Growing a team: the good, the bad and the ugly

Welcome to this episode of the LionHearted Marketing Podcast!

What’s this episode about?

For me, growing a team (or 'outsourcing') has been one of the trickiest parts of growing my business. I've struggled to find guidance or insight in to how other people have done it and so have done a lot of trial and error to understand the type of support that I, and my business, need. With the aim of having more open conversations about growing a team and sharing what I've learnt so far, in this episode I share the mistakes I've made and the light bulb moments that have helped me start to get it right!

In this episode we cover:

• You know you need help in your business - is the first person you need a VA?

• Working out what to do if the support you're getting doesn't make your life easier.

• How to know when you need specialist help vs generalist help.

• Stop trying to be 'well rounded' and lean in to the things you love - the 'star' analogy that changed my entire approach.

• Finding the right people to work with and the questions you need to ask.

• The one piece of advice I'd give everyone growing a team (or wanting to!).

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. LHM 014: Solo - Growing a team === [00:00:00] hello, and welcome to Lion Hearted Marketing. This is a podcast for bold businesses who are ready to go from a slightly scattergun marketing approach to connecting everything they're doing to create joyful, repeatable customer journeys, that build connection and consistently convert new clients. That's called a funnel. If you fancy. If you have that nagging feeling, you should have more of a grasp on your marketing, more of a plan, more of a system to support your pretty successful business. You're in the right place. This isn't about trying lows and new strategies. It's about taking what you've got and making the most of it. I'm Sophie your host. Self-confessed tea superfan marketing strategist and funnels or joyful journeys, as I like to call them, demystifier. Join me every Tuesday for my Lion hearted approach to marketing. To help you navigate those big moves, stay focused on your goals and ultimately take your business to the next level. Let's jump in to today's episode. Hello. And welcome to this week's episode of line [00:01:00] hearty marketing. Now this week, I'm going to be talking all about growing a team. Now I'm not an expert in this by any means. And I do hope to get more of a specialist on the podcast. I'm. At some point soon. However I wanted to talk about this today because it probably is one of the biggest topics I talk to my clients about I'm more often than not. After we get off a call, I will send them over details of my VA or social media manager role. So often they need some level of support as they're scaling that business. We'll say the courses I'm in the masterminds. I do often the questions and the things we talk about is, you know, how do we manage your team? How do I actually create a team that takes the weight off of me rather than adding another level of admin or stress organization? It's just something, I find myself talking about a lot and I have had lots of different experiences growing a team. It's something I've actually really struggled with. I found it one of the most challenging parts of my business actually which came as quite a surprise to me because in my pre [00:02:00] kids corporate life. I loved having a team. It was something I was actually really good at. Probably a couple of years into my corporate job. I became a people manager. I had a team of sex, really loved nurturing them, kind of creating that bigger picture vision that they kind of went off and then implemented. Well, the time I left that job to have Eliza, my eldest, I had a team of 350. I love team management. I love being part of a team. And the bigger picture, strategic thinking. You know, getting people together, creating a vision and then helping them bring that vision to life. I'm blocking issues for them. That's what I really thrive on. And to be honest, when I started my own business, I really struggled with the fact that I not only had to do all of that, but then I had to sort of do the doing. Implemented all, keep it consistent. Create structure, create processes. That like to do the end to end. I think actually it's really hard for most people Because I think whether you love the [00:03:00] detail and you're almost the opposite of that to me, you know, you love the detail, you love the consistency. You love creating a plan. Like some of my incredible team, I now work with often it's really hard for you to do the other end and the bit that I really love. So do you think when you start your own business, especially when you've come from a corporate background, it can feel really hard that you're suddenly doing all the things. And even just not even just from. Growing a team perspective, but just, in my corporate career, you know, they were. So many different teams and it was broken down into tiny, tiny little segments. So you were responsible for various things. Leather have a very big pie. And then suddenly you start working for yourself and you're responsible for a very small pie, but all of the pie that was such a big. Transition for me, it took me quite a long time, to be honest, to get, to get my head around that. So once I kind of got my head around. Managing all of the pie. I really, really struggled to find clear guidance on growing a team and even just about other [00:04:00] people's experiences, to be honest, I think often you're asking groups like, oh, I think, yeah. I think I might need a VA. And like loads of people say, oh, my view is good. Or I love my VA. But I think it's such a personal thing about what you want help with and how you want help. And I'm really working with someone that understands your style and how you work as well, which