Episode 24: Facebook Ads, Social Media, & 5-Day Challenges—Which Marketing Strategy Should You Try Next? with Marketing Expert Zach Spuckler
Which marketing strategy should you try next?
Our guest on this episode, Zach Spuckler, has tried them all, and he’s here to tell us what he’s learned.
There are a lot of marketing strategies out there and it can be hard to know which ones to try, especially when you’re just starting out and you don’t have a lot of funds or a large audience. This episode will teach you the strategy to try next that will help you grow your audience and make sales.
Zach is sharing things like how to think differently about the cost of marketing, how to build a loyal audience, and why you should be giving yourself more credit for what you already know.
If you want to take the next step with your marketing, this episode is a great place to start.
Zach Spuckler is the Founder of Heart, Soul & Hustle, a marketing company that turns course creators into profitable business owners. Over the past five years, he has spent over $700,000 in personal and client ads. He's managed launches ranging from $3,000 to $300,000 and found some clear patterns that he's used both personally and professionally to create results.
He’s created result’s like a six-figure info-product launch for himself (just over $173,000 to be exact) and multiple six-figure launches managed for clients. He's been featured on top podcasts like EO Fire, The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, The Mind Your Business Podcast, and The Art of Paid Traffic Podcast because of his launches.
In short, after making over $1.8 million from a launch-based business, he's been in the trenches of multiple businesses and he's seen what works!
Now, Zach wants to share "what works" with you!
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
What to do when you don’t have a lot of money to invest in marketing
Looking at potential ROI before cost
Evaluating where you’re getting stuck
Experiencing things while you have them
How to use a 5-day challenge as a marketing tool
Building trust and loyalty with your audience
Giving yourself credit for everything you do
Utilizing templates
What have you been putting off because you’re afraid of what people will think or that you don’t know enough? It’s time to go for it. Take action and then let Zach and I know what you did! We’d love to hear from you.
If you want to get free organic press features, get on to top podcasts, and build relationships with editors at your dream outlets, join me and hundreds of small business owners in the PR starter pack at http://www.prstarterpack.com.
Resources Mentioned:
Follow Zach on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zachspuckler
Follow Zach on Instagram: http://instagram.com/heartsoulhustle
Get the 5-Day Challenge Toolkit: https://toolkit.heartsoulhustle.com/challenge-launch-toolkit
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
Listen On Your Favorite Podcast Platform
Follow & Review on Apple Podcasts
Are you following my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss any future episodes!
I would also appreciate it if you would leave me a review! Reviews help me make sure I am providing the content that you need! Plus, you will be entered to WIN a 1:1 pitch writing session with me where I will help you find your press-worthy angle! Click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review”.
Transcript
SBPR Episode 24 Final.mp3
[00:00:00] And what you've done is three things you've built an audience you connected with your audience and you've made an offer to your audience versus typically what we do as physical product brands. As we say, I'm going to create a really great product. I'm going to try and shoot fantastic photos and then really hunker down with social and maybe advertising and hope that people buy from me. But there's no incentive to do it now.
[00:00:23] Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chou, small business PR expert, award winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message, because let's be honest, we simply cannot make the impact. We're here to make by hiding behind the scenes. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast. What's up, everyone, welcome back to the Small Business PR podcast. I am so excited to have a multi passionate entrepreneur, course creator, project founder, ads expert managing over $1 million in pay traffic and an expert in five day challenges. The one and only Zach Spuckler. Thank you so much for being here.
[00:01:21] Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm really
[00:01:24] excited. You know, I've never really given an intro like that where I've added so many things. So if anyone's listening and who is multi passionate, this episode is for them.
[00:01:33] Yes, for sure.
[00:01:35] So you've done so many things. But I guess the one thing that I want to ask you first and foremost is you've tried all the things right. You've tried the ads, you tried the courses and memberships, Instagrams, the tiktoks and podcasts. Talk to me a little bit about all the different things you've tried and what you enjoy doing most in terms of growing your audience online.
