Jeffrey: Welcome to the light in your launch podcast today, we're talking about the five critical elements to a successful social media strategy. So stay tuned.

Announcer: Hey, we're the Launch Squad and this is the Lighten Your Launch podcast. We teach coaches and course creators how to lighten their launches. We're bringing you all of the tips and strategies to take your launch from intimidating to money-making. In this podcast, we talk about everything; the sales, strategy, mindset, technical and spiritual aspects of running your best launch ever. So if you're feeling overwhelmed and unsure of the next right step, we're here to bring clarity, confidence, and excitement into your next launch. This is the Lighten Your Launch podcast.

Jeffrey: Welcome back to the show. I'm Jeffrey summer. I'm back again with Katie Collins. And today we're talking with the amazing Bridget Brady about all things, social media, Katie, would you please introduce our very special guest?

Katie: I am honored to introduce our very special guest because she has become a very good friend of mine as well. But Bridget Brady is an enlightened entrepreneur speaker, social media authority, and a number one international best selling author. Bridget is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and business owners get the tools they need to catapult their business success. Her company amp up my biz is a leader in the world of online marketing. Bridget and her team provide full service soup to nuts marketing solutions, including social media marketing and advertising website, dev design and development, email marketing, and more. She's the creator of the comprehensive social media and business transformation program, social media success academy, and her latest book jobs to jammies get out of your job and her latest book jobs to GMEs get out of your job and be a work in your PJ's. Entrepreneur is a number one international bestseller. Bridget is passionate about helping business owners grow their brands, their businesses, and their bottom lines. The amp up my biz mission is simple. Help businesses grow quickly, easily, and with greater joy through the awesome power of online marketing, she's helped thousands of entrepreneurs create and close more business and she can help you do the same. So Bridget, welcome to the show. We're so happy to have you here today. I am

Bridget: Beyond, I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having

Katie: Me. Yay. I just love it. I just love you. I'm so glad. I'm so glad to have you here because you know, I, I don't know a ton about social media. I've been playing in the world a lot. I think when you talk about some of the, I'm going to be like hiding under my desk going, I've done that. Um, but I've met a lot of people along the way that are, you know, social media gurus. I've put myself in air quotes here and you really are the real deal. So I'm really glad to have you here because you're not like a single platform. Like I've read a book and you know, here I am, but you are like legit all platforms. You know what you're talking about. And I think our listeners are in for a big treat for what you're you've got to share today. So yeah. Thanks for being

Bridget: Here. Well, I am super excited and to share all my secrets that could, this could be a whole other episode is talking, which we won't talking about, right? The air quotes, social media gurus, and they're like, I'm going to show you how to make reels, good luck with your business. Right? That's like that, that could be a whole other episode, but we're not going to, but today we're not going to do that episode. We're going to do like the re the real, the nitty gritty

Katie: Knit of social. Um, and yeah, so, so anyway, I don't want to jump too far ahead. Let's just get started getting to know you a little bit better. How did you get to where you are today? Like a social media wasn't always around. So it was not, how did you get to become an expert in something that didn't exist when we were in college?

Jeffrey: Some of us here, uh, actually remember a time before social media.

Bridget: Oh yeah. I remember a time before the internet. Right, right. I remember going to the libraries, but we're not going to go back that far. So, um, so how did, how did you get here? So I spent 15 years in corporate America. I was an it software developer and an it project manager. I spent seven years working in New York city on wall street. And I mostly was in the financial sector, like pretty much any big bank name that you can think of. I have worked there. I have written code for that bank. So, so fast forward to 2008, 2009, 2010. And I was in a very fancy, a very high paying consulting gig in the mortgage banking industry. And don't don't Dawn and 2008, 2009, 2010 comes around in 2010. I walk into work one Friday morning to an email that essentially says, dear Ms.

Bridget: Brady, thank you so much for your eight years of excellent service today is your last day. So, yeah. And what's important to note in this fantastical story that I'm, that I'm regaling you with right now is I was a contractor. So it literally was like, no notice, no, no warning, no nothing. Like, thank you so much. We're terminating your contract today. So yeah. Wow. Job security right there. Security. So I, in, in a five month span, I lost my very high paying consulting gig. I then lost my place to live one block from the ocean here in beautiful Los Angeles. Uh, and then my boyfriend left me because apparently he was in it for the money. I mean, because when I had a lot of, but I had a lot of money, he was like, I love you. And then when I was broke, he's like, buh-bye so, yeah, so that happened. So I used to call this my year of financial ruin. I now call it my year of the Phoenix because apparently I had to burn my life to the ground to start it again. And I moved to, I moved to a place I did not want to live. I spent two months lying on my floor feeling very sorry for myself. And yes, literally on my floor. Because side note, when my boyfriend left, he took almost everything. We owned furniture, plates, pots, and pans. Silverware

Katie: Sounds like a great dude. Yeah. Sounds like a winner, man.

Bridget: No word of a lie. You know what? That's the past. And it truly, I believe that the universe gives us gifts and packages. We don't always recognize. And you know what? It was like, this whole thing was such a gift. So it did believe me. It did not feel like a gift when it, when it was, when it was happening. But the whole thing was such a gift. So long story short, after a couple months of just like, literally just lying on my floor, feeling sorry for myself, that I'd lost everything. I had the sort of like a little knock from the universe that said, you know, Bridget, you always want it to be an entrepreneur. You always wanted to start your own business. Like maybe now is the time. So I started a couple of different, couple of different things, kind of a little, this, a little that I failed forward for a while. This was mostly lemonade. Stand on the corner. Other, other things on the corner. No, I'm just kidding.

Bridget: No, no.