I'm going to talk a little bit more about later because that's been quite a massive thing for me. More recently as well. So, I guess taking a little bit of a step back. I started my business back in 2017. And for a long time, I just did all on my own. I couldn't even imagine. Having a VA taking anyone on. But as my business grew a little bit of Christmas, 20, 21, I wrote on my vision. For 20, 22, but I wanted to feel part of a team. And I've talked about this on previous episodes as well. I felt really lonely at that point in my business. I was managing a lot of client accounts and there wasn't a huge amount of interaction. Between me and the clients over the month. [00:05:00] So You know, we'd have a monthly check-in, but other than that, I got on with my job. And that was a real benefit in a lot of ways because it went, I would say flexible . I was really lonely. And I think in hindsight, I was probably getting to a point where my business wasn't really for the kids anymore. So. I loved the fact that it was so flexible for a really long time for a good couple of years. I had my second baby. Totally. In 2020 It was amazing that I could run that whole business around her and be so flexible. I think by 2022, I was at a point where actually she was really settled at nursery. My eldest Eliza was at school and I felt like, okay, I really needed to find a way for this business to kind of feel. Energizing and fun. And like, it was giving me what I needed as well as what my family and what my kids needed and how I kind of wanted to be there for them. So at the beginning of 2022, I made this really strong. Intention for the year to [00:06:00] create a feeling of having a team around me. And I knew that I wasn't a point where I was suddenly going to get later people in my, I kept thinking to myself, how can I create this feeling of a team, even if it's not necessarily huge So when I actually ended up doing was creating a women's networking group. Locally to me with two other incredible women. And we had events in the evenings and the daytimes, and we started to build more of a local network around me. Feeling like part of the team that was a little bit closer to home. And I then also started pivot things and training, and I talk a lot more about this in other episodes of the podcast, but making that move from just doing monthly support to more training was such a big shift for me. And it's something I've really led into the last couple of years and has made a huge difference in my business as well because training and helping other people learn and grow is such a huge passion of mine. And then finally I did dabble in getting some support my business. So off the advice I did hear it was things like you need to get a VA before you actually need [00:07:00] one. Or. I finally got a VA and wished I'd got, had that six months ago. So I thought, okay, that's totally logical. Get rid of the admin, get rid of the stuff that doesn't add value to the business and stuff. That's repetitive so I started working with the VA and actually, you know what, I've worked with quite a few VA's over the years. Now, and do you know what? I really, really, really struggled. It's never felt. Easy and like it's releasing. Much time from my business. And I won't go into each of the different like VA experiences, because I think to be honest, the biggest thing I want to share is that it wasn't them. It was me. I wasn't really ready for a VA and everyone can tell you that you need to get one before you're ready. But it is a hell of a learning curve. If you are nowhere near ready for a VA. And I don't mean financially or, you know, within the business, why aren't you mean is really settling on what you want to offer and how you want to offer it. And. I'm processed is. That become repeatable in your business. 'cause. I was just [00:08:00] transitioning from management to training. I was testing out lots and lots of different ways of working with clients. I was testing different training offers. I was testing different small group programs. I was being really dynamic in my business, which I love. But what that means is there's not a huge amount of stability and there's not a set process or way of doing things. So I couldn't say like right when we take on a client you know, this happens and this happens and this happens, and I need you to take over from that. Actually what we're saying is, oh, well, I've actually started working with this client in a slightly different way. And that client is actually separate or when I've actually agreed to something else with that client. And it was really, really messy. It felt like it needed a lot of input from me because I was agreeing to all these different things. Now, some people might say, well, you know, you should sell your services and you should just offer what you offer. And that's just, it. And you shouldn't create different things for different clients and that's, that's all very well. But frankly I was just at a point where I just wanted to see what kind of [00:09:00] results I got with different ways of working with clients. It was just a real period of testing for me. I was also building up to launching my group program, which I did towards the end of the year. Everything was just so new for me. I didn't feel like I could hand over anything. Because nothing felt particularly repeatable at this point. So I did work with a few different VA's and I just couldn't work out why I was finding it so hard when everyone else seemed to be finding it, like, okay. But it just wasn't really working for me. But over the last year or so, I've done a lot of work on my business or myself. And I've now realized why it wasn't really working. And that actually, I was probably looking for the wrong thing. So for the rest of this episode, I thought I'd just break down. What was it that wasn't working? What may be kind of realize that and then change