Sam Vander Wielen: [00:00:09] Oh, I’m so excited for today’s episode. Episode 14 is all about how to create a marketing strategy that sells your program on autopilot and amplifies your impact. I was so excited recording this episode for you today because I just wanted to give you an overview of what it looks like to market a product that sells itself and how you really can build this snowball effect, something that’s really been helpful for me in my own business, not having to burn myself out, not having to be on social media every day, not having to reinvent the wheel and selling the same product for the last several years. I’m so excited to share kind of my two-path process with you today.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:00:52] I talk all about organic marketing, paid marketing, and Facebook ads. I talk about proof of concept and what kind of content you really should be creating to find not only your ideal clients and customers but actually getting them to pull the trigger and purchase your products. And, I’m really excited because if you listen to the whole episode, I’ll even share with you what the big three, as I call them, big three content types are, the platforms are, where you really should be showing them, and how to create one piece of content that gets out to people everywhere.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:01:25] So with that, I hope you’ve got something cozy. We can hop into episode 14. And, in case you’re new around here, I am Sam Vander Wielen. I’m the host of On Your Terms podcast. I’m also an attorney-turned entrepreneur who helps online coaches and service providers legally protect and grow their businesses using my DIY Legal Templates and my trainings. And here on the show each week, I bring you fresh tips about how to legally protect your business, but also how to grow that business on your terms. So, I’m super excited to get into it. Let’s figure out how to get found by your customers and amplify your impact.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:02:05] So, I still remember the first time I’ve ever created a website or created my first set of products or something like that. I remember putting them out there and then being like, “Okay. So, now, like, the people will just come, right? Like, they’ll just buy.” And I don’t know what exactly I thought was going to happen, but I’m pretty sure I thought there was magic involved where I could just create something and then the universe would just give it to the right people somehow, magically, and they would just see all of my intentions behind it and buy it and love it and become raving fans. I don’t know. I don’t even know what I thought.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:02:36] But I feel like I’ve learned a lot over the last several years about how to properly market your products and programs online, on social media, through your email list and so many different ways and in a way that doesn’t burn you out. Like, I am never a proponent, and today’s episode is not going to be a proponent of like “you have to post every day on social media seven times and use all maximum 30 hashtags and do a reel every day, and also be on TikTok and also be on YouTube and also have a podcast.” Like, that is very much not my opinion, let alone my style.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:03:08] And so, I hope that you’ll find today’s episode sort of refreshing in that respect because I really – I more want to give you the strategy. I think so many people try to focus on the magical pill of social media of like, “Is it that YouTube is going to be my ticket?” “Is it podcasts that are going to be my ticket?” “Is Instagram” or like, “Maybe I have to do TikTok.” Like, it’s not the exact platform that’s going to make or break it. There are a lot of different things that are going to make or break it, but instead really the strategy behind it. And then, I’m a big fan of you finding platforms and programs and things that you like. So, we’ll get into that. Don’t worry about it.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:03:45] But, really, today, the goal of today’s episode, because episode 12 taught you about how to find the right customers for this evergreen program that you want to create. Episode 13 was all about making the program or product itself so amazing so that people will buy it on autopilot and then become raving fans of it and then tell all of their friends. And so, you’ll start to have this snowball effect, right? And now, in episode 14, I really want to share my experiences and some lessons with you today on how then do you get more people to purchase your product. Because after you’ve maybe beta sold it or you’ve sold it to a handful of clients, or you’ve sold it to the people who already are on your email list or who already follow you on social media, you might be running into a little bit of a roadblock being like who else is going to buy this product? So, I’m really hoping that we can break this down today.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:04:40] Okay. So, part of the problem here is that people – I think for one, people don’t necessarily always have the tenacity that it takes or don’t exactly understand how long you’ve talked about something and how consistent you have to be talking about something and talking about what you do and getting comfortable advertising your business and all this kind of stuff in order to start getting some traction. So, like, first things first, I think it’s helpful to just adjust the expectations here that just because you create something or just because you’ve sold it to a handful of people that it will necessarily start taking off, right?