Bridget: And then at the gas station,

Bridget: Held forward for awhile? It was mostly failing. Like I, I, this, this and that, and nothing was really working. And then literally like another little knock from the universe was like, you know, Bridget, when you had your super high paying job, I had taken this amazing social media marketing course. It was expensive. It was incredible. And I never used it because I was like in my job, like writing code and doing it stuff. So I was like, I wonder if social media works, spoiler alert, it totally works. And so I talk to them, it's 2010 long time ago. I had like my binder, like my social media class binder, and I took it out and I started going page by page. I applied everything I learned to the businesses that I was attempting to build and super fast forward. My businesses started growing exponentially through social media. I was doubling my revenue year over year. I moved from the place. I did not want to live to a beautiful place in Calabasas, California. And, um, yeah. And your boyfriend

Jeffrey: Comes knocking on your door and says, oh, I love

Katie: You much better. Man comes knocking on her door.

Bridget: That is the truth. But that happened, that happened later. So, um, Katie, Katie knows, but that happened later. Uh, but basically my friends and my colleagues were like, what are you doing? Like what is going on with you? Like how, how are you getting all these clients and how are you getting all this business? And how are you, you know, creating this money and revenue and all this stuff. And I realized I started helping my friends and helping my colleagues. And I had this realization that I had gotten so good at social media and online marketing at that point. And I love helping people. I love seeing people win. It's. One of my favorite things in the world is to see someone win. And I said, you know what? I'm going to put these two hands together. And this was now seven years ago, almost seven years ago.

Bridget: My current company amp up, my biz was born and I transitioned out of like kind of dabbling and all the other stuff I was doing. And I went like full on into just helping businesses and entrepreneurs grow using social media. And the rest is history. I started as a solo preneur. And now Katie, cause I just hired two more people. I have a team of 17 people. Yeah. Like I know it's, it's a little so I'm like, it's a little surreal to me to be completely honest. I have a team of 17 like genius marketers and graphic designers and social media, marketers and web designers and the whole gamut of online marketing. Awesome. And, uh, this is in here and here we are. And then Katie said, come on my podcast and that's the whole story.

Jeffrey: That's the whole story. There's no more to the story. That's it. I want to touch on something that you said, you said you did code some kind of curious guy come from a coding background too. So I'm curious. What kind of code were you writing?

Bridget: So I was primarily Lotus notes, domino with the little visual, basic, a little Sybase, a little Oracle, a little JavaScript.

Jeffrey: Oh boy. That's fun stuff.

Bridget: It is not fun at all.

Bridget: It's the coding

Bridget: Is the antithesis of fun. That's all I have to say. I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I worked in corporate. I learned a lot. It helped shape who I am. It helped shape me as a business owner, but writing code is the devil's work. I always say

Jeffrey: That when you, when you know what you don't want, you know what you do want. So it was a kind of a blessing in disguise, right? It could have been,

Bridget: It was, it was,

Katie: I mean, it got you to where you are today. So you know this there's some, some good Matt. I mean,

Bridget: Oh, I'd say that all I say that all the time, those that dangerous, that whole butterfly effect thing, but I'm sure it's essentially true. That, that dangerous thing of like, well, what would you change about your past? And it's the answer is nothing because I love my life so much. So like all the hardship, all the trials, all the, you know, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. I wouldn't change any of it because my life is flippity, Duda. Amazing. My life is amazing. I wouldn't change anything.

Katie: Love it, love it. So good. So it's funny, I'm listening to your story and you're like, and you know, I failed forward and you know, I didn't quite know what I was doing. And I'm like, oh, you're like describing my social media journey. Right. So I've picked some things up along the way, but, um, I re I want to get into like, what are the biggest mistakes that you see people make? Because I, I see it a lot in, in our clients. And sometimes, um, even on our team discussions, you know, uh, matters of opinion, is this the right thing or the wrong thing to do with social media? So what are some of the mistakes that you see over and over again that are essentially making people hit their head against a brick wall with no results

Jeffrey: As Katie made that.

Bridget: So the result of right. So the mistakes, the mistakes that Katie has made, no. Um, so I would say that the number one thing, and, you know, Katie mentioned this in my beautiful intro. Thank you, Katie. Uh, but I truly, at this point after being an entrepreneur for 11 years and owning my company for seven, I've literally worked with thousands, thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners. And so I've, I've boiled it down to like, you know, the top two or three mistakes that if you are doing this, I just, I beg of you to stop because it will change everything for you. So, number one is inconsistency. If I, if I had a dollar for every person, no, if I, if I had a dollar for every person who tells me something, like I went live every day for 30 days and I didn't get one single client and I'm like, oh, okay. Like who taught you that strategy? That's not even a strategy, but okay. Um, or, uh, the, the thing about like, oh no, I tried social media. It didn't work for me. And I'm like, oh, okay. Tell me what you did. Like, tell me what you tried. And

Jeffrey: They're like, huh? Uh huh.

Bridget: They're like I posted every day or I posted three to four. I just, like, I heard someone say I posted three to four times a week and I did that for two months, two months. And I did not get any like hardly any new business. I mean, I've heard this, like, it's, it's ridiculous. How many people say this? So I tell people to treat their social media marketing, like drinking water. It is not, this is not a, short-term like drink a gallon of water one day and then be like, and I'm done. I did it. Right. Like social media will never be thirsty again.

Jeffrey: Right. I will hide that. Achieved hydration,

Bridget: Duration rates. I mean, it really is. You have to think about it like drinking water it's it sounds so cheesy, but it's so true. It's like little sips throughout the day, every day, every week, every month, every year. And then I see people, this was actually a fun example is I had a speaker client of ours that we were working with and he was also a relative friend of mine. And so he had some trust in the process and I just, I would, you know, give him strategies and teach him strategies and work on him with these. And he was like, oh, I'm just not seeing the results I want. I'm just not seeing the results I want. And I was like, just like, keep going. Like just, you got to trust me to some extent that like, if you're because you are seeing your followers increase and you are seeing your engagement increase and you are seeing your list increase, I know it's little, but keep going, keep going, keep going.