my approach and then how and why I've grown my team to where it is today. So I've done a huge amount of work on myself. In August last year. So at this point where I was really kind of feeling overwhelmed, but just [00:10:00] really struggling to outsource and find like the right way or people to work with. I also got diagnosed with ADHD. And that's really made me think a lot about how my brain works and then how that actually impacts and feeds into my business. Both with my psychotherapist, who is the one that diagnosed me. But also with ADHD coaches business mentors who specialize in working with women with ADHD. That was really important to me to understand. Not just from a personal and a home life side about how I can manage my ADHD better, but also like how I can take my huge strengths that come from ADHD into my business. But, and also support my areas of sort of blame this or the areas I struggle. So that was really, really massive understanding my ADHD and also understanding then how it can impact my business. For me, what I've learned is that I Hugely capable of taking on a lot of information in quite a small amount of time. I, my brain works [00:11:00] incredibly fast and I can get done. In a morning of what most people probably take a couple of days. When I get into my hyper-focus zone, I can achieve incredible, things. My brain is very good with numbers. I I really enjoy learning new systems. And setting them up. I don't don't enjoy maintaining them, but that's a different story. So what I I'm really good at is being a generalist. And learning lots of systems and being pretty capable across the operations side of my business. So what I've done a huge amount of this year is set up automations in my business. Because I know that once I set them up, I can then have them running and I'm not relying on anybody else. So that was my first thing that I did when I kind of really dug into it. Is that. Actually for what I was using personally, I was using a VA for a lot of that could be automated. I did get some support, so it was a more of ad hoc support. So, what I've realized for me is that working with [00:12:00] someone on like an ad hoc basis or for very specific thing works really well. So I'm getting someone to set up my Day four, my onboarding process, for example, that is incredibly useful because for me, automation is really, really key to my whole business. Now this idea of getting specific support and things is something that kind of really came to the front of my consciousness. When I went to a day on ADHD back in April. Now I had Hannah Miller he was co-hosting that day I'm on the podcast. A while ago to definitely dig out that episode. If you're interested in. Understanding your strengths and kind of how you then work best because, because what she does and how she works is incredible. And there was this analogy that really, really stuck with me. And to be honest, it's shaped my whole kind of growing a team ethos. Essentially, what she talks about is that. When we're at school and our whole lives, we're brought up to believe that we should be really rounded. So if there are things that we're not very good at, then we should work hard and improve ourselves . Rather than [00:13:00] focus solely on the things that we're good at and then have deficits of things were not so good at. And it's really interesting because that's what we really encourage our children to do, you know? Oh, you're struggling with math. Well, let's get you some extra support. Let's get you a tutor, now the approach we were talking more about, and I'm not necessarily saying that this is right or wrong, but it's just a different view on it. Is. Actually, if you're really good at English, let's get you a tutor in English. Let's help you Excel at something that you love and are really, really good at. Let's give you that huge strength and super power going forward. Anyway really stuck with me. So the way we talked about this was instead of being a circle and being rounded and good, everything, a very kind of even and smooth. Actually what most people are, is a star where you've got these spikes of things that you're really good at. And then like low points, if you like of things that you're not so good at. And the key for me, what really transformed my whole view of it was that I was trying to be a circle. And then I was trying to get [00:14:00] like a smaller circle to fit inside my circle. So two generalists. I was trying to kind of cover everything and then get someone to come in and sort of cover what I was doing on top of it. And the problem was is that because I'm pretty competent. And I I quite enjoy a lot of the ops side of stuff. I ended up just getting frustrated that nobody was ever. Taking what I'd done and taking it to the next level. I realized was, is I really needed to embrace my strengths and what I was really, really good at. And I loved doing it. It gave me energy. So my star. And then get other people in to fill in the triangles between the star spokes. Now. I started off doing that with like ad hoc people. So someone coming in to do my DUP Saturday. When I had my rebrand, I worked with a graphic designer. I worked with a, I worked with a website developer, but actually I worked with her for one day. She created three to four pages for me on my website, and then I've been able [00:15:00] to take that forward. So rather than , throwing the baby out with the bath water, because actually I had a really good website. It just needed, we sort of skinning. With my new branding. Is how can I get this specialist to help me move faster and do what I can't do. So the graphic design, the website development, like the branding side of it. The dub Solido, all staff. I didn't have the knowledge of, and I needed people with that specialist knowledge to take me forward. So that's what I've really, learned. Is that. I work best when I'm working with