Episode 7: When to Invest in Your Business: Ads, VAs, Courses, Mentors, & Tools
Trying to make 6 figures by doing it all on your own? Refusing to invest any money into your business? Learn why investing in your business is necessary and the things that are worth your money in today’s episode of The Ashly Locklin Show.
Check out the Business Breakthrough Accelerator here: https://www.ashlylocklin.com/business-breakthrough-accelerator
Here’s a preview of what you’ll learn in this episode:
Why money is time and how you’re losing money by doing it all yourself.
What really happens when you invest wisely in your business.
What you should be investing in and when.
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
Get 50% off FloDesk forever: https://flodesk.com/c/LOCKLIN
Sign up for Canva: https://partner.canva.com/LOCKLIN
Tripod & Bluetooth Remote: https://amzn.to/3hpFt3G
Phone Ring Light: https://amzn.to/3iuRVR6
Desk Ring Light: https://amzn.to/3dxinqq
Floor Ring Light: https://amzn.to/3iItPSI
Business Breakthrough Accelerator: https://www.ashlylocklin.com/business-breakthrough-accelerator
Show Transcript:
Hey there, friend! Thanks for tuning into today’s episode on investing in your biz! I wanted to cover this topic because I feel like it’s not something that’s talked about enough in the online business space. And a huge pet peeve of mine is when I hear entrepreneurs say, “I built a 7 figure business with zero paid ads or help.”And I’m like, well good for you! But I don’t have all the time or energy in the world to do that, so I’m gonna outsource so I can scale faster. I don’t have 17 hours a day to be in the DMs building a business.I ’m all about working smarter not harder and a huge part of that is investing in your business wisely.
So today I’m going to dive into a little money mindset work then share why investing in your business can help you scale, why it’s necessary at a certain point, and what you should be investing in at each stage of your journey.
Alrighty, let’s dive into the goods!
First, money mindset! Next week’s episode is devoted to this topic in its entirety, because it’s something I’m SUPER passionate about - so we’ll dive into manifesting money, having an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity mindset, and so much more! You’ll definitely want to come back for that.
But for now, let’s tip toe our way into these money waters…
Let’s play a game...Only one of the following will actually make you money. Can you guess which one it is?
$1000 on a car down payment
$1000 on a vacation
$1000 on college
$1000 on a purse
$1000 on a mentor/program
If you guessed a mentor/program - ding ding! You were right!
Let’s break it down…
If you spend $1000 on a car down payment - everyone thinks it’s normal, even though the second you drive off the lot that car depreciates. You might pay $25,000 for your car and afterwards it’s worth $2,000.
If you spend $1000 on a vacation, everyone thinks it’s totally normal. Sure, you have amazing memories and pictures to share afterwards, but no income growth!
If you spend $1000 on college - society praises you! And let’s be real, college costs a heck of a lot more than $1,000. Most Americans go into debt for a diploma that gives them an entry-level job and leaves them struggling paycheck to paycheck and shackled to student loan debt for decades. Listen, I have a doctorate, the highest degree you can earn, I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my education, but to be completely honest with you, I won’t push my kids to go to college, I won’t make it their only choice and constantly drill it into their heads that they HAVE to go to college in order to be successful - because I know tons of successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of college and make more than doctors and lawyers. Now if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer or have a career that requires a college degree, yes, it will make you money in the long-run. But for most Americans, the debt for diploma cycle drowns them for years if not decades and most often traps them in a career path they chose when they were 18 but no longer feel passionate about. So they spend 40 years working a job they hate just because it’s normal and what they went to school for.
If you spend $1000 on a purse - maybe you buy it for yourself as a gift, or your spouse gets it for you for Mother’s Day, oh-la-la, so fancy, so cool, so accepted! Even though it depreciates in value the first time you use it.
BUT if you spend $1000 on a mentor/program - people think you’re CRAZY. You think you’re crazy. The thought of it makes your palms sweaty.
But in reality, investments in yourself, in your business, in your personal growth are the only things that gain value as time passes.
I was talking to a friend who is a lawyer this weekend and she said that law school did not prepare her for the real world of law at all. That they cut her loose and she really had no idea what she was doing. But thankfully, she had landed incredible internships throughout law school and those prepared her a little. And I was thinking about my own education, and how I’ve learned so much more through the business courses I’ve bought and the mentors I’ve hired than through my 30 years of formal education.