Bridget: Now it doesn't always take this long for everyone, but it was, I wanted to tell the true story. It was two years later of being really consistent on social media. He booked the largest speaking gig that he ever ever had in his life. He was on stage with Anthony Robbins and pit bull and Suzy Orman and Robert Kiyosaki. And that year, he more than quadrupled his revenue and he was already making over a million a year. So he came and he more than quadrupled his revenue that year, kind of like primarily because of that speaking opportunity. And he got that speaking opportunity as a direct result of his social media. And he called me up and he's like, oh yeah, now I get it.

Jeffrey: This is how it is how it works.

Bridget: Right. So, and again, it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to take years. But in that example, it did, it was, you know, two years of like lit little growth, little incremental growth. And then all of a sudden like jackpot and he gets it and he got it. And I tell my clients this, and I tell my students this, you know, there will come a time and it might be, it might be three months from now, or it might be 12 months from now, or it might be 24 months from now, but you will be, you will say, oh my God, like, whoa, like social media is amazing. Um, I know that for myself and clients that I've worked with for a lot, for at least any decent amount of time, they will, many of them will say is, is especially now like during slash post COVID, they will say that they easily get like 80, 90% of their clients and customers directly through social media. Yeah. Done. Yep. That's another one.

Jeffrey: Yeah. And I think I want to touch on that because I think that is a big, a mindset, mindset shift. That's really important. And a lot of people, including myself when I was starting out, um, I'm probably not the only one in the world that's made this mistake, but you kind of really focused on the hockey stick. And everyone else is saying like, oh my God. And this is where everything changed. And they showed their bank statement, records, graphs, and it's like this hockey stick and it, or their, or their social media following. And it spikes up at a third. And everyone's focused on that spike thinking, when is it going to be my turn to spike? When is it going to change for me when, and I'm hearing that the shift is to stop thinking about the spike and focus on the day-to-day activity that will eventually lead to some kind of spike or some kind of shift. But when you have your mindset and your attention out there in the future, then you're missing kind of the opportunities that are right in front of you. Is that safe to say,

Bridget: Uh, I think that's a thousand percent safe to say and people, uh, people talk about like these you're so right. People talk about these quantum leaps and they, everyone tells the version of their story and I'm sure I do too. Right? You focus on like, I was almost homeless and now I'm a millionaire. Right. But one day it's amazing. But the reality is exactly what you're saying, but there does you reach a tipping point. This is what I've learned, not for myself, but also from other business owners and entrepreneurs I've worked with that. It is it's those little, it's like these tiny little wins and another tiny win and another tiny win. And then you were on the phone that this, I won't say who this literally just happened to me this morning. You're on the phone talking with someone who is talking about ad budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

Bridget: And I will not tell you in this moment what the ad admin fee is for that, but it's good. It's real good. Um, and, and it's not, it's not an a, um, I'll share with you a little bit later. I know I have so many stories to tell, but I'll share my favorite social media story with you. You know, some at some point here, but it's not that moment. It wasn't this one phone call that brings in the old, you know, oh my gosh. Now I tried quadrupled my revenue and now I, 10 times my revenue, it wasn't that one phone call. It's the years of committed work that people put into their business that can turn into that moment.

Katie: So I'm so glad you said that because I think this is one of the things that bugs me about online marketing, um, online marketers, right? It's like I just made $625,000 in the last 15 minutes. And I wrote a free report who wants it. And that crap drives me crazy because you did not just make that money in 15 minutes after sitting on your butt, not doing anything. In fact, I don't even know if you really made that money, but if you did great, it certainly wasn't in the 15 minutes, there were a lot of micro steps and action that was being taken consistency. There was strategy. Right. And so, yeah, I, I feel like people read those headlines and they expect these instant results and that's our society anyway, you know, on demand, Netflix on demand music, right. On demand, pretty much everything. And, um, and they just forget, like you didn't get a high school diploma, you know, it took you 12 years

Jeffrey: To get there. Right? Yeah. That's like graduating. Be like, dude, I just got a diploma in 20 seconds. Yeah. I didn't even have to know how

Katie: Well it, you know, I mean, you entered the system without any teeth and you came out with a straight teeth, right. Like what have happened? Uh, yeah. So anyway, I just think it's a, it's such a metaphor for it's how you do social media. It's how you do online business. That it is a step-by-step action, you know, strategy, consistency and patience. And then knowing that before you made 600,000, you made 100,000 and then you got to two 50 and with each benchmark, hopefully you've celebrated. Right. My first $10,000 a month, I can remember like it was yesterday and it was in like 2015. I remember the feeling of that celebration. That was a huge benchmark. Me. Yeah. Used to be a former teacher, like 10 K and a month. Oh my God. Like it blew my mind, you know? Okay. Get that in a year. It's not that I can get that twice in a year.

Jeffrey: Yes. That's a really good year.

Katie: Uh, so, all right. So let's, let's move it along. So the biggest mistake, number one was inconsistency. And just kind of being like, I took a sip of water. I shouldn't have to do it ever again in my life. And we're saying, Hey. Yeah. All right. All right. What's another

Bridget: Number two. This is one of my favorites is spaghetti versus strategy. I also call this the pasta prayer.

Katie: I love that. [inaudible] most

Bridget: Again, most maybe, maybe you listening right here right now. I don't know. Most entrepreneurs, business owners are doing their social a little bit like this. They're like, Hey, oh, you know, I'm gonna put up a meme. Oh, I have an idea. I'm going to do a video. Oh, wait. No, no. I have another idea. Uh, how about a poll who I'm going to go live? Oh, what about it real? Hmm. Maybe I should do a dance. I mean, they're like literally seriously, like, like just throwing crap on the wall and then they, they kind of put their hands together and they say, please, oh, please. Gods of social media, please let something that I just threw up, bring me more business and

Bridget: Right. Can it. And a lot of it and a lot of it. Right.