specialists. Who are focusing in on a really small area of what I either don't want to do or can't do. Or just really want their focus and knowledge and expertise on. So that's essentially where I got to after that ADHD day. And it was such a huge light bulb moment for me. I can't tell you. No, I should say as well. In hindsight, I actually already had been getting specific support and I hadn't really clocked out. I've always had an accountant because I [00:16:00] have a just huge fear that I am going to totally mock up my finances. And at some point, get myself into an issue with the tax model or something. So I've always had an accountant again, specific support. So since I've been doing the podcast, which is nearly 18 months now I've always worked with the VA on getting these out because. I can't even tell you what goes on in the background to get one of these out, but it's a lot. So again, specific support, I hadn't really clocked was that's why it was working so well for me. So I was already doing it. I just didn't really realize. And I think as well. I just everywhere. I looked, people had general VAs and it just felt like, oh, well that obviously is the next thing that everybody else is doing. So. I probably need it. That's why I should be doing. But also, I didn't really know what the alternative was what else would be a good option for me too. Outsource. Over summer. I really took a step back and started to speak to the people I'm in my master. I'm [00:17:00] with my co-chairs even just on Instagram. I'm asking it, you know, people who I'm chatting to in the DMS, like, well, how do you structure your team? What does your VA do for you? Or like, how does it work? And what ended up doing was kind of brain dumping everything I wanted outsourced. And what was taking up the most time. What I, what was automated and what could I automate? What did I want to outsource? And then what did I want to continue doing myself? And when I got to this point, what I realized was with my VA going on mat leave and not doing my social media graphics anymore, social media was becoming a huge pain point for me. I had every intention every week of posting consistently. And every week it just didn't happen. I just couldn't find the time or Headspace to To post on Instagram in particular. And. And I, for a while I thought it was a mindset issue. I think what happened was with the almost burnout. Of the summer. I [00:18:00] had got to a point where I was like, I'm not working evenings, I'm not working weekends. And actually I'm just going to focus on like the critical things. And I just realized that social media just never fell into something that felt critical which don't get me wrong as a former social media manager, and as a Facebook ads expert, I know that I need to be posting regularly. But I just couldn't fit it in. And so I decided that that is the first thing I wanted outsource was my social media. So found myself turning really to my network. Who else is using a social media manager? I haven't got any recommendations. You know, what I'm looking for is specifically probably Instagram support at the moment. And actually what I found was an amazing social media manager, who also works with other clients who also that was actually a really big thing. Is that working with somebody who understood the challenges I had, the way that I worked. Things I would find difficult things that she could help me with and also things I'd be really good at. So that was the first person I started working with and the way that we work means that when she works, doesn't really matter to [00:19:00] me. And I've realized that this is something that I didn't take into account enough when I was thinking about VA. So for my social media manager, the key really is that she understands. My business, she understands not Facebook ads specifically, but more sort of the coaching training, onboarding to group programs. One-to-one so high ticket services. Matt was really important to me. Like the style that I wanted to use. Also that she was really good at graphics. That was really important to me because obviously I've just had my branding and I wanted someone to be able to take that on and really kind of develop it. So that's worked really well. The next thing I moved on to was a VA. I, because I was like, right, come on. Say fee to get. Now that you've put your social media sorted, there's still lots of admin that you're doing that you need to kind of get off your plate. Because all of my systems are set up pretty much in dub Saturday. And so we needed some that was pretty confident with ups our day, but I already had everything built out. All my workflows built out. I didn't really need someone who was a dumpsite [00:20:00] specialist. Because often what I found was that people who had dumpsite specialists. Only dude. I'm sorry. And that's really not what I needed because I use loads and loads of different systems. And on that point I use loads and loads of different systems. So I need someone who's pretty confident picking up systems, learning them themselves, if they don't know how to use them, but also understand lots of different systems. So that was really my criteria. When I went into looking for a VA. And also in my head, you know, I like working with women. . I like working with, you know, people who have kids. I was like, you know, that would probably be great as well. Cause you know, they understand the juggle and everything. So I found someone on Instagram and she was really, really lovely. And we started working together early August. Then it came to sort of mid, mid to late. August and she sent an email saying. That in September, her children's nursery and school was changing and say what she was doing was changing the way she worked. And it wasn't [00:21:00] until I read her email, I realized how important some things were to me that I hadn't even known that