[00:01:53] Yeah, I love this question because I really started online around the age of 12 and I know I was 12, because at 13, you can use your Social Security number on certain websites to like get checks. And before that, you have to, like, use somebody else's. So I use my dad's Social Security number because it would have been like two thousand seven maybe, I was filling out surveys online, which is like this super old school. If you've been if you've been around the internet for years and years and years, they used to call it get paid to do things, and you would get paid to do surveys or fill out forms. Anyway, I used to do that, and the only reason I share that is because I've always had this real love for the idea of creating revenue and freedom out of nothing. So from a very young age, I've been like, there's something to this internet thing. I used to be a member of this website. It was, it was called Neo Box. It still exists because every once in a while I'm like, I've got enough. It's still around. And you actually used to click on advertisements for a penny apiece. You get paid a penny to watch an advertisement for 15 to 30 seconds and after 30 seconds. After you do that, you can use your earnings to recruit affiliates under you. And I ended up having like fifteen hundred people under me.
[00:03:03] I generated like fifteen thousand dollars doing this when I was like 16 years old. So these are super random and have nothing to do with growing your audience. But I share that because that is the approach that I still take my business. I'm just very curious, inquisitive. I want to know what's happening. I want to try different things. So the short list is I've done freelance writing, website flipping, physical products, I've done direct sales, multi level marketing, I've done courses, memberships, mastermind group coaching programs like if you can try it, I've tried it and I always like to share that too, because I think so many of us get pigeonholed in the online space to be like, you must do that one thing. And granted, having done multiple things at once, you do go further when you focus on one or two things. But I don't ever think it hurts to experiment or explore the things that gets you excited or lit up. We had a candle company for a little while. We actually just sold it a couple of weeks ago. We, we got bought out, which was super exciting after owning it for only a year. And that was super fun too. But the thing is, I didn't love making candles, and I promise there's a point to this I didn't love. After about three to six months, I was like, This is so tedious. I don't want to make another freaking candle. If I see another candle in my life, I'm going to die.
[00:04:19] But I love the marketing. I love the promotion, I love the advertising. I love the email marketing and experimenting and playing with things that you're not sure if you're going to love or hate has always been this gateway for me to like reconnecting to what I really love, and I can honestly look back at the trend and say, like when I do direct sales or multi-level marketing, I was one of the first people to use advertising like I was doing team trainings for people on how to grow your following online with advertising. Whereas everyone else was like, you know, had a friend start a connection, make your list reach out to one hundred people. I was like, ehat if you just advertise like, you just do that? And so there is this recurring trend in my life that is like, no matter what I do, the thing that excites me about it is generating something out of nothing and marketing. And so after doing probably seven to 10 years of just dabbling, I was like, you know what? I'm going to start a marketing company. I don't necessarily know what I'm doing. I've seen success with my vegan food blog. I had a cookbook, I had a recipe book, I had done kickstarters and things like that, and I was like, you know what? I'm going to start marketing company. I don't necessarily know that I'm going to teach people to make a million dollars because I haven't done that.
[00:05:29] But I can show them how to be one step ahead of where they are right now and are kind of like vow from day one was we were just going to be honest, transparent and tell people like, I can't promise you millions, but I can tell you how I'm getting like that next step that a lot of people are chasing. We always like to be just one step ahead. And fast forward, seven years later, I've been running heart, soul and hustle for seven years, which is crazy, and we have spent like over a million dollars on advertising. We work with and have managed launches from twenty five thousand to a million dollars as ad managers. You know, it's just and I know this is like you gave me the floor, so I'm taking it, but I don't say all this to brag. I say it because I think so many times it's like what qualifies people or like what qualifies me? And for me, nothing qualified me. It was just pure curiosity, pure passion and consistency, transparency, and honesty has really just taken our company to where it is now. And now I get to do fun stuff like this where we have our membership and we just talk about it and we sell products that price points that feel good to us and we do fun podcasts, interviews.
[00:06:35] I love that you said the word curiosity because I think there's so many different tension points and scarcity mindsets when you just start out, and even when you do make money, then you're afraid of losing it, right? So at every point, there's always this struggle between the things I want to do and the things that I know I need to do to feel safe. And it seems like you've done all the different things. So, you know, my audience is mostly, you know, 90 percent women product owners. And the number one question is, I'm bootstrapping. I barely have anything to give in terms of like marketing, so they're not able to maybe take those risks, right? So what would you say in terms of like mindset that could help them and then also like actionable steps that they actually should try?