Bridget: And it, it just doesn't work. It never works. I've never seen it work. It just doesn't work. It's not how we do the rest of our life. Right. Could you imagine, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make dinner. I'm gonna make a lasagna. I dunno. I'm gonna throw some olives in here. And uh, maybe some, uh, I heard pasta goes in lasagna. I'm going to throw this, this pasta in. And I don't know. I like cheese, maybe this, right? Like maybe this fed cheese will go in carrots. Oh, the carrots seriously. Like, this is how people are doing their social media today. And so what, you know, what I, what I beg of you? What I, what I recommend to you for your highest good is whether you learn it or whether you hire someone to do it for you or what, whatever that looks like for you, you must have an actual proven strategy, like period.

Bridget: Like otherwise you are wasting your time. Otherwise you kind of might as well not do it. But back to sort of 0.1, I tell people that choosing not to do social media in today's world is literally like choosing not to drink water. Like it's, it would be insane to be a business owner today that does not have a social media presence. Uh, 67%. For those of you who like statistics, 67% of consumers make buying decisions based on your online presence. Amen. Hello? Like, hello. So you, so you are either attracting your ideal client and increasing your revenue, or you're repelling your ideal client when they go to your social. And they're like, oh, they have three followers and a bunch of random stuff on their social, like

Katie: Wow. Or worst is, oh, they haven't posted since 2018,

Bridget: Right? Like, is this, is this business even in business anymore? Like, are they even open anymore? You know, or somewhere in between where you're not being found, you're leaving a ton of money on the table. So it really is about sitting down again, learn it or pay someone to do it for you, but having a well crafted strategy that takes into account, you know, content mix and your goals and your business, and like all the other pieces of the puzzle, they're going to get you all that algorithm love it. People call it algorithm packs. I call it algorithm love. Right? All the things, hashtags and keywords and emojis, and when to post and how to post, like all the things. Yeah.

Katie: Whether or not to include a link. Where do you include the link? How often can you include the link? Like these are things that I learned from you when we first got connected is really understanding and respecting the algorithm. Because if you're like, oh, whatever, I don't care. Well, that's the rules of the game. And these people own the game. So if you don't play by their rules, they just block you. But then you don't even know you're being blocked, but then your quote, unquote strategy isn't working and no one's seeing your stuff. And then you get so mad that no one's seeing your stuff. And it's like, well, you kind of broke the rules. And that was a lot of what was happening with me and why I don't like some of these platforms I'm softening how I really feel. Um, because you know, I was using words that their algorithm didn't like, and I was just like, well, I don't know what to tell you.

Katie: This is what I do. Right. High ticket sales was at the time. And that's what I do. So whatever I'm going to keep posting with the term high ticket sales. And it was like, well, let us show you, what's going to happen. When you keep using those words, you're going to break community standards. We're going to delete your stuff. We're not going to have to show your links. And I got sort of put in Facebook jail without anyone even telling me. Right. But anyway, so it's just respecting understanding the algorithm, how to play, where can you play? Um, yeah, all of that stuff just matters, all

Bridget: Things. And it it's, it. Some people you can love social media, you can hate social media. Like I really don't care. The reality. The reality is over 80% of the population is active on social media. Today. We are at 3.5 billion active users on social media. So love it. Hate it. It doesn't matter if you do it right. No, if you don't have an effective social media strategy, I can pretty much guarantee that you are just leaving money on the table. You just are. It's just the reality.

Katie: Yep. All right. So I think there's one more mistake that people are making when it comes to social media, because they might be doing all the right things. They may take your social media success academy. They've dialed it all in. They look amazing. Their Insta is a checkerboard,

Jeffrey: And then that should, that should give them all the business.

Katie: And then, then they make a million dollars. Is that what happens?

Bridget: That's a hundred percent, right? Yeah. If your Instagram is a checkerboard, you will make a million dollars. No, no one take that soundbite soundbite. No. The last mistake is thinking that social media is the magic bullet and that you can just like put your even online marketing. I can just put up, you can put up your website and you can, you know, get 10,000 followers. Right. And then the millions of dollars will reign upon you. Like it just isn't true. And I wish it was true as much as you wish it was true because I would be a billionaire by now, if that's how it worked. So the other, the other piece of the puzzle is that it all works together. You must have, as a business owner, a proper funnel, you must have a followup system. You must nurture and love on your leads and your prospects and your clients and your customers and what social media and online marketing is so good at doing is getting more eyeballs on your awesome. And then, and like bringing them to the door, like bringing them in, bringing them to the door, bringing them in the door so you can start to love on them. And then what, right? Like, what is your funnel? What are you selling? Where are you leading them? What is your website and your landing pages and your nurture series. It all works together. And thinking that any one of those things is going to make you a kajillion air tomorrow is you're kidding yourself.

Katie: If that works, tastes funny. Cause you know, the listeners can't see us, but we're on zoom and Jeffrey and I are like nodding. Yes, yes. You're speaking. Yeah. It's like, you got to have an offer. You have to have a funnel and, and all the things. And so one of the things I loved that I learned from you, Bridget was the whole point of social media is to get people, to get people off

Katie: Social media, right?

Bridget: Yeah. It's the biggest, it's the biggest like secret it is. It's the dirty little secret of social media is yet. Everyone's like, what's the purpose of social media. And everyone's going to say, build a following, build my brand, connect with clients, connect with customers, you know, show my authority, show my expertise. But like they're going to have all these things. And the dirty little secret of social media is that as a business owner, the secret purpose of social media is to get people off of social media because of babies and puppies and kittens, because social media is a very distracting place. And we live in short attention, span theater. Like people have that. You have moments, you have moments to capture someone. So you must have lead magnets and funnels and beautiful websites and all those things to get people from, from social media, from their world into your world as quickly as possible.

Bridget: But again, it's a, there's a theory specific strategy around all of this. So, you know, I D I don't want to misspeak. And, and have you walk away from this podcast thinking, well then on every post, I'm just going to tell people to go to my website because that also, I promise you will not work. There's a, there's a, there's a big strategy around how all of this works to effectively get people off of social media so that they're so thrilled that they left their babies and their puppies and their kittens on social media to come to and experience your offer experience what they're experiencing off social with you.