were important to me. So when I started working with her, she worked four days a week. Nine until two. And that was great. And then we'd set out our weekly, monthly tasks and then I would send her like ad hoc stuff and she would do it over the week. And what her change was, which is obviously. Totally within her. Right. And totally. I totally support the fact that she was changing her business to work for her. But what she was changing it to was working three days a week. So Tuesday to Thursday and Nine til four so slightly longer. And then she would only be doing my work on a Tuesday. Now for me. That just doesn't work. And I realized the reason it doesn't work as well, a. I don't want Fridays. So when I'm thinking about my team, I actually quite want someone who works Fridays. The second thing was I. Love the idea of being [00:22:00] incredibly organized and getting everything over to heartful. Hope my time's not on a Tuesday, but the reality is that's probably not going to happen. And I could feel that that was going to add extra stress on me. It wasn't going to take stress away. It wasn't going to feel easy. It wasn't going to feel. Like, oh, this is like taking such a weight off my mind. It was going to feel like, oh God, I'm going to have to make sure that I've got everything to her for Tuesday. And then I think my biggest concern was, but what if something comes in, like, what if I need a client onboarding? And that comes in on a Wednesday morning. Like, it's not the end of the world if that happens on a Thursday afternoon, but I can't wait all the way to a Tuesday. And that's what my real issue was. So I got this email and I felt this like, oh God, I don't think that's going to work for me. And what was so interesting for me. And this was a massive light bulb moment for me, but my immediate thought was, oh, well maybe this is just what, this is just the way VA's work. Maybe this is normal. Maybe this is what everybody else does. Maybe I just need to get on board with them. So I messaged my coach and posted in my [00:23:00] mastermind group. Oh, like, how do you guys wait with your VA's or is this normal maybe I just need to suck it up basically. Like maybe this just is how it has to be. And then I don't really, I don't know what happened. But at some point. Maybe somebody said something or I don't know. I just had this moment of like, Safie. You are running. You are running your business. And you get to decide what support you want and how you want it. Now it might be the allocating a time to do your work. Once a week is normal. It might be that a lot of VA's, work part-time and a lot don't work Fridays. But that doesn't mean that every VA does that. And it certainly doesn't mean that you have to settle for it. Like. I think I'm still going through this transition of seeing myself as like separate to the business as a CEO. So actually I just had this massive moment of. I can get whatever support I need. And that doesn't have to just be based on someone else's business. I can find someone who is happy as [00:24:00] part of that business to offer me why need. I think it's a bit of a boundaries thing as well. Like I like to please, people like to start it with this woman. She was really, really lovely. I really enjoyed working with her. And it was a real shame. I was like, oh, maybe I can make it work, actually no other. As the CEO of my business, I need to be really clear on what I need and how I need it and not just go with what works for other people. And I just think in hindsight, that's what I've done a lot. Is try to work into other people's systems and approaches and not thought really about what do I need and what does my business need. So I spoke to her and we had a lovely conversation and, you know, we parted ways and it was fine. By felt like, oh my gosh, I'm kind of back to the beginning again. So I then took myself back to this star analogy of right. You really need to think a bit more specifically about. What you want. And I realized actually, what was taking up a lot of time. Was the Facebook ads work, but not necessarily the [00:25:00] strategic high-level work more like going into half. Facebook ads manager and setting up campaigns. It's kind of the difference. Between the social media management of writing the caption and creating a graphic versus the scheduling. It's like the scheduling part I really needed help with, of like a Facebook ads equivalent. So I decided that actually I wanted to work with another Facebook ads managers. They have them. Come into my business Now in the Facebook ads world, what's quite normal is white labeling. So almost more of an agency model where you hand over like whole accounts for somebody to manage that. Isn't why I wanted and probably for the first time ever, I was like, I don't really mind that that's, that's not normal and that's not what most people do. I want someone to give me like X amount of hours a month to help me with this sort of, kind of like a Facebook ads, VA. So I went out to my network and found a really incredible woman who is now helping me with that. And that specific help is just incredible. It's helping so much. And then the final [00:26:00] step was looking at this sort of Viet. Do I need a VA? Can I just carry on if I am. And then I spoke to a friend who also run through in business and she had just hired an OBM, which is an online business manager. And it's sort of like the next step up from a VA, I guess it's someone who is almost like your ops manager. So it's someone who is not just doing what you asked them to do. It's much more strategic. It's much more systems. Focused. And so that's why I've ended up doing. I'm working with an online business manager who started last week. So it's all very new and I'm kind of acutely aware now that I have quite a lot of people helping me. And they're all very new to it. So at the moment, I'm still doing quite a lot