myself first. And I like investing in a course, mentor, or program to help me learn it as soon as possible. Because I know if I bet on myself, invest in myself, & learn the important skill sets, it’s going to help me amplify my worth/value that I can bring to my company and others in the long run.
But this time around, because I had resistance with Facebook ads, I wanted to outsource them…
I thought to myself, “I don’t have time to learn them myself.” “It’s confusing.” “I’ve heard horror stories about people running their own ads.”
I thought outsourcing was taking the easy way out, but it ended up being the hard way out. I really trusted the team with their advice, because I didn’t know enough about how to tell if their advice was good or not.
Now, outsourcing ads wasn’t ALL bad… I have made my investment back on a lot of it. But I haven’t made my investment back on some of it. I did have a successful launch. I did book clients. I did break even on my ad spend. But I did not recoup my investment on the agency fees and the cost of that and other things. I know it’s a process, but I realized through all of that, and all that trial and error, and trusting a team completely without me learning at first, that I should have learned at first. I should have learned the basics.
I should have learned the lingo. I should have practiced it myself a little bit. I should have gotten a basic foundation of skills.
So now, my plan is to go back to basics before hiring my next ads team. Because if it is to be, it’s up to me. I’m going to learn it and figure it out. And it’s going to take as long as it’s going to take… I’m willing to slow down to speed up.
Investing in YOU first
Sometimes you will have to slow down a little bit to speed up. Sometimes investing in YOU first by learning skills with a mentor or coach is a better route than outsourcing first.
Learning skills and investing in YOU has a “byproduct effect” on your life. For example- now that I am taking an ads course, it’s going to m help me help my clients better.
I have another client who also slowed down to hone her sales skills and learn how to lead discovery calls. She recorded her sales calls and practiced and changed her relationship with sales to not see it as grabby or asking for money.
And through that, she was able to hit a 65% close rate by selling her high-ticket nutrition coaching package. All because she was willing to slow down before speeding up. She took the time to learn with mentorship, practice, and develop the skills. And that led her to a faster, proven path later.
So, if you don’t want to be relying on someone else for the rest of your life and you want to be a confident business owner… you got to develop those skills and you have to take the time to do it.
And in my opinion, it’s a good idea to invest in somebody to help mentor you who has already done it. If you were somebody with a medical condition, and you tried to heal yourself on your own with no expertise, rather than go to the doctor… It’d probably be a lot messier of a journey right? It’s the same in business when you are learning something new or trying to solve a specific marketing or sales problem.
The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Because I took the time to learn organic marketing along with other skills in my business before outsourcing them first… It has opened doors for me. It has allowed me to have the confidence to pitch myself to speak. I know how to make income in my business because I know how to ramp up my marketing and sales. There’s so much that learning these skills has opened up for me. And I hope that you believe in yourself enough to know that you can learn any skill. And investing in that skill is probably the best investment you can ever make. Because you come out more valuable, more ready, more able, more capable, and more confident.
And when you’re more confident, you communicate differently. You are more aligned with whatever it is you’re doing because you feel really good about the results you can provide and the skills that you have.
The longer you wait to own up to which skills you need to develop more of, and which lack of skills are standing between you and where you want to go in your business… you’re dragging out the cost and lack of results.
If you have questions, you don’t know which skills you need, or you know you need sales and marketing skills in particular, I can help you with that.