Jeffrey: And I have a house full of girls. So I know that the allure of puppies and kittens on social media is, is a powerful, powerful allure. So get them off. That's going to be a little tricky.

Katie: So, all right. We've talked about mistakes. Yes. And we're like, don't be doing those. And I just, I just laugh because I do think it's important to take action to recognize your mistakes. So if you're stuck in the, I hate social, you're not doing anything, you're not learning. So I'm proud of my mistakes and I've learned from them. And, you know, I've learned, like I said, a lot from you, but you know, what, what are the critical elements that people yeah, exactly. Let's quit the mistakes. And let's talk about, give me, give me the goods. So how

Bridget: Do you do it? Okay. So I'm going to share with you first, because I'm a big believer in, if you don't know the why, you'll never do the, how. So I'm going to share with you my old time. Number one, favorite social media story, it's short and so worth it. So, uh, I was at a conference. I myself was on my phone, scrolling through my social and I was not paying attention to the speaker. Don't tell anyone, don't tell us, don't tell the speaker. And I saw someone post that they were looking for someone to run some YouTube ads, some social media ads. And they're like, Hey, do you do you know anyone? And I'm like, yeah, me and I, you know, I kind of forgot about it. And he messaged back and said, great. Like tell, you know, tell me more. And I'm at a conference.

Bridget: So I was like, ah, you know what, I'm going to keep this simple. So I just messaged him back. And I said, Hey, because here's the thing. He was a cold, cold ice cold lead, right. This wasn't a referral. This wasn't someone from a mastermind. This is a completely random stranger on social. So I didn't, you know, I wanted to be at my conference. So I literally messaged him back. I said, yeah, here's my website here links to all my social media. Let me know if you have any questions. That's all I sent him, uh, you know, 15, 20, 30 minutes later, maybe he messages back and says, can you get on a phone call? And so I was like, sure. So I out of breath, the next break, I sprinted to my hotel room. I picked up the phone and I was like, Hey, what can I tell you?

Bridget: And he said, here's my budget. Send me a contract. I was like, what? Now, today, now today I would have been like, fantastic, what's your credit card number? But this was a little, I was a little bit of a younger entrepreneur. And so I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was kind of like, oh, let me back up here a minute. Don't you need to talk to me like, don't you want to talk about this more? Like you don't know me. And he said, and to this, I wish I were recording this phone conversation. He said, and I quote, I looked at your website. I looked through all of your social media. You're obviously a pro, this is my budget. Send me a contract. And in that moment, talk about the hot, like, this is why I also want to share this. Cause talk about the hockey puck in a two minute conversation, his budget was huge in a two minute conversation. I created tens of thousands of dollars of revenue for my company in two minutes. But of course it wasn't in two minutes, right? This is the

Bridget: Story. It was in the years I spent building my social, which I'm going to give you the elements right now. But I wanted like, I want to really make sure that, you know, it, I drive this point home because I really think it's so important. It's all the things working together that leads to those two minute, a hundred thousand dollar conversations. Yep. Amen. All right. So number one, children, get out your pens and papers. Number one is your organic social media production. This is what people think of when they think social media. This is your day in, day out, week in, week out posting to your chosen social media platforms. Again, using consistency, using a good strategy, using a good content mix, respecting the algorithm, all the things, but you must have a good, solid social media presence. That's on brand, right? Like what's your style guide? What's your color palette? What are your fonts? Do all your banners match to all your social media handles match, right? These are the conscious and subconscious, um, indicators to people who are looking at your social. Is, is this a professional or not? Is this company real or not? It's all. It's that organic social media production. That's number one.

Jeffrey: I think that's huge. I think that's, and I think it's overlooked by a lot of people because it, like you said, it triggers that subconscious perspective or assumption someone might have when they just start clicking through your profile, clicking to your website and finding that it all matches. And it's all got the same colors and the same font and the same logo and the same messaging, suddenly their unconscious subconscious perception of who you are and how professional you are is at the top. Now you're at the top of whoever else they were looking for

Bridget: That a thousand percent. And if you, I mean, I do, I do this when I'm looking for, you know, a new place to get a facial or a massage, um, people will cyber sock. You like, I promise you. And I talk a lot about return on investment and return on ad spend when I talk to clients and students and right. It's not just about leads and prospects and clients and customers. It's the perception you have on of yourself online of your business online, because online perception is reality. There's no other way to tell if, you know, if you're a pro or not. So that's number one is like your organic search. It's like the matrix. Yeah. Your organic social media has to be tight. Right? Right. So that has to be like really tight. Number two, my friends. And I don't want you to get caught up on this, but it's, again, it's a real thing is followers.

Bridget: And I'm going to talk about this in two ways. One is you want to have more eyeballs on your awesome, if you or your team, or you have hired someone to do your social media and your paying because you're paying one way or another Katie, you and I talk about this time or money or both. Yeah. There is no way around it. You either have to spend your, or your money or a little bit of both to achieve anything in business. There's no way around this. Uh, so if you are spending your time or money or both doing this beautiful organic social media production, and no one is seeing it and you're cutting, you're missing, you're missing the you're missing it a little bit. So building followers, building a community of more people that are going to see all this wonderful content that you're putting out is number one.

Bridget: But number two is the reality that how someone sees you online and how many followers you have is going to affect their perception of you, your professionalism, how good you are, whether people can help, they, whether they can help themselves or not. If they go to your Insta or your Facebook, and you have, you know, 34 followers, there is, there's just this feeling of like, oh, they must not be that good at what they do because no one is following them. Right. There's this perception. And whether it's right or not, it probably is mostly not right, but it is the truth. So I do encourage people to invest in, you know, paid and unpaid follower campaigns to grow your following one, to get more eyeballs on your awesome and to, to, you know, elevate

Bridget: The perception, social proof. Thank you. Yep.