support to make sure you know, they understand how it works and how we can work together. And I'm starting to think about as well, like, right. Okay. It's all very well getting lots of specific support, but how do I manage that overall as a business? And make sure that [00:27:00] everyone is kind of singing from the same sheet. And I don't know, not spending loads of my time managing loads of different people, because that's the flip side of having what, you know, one generalist in your business where you just work with them and they know everything. There says lots and lots of different people, and I'm kind of trying to make sure they're all on the same page. At the moment it's going really well. But it is very, very heavy days. So that's where I'm at with it. And I now have an accountant. My podcast, VA social media manager, Facebook ads, VA, and I'm an online business manager. Which is quite a huge shift from this time last year. Where I just had my accountant. So that is. Massive change. And to be honest, I wasn't ready for all of this last year. The understanding I now have of myself, of my business, of where I'm going with my business of what I want to. Do with my business is hugely different to where I was this time last year. And I'm definitely not saying that, everybody needs to get their social [00:28:00] media manager sorted first, or you have to have an ABM. I guess what I'm saying is. If you're struggling to find support or grow a team or something, doesn't feel like it's working for you. I guess my advice is. Take a moment to think about what would really, really help you out in your business. And don't be afraid to find that person because they will be out there if you need really specific help on one thing. And it's just a couple of hours a month. Someone will be happy to do that for you. If you want someone to come in and help you across loads of different things for quite a few hours a month, like that's also, okay. You don't have to have. A VA. There are people out there that will help you with whatever you need in your business. And I just really encourage you to try and work out what that is that you need, and then finding that right person. Don't be afraid to have calls with multiple people. When I had my Facebook ads. VA that I was looking for, I N I talked to three different people and for various reasons based on their experience [00:29:00] when they were going to be available, to do the work. Other accounts that they manage, you know, could they bring in other expertise that was going to help my business? There were so many things I considered , and really don't be afraid to ask how they work when they work. Because that was something that I just really didn't dig into when I was speaking to people before, just assuming that they were going to be flexible interestingly, now.. So just think about, what you need for your business. And what would be really helpful would probably would be my advice from this episode. So I hope you found that useful. It was a a little bit of a windy road. That one, I would call this possibly my most ADHD episode, because I've just verbalized everything's in my head. I hope it was useful in one way or another. And I would absolutely love to hear your takeaways and anything you've kind of got from it. Or any questions you've got, I'm more than, more than happy to answer them. Just come over to Instagram and DM me. I will put the link in the show notes. Thank you so much and have a lovely week. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Before [00:30:00] you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes every Tuesday when they're released. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to rate or leave a review wherever you are listening to it. It only takes a few seconds, but it really does make a massive difference to new people finding me. Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of Lionheart Marketing. See you next time. And this is very, very much in the nurture piece of the funnel. Then what, we're also going to show those people who have downloaded your lead magnet and have been on the sales page for the low ticket offer. So when you do the lead ads at the end of the, the form that you fill in, there is an option to send them to click a button. To go to a landing page. So, send them to your low-cost offer sales page, and you can track who goes onto it using the pixel. And then you're going to use ads to retarget them, to try and get them to buy your low ticket offer ads. So that's also [00:17:00] retargeting ads, but with a sales focus, the idea though is only two pounds a day, and we are just putting the offer back in front of people who have come into our world in the last 60 days, anyone that's joined the list in the last 60 days. Anyone who's engaged on social media in the last 60 days, we're offering them this low ticket offer because a, we want to make sure that we turn them into a client. If we can. And B We want to make sure that they see it. And we can have lots of different ads, you know, with testimonials and explaining what it is and showing outcome, they're going to get an all sorts and at this point, I just want to be really clear about what the difference is with this funnel versus a self-liquidating offer funnel. The core purpose of this funnel is to grow your email list using a lead mark map. We then have, as I've talked about before, in other episodes, you then have a lot of stuff in place on your email list to nurture, to connect, to show them strategic, you know, long form content, social media content That's all in place anyway. Okay. [00:18:00] And that's how, you're going to grow your business and get more clients. The engagement ads, then add this sort of automated nurture element. Okay. So this is a, this is a case of, if you go on my email list and everything goes to spam, we're still potentially going to get back in