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:05:15] So, I talked about this back in episode 13 about talking or creating a product that you feel like you could see yourself talking about for months and years, you know that kind of stuff. Because if you really want a product to be successful, it’s possible that it takes that long or it’s possible that if it’s successful, you’ll want to still be talking about it months or years from now. So, it has to be something that you don’t get tired of, but that’s also because things take time.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:05:43] So, when we’re thinking about marketing our product – and so I’m assuming by now that you’ve listened to episode 13. And so, we’ve gotten past the beta testing stage and we’ve kind of put this thing now out into market. Like, we’ve done all of the work that we’re supposed to do. Now, you kind of come to this roadmap of marketing of, like, where do I go from here? How do I get this into more hands? How do I get into new people’s hands?

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:06:07] So, the 30,000-foot view here is that there are two ways. There’s organic marketing, which is what most of us are doing every day, which is being on social media, emailing our email list, creating content, all that kind of stuff. Obviously, if you’re doing in-person stuff too, if you’re like – like, when I had my first business, I was doing in-person workshops and I was giving talks and doing all kinds of stuff like that. So, organic marketing is the first little section that we’re going to talk about.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:06:37] The second way that you get new eyeballs and new purchasers on your products is through paid marketing. So, we’ll talk about paid marketing at the end. It always gets a bad rap. Like, I see – I feel like I see so many people now bragging, for lack of a better term. Like, “I did this without any paid marketing,” or, “I was able to scale my course without paid marketing.” And I’m always like, “No. You do. You’re just talking about Facebook ads.” It’s like so you just didn’t do it with Facebook ads, but you pay for like – you pay for a lot of stuff in your business. So, it’s not you pay for marketing, you pay for advertising. And by the way, it’s completely healthy and normal to advertise in your business, every business advertise. So, how you choose to advertise is a totally different story, and we’ll get to that at the end.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:07:20] So, let’s start with that first little path that I was talking about with organic marketing because this one is huge and it needs to come first for a reason. So, one of the things people ask me about so often is that how I was able to build the Ultimate Bundle into not only a program that had so many people in it and that’s pretty successful, but also how I was able to do it essentially on autopilot.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:07:46] So, what I did for the first several years of the Ultimate Bundle after I did all of the things I taught you in episodes 12 and 13 of the podcast is that I started talking about it every single day. So, I started talking about it every single day on Instagram. At that time, I’m pretty sure I was pretty active still on Facebook. I’m no longer really active on Facebook at all, but I would take whatever content I was posting on Instagram. I was being really consistent on Facebook. I had a Facebook group. I would go live once or twice a week. I was being very, very consistent.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:08:17] Now, the kind of content that I was producing was primarily educational, something that would be helpful. Like, three steps to do this. Three secrets you need to know about this. Three ways to do this. Three things you need to know about your website policy. It was always something like that, right? And so, I would teach. I would give something that was truly helpful. It wasn’t just like a tease, but I would teach something. And then at the end of it, I would say, “And that’s why I created the Ultimate Bundle, which is my program that gives you 10 legal templates and video trainings,” and blah blah blah. And I would describe the product, right?