I can’t tell you how many times someone has told me “I want to make 6 figures this year.” And when I ask what they’re willing to invest to get there, they say, “nothing.”
Investing in your business is also a “skin in the game” mindset hack. I always use this example when talking about price objections...if you wanted whiter teeth, you wouldn’t just brush with water and expect overnight results. You’d use the whitening toothpaste. And if you were really committed, you’d get the whitening strips.
Both of those require an investment. But once you make that investment, you’re committed to seeing results so you brush with the toothpaste, you use the strips as directed. When you get something for free, you don’t commit as much as you do when you’ve paid for something. It’s the difference between being involved and being committed.
There’s a saying that goes: “The difference between ‘involvement’ and ‘commitment’ is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was ‘involved’ – the pig was ‘committed’.”
If you want to succeed, you can’t just be involved, you have to be committed.
Let’s play a second game:
What's more expensive?
A. Spending upfront to learn how to do it the right way from the start
B. Spending an extra 7482 hours figuring it out as you burn out and leave money on the table
If you said B, ding ding! You were right!
Oftentimes we think that figuring it out ourselves is more economical, when in reality, the time we waste and the money we leave on the table while we’re trying to figure it out, makes investing upfront the better value.
I learned this the hard way on several occasions.
One example: I was thinking of hiring a business coach to help me pivot and dive into a new realm of online business. But when I learned the cost, I said, “Oh hell no! I’ll figure it out myself.” So I spent MONTHS researching, learning, figuring it out. I missed out on thousands of dollars because other people were beating me to the marketplace. My ideal customers were buying from others. If I just would’ve hired the coach at the start, she could’ve provided me with all the steps I needed and I could’ve launched months sooner and with an proven framework...instead of piecemealing a billion different approaches together to see what would actually work!
What you have to realize is: time is money
The best advice I’ve been given is: Struggling businesses will spend time to save money, but successful businesses will spend money to save time.
The more time you are spending trying to figure it out on your own, or doing it all yourself, or Pinterest-failing your way to success, the more money you are losing.
And time is the most valuable commodity and non-renewable resource. The time you spend trying to figure it out is time you are losing with your family or friends.
Everyday I look at my children and think, they’ll never be this age again. Yesterday they were a day younger, tomorrow they will be a day older. Today they are learning things they didn’t know yesterday. Tomorrow they will have mastered them. I will never get this time back with them...do I really want to be spending an hour searching for an image on Google when I could pay for a Canva membership and have access to amazing photos?
So I bring this up not to tell you that you need to be spending thousands on your business each month, maybe it’s investing $12.95 a month in a Canva Pro membership or $19 a month in Flodesk so you don’t have to manually send out all your emails or a larger amount on a course or a mentor so you can have faster success. Whatever it is for where you are, understand that time is money and sure you could do it all on your own for free, but at what cost? The cost of your sanity? The cost of time with your family? The cost of customers going to someone else who just got it out faster?
I’m not telling you to waste money, absolutely not...and we’ll talk about what’s really worth it in a moment. But if you’re trying to level up, know that investing in your business and personal growth will always have an incredible ROI.
So now let’s talk about what to invest in and when...
Let’s take it back 5.5 years ago when I first started an online business. At the time, I was working a full-time job, going to school full-time to get my doctorate, got pregnant, and wanted to make my business take off. So I didn’t have all the time in the world to spend on social media, finding people, talking to them, while also developing my business systems and such.
It’s important to realize that starting and running a business requires time...a lot of it. But you also have to decide what you can invest more of in order to scale - time or money.
For me, I was working a full-time job and even though money was extremely tight, I was able to swing some small investments that I knew would pay off. Here are the things I’ve invested in then and now...
The first thing I invested in was a website. And when I say “invest” I mean paying for the domain...which was $12 a month. I am lucky because my husband was a computer programmer, so he was able to help me design the site. But you can set up a site very easily with the premade templates they offer now - depending on which service you choose. Mine is SquareSpace. You definitely do NOT need a website to be professional, but I like having a place I can send people to, a place that houses all of my information in one professional looking space. This could literally be a Google Doc for you at the beginning, but having a website was one of the first things I invested time and money into.