front of you. Again, we're going to be able to show you things that are really important, like the best content that we've made, the most strategic posts that we want to put in front of people. We can do that with ads and we don't have to worry about them. You know maybe seeing our email clicking on the fat. To go from, follow us on Instagram and then see the right post that we wanted them to see. We can actually put it right in front of them using ads. So it's really a way of like automated, nurturing. But. But in a really strategic and personalized and connected way because you're choosing what you're going to put in front of them. And then finally the sales ads, these ads are never going to drive like mega revenue for you. They are going to offset some of your costs of your ads for sure. And obviously they're going to support this aim of turning[00:19:00] Subscribers into clients, which then changes that energy and allows you through your welcome sequence and social media to then get to know them and ideally convert them quicker into your high ticket services. And some people have a ladder. So everyone who has bought the 11 pound item then might be offered the 97 pound item. They might have a few different products that you can then layer. I guess the difference is that it's not all done through sales pages. It's done through email. So once they have that first offer, a nurture sequence that then goes out to see how they go home with the offer. And then the next step is almost like, if you really enjoy this and you've got great results, this actually is part of my 97 pound offer or my hundred 97 pound offer. And you can have that middle step. You can also talk about your high ticket offer. You know, if you enjoyed. This then, you know, this is how I work with my high ticket clients. But it's not, it's automated, but it's not. So pressured, I guess I think with the issue with the SLO funnel can be that you are going [00:20:00] from seeing an ad buying an 11 pound thing being offered a 97 pound thing, and then being offered something else as well, all through sort of three sales pages in the space of what could be like 10 minutes. This email funnel is much slower. It's much more about connection and nurturing and fundamentally is about growing your email list rather than the low ticket offer. I guess the focus of the funnel is different. And at the beginning. I talked about, you know, when is this a really good thing to do? And when I would actually say no, like this isn't the right time for you. And there's probably a couple of things, but I think coming to this conversation, The first one is that generally I work with people who have quite an established high ticket service, whether that's one-to-one, whether that's a group program, monthly services that they offer. And then looking to either add another revenue stream or convert clients more quickly. If they have the capacities, if they're running a group program. It might be that they need to grow their email list, but they also, they don't want to wait the nine months [00:21:00] that currently it's taking for them to convert people, to actually buy from them. You know, if they want to convert them more quickly, this is the kind of funnel. That could really help with that. In my opinion, this kind of funnel or any, and all the SLO funnel, or even doing a low ticket offer just organically. It's just not the place to start. If you are struggling to sell your services, like your higher ticket services. It's really, really unlikely in my experience that adding a low-cost offer is going to enable you to sell more of your high ticket offer. Because the likelihood is your messaging. And your lead gen funnel needs work first. So really what we want to do is have something that's selling really well. Have like a really strong baseline of a business. And then plug in those lead ads to, to make sure that we're kind of growing that email list all the time. Then the engagement ads come in to make sure we're nurturing those people and getting them engaged. And then the offer comes in right at the end. So if you were a place where you're [00:22:00] struggling for clients, Or you just can't seem to get people to understand what you do or how you help them or to buy into that. A low ticket offer. Isn't the place to start with that. Your messaging and your lead gen funnel needs to be the first priority now just talking briefly your messaging as well is probably one of the biggest factors of a successful ads funnel. Or even to be honest, just any kind of lead gen funnel. Whether it's your lead magnet, your emails, your social media, your ads. If your messaging is not talking to your ideal clients or isn't really on point you were really, really going to struggle with ads. And what happens often is that people think they've nailed their messaging organically. And then they come to me and we start working on ads and they realize that they've got a lot of work to do on their messaging. And the reason this is, is because I briefly talked about earlier. That it's really easy to get into a habit of just talking to our warm audience. We start talking in shorthand. We assume they know [00:23:00] what we offer. And we talk about things in a, quite a broad, generic way. We're often what we're promoting is the solution to the problem rather than why they should work with you. So, for example, it's not enough for me. To make sure my audience knows that using ads can grow their email list and then their business. They need to know how I will help them use ads to grow their email list and their business. And there's a really, really big difference. And a lot of us, when we start our businesses, I'll get quite, have to be quite good at articulating that. And then as we develop this warm audience, we forget that we need to make sure that we can articulate this to a cold audience as well. And the art of ads and this