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:08:50] Everything would kind of make sense to you that I was teaching about. It would be like, Oh, the person who would find this piece of content helpful. The next logical step would be to get the Ultimate Bundle or to need that kind of legal help, or to put it into their awareness because they might not even be sure or might not be aware that something like this exists. So, every day, my mission was to share educational and helpful content that was the next logical step into the bundle.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:09:19] For the first, I would say, two years, the main goal, the call to action of my actual content itself was the Ultimate Bundle. I was straight-up selling it constantly every single day. Yes, I got sales lightweight, right? The sales weren’t huge, like more insane, but they were good and they built over time. And so, I took it low and slow. That was very helpful because it allowed me to get probably several dozen, maybe up to a hundred customers or something that way and just really learn, you know, and hone my skill of talking about it, of really understanding where people were at. You know, it gave me so much more data of dealing with people who were going through the same things and had the same questions and all those kinds of things. After that, it was when I decided to create something free. That was the kind of step before the Ultimate Bundle. So, that’s when I want to talk to you a little bit about now.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:10:15] So, I’m a big proponent of doing this organic marketing method first, especially because you get proof of concept. It will give you testimonials. You will strengthen the product kind of more in line with what I was talking about in episode 13 about making sure that it’s an amazing product that actually gets people results. You’ll be able to go through all of that, but it is hard, especially when you have a higher ticket offer like I do with the Ultimate Bundle. It is hard to go from straight, you know, an Instagram post that tells somebody three steps to do something to like, “Hey, buy this thing for a few thousand dollars.” It worked. It actually did which in fact gave me further proof that this product was really good and I was like speaking their language. But it is difficult.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:11:00] And so, in order to actually amplify and scale this product, which is what you’re here to learn about in this episode, I needed to have like an intermediary step. So, that’s why I think maybe two-and-a-half, three years ago, I created a free workshop called Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business. And so, this workshop, instead of the Ultimate Bundle becoming my call to action every single piece of content, this free workshop became my call to action. And, as you can imagine, it’s much, much easier to get people to sign up for something that’s free or that they see additional value coming from than it is to plunk down a chunk of change for a product when maybe this social media post that they find of yours is like the first time that they’ve ever met you.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:11:42] So, I literally became a woman obsessed with this call to action. I mean, I just used to – sometimes, I actually start laughing because I would find all of the ways to connect the dots. I would experience something in my day, something that I could turn into a story. I would go on Instagram Stories, I would share it, and then at the end be like, “And that’s why in my free legal workshop, Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business, you learn how to do blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Click here or tap here or whatever to sign up.” And it just became a relentless pursuit to get people to sign up for this free workshop.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:12:19] In this free workshop, I, of course, introduced my product at the end. People started buying it, and that’s really when things started to explode for me. Not just because people were opting into my free workshop and buying at the end, which they were, but what happened was more of a snowball effect where people, maybe, signed up for my free workshop. Even if they didn’t buy, they were now on my email list. I was nurturing them and continue to nurture them every single week with a valuable email whether it’s letting them know about a free podcast episode, a new blog post, something I’m doing, just a little inspirational note or behind the scenes thing, or letting them know about some other free thing that I’m running that what I saw over time and what I have continued to see now for years. And this is, by the way, one of the most beautiful things about taking a long game approach to growing your business. If you’re not in this for the like – if you understand that this is going to take a while, then this is how – this can pay off huge.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:13:17] So, I understand that everybody might not be in the right place at the right time when it comes to purchasing my products. That’s okay. I don’t need them to buy from me today. I treat people as people. I am glad that they’re here. I hope that I have a lot to offer in the meantime. And if it becomes right for them one day to purchase my stuff, that’s awesome. But it’s not a requirement. It’s not going to make or break my business.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:13:41] Having that attitude has just been so helpful in helping to grow this kind of long-term relationships, long-term consistent sales. Because what I saw happen was that those very people, those several hundred, several thousand people who signed up for my free workshop, those first few years, sure, maybe they didn’t buy right away, but they would buy six months later, nine months later, a year later. And once you get enough people signed up, that just becomes a rolling giant snowball.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:14:09] Now, it doesn’t have to be a webinar in order for this to be like the free thing if webinars aren’t your thing. Webinars can be very powerful tools, especially because you can be on video. You get a bit more of their time and attention. You can really lay things out and then you can kind of present to them, make the next logical step to present to them to purchase your thing at the end. And, you can do all of that without being skeezy, by the way. But I hope that I do. I try to.