[00:07:14] Yeah, this is such a good question. So for me, my mindset is always such a loaded topic, right? Because there's two extremes. There is the get your mind right and your business will explode. And then there is mindset is just a piece of the puzzle, and it doesn't really mean anything. And I think that there is this middle ground of like, look, numbers are numbers. Numbers don't lie to you. But the stuff going on between your ears can definitely influence and affect the way you see and interpret and leverage those numbers. So for me, the one thing I always tell people is like, look, when you start a business, there are costs, right? And I think we've been spoiled by the internet, really. And one of my favorite things to do is tell people, you know, if you think 30 years back, right before the internet was even really a thing, you know, maybe even more now I used to say 30 years, but now it's probably closer to 40, which is crazy. But a long time ago, pre-internet, you would go to the bank with a business plan, ask for a loan, rent a storefront, buy inventory, get product, invest in sales. People hire employees and you don't have to do that. And so we, as as a society of business owners, have been conditioned that, oh, well, now that I have the internet, it should be cheap or free or non-existent cost. And I'm not saying that it's not important to be mindful of your costs and your numbers. It totally is, but there are costs associated with doing business, right? So the first thing I tell people is adjust your mind to not say these are expenses, but these are opportunities for me to invest in my business and myself.
[00:08:38] Right? And I always tell people, you either lose money and learn or you gain money and you learn, so you're going to learn no matter what. You know, a perfect example. I know you're in the physical product space. A lot of people think like Klaviyo is like the really hot, the hot button email marketer, but it's like it starts at like 50 bucks a month. And a lot of people are like, I don't have 50 dollars a month to spend and I'm like, right? But you have to change the way you think about that. Because if that email software buys you two new sales a month at 50 dollars average order value, it's paying for itself, right? Especially if you don't have other marketing costs yet because you're not advertising or things like that. So the way that I look at costs in my business is not how much does this cost me? I'd say, what's the potential ROI on this choice that I'm making today? That's the first part. The second piece in terms of like security and safety that really never goes away. In my experience, that's something you just continue to work on and kind of sit with. I personally am somebody who like I can hoard a ton of money and then I can turn around and blow it all like the next day, right? Very clear pattern in my life, something that I'm working on and exploring.
[00:09:47] But there is a reason that you're doing both, right? And so it's looking at that with a critical eye and asking the questions of like when I'm holding on to my money, why am I doing that right? Is it because I'm afraid it's going to go away? It's not going to be here. And you can answer those questions with business decisions. So like with us, one big thing we looked at, we were in a full agency model. We didn't have any memberships or courses. And I said it just feels like unstable, like we lose a client and then we have to find them and replace them. And we didn't want to scale it past a certain point for personal reasons and the size of my team that I like to have. And we basically said, well, what would create a sense of security or consistency in revenue? And for us, it was like a membership, right? So we started a membership. We now have about three hundred people on it. It's on a six figure run rate and its first six months, and we are like, that gives us that sense of security, right? So there is the side of things that's like you have to evaluate where you're feeling like stuck or broken, or there's definitely like a mindset issue, but you can address those and look at them and say, what is causing that to happen? And how can I create systems, processes and business decisions that help me offset that? Opposite side of the token is like, I'm a big spender, right? So I don't do like the.
[00:11:04] You know, advertising online of like look at me in first class and look at me on the plane and look at me with my bags. But I would be lying if I didn't say I have a few nice bags and I don't mind first class, right? It's just not part of my brand. It's not. That's not what I'm aspired to. All with my audience is aspiring for is to live this posh, high end L.A. palm trees, Chanel bag, first class emirate lifestyle. It's just not. And that's OK. I love it. But when I'm doing that, a lot of times I have like looked at that and said, well, a big reason I do that is because like, I want to experience it while I have it. And so I also get to ask the questions, am I making this decision out of fear? Am I making this decision out of scarcity or am I making this decision out of abundance, right? And I think that that is a question we can always be asking ourselves is like, am I thinking abundantly? Am I thinking scarcity, scarcity minded? Or is this really just a thought that I just have to work with? Right? So really long answer to a short question basically is analyze why and how you're doing things and just start having the conversations with yourself and your business decisions to how you compensate for and address those at the same time.