Then I realized that I hated spending time trying to find people on social media, so I invested in a course on Facebook Ads a few months into my business. I remember sitting in my bed, watching a live webinar for the course, scared to death to spend a few hundred dollars on it. But I knew I needed to learn how to scale without sacrificing all my time and sanity! So I bought it and it was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made!
Along with that course, came the cost of testing and running ads. At the beginning, there was a lot of testing that had to be done, so my initial ad spend was a little higher. But once I nailed that, I started to run Page Like Promotions for my Facebook Business Page, I spent $3 a day (less than $100 a month) and grew the page to 100,000 targeted followers and that’s how I hit my first 7-figure earning mark - by targeting the right people and bringing them to my page...then delivering quality content, of course! And I don’t know about you, but $3 a day to avoid hunting people down was worth it in my book!
Along with the Page Like Promotion Ads, I started to run ads to recruit mentees or team members to my team. Again, I never spent a ton of money on these ads, but I tested, I found a winning audience, winning copy, and winning creative and then pumped that baby out! Ad experts suggest you change your creative (the image or video) often, but I will admit that I’m not good at that. Once I find a winning ad, I tend to let it keep running.
And now I run ads for freemiums to grow my email list, I run ads for webinars I’m offering, free challenges I’m hosting, all the things that target my ideal client and give them something they want.
As my income has grown, my ad spend has grown as well - as it should. But at the beginning of my ad running days (and all within the first year of my online business), I was spending less than $200 a month on ads, but making that back plus much much more over time.
I do want to talk about the cost of testing ads and paying for data. At the beginning, you do have to test ads against different audiences, you have to test different copy (or the caption for your ad), different creative (the picture or the video) and this can be tedious. This is where most people give up. They say, “I tried running ads but I never got anyone when I was testing different ones.” You have to be willing to pay for your data at the beginning. You have to go into it with the understanding that what you’re investing might not pay off that month, but it will in future months. Facebook and Instagram ads are incredibly valuable and most people don’t understand the power of them.
I’m not going to go into too much detail about this because this could be a 7 hour podcast episode on ads, but Facebook has something called a Pixel, which is basically a code you embed on your website pages, applications, check out pages, etc. and it tracks ALL of the data. This is incredible because you can then use that Pixel data to target your ads and make sure they are shown to the right people.
For example, I have a Quiz called: Were You Born to Be An Influencer. I have my Pixel on all of the pages, so Facebook is tracking who is taking the quiz and what their results are. The quiz has four different results options based on the quiz-takers responses.
That allowed me to go into FB and create an ad for a free webinar (which ultimately sells my course Influencer Prep Academy). I was able to tell FB, “hey use my Pixel data and show this ad to people who have taken my quiz and got the Powerhouse result.” (those are the people who make quick decisions and are very ambitious). Boom, my ad was being shown to the right people, people who had already taken the quiz and were familiar with me, and people I knew would convert the fastest.
You can also create Lookalike Audiences where you tell FB, “show this ad to people who are similar to this audience I have created” (for example, people who have engaged with your page or people on your client roster). So then Facebook goes out and finds people who are similar to the ones you have indicated. Mind blowing, right?!
The power of FB & IG ads is incredible, so much more effective than a billboard or standard commercial.
So that’s what I mean by “paying for data.” If your Pixel is new, it’s going to take some time to collect data that it can then use to optimize your ads and save you time and money! So be patient with ads and know that they are totally worth it!
***With that being said, I want to share that at the time of this recordng, my signature group coaching program, Business Breakthrough Accelerator is now open for enrollment and spots are going fast!
BBA is an 8 week group coaching program that covers everything you need to rock and scale your business!
I’m talking:
Branding
Niching
Client Attraction
Marketing
Content Creation
Copywriting
Selling
Instagram
Hacks
Email Marketing
Funnels
Scaling
Ads
| Client Attraction | Marketing | Content Creation | Copywriting | Selling | Instagram Hacks | Email Marketing | Funnels | Scaling | Automation | Ads
But not only the things that bring fire to your business, we’re also tapping into the feminine energy to bring balance and alignment to your life...such as:
managing your energy
living in alignment
understanding your desires
everaging your personality type
mastering your money mindset
squashing your limiting beliefs
overcoming imposter syndrome
putting an end to perfectionism & procrastination.
Because I want you to see the business and income growth while also having fun and enjoying a life outside your phone!
A new module is dripped out weekly so you have time to implement each thing before moving on. And we have a live group coaching call each week along with daily support and accountability in our private Slack Channel!