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:14:33] But there are other ways that you can do this right. Some people do this to get people into a free challenge or to get people into a video series or into a freebie that they can download. And then, they go through some nurturing sequence in your email list, and then they are prompted to purchase.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:14:49] Now, there’s a very intentional way to go through all of this. I’m going to share a lot more about the strategy behind the actual funnel itself, like how you should lead people through this journey from your freebie through to your actual product in Masterclass number three of the From Startup to Sold Out series that I’m hosting on November 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The link to grab a ticket to any of those masterclasses or all three of them is in the description of this episode. So, we’ll make sure that that’s below.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:15:18] But it is important to understand that there is a very methodical, strategic way. It’s not as simple as just popping up a freebie and then talking about your thing at the end, what happens a lot of times that people do that and then they’re kind of shocked when, again, all of the sales, hopefully you’re seeing a pattern by now that you don’t just like pop things up in general and everybody starts buying it. There’s a very specific step-by-step process. So, we just want to, today, focus on how do we get this content out that is so helpful to my audience.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:15:56] Are you really serious about growing and selling out the offers in your business to your dream customers? If you are, then I want to personally invite you to come to my first ever three-day From Start-up to Sold Out live masterclass series, all about how to go from just starting up your online business to being sold out and automating processes that will earn you back your time while still having plenty of paying customers that are thrilled to work with you, knocking on your digital door every single day.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:16:24] Over the course of three short and sweet 90-minute trainings on Wednesday, November 3rd, Thursday, November 4th, and Friday, November 5th, I’ll teach you the crystalized, super actionable steps that you need to know to be able to do these three things.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:16:38] One, to find your paying customers because you need to stop creating so much free content and tools that nobody’s paying you for and that nobody needs and start using marketing techniques that attract your only your ideal paying customer. So, I’m going to show you exactly how to do that and to stop spinning your wheels wondering if that 10-part Instagram carousel post is a waste of your time or not. In this first masterclass, I’ll talk with you about actually finding your ideal customer, doing some market research, and we’re going to go way beyond all the fluff and nonsense you hear online about just finding out where this person shops and eats. It is so much more than that.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:17:14] In Masterclass number two, I’m going to teach you how to create your streamlined solution, because sometimes you already have a warm audience that’s excited to buy something from you but the offer that you create itself just kind of falls flat. So, you need to understand how to create a product with only the beautiful bare bones of what your customer actually needs. So, I’ll show you how to stop overwhelming them with unnecessary bells and whistles so that they’ll actually use your product or service, which will then mean that they actually benefit from it and give you rave reviews to all their friends, really growing that word of mouth network.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:17:49] And last but definitely not least, Masterclass number three, I’m going to teach you all about getting found by your customers and amplifying your impact, and I’m going to do all of that while teaching you how to still have a life and primarily have a life because my business doesn’t run my life even though it’s gotten so much bigger than I ever could have imagined. So, now that you’ve tailored your product to the exact people who will need it to solve their problem, you’ll need to understand how to amplify your impact with advanced PR and advertising and marketing techniques. That’s where this third masterclass will come into play, and it will help you scale what’s already working.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:18:24] All three of these classes are being held virtually, and this is the only time that they’ll actually be happening live. That is a huge deal because I’ve only ever provided legal education in the past and legal products. But now that so many people have asked me how I grew a seven-figure and climbing business in my first five years, it’s time for me to finally spill the secrets of my sales and marketing machine. So, I’m offering these classes live because I know you’ll have loads of questions that you want to ask during this live event, which is why we’re having a Q&A at the end of each one.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:18:54] And, if you can’t attend live, be sure to buy a ticket anyway, and we’ll send you the recording of each masterclass video. And if you submit your questions before the class, I’ll even answer it live during the Q&A so you can get your answer during the recording.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:19:07] So, instead of investing in a big price tag, mastermind retreat, or a year-long coaching program with, let’s be honest, a lot of fluff and filler, you’re going to get my most important knowledge and experience growing my business online in this three-part masterclass series for as little as $197. It’s really an awesome deal, especially when you think about the value of getting to ask me questions during the live chat and Q&A portion. You can either buy just one ticket to any three of the classes for $97 or you can get the low bundle price of $197 to grab a ticket to all three masterclasses and the recording.