[00:12:11] I just got to take a moment. I feel like you just gave us four years of Zen wisdom. Oh my god, I mean, it hits. It hits so many points for me as as I overcome my scarcity mindset. I realize my anxiety has been creeping up. But two things you said really sit out to me. One is like, what is the ROI as opposed to? Like, Oh my god, this is another expenditure. And so seeing your money as kind of like a tool instead of it just being like a measure of your success, that's probably something I have to work on for the rest of my life. But I do notice that we're in the same mastermind like the question that always comes up. It's like, Are you just playing not to lose or are you playing to win? Because it's a completely different outcome. So that's number one. So if anyone's out there like multitasking, rewind to this part because you need to ask yourself, especially as we record this in Q1, as are you playing not to lose and trying to hold on for your dear life? Or are you playing to win because you know that you're going to the success is inevitable. So how would you act? That's number one. Number two is you said, I want to experience things while I have it. That is incredible because I think so many people are like, it's not an experience, it's just a number, it's just a goal. And I think because you've been able to have that curiosity, you've done all the things. You have a candle company, you have a memory, you have of course, you have a five day challenge and now you're able to make the impact because I bought your, you know, five day challenge launch tool kit and it changed my business and you probably wouldn't have created it if you had that mindset of like, what's the number? What's the end goal?
[00:13:36] Yeah. And you know, we took this really radical approach into our business that was we started pricing everything lower than industry average. And that has been one of the best things we've ever done because not because there's anything wrong with premium pricing, like there's not it's just I don't want to curate premium experiences. And for a long time, I found myself, you know, offering like a thousand dollar training or five thousand a quarter or a half year mentorship. And I was like, I just felt so much pressure to perform. And that was a big part of what I didn't like about my business. And I said, Well, if things were just cheaper and I showed up at the same level that I'm capable of showing up at, everything would feel different. And we did that and we've now, we have a thirty-seven course. We've sold like fifteen hundred copies of it. We have three hundred people in our active membership. We routinely do stuff for like two to seven hundred dollars. That would generally be more expensive just in our industry average. And we filled those up and we generate influxes of revenue when we want it. And there's no pressure to be like, Oh my gosh, this has to be like an amazing, top level, top notch experience. Now I show up that way. I still think, how can I make this an incredible experience for people? But I'm not feeling the pressure of having to. I feel the opportunity of getting to and even that subtle shift, it was just a game changer for us.
[00:14:56] Oh my God, saying, are you sure you're not like a spiritual teacher because I feel like you need to. You feel like you need to have a podcast just on like the mindset when it comes to business because I've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs, but you've dropped so many gems just within the last 60 seconds. Definitely going to relisten to this episode. So now I want to get into I mean, I could talk to you for hours, but I think one thing for a lot of my audience is like, you've tried all the things to grow your audience. You know, you tell people that there's a difference between like traffic ads and revenue. And then I want to talk a little bit more about like the five day challenge because I think that's something new that people are like, what's that or like? It doesn't pertain to me. So maybe kind of start with like the different things you've tried and like, why a five day challenge? Why should someone who doesn't even know what that is? Listen to this episode.
[00:15:38] Yeah. So contextually, just to understand like a five day challenge is just a launch mechanism, right? There are so many different ways that we launch, launch our products, and it's funny that you said you have a lot of beauty professionals because I have like a secret like beauty makeup obsession that a lot of people don't know about. One of my favorite companies just did a launch today and the way that they launch their product, this will this will come full circle, I promise. But the way that they launch their product was, they have a big YouTube presence. They. Have a big social following, and they basically like tease to the moment when the new collection launches. And it launched literally ten minutes before we got on, so I was so glad at the time you picked because I was like, perfect, I'm going to have time to buy it and we buy the we buy the PR pack and we buy all the things from the collection and like, that's just something we do. We love to do that my partner and I. So here's the thing the average person, especially if you're a newer beauty brand, doesn't have a multi million YouTube following, doesn't have multi million on social media, doesn't have these things. And so we see companies do these things that we try to emulate and we go, Oh, I'm going to post on my Instagram and I'm going to make an unboxing video, I'm going to do these things. And the problem is your your emulating based on the surface things you see you're not emulating based on the things that a company is doing.