Bridget: Um, number three, pens and papers students. Um, number three is, you know, what we're doing here is humans engagement. There is this, th there's still this tendency on line to not fully invest in your online relationships. And I will tell you, especially if you're small, it is such a gift because you are probably not getting a thousand comments a day. When you're getting a thousand comments a day, you're going to have the revenue to hire someone to answer those for you. Right? But in this moment, truly engage with your audience. Talk to them, answer them back, ask them questions when they, when they give you a compliment, don't just give it a thumbs up. Don't just leave it, get, I mean, can you imagine if this is what you were like in real life, someone would, he walks up to you and says, oh my God, you look beautiful today. And you just smile and give them a thumbs up, like

Jeffrey: Put your hands together and then walk away.

Bridget: Like it would be so weird. No, you would say like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. And I got this dress, that unique vintage, and this is where I get my hair done. And right. You would have a conversation with them. So it's no, it's no online like engage. And for respect the algorithm for respect my authority, you must engage as quickly as possible. Now, obviously you're not going to be online 24 7. You're not going to be on your social 24 7, but as quickly as possible, like every comment respond to every comment, respond to every message, like as quickly as you can. It's, it's great for the algorithm. And it's great for your future clients.

Bridget: Huge, huge number four. All right. This is big. My friends, you got to do it. Sometimes you must donate to the Zuckerberg fund. I know, but here's the thing. Um, well, so for those, for those of you who are like, what, so mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, that's my, you know, that's who, we're all paying. If you have to explain a joke, it's not funny. I know, but, um, but there we, we are, um, so social media in many, many ways has become pay to play, but you know what? So is running a television ad. So it was running a radio ad. So it was producing a podcast, cost money. So everything you do in business, right time and or money and or both. So I highly recommend having a regular boost budget. So every single week, particularly for Facebook and Instagram, you can feed the beast, feed the beast, get targeted eyeballs on your content, just pay to have it, just pay to have it seen.

Bridget: It will pay you back exponentially. If you have your funnels and your lead magnets and your nurture series, if you have all that set up, my, myself and my clients and my students were thrilled to spend money on social media advertising because it comes back to us a hundred times over a thousand times over. So number one is have a regular boost budget. Number two is I am here to tell you that there is no better bang for your buck today than social media advertising. It is a man. It is so highly targeted. Um, I know you've probably heard this before. You know, social media is big brother and they just are, and as a human, you can feel any way you want about that. As a business owner, I invite you to embrace it because what this means is you can put your ad in front of the exact right person. Who's interested in your ad. I mean, it does, it doesn't get any better than that. It does. It's pretty magical. It is magical. It works on me. I just bought three pairs of Betsy Johnson shoes yesterday because social media knows that I like sparkly things.

Katie: Oh, my I'm such a sucker for abs. Um, yeah, I'm

Bridget: Such a sucker. Um, but in the best way possible. Uh, so I, I highly highly recommend, um, I mean, I could tell you story after story of using, using social media advertising, and I'm going to give you a caveat here. If you don't know how to run social media ads, please hire an expert.

Katie: I was going to say that I was still, I was like, it only works. If you know what the F you're doing,

Bridget: Please hire an expert. I have seen so

Bridget: Many people throw their money away, flushed their money down the toilet. And then the flip side of that coin is, um, and I know we're going to talk more about this, um, coming up because, you know, it's here, we here we are with the launch squad. So

Katie: We're going to make this launch applicable, right? So

Bridget: We're going to make this launch applicable, but there is no better way. There is no better way to fill your webinars and your events and your live launches. There just isn't, I've worked with so many clients, you know, just to bring like thousands of people to their launches and or hundreds of highly qualified, you know, thousands of qualified people, hundreds of qualified people to their launches where, you know, their, their return on ad spend is literally like 10, 10 X and above.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah. I remember having a coach asked me if you knew that by spending eight grand on Facebook, ads would yield you 40 grand or more would you do it? And I'm like, of course, but, but at the time for her to be like, I'll take eight grand for ads, right? I'm like how much now? Right. So it is a, it's a mindset game for sure. It is a mindset because we can see that the more we put in, um, the better results we're getting, even in terms of, of learning and building the audience and just seeing what's working, if you don't spend enough to figure out what's working, you're still shooting yourself in the foot.

Jeffrey: I love the analogy of the broken slot machine. I think this is, I don't know if James heard it from somewhere, but James wasn't, this is what I heard it from James Wedmore, where he's like, you know, how much would you budget? If you walked into a casino and you found a broken slot machine, that every time you put a dollar in, you would get two out, how much would you budget for that?

Katie: Hmm. I've never heard that.

Jeffrey: What, what, what, nothing. How many dollars do I have? Keep putting them in shovel that

Jeffrey: in there. All of it. Right. All of it.

Bridget: Um, I just finished a launch with a client and we did a $15,000 ad spend and she, uh, crossed $300,000 in revenue all day, every day, all day, every day, like that

Jeffrey: Begins to be when, so here's the thing. Like I know a lot of people come to us and I'll do consulting for local businesses here. And they're like, oh, how much should I budget for the billboard or for the newspaper or things like that. And it's like, you know, and even clients who do online stuff too, they're like, well, how do I know my budget? How do I know my budget? And it's like, don't even think about that. Don't even think about that until you know that you've got a system in place and how much your customer is worth and how you know how to make the money on the back end when they're in your funnel, don't even think about your ads yet. Don't, don't do it. And they're like, well, I don't really have a funnel and my offer, well, I don't know how much my client's worth. I'm like, okay. Then you're not even the word budget for ad spend does not live in your vocabulary right now. Yeah. And that's the best