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:19:42] They’re happening at 3 p.m. Eastern, 12 p.m. Pacific, on Wednesday, November 3rd, Thursday, November 4th, and Friday, November 5th. But hurry because you’ve got to buy your tickets before 5 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, November 2nd, when we close up registration for good. Head to the link in the description of this episode or type in samvanderwielen.com/fsso-oyt into your browser and get tickets now to this special live event. I hope to see you there.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:20:15] So, I talked a lot about this in episodes 12 and 13 about making sure that you’re creating content in this organic marketing strategy that is helpful and educational to your ideal customer. So, if you haven’t listened to episode 12 yet, you definitely have to listen to that before we have this conversation.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:20:32] But content that is helpful to them and that speaks their language really like getting them to that, that like, “Oh, man. She’s in my head,” right? “She must know me so well and I feel like I have – I’ve never talked to her, but I feel like she knows me so well.” Like, when you start getting those kinds of comments on what you’re doing, that’s when you know you’ve really hit the jackpot in terms of truly reaching this place of understanding your ideal customer.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:20:58] Now, I know, like I said in the beginning, people get really fussy about which platform is kind of the magical platform, and you’ve probably heard this before, but I shared the same opinion that you really should focus on not only where your ideal clients are. Obviously, that’s very important. If no one’s hanging out on LinkedIn, don’t make LinkedIn. You’re like social media strategy, obviously. But so wherever your people are hanging out, and that’s probably where you’re getting the most engagement, where you’re meeting people who seem to fit your ideal client profile.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:21:28] But you also want to think about a platform that you are able to look at and say, “I know I could consistently show up there for a long period of time, at least six months.” I want you to commit to yourself right now, and I want you to DM me and tell me which one you picked and which platform you’re going to do. And, you’re going to tell me, and you’re going to tell me what date. But you’re going to commit to six months of consistent action on that platform. By the way, notice I said consistent, not like daily, not twice daily, not something like hard and fast number. Just consistent, really doubling down.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:21:59] A lot of times people don’t give a platform or some sort of project enough time in order to really sink in. So, we need to commit to something for six months, whether that’s going to be your YouTube channel, your podcast or your email list, or something like that. Really, my hope and my goal for you would be that you pick one of the big three. So, the big three are a blog post and optimize blog post, a podcast, or a YouTube video, which would also be optimized.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:22:29] You could also, as you move forward or if you’re a bit further along in business, you could also take an approach like what I do, which is picking what’s going to be the core piece of content. Like, maybe your podcast is going to be the core piece of content so we record the podcast, and then you turn that podcast episode into a blog post that embeds that podcast episode within it. And you also turn it into a YouTube episode, either with audio or – just audio or with video. The point is that all of these things are optimized for the individual platforms that they’re going on so that they organically attract leads for you.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:23:04] So, when you put up a blog post on your site, for example, if you focus on SEO, like I have over the last several years ever since I started my business, it’s been kind of my little like I don’t want to call it secret because it’s not a secret, but I just feel like people don’t focus on it enough. So, you put that blog post on your website, you make sure it’s optimized. Well, that blog post is going to be out there working for you for years to come.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:23:27] I have blog posts that I wrote in 2017 that are consistently, like literally every day, pulling in leads to my evergreen webinar funnel and that evergreen webinar funnel didn’t even exist when I wrote that blog post, but I’ve since gone back and updated it. You include little opt-in things and all of that kind of stuff.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:23:44] But that is really my point, you guys. Everything – if I could pass on anything to you, it would just be to focus on a content strategy, an organic content and marketing strategy that works for you. Because if you want to live your life, live your business on your terms, then you cannot be in content-producing machine. You cannot be filming – I mean, sometimes I see people online. They’re like, “I have a YouTube channel and a podcast and this and that.” But they’re all separate. And I’m like, “How do you do that?” And then, they’re like doing daily reels and daily TikToks. And that is great if that is – if that’s what you do and that’s like what you strive to do or that’s like the season you’re in life, I feel like that’s wonderful. I don’t know about you. That’s not the season that I’m in.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:24:33] I’ve gone through periods of that. It leads to burnout. And what it, to me, ultimately ends up leading to is kind of a blank, like a write or whatever writer’s block is for content, I guess content creators block. Like, I would just run out of ideas. I would feel tired. I didn’t want to be on social. And what that leads to is this like roller coaster of you’re like off the charts for a couple of months and then you’re like, “I’m so exhausted. I don’t want to be seen on Stories.”