customer journey is really giving people the right level of information and familiarity at the right time. I thought an example of this actually is if you've ever been to a party and politely sort of asked someone that you vaguely know, maybe a friend of a friend, like, oh, how are you. And 20 minutes later, like you're still hearing about,[00:24:00] their recent divorce and then their children's illness and, you know, details that are way too much for a casual conversation. When you were expecting them to say like, oh, I'm fine. Yeah. How are you? That's what's happening when you're treating new people, like someone who's followed you on Instagram for three years. And so what you need to do is revisit your messaging for ads in particular. And make sure that someone who's never heard of you is going to understand it, know it's for them and be compelled to kind of act on it very quickly. And the benefits really of nailing or messaging is not only are you going to get cheaper leads because people are going to know that it's for them. You also only going to attract the right people that you want on your list. And then it's going to make selling them a low ticket offer. And then eventually your high ticket offer much easier so that's why a really, really advocate thinking about your messaging alongside all of this as well. Okay. I know this has actually been a longer episode than I had intended. There was a huge amount of information in here for you to kind of [00:25:00] think through. And if I was to summarize this episode and I'm what I would do if I was thinking about this next is, I really would think getting ads up and running and growing your email list. Testing or messaging, testing your ads in a helping Facebook understand who your audience is. And making sure we can get leads are relatively cheap. You know, people are coming on to email less day in, day out and you're feeling confident about where you are with them and then while those lead ads are running, you can start strategically creating this social media content. Which you're going to use in your engagement ads. So you're going to start wanting to create that over time. You might create a podcast episode. You might create some social media content. Maybe you're going to put a blog on your website that you want to send some traffic to, like, that's the kind of thing to think about. You can start doing that while you're testing and learning on your lead ads. And in the background, you're going to be working on your emails as well. Your welcome sequence, strategically sending people to your long form content and that sort of thing. Once you've got all of that in place. That's when you're going to plug in your ads to your low ticket [00:26:00] offer. And see if you can start testing and learning and selling some kind of offer. And the reality actually is as well. I should say you don't have to have a super well tested sales page and offer for this because you're spending such a low amount. Like, yes, obviously you want to be testing that offer and that sales page. And if you can do that organically as well, that is really helpful. But because you're only spending two pounds a day and it's not the core focus of the funnel, you can use ads to test out and get those results. And if you're not converting people, you know, you can start testing and tweaking to see if you can start converting them. And testing your messaging is going to be absolutely key to make sure that when you start selling this a low ticket offer, it's super clear. And it's exactly what your people want. But it's not as critical as basing your entire funnel on the sales page and the offer, which is a totally different kind of shift. So, yeah, so that's where I'd start. If you're at a point where you think, yeah, I really want to do this, but there's [00:27:00] absolutely no way I'm going to be doing this on my own. I am also very excited that in October. I am going to be co-running a group program with Macbeth. She's a messaging and storytelling mentor. There is actually a podcast episode with her. So you can go and have a listen to that. If you want to find out a bit more about what she does. But she is incredible at the messaging side. I've worked with her, she's worked with me and now we're going to come together because we've both seen how messaging and ads are just so crucial together. So what we're going to be doing a beta group of 10 women. A very reduced price for six months to take you through this entire model with support from collat on your messaging. Making sure your messaging is totally on point to help this ads funnel fly. So, if you're interested in that we're doing a very low key launch where we're just talking to people that are interested between the two of us and our audiences. We have quite a lot of people. that have already said they're interested. We're going to be sending out information soon, and then we're going to be doing some compatibility calls just to make sure that [00:28:00] you're right for the program and that we're right for you. And. That's all going to happen at the end of September. So if you're interested and you would like the information when it's ready and we'll send it out to you you just need to DM me on Instagram. So it's at. Sophie Griffis co, which is there's the link in the show notes. Just DME, the word group. And I will send you over the info as soon as it's ready. Thank you so much for listening today. And I will be back. I promise with an interview. Episode next week. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes every Tuesday when they're released. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to rate or leave a review wherever you are listening to it. It only takes a few seconds, but it really does make a massive difference to new people finding me. Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of Lionheart Marketing. See you next time.