So if you’ve been looking for your breakthrough and a way to stop trading hours for dollars, check out BBA and snag your spot before the doors close! Of course, you can find the link in the show notes! ***
Okay, moving on...another thing I invested in at the beginning was graphic design - meaning memberships to websites that allowed me to create professional looking images. I highly recommend Canva Pro, there’s a link to enroll in the show notes of this episode. Canva has everything, amazing templates for anything you want to create, fonts, pictures, the whole shebang! I create my presentations in Canva, my graphics, my workbooks, my ads, everything!
Something else I invest in now is a site called HauteStock - I also linked in the notes! I was spending so much time looking for images on Google that didn’t have watermarks or weren’t part of a paid subscription. Finally my friend told me about HauteStock and it’s been a life-saver. Beautiful, super classy stock photos that I die over! These are the images I use on my site and in my courses and trainings. So if you’re looking for lots of high-quality images, check out HauteStock.
And investing in a site that gives me pictures saves me SO much time - and to me that is worth it.
But honestly, Canva Pro has amazing stock photos that I use as well. So if you want to keep it simple and choose the most economical and one-stop-shop option, Canva Pro is where it’s at!
Next, an email marketing service! I talked about the power of email marketing in last week’s episode, so I’ll reiterate it again, email marketing is a must. You cannot build your business solely on social media because it could disappear tomorrow. Whereas, an email list is yours forever and it ain’t going anywhere!
At the beginning, I was spending SO MUCH time emailing each person who filled out a form requesting info or filled out an application to buy something from me or join my team. So I decided to invest in an email marketing service that could automate things for me so I wasn’t a slave to my computer and emails anymore.
As I said last week, FloDesk is the email service I recommend. It’s very user friendly, has beautiful templates, but most importantly, it’s super affordable - it’s $19 a month through my link in the show notes!
I was paying hundreds of dollars a month for another email service that was hard to use and ugly! So trust me, FloDesk is where it’s at. You can create WorkFlows that make everything seamless and automated!
If you don’t want to use FloDesk and whatever you are using doesn’t offer automation, I recommend using Zapier (also linked for you)- which lets you set up If/Then statements. For example, If someone completes the Join Team Interest Form, Then send them the Join Team Informational email.
This is something you should be investing in when you find yourself sending tons of emails that could easily be automated!
And now let’s dive into VAs or virtual assistants! I still remember the day I had an ah-ha moment about outsourcing! I was talking to my father in law, who is a successful business owner, and I was telling him how I was working non-stop and was thinking of hiring a virtual assistant, but was scared to spend the money. He said, “If you want to stay where you are, keep doing it all yourself. But if you want to scale, you need to hire someone to do the things that don’t require your expertise so you can spend more time doing the things that will bring you more money.”
And I was like, dang, you’re right!
So I hired my first VA and gradually gave her more tasks and hours. And now I have several assistants who help me in various aspects of my business and I’m grateful for each and every one of them. I hand off the things I HATE doing, that I myself, don’t need to do. I hand off the busy work, the mundane tasks that are time sucks. And I only do the things that bring me joy and income, the things only I can do...such as record this podcast, create my content for social media and my courses, mentor my clients and students.
When you get to that point and you’re wondering if you should outsource, YES! Absolutely!
Next, let’s talk about all the tiny tools and random things…
Here are a list of things I use consistently and I’ve linked a lot of them in the notes:
A tripod that has legs that can bend and wrap around things so I can take pictures wherever!
A bluetooth remote so I can easily take pictures when my Instagram husband isn’t around
Ring lights - I have a small one that clips onto my phone, a medium sized one that stands on my desk, and a big one that stands on the floor. I use them interchangeably depending on what I’m doing and I didn’t buy them all at once! The biggest one was a gift I bought myself when I hit a big goal in my business. I’m all about incentivizing myself with things that will help my business (not just random things I want to buy). And to be honest, I don’t use these all that often because I have lots of natural light in my new home and office- I’m surrounded by windows so I have lots of amazing light throughout the day. But before we moved, I had a really dark house and office so I used those lights a lot more!
Next, courses!
As I mentioned earlier in this episode, I’ve learned more from the courses I’ve bought from other coaches than I’ve learned in my 30 years of formal education. Because what we learn in school doesn’t prepare us for the real world things we actually have to do. But courses that specialize in specific topics are worth more than an entire college education, in my opinion.