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:25:01] So, for me, I like to choose this kind of simple system. I would love for you to pick one to two of the big three, the YouTube episode, podcast, or blog posts, all of which are optimized so that you’re consistently pulling in leads without you having to do additional work. Let the content pieces be part of what works for you. They’re like an unpaid employee essentially out there working for you.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:25:28] And then, the next probably most important step and the thing that will continue to be an important step for, I don’t even know how long because of just the social media landscape. And, actually next week, my episode for you is all about what used to work in marketing versus what works now. And then we would be talking about this a lot. So, stay tuned for episode 15.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:25:47] But one of the things that we always come back to is our email list because that really is what you will, quote-unquote, own. That really should be the main focus for you. I don’t care how successful your TikTok videos are and how incredible your Instagram following is. That stuff can go away in a heartbeat. It changes. It gets yanked out from under us. It becomes exhausting sometimes. You might go through a season. You will always have your email list to fall back on. And, I’m telling you the more that you cultivate a relationship with them now and consistently when you’re not selling something and just really, really connecting with that audience and focusing on it as an area of growth in your business, that is something that will continue to pay you back many times over down the line.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:26:30] So, now if you’ve looked at these big three, the YouTube, podcasts, or blog posts, you now come to your email list to let them know about it. So, the marketing strategy is that you create the super helpful content that’s geared towards your ideal client that has a call to action at the end of it that links to your next logical step and all of that, and every single week you’re emailing your email list to let them know about that content.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:26:55] So, if, let’s say, your podcast was your thing, every week you’re emailing them saying a short intro to this podcast episode, letting them know to go listen to it, you’re promoting the podcast elsewhere in that podcast episode, you’re then telling people about the freebie that you have, the next logical step, whatever it is, and it’s just this beautiful cycle that will keep going and going and going. Or, someone finds you maybe organically. They Google something. They find your YouTube video. They watch your YouTube video and then at the end, they have the opt-in.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:27:25] And so, there’s just all of these wheels turning for you and continuing to build and build and build, and that really is how you build the foundation. I could have several, you know, episodes of this on this topic of how this continues to go on and on and on. I don’t want to overwhelm you. I also want to see you over at the Masterclass number three in From Startup to Sold Out because this is the kind of thing that builds and builds and takes time.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:27:50] So, I think for now this is a great start for you. From there, a lot of people, remember how I said in the beginning, there are kinds of these two main branches. There’s this organic marketing path, which we’ve now talked about. The other big one being ads. So, we start to pour money into Facebook ads. And to me, that is not a route – this is just my opinion. But that’s not a route that you even explore until you’ve explored the first one.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:28:15] So, once you have proof not only of the actual product but proof of the funnel, whatever you want to call it, right, people get all fussy about the fact that it’s kind of funnel. It is what it is, like proof of the marketing strategy, proof of the funnel, proof that you can pull in a quote-unquote random person, for lack of a better term, a cold lead. Somebody who finds your YouTube episode, somebody who finds your podcast, your blog post, finds you on social media, hops into your free thing, and then purchases your product. Once you have that and you have that over and over and over and over again, that is when ads will amplify everything.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:28:54] To me, Facebook ads are like pouring gasoline on a fire that’s already burning. So, if we just had a bunch of random logs stacked in the middle of the woods and we poured gasoline on it, nothing would happen. When you light a flame to it, it would shoot up. But if it was just by itself, nothing would happen. If you already had a small fire going and then you poured gasoline on it, it would whoosh up in the air. That’s what ads are. Ads are pouring the gasoline on an already growing fire.