Bridget: When you have, I have these conversations too, like, you know, what's your closing rate, what's your, you know, like how, like how, w what, you know, anything like how many people, how many conversations do you have to have to close one client? Or, you know, right. If you invited people to a webinar, oh, you had a hundred people there. How many people bought and when, when clients are like, oh yeah, I don't, I don't know. I have no idea. Right. Then I'm like, okay, or this is the, this is the best, their price point is like, I'm going to send my program for a dollar. And then like, so you understand the, you need to have a million people buy your program to make a million dollars. Right. That's

Bridget: Right. That's always their goal. They're like, my goal

Bridget: Is a hundred thousand dollars on this launch, and I'm going to sell my $97 like program. Now, now here's the thing I don't want. I don't want to misspeak because there are people out there in the marketplace doing so much volume on their $47 a month programs or their $97 program. But these are not people who are like testing the water. These are people who have huge lists, huge followings. They're already like nearly a household name. Like you, all, everyone knows who they are in the space. And they can go out and say, Hey, you want this thing? It's 200 bucks. And yeah, like 10,000 people buy it because that's the size of their list. And that's the, that's their influence. And that's their reach because they spent the time that we've been talking about this whole time, building all of this out, however, to your point, to my point, to our point, that idea of like, I want to make $10,000 and I have a $97 product. Right. And I have like a thousand dollar ad spend budget. I'm like how, where it doesn't work. That math doesn't work. So, um, but,

Katie: But a thousand dollars feel so comfortable.

Jeffrey: You're going to spend $10,000 to make $1,000.

Bridget: Yeah. It's yeah. It's so much.

Bridget: And I, I actually have like an ads calculator that I use with my ad clients. That is exactly that I'm like, okay, what's the price point? What's your closing rate? How many, like, what's your show up rate, right. Having a thousand people register for your webinar does not mean that a thousand people are going to show up, see

Bridget: Your webinar. So true. Hold pieces

Bridget: Of the puzzle. And then like, what's your, you know, how much do you want to make? This is what you need to spend on ads. And pretty much like without fail, people are like, whoa, like that's a lot, you know, that's a lot of money. And, but to your point, Jeffrey, it's not, it's not a lot of money, right. Spend, spend 15,000, make 200,000 or spend, you know, I had a client who was spending like $50,000 a month on ads, but she was consistently closing a hundred to 200,000. So it was like, literally the slot machine example spend 50, make a hundred, spend 50, make a hundred, spend 50, make a hundred. And she's like, I'll do this all day. I don't

Katie: Care. Yep. Yep. So there you go. As long as it works, doesn't work. So you've got to figure it out. Yep.

Bridget: And the number five critical element we've already really talked about this, but it's so important is it's, it's quote unquote, not social media, but you must have a proper funnel, proper lead magnets. You must have all the little pieces in place to actually bring people, you know, bring them down into your funnel and turn all of those leads and prospects into clients and paying customers. And that, that doesn't really happen on social socialists, where they see you, socials, where you build your know love, trust factor. They see you. They get to know you. They love you. They trust you. And you, then you get them off of social media, into your funnel, into your lead magnets, into your nurture series, into your offers. And that's where you make money like this

Katie: Full circle. Oh, I'm like, Hey, I happen to know a squad that can do that. Very thing for you. Do you see why we're such great compatible partners here?

Bridget: She said, send me her, send me her number, Katie [inaudible]. Yeah, yeah,

Katie: Yeah. Um, oh my God. I love it. All right. So I know we gotta wrap this up. We're kind of nearing an hour here, but let's talk about filling our events with social media ads. Cause I know a lot of people like to ask me and I'm always like, oh God, don't ask me this boosting versus running ads, like boosting a post versus, you know, so, oh, I did a post that I'm telling people about my virtual retreat. Should I boost it? Should I run ads to it? You know? So what do you, what do you say to people that are just kind of like learning about this or figuring out, um, oh, I can't do this alone. I'm going to have to hire someone. What's the conversation. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Bridget: I'm going to, I'm going to say a couple. I'm going to say a couple things. I'm going to give you a couple tips. I know we're, we're nearing our hour here, but one is for filling an event for filling a webinar for filling a launch. Um, that is ads that is advertising. As a matter of fact, do not boost posts at the same time. You're running ads because guess who you're competing against for your, for your ideal client, avatar yourself,

Jeffrey: Right?

Bridget: You're like this boost over here, I'm going to spend a hundred dollars and I'm going to spend 10,000 on my ads. Like what? You're, you're going after the same people. So stop. So don't do that.

Bridget: Okay. Everyone love that. Number two is

Bridget: For real, truly hire someone. I promise you it is worth the investment and it's so cheesy, but like you wouldn't fix your own car. You wouldn't be your own doctor. You wouldn't be your own dentist. I know it's so cheesy. And you've heard that a million times, but the reality is you wouldn't, you wouldn't perform surgery on yourself because you don't know how to do it. So unless you happen to be a social media ads expert,

Bridget: Like you can do it then fantastic. Then it's fine.

Bridget: But otherwise, other than that, for sure, hire someone. Um, number three is, uh, you know, really vet that person you're hiring. And you want to make sure that you are hitting three different audiences with your ads. Now I'm not going to get super into the technical piece of this puzzle, but I think it's important. I want to put this bee in your bonnet so that when you hire someone, part of their vetting will be, are they going to hit these three audiences? So one is your cold audience, which is your target. That's your target market. Now that might be demographics. That might be psychographics. That might be, uh, targeting people who are fans of other people who are your competitors. You can target the fans of your competitors, but this, these are people who do not know you. This is cold, cold traffic, but you want to try that as, as one possible audience, another possible audience is a warm audience.

Bridget: So your warm audience might be people who follow you on. They might be people who watch your videos. They might be, um, uh, you can build something called a look alike audience in social media, people that look like people who've purchased from you before. So this is not your ice cold target. These are people who have, are maybe starting to get to know you and love you and trust you. And that's it. That's the second audience that you want to target. And then the third audience is your hot audience. This, my friend is your list. This is why it's so important to build a list. This is why it's so important to build a following and build a list and have lead magnets and get people to opt into your funnel. Because you are going to say, Hey, you've already raised your hand and said, you wanted to work with me here.