[00:16:52] And there's just this little subtlety to understand here, which is when someone has a million YouTube followers, you can just go. Our new product drops next week. Here's the collection reveal. But as a newer brand or a smaller brand, you can't do that because you don't have an audience. So this is where a five day challenge comes into play. It's basically creating an audience of people that are interested in your products, services, whatever, and then putting an offer in front of them. So what we do with our five day challenges is we figure out what problem or issue our product or service solves. And then we go two steps back and say, What is the problem that our audience is experiencing or wants to solve now that I can teach them on, that will ultimately show them, Hey, I have a deeper solution for you. We call it the PSP model problem solution problem. Your audience has a problem. You solve it and uncovers a deeper problem that your product or service solves. Right. So perfect example for beauty industry. It would be like if you are selling like eye palettes, right? If that's your best seller, maybe your audience is like, I want to do like a really high quality smokey eye or I want to do a really high quality neon palette, right? Because when you do NEON's, you have to you have to use different tones or you have to change the way it looks on your face, right? And you can see the makeup nerd in me coming out a little bit.
[00:18:09] But you know, the thing is, you want to ask, like, what do they want, right? And so you could do a challenge. It's like, create your signature eye look and just five days. And then at the end you say, we've talked about it now. If you have your signature look great, here are our favorite tools that we've been using. Here are the palettes that we've been using in our videos. Here are the products that we use and recommend, and then you can just give them an opportunity with some sort of launch promotion. So a launch promotion in layman's terms is basically like some sort of special or limited time thing. So the company that we like, they do a PR box right there big enough that they do a PR box. And so they're like, Hey, you want to get your PR box? You can only buy two. There's only two available per order and we're limited in stock. And so you best believe they dropped at 10 a.m. that at 10:01 I was on there, adding two PR boxes to my cart because I didn't want to miss it, right? It's that feeling of exclusivity and like uniqueness and limited time and scarcity that you're kind of tapping into. And when you do things like that, people say, Oh, there's incentive to take action. The biggest thing I will say about this, though, is that it's it can't be fake, it can't be manufactured.
[00:19:17] So if you've got a thousand PR boxes, you're not going to go. I have 50 PR boxes, so you better grab one. People can sense fake people can sense lies basically. So don't lie for the sake of trying to generate revenue. Be transparent and honest about what you're doing, and you can use things like we have limited stock or we're only doing this for the next three days. Or this is just for people who took our challenge. So the way that the whole thing functions is a traditional company that has an existing audience, says announcement promotion drop. What we do is we do promotion content drop, and what you've done is three things: you've built an audience you connected with your audience and you've made an offer to your audience versus typically what we do as fiscal product brands. As we say, I'm going to create a really great product. I'm going to try and shoot fantastic photos and then really hunker down with social and maybe advertising and hope that people buy from me. But there's no incentive to do it now. With a challenge you build up a fan base, you help that fanbase become loyal by really giving to them and then you make an offer. And so that is how we see challenges is really thriving opportunity, especially in the physical product space, because people aren't doing them. The perception is that I don't need to educate my audience. But the reality is when you look at some of the top beauty brands like let's just take Mac, for example, how often if you're on the Mac mailing list, are they sending you like a YouTube video, right? How often are they sending you or just uploading to their YouTube channel? How often are they doing the buying guide? The color matching guides, right? We see that as, oh, that's just them coming up with an excuse to talk to me, whereas the deeper reason is that it's them creating content that is developing brand loyalty.
[00:21:00] I'm not going to watch a color matching video from Mac and then go to Ulta and buy Morphe Shade, because I didn't that's not where I connected with it, right? So anything you can do to build trust in connection with your audience is just a game changer. And especially for online brands, this is such a good opportunity because especially with beauty products, people want to touch them, feel them, experience them and live video and video content, which I know we can. We can kind of get into how that plays in. But within our challenges, we do live videos as well, and we're just like, here's your opportunity to like, really showcase your stuff, show your chops, right? Because the average person that has a beauty brand doesn't get into it because it's profitable, they get into it because they love beauty. And so there's just so much potential to connect with your audience. So that's the very second long answer to a very short question. But feel free to dig around in there and ask.
[00:21:51] Well, I will say from because I have actually listened to your episode of Amy Porterfield. That's how I found you. And when I was trying to grow my audience during the peak of COVID, I was like, you know what? I'm going to give this five day challenge a try. And I was so shocked at the engagement. I mean, now that Facebook group that you told me to start has 4000 people in there, and that's my main source of social proof. I have people posting in there every day. I got the PR starter pack, right? But you're saying it works for anything. It depends on like you can be a dog walker or you can make Japanese origami or you could be a service provider, right? What it is is just getting people into one space, whether it's Facebook or something and then dripping out content. So I guess my next question is we got someone's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, Zack. Like, I am just making lip glosses in my garage. I have no idea about email content, Facebook ads manager. So how can you make this less intimidating? Because it sounds like you need a lot of marketing know-how.