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:29:26] So, if you’re trying to sell something that’s not working, ads are not the answer. If you sold a handful of them, ads are not the answer. If you don’t have a funnel, ads are not the answer. I knew somebody once, a couple of years ago, who poured a ton, a five-figure, multi-five-figure investment into Facebook ads to get people to sign up for a free call with her like a discovery call. That’s not a funnel. And that will not work, in my humble opinion. You can ask a Facebook ads expert about that, but that will not work.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:29:57] So, with Facebook ads, we’re really trying to find new leads through something free. Right? We have to tell them about a free workshop, a freebie, a download, a challenge that’s going on, like something that’s free, probably, and/or pieces of content. We nurture in our ads, too. We share podcast episodes. We share a blog post. We share reels that we’ve created on Instagram or our popular Instagram posts that have been really helpful. That’s the kind of stuff.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:30:25] So, we’re really nurturing. We’re finding new leads through this nurturing process, and then letting them know about something that’s free that we offer. Once they opt-in to this something that’s free, like a free workshop, yes, then people get retargeted with ads, sales ads for whatever I’ve sold in the workshop, or whatever it was in the freebie. So, that is essentially where things are headed. That’s where you build things out towards. But just don’t even worry about that path until you’ve really got this first one. Solid.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:30:54] So, for any of you who have come to me and asked me, like, how – like, oh, people say to me all the time, like, “Oh. It seems like your business has changed so much in the last year, year-and-a-half, two years.” I’m like, “Yeah. About a year ago, I finally started running ads,” and they’re like, “Oh. I can’t believe you waited so long.” I’m like, “Yeah. Thank God, I did.” Thank God because I did it this way, and I’m so glad that I did. I had hundreds of people, and I don’t know that you need to wait that long, but I sold it to hundreds and hundreds of people first. I really got to know them. I made the product way better. I made the funnel better. I got my own but in order. I got my own operations and systems in order. You know, I got organized. I got on Asana. I did like all kinds of things, right?

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:31:38] So, I had to do a ton of work. If I had gone and done this, I don’t know, a few years ago, not only would it have not worked well, but it would have been a mess once it happened. So, a lot of times these things happen for a reason. It takes a long time for a reason. And, if you’ve not heard anybody else, you know, in this space share with you who’s gotten to, like, a multi-seven-figure business that this takes time. It takes time, right? It takes time. It takes energy, patience, failure, being super frustrated, thinking about doing something else, coming back to it again and again and again and again, and continuing to build. I’m at this place now in business I’m still thinking about how I can make things better, how I can improve, what I can do differently, how I want to shake things up. I look at the data, you know, almost every day. So, it’s a lot. It’s a lot.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:32:27] So, if this has awakened some ideas in you, some interest in you, but you also want to learn more about exactly how you can build out this marketing strategy, how you can get clear on your organic marketing strategy to start amplifying your program and product, then I hope that I will see you at my From Startup To Sold Out series coming on November 3rd, 4th and 5th. That link is in the description of this episode. And, I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I can’t wait next week to chat with you about what used to work versus what’s working now in marketing.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:33:02] And, if you’re new to On Your Terms before you go, it would be so awesome if you could subscribe and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you’re on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review the show. Give us however many stars and review the show. It would be so helpful. I love hearing from you guys. As always, my DMs are open. You can DM me @samvandewielen on Instagram. Let me know what you thought of this episode, and thank you so much. I can’t wait to see you all at From Startup Sold Out. See you soon.

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:33:33] Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at samvanderwielen.com. And to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram, @samvanderwielen, and send me a DM to say hi.

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