Without investing in a course to run ads, I wouldn’t know how to reach my cold market and have a constant stream of new leads.
Without the course on email marketing, I wouldn’t know how to create nurture sequences or write compelling emails that convert.
Without the Instagram courses, I wouldn’t know how to actually grow my audience or convert followers into customers.
Without the course on pitching, I wouldn’t know how to pitch myself.
Without the course on client attraction, I wouldn’t know how to attract my ideal clients
Without the course on running free challenges, I wouldn’t know how to create a bomb ass challenge that converts!
Without the course on live launching, I wouldn’t know how to effectively launch my courses and programs.
I’ve invested a LOT of money into courses and every single one has paid off exponentially. Hands down, more valuable than all the years of my formal education.
That’s why I’m so passionate about creating courses and programs that package lots of these skills together so they are one-stop-shops for entrepreneurs who need a little bit of it all!
And as I mentioned earlier, BBA covers a lot of these things in one group coaching program - so you get all my expertise and knowledge wrapped up in one pretty package!
Lastly, let’s talk mentors.
Hiring a mentor is the scariest thing in business, but it can literally be THE thing that transforms everything for you. I hired a mentor and paid her over $20,000 to coach me and that was scary as shit. But guess what? I made that investment back within the first month of working with her. Because she saw things in my business that I didn’t. She gave me a proven framework to follow so I could stop researching and trying a bunch of things that didn’t work for me. She was someone I could bounce ideas off of and call me on my shit when I wasn’t making smart choices...because she had been where I was, she has done what I want to do. So she has the experience and knowledge to tell me “watch out for that pothole, veer this way, speed up now, okay, now slow down.”
So when trying to find a mentor, find someone who has done what you want to do. Someone who has walked the walk and is successful. Someone who won’t just be your friend, but will have the tough conversations with you and tell you what you need to work on to get to where you want to be.
Now let’s talk about that money mindset again...
When it comes to courses, programs, and mentors, people often say: Well can’t I do this myself or figure it on my own with the help of the internet?
And I’m like, “Sure you can! You could build a nuclear reactor with free information on the internet if you spend enough time researching it and sorting through the information to vet what is legit and what is false. But the question is: do you want to shovel that much shit for hundreds of hours or do you want a clear plan to do it?”
If you have all the time in the world to scour unvetted content only to find most of it isn’t a good fit for your business, have at it!
But if you want to pay to skip the line and get the job done the first time, then let’s do it!
The problem with free information is that you don’t know what to apply, when to apply, and in what context. It’s like having a 1,000 piece puzzle in front of you without the picture on the box to figure out what you’re building.
When you invest in a course or a mentor, you’re not necessarily paying for the information, you’re paying for the shortcut, the framework, the proven methodology, the accountability, the support, the community, and the picture on the front of the puzzle box.
So to recap:
Get over your fear of investing money into your business, especially if you want to scale and scale quickly.
Decide what’s going to save you the most time and invest in those things first.
Then figure out what you need to learn and invest in the right courses, programs, and mentors to take your hand and walk you to the front of the line.
Never stop learning and growing. I love the saying, “As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you rot.” Don’t ever become complacent and always look for ways to learn, grow, outsource, and scale.
And that my friends, is a wrap!
Thank you so much for tuning in! Please subscribe to this podcast so you can be notified when a new episode drops! And I’d love for you to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories, tag me @ashly_locklin and let me know what you learned or what you’re investing in next!
I’ll catch ya next time, bye friends! Go out and make those money moves!
Show Notes:
Today’s episode is brought to you by the Business Breakthrough Accelerator here: https://www.ashlylocklin.com/business-breakthrough-accelerator
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
Get 50% off FloDesk forever: https://flodesk.com/c/LOCKLIN
Sign up for Canva: https://partner.canva.com/LOCKLIN
Tripod & Bluetooth Remote: https://amzn.to/3hpFt3G
Phone Ring Light: https://amzn.to/3iuRVR6
Desk Ring Light: https://amzn.to/3dxinqq
Floor Ring Light: https://amzn.to/3iItPSI
Zapier: https://zapier.com
HauteStock: https://hautestock.co
Business Breakthrough Accelerator: https://www.ashlylocklin.com/business-breakthrough-accelerator
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