Bridget: Here's a way you can do it, come and work with me. So those are like the three, like I w like I said, it's not, I'm not telling you this. So you're going to run out and try to build these audiences yourself. I please don't. Um, but I want to put this bee in your bonnet. Like, those are the three audiences that you want to target with your ads. And then if you've never run ads before I say, start low and go slow, do not start. I mean, unless you're like a billionaire, but you know, don't, don't start with a $50,000 a month budget. Like, please don't you need to like, you know, build up your a season, your Facebook pixel, right? This is all very technical and boring. This is why you hire someone you need to use in your Facebook pixel. You need to like build up, you know, you need to let Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Pinterest, and you can run ads on all these platforms. You need to let them get to know you first, before you start dumping in the big dollars. But ultimately social media advertising will work. It's the best way I know to fill a launch bar, none period. End of story. Um, so I highly recommend you run ads. I highly recommend you hire a professional and then, you know, start low, go slow, see how it goes.

Jeffrey: So we're not gonna take out a second mortgage and then just hand that over to mark Zuckerberg. No, no, I know.

Katie: Noted. Noted. Yeah. Um, no, but I do, you know, talking all things launches. It's like we say over and over, like, it's, it's a lot of work, you know, we're never going to say, oh, like it's nothing, but that's partly why the launch squad came to be because it's a lot of work and I think you need a lot of support and why spend all that time doing all that work to then not have an audience to sell it to. Right. So our recommendation for launching is to not run ads your first time through, let's just do a soft launch. Let's make sure it worked on a small level and don't waste money on ads. Right. And then when it works, then you can turn up the dial on the audience, audience volume and, you know, get more, more eyes on it. But any time they're running like a second launch or more, um, we recommend that they run ads to fill it because, um, organic marketing, it works. It works very well. I've got my business to six figures with only organic marketing. Um, and that's exhausting and

Jeffrey: There's, and there's a reason to have a test flight, you know? I mean, there's a reason they, they do test flights before loading the plane with passengers and saying, okay, let's see if this works. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of bugs that can be worked out when you have an organic launch to a, you know, a smaller audience. And when that, when you proved it worked, uh, the flood gates may open.

Katie: Yeah. That's when you can really, you know, like you can really plan for how much money, you know, you'll make, right. It's that understanding because you have your numbers, you have your close rate, you have your price point and all of that. And then you are more willing, I think, to spend the money in ads, that's going to do you right. Instead of being so afraid of it, I love

Bridget: That. I've never really had that like as a rule or an SOP, but I love that. Like, I, I feel like I want to adopt that because there are so many, well, there's so many people who come to me and that are like, I want to, you know, I want to run ads. And again, you know, like I was sharing before they don't, they don't have any of that other data. They've never launched anything before. This is their first time out of the gate. They've never run an ad before. And it's

Katie: Yeah. They went to someone's live launch and they were like, I want to do that. And it's like, well, we're not going to go with the deep end just yet put on your life jacket. And let's, let's learn the doggy paddle. Right. Like, yeah. It's, you know, that's, that's the thing.

Bridget: I think it's, I think it's highlight reel. I

Bridget: Think it's genius. I love it. And it gives, and it gives me a, you know, that little soundbite of saying, is this your, have you ever done this before? Or you haven't. Okay. So why don't you do a soft launch first? Yeah. Work out all the bugs and then let's blow it up.

Katie: I love that head on over to Katie Jeffrey. And Aleia at the lunch squad. They'll take care

Katie: Of you, right. They'll launch with

Katie: You once without it. And then we can partner together and run ads. Perfect formula. Yep. It's a match made in heaven, Bridget. That's why we brought you in perfect rock star. You're a rock star. Thank you so much. This has been awesome. Are there, um, like tell us where our listeners can connect with you first and foremost. Yeah. Yes.

Bridget: So first and foremost, you are so lucky that you're listening to this podcast right here. And right now, because I have a free five day master class coming up that is off the chain. Katie's been to it. She knows. Um, it is, the bar is off

Katie: The chain. Very informative, amazing.

Bridget: It's a behind the scenes secrets to social media success. Uh, if you think, if you think you learned anything during this hour, like buckle up, it's five days of amazing and you can register for that@masterclassdotampupmybizdotcommasterclassdotampupmybizbiz.com. So run don't walk, join, join me for, join me for five days. It's super fun and super informative and will totally transform your social media. And in gen in general, you can find me everywhere on social at amp up my biz, and you can go to my website, amp up my biz.com.

Jeffrey: Awesome. Awesome. We're definitely going to put those links in the show notes and they'll have all the access to you and, and much more and more and much more. Is there, is there any final thoughts you want to spit out here to call this episode complete? Have we covered everything? Um,

Bridget: The only, the only thing I do, I do have a final thought, and this is certainly not my quote, but begin it now. Begin it. Now people it's just so true wherever you are in business. And I'm not saying begin it now and dump a hundred thousand dollars in ads or begin it now right now. Right? Don't read. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about believe in yourself. Choose to take action. They it's been said that knowledge is power and that's total crap applied. Knowledge is power.

Bridget: So you must

Bridget: Begin. And if you are not, if you haven't done anything on social media, just start, start, come to my masterclass, connect with me, learn something, but whatever it is, begin it now.

Jeffrey: Ah, love it. So good. So good. Thank you Bridget, for spending so much time with us today. I know we've kind of monopolized that a bit and we'll definitely let you get back to your day. Uh, but thank you so much, so much for your time and thank you dear listener for joining us. And if you enjoy this episode, please leave us a five star review, hit that subscribe button, go share some kind words on that, whatever platform you listen to this podcast on and, uh, go check out all the show notes and how to connect with [email protected] forward slash episode 34. Thank you so much.

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