[00:22:43] Yeah, this is such a misnomer because the average person who's doing this, like we made candles in our garage, so we actually renovated our whole garage before we move to a new house. And then we renovated part of our basement to make candles in our garage and then our basement. And what's funny is that we give ourselves, I don't want to say excuses, but we create these stories that we kind of play over and over again until we believe them. And there are things like, I'm not a marketer, I just I just make lip gloss, right? But if you were to go to your next door neighbor, just role play with me. You knock on the door and you say, Hey, I have to run out of town, but I have 50 orders that need to go out. I left you the recipe for how to make my lip gloss. You said I could call in a favor. I'm so sorry to bother you, but could you? Can you just make 50 glosses for me and ship them out through Shopify? Your neighbor is going to go. I don't make gloss. I don't use Shopify. I don't know how to ship. I don't know how to pack. I don't know how to brand, but you do. And so we discredit ourselves for the things we haven't done without crediting ourselves for the things we have done.
[00:23:46] If you're already packing, shipping, making and product, you like literally developing and selling a product, even if you've sold one, even if you haven't sold any, you've already learned so much. So give yourself that permission to say I actually do know what I'm doing when it comes to making lip gloss. The reality is that is a skill that I developed. Marketing is a skill. Emailing is a skill. Advertising is a skill you've already proven to yourself that you can develop a skill. So don't look at this as, Oh my gosh, I've got to learn everything. No, this is I get to learn something new that's going to make me sharper in my business and sharper in my life. And the cool thing that I've learned about entrepreneurs and business owners is we all have this fear about taking on something new. But at the end of the day, it's learning those new things that ultimately gets us excited. So it's like this double edged sword we're on one side is excitement. One side is fear. But like, think about how nervous you were to start your brand or to ship out that first product and just kind of like, cross your fingers, you were going to get that positive review back right? And do things happen? Sure, you're going to get the negative review.
[00:24:47] You're going to get the broke in the mail. I don't like the smell`. I wouldn't have paid this much for it. Sure. That's part of the game. But when you realize that you have the ability to develop skills, you can say you can choose to say, and I know that sounds easy. But as you develop the skills, you're going to go, Oh my gosh, this was so easy, right? I think a great example, you know, Gloria would probably be you like, I imagine when you started this podcast, you were just like, I know how to podcast, so I'm going to do it. You were like, Oh, I've got to figure out the software and the recording and the editing and the publishing. But you did figure it out. And so you have to have, you know, they say like fear is false evidence appearing real, right? So give yourself credit because it is false evidence. You have the proof right in front of you that you can do this. So don't discredit yourself in an attempt to avoid something scary, credit yourself in an attempt to learn something.
[00:25:37] Oh, another mic drop moment and with a little bit of Zen Zen wisdom. So thank you so much for affirming that. And I'm going to wow, that was so deep. So you've answered my question about mindset, about how everything we've done is like just from not knowing and we know. Can you give me an example of just the life changing or business changing transformation from some of your previous five day challenge listeners or audiences?
[00:26:00] Totally. So we actually have a client. So use some of our templates and outline to they. Full transparency run a massively successful multimillion dollar company. But they had a one point two million dollars launch with their challenge, and they use some of the strategies that we put in place. You're a great example. We have people all the time that grab the idea of a challenge. Start a Facebook group. And now a year later, you've got over four thousand people in there that are just constantly giving you that social proof. We just had another girl who had a ninety seven dollars product and she was like, I don't know if I can sell this. I feel like it might be too expensive. And I was like, just go for it. She sold twenty two of them and her first challenge promotion. I think she was at an 80 percent profit margin. We've had people fill up high end programs. We've had people sell low end products. So, you know, I get excited because it's it's easy to be like, look what I've done with the challenge, but our students just crush it. They crush it time and time again. And the coolest thing that we've seen is that they actually get people paying attention. And I think for me, that is the most transformative thing is that as a business owner, 80 to 90 percent of the time, it feels like we're chasing trends which we are and yelling into the void.
[00:27:05] So we're like, Oh, reels are where it's at. I'm going to do this real and maybe one does well and then you're like, Oh my gosh, no one's watching my reels. And then TikTok is the thing, and you're like, No one's watching my Tik Tok and you're like, Well, maybe I'll use a Facebook group and no one's posting my Facebook group and we're always, always, always fighting to be seen. And the biggest result that we see people is they feel visible. And, you know, feelings are one of the most valid things we have right there. Not always a true depiction of the reality, but they are how we feel. We can't deny our feelings and when you feel empowered and visible and present to your company and your products. That, to me, is always the biggest win. Like I said, we've got number wins. We've got the group growth and the revenue in the first time sales. But I think as an outside observer, it's that confidence that to me, is the most exciting result.
[00:27:50] All right. So that's one thing I've learned as well. When I did your challenge, Tukur is I had no idea how to build an entire online business, which I have now. So I started from not even knowing what a funnel was to like now having all these automations. So it is possible. I guess another thing is now that you've told me about all the applications of a challenge and it's getting people to like, be in a container of like accountability and inspiration and you leading them. How does that actually play out? Because some people don't want to be on video and some people don't like to write emails. So what are what are the key components of this challenge?
[00:28:21] Yeah. So there's three key components. There's a daily email, a daily live video and then regular promotion via either advertising and or email marketing. This is what I will tell people, a lot of people say, I don't know if I want to do live video and that's fine, right? But it's not going anywhere, right? You're you're listening to this. This is being recorded live. You might be watching it. You might be looking at like a snippet of it online. We know that people connect with video, right? And to me, the best part about business is that this is a really bad example because I hate roller coasters, so I don't do roller coasters. I've done like two in the past five years. Somebody really pushes me to do it, but it's comparable to like that wait in the line like it's really uncomfortable. You don't know what's going to happen. It's like super unnerving. And then you get on the roller coaster and this is where it's a little different. I personally don't ever enjoy it. I'm kind of like, it's over, but you do it. And then you're like, Well, like, it was 90 seconds of my life, right? And the roller coaster. The reason I say it's I think it's a good and a bad example is like, that is the reality. You're going to go live and then it's going to be over. And that's it, right? And in the grand scheme of things, a 15, 20, 30 minute live stream, a podcast interview like this, it's a drop in the bucket, right? This I mean, this this interview will clock in at 30 minutes.
[00:29:35] There's one hundred and seventy two hours in a week or something like that. So literally I've used one percent of my time for the week to do this. And like that is not a big amount of time. It's just not, right? And when you look at the whole month, it's like a third of a percent. And when you look at the whole year, it's like a moment in time. So the advice that I give to people who are like, I don't want to do video or I'm not great at email is like, just do it anyway, right? Because when you started, you weren't good at making your product, you weren't going to branding your product. You weren't good at marketing your product and you're getting better every day. So why, you know, here's the hard truth, as other people are going to put their opinions, doubts and perceptions on you anyway. Why do that to yourself, too, you know, people are going to say, you can't do this, you're not good enough, you're not this, you're not that. Don't be another person doing that to yourself. Say, I don't know if I can do live VIDEO but I'm going to try it. And who knows, you might be a natural. Like, I personally thrive on live video. I'm very like off the cuff. I like to talk. Maybe I like the sound of my own voice a little too much. Who knows? But I can go and live video is a huge part of what grew my business in the early days. But the idea of just going live, we went live about three to five times a day every day for about a year.
[00:30:47] There was a different apps back then, so it wasn't the same as just going live on Facebook over and over. But you know, that was terrifying. And I little things that I didn't realize I was like judging myself or holding myself back like I would do. We use Periscope, which is super old school. If you don't even remember it, that's OK. It was like Twitter's version live streaming, and I would do like live streams while I was walking down the street, right, and I would do live streams in public and I would do them in my backyard, and I've had times where somebody be like, What are you doing? Or my neighbor would go, like, Are you talking to me? And I'd be like, Oh no, I'm on video, you know, and it's uncomfortable and weird in the moment, but that is a skill that has allowed me to do things like this where after doing that every day for a year and just coming up with stuff to talk about, now I can come on a podcast and talk, I can come on live video and talk. I can do these challenges and not feel like I need to prepare for hours and hours on end. But when I started, I would script everything out on a little sticky note and I had a little notebook that I wrote everything in. So don't cripple yourself saying or hold yourself back by saying, I have judgments about what I've never even done when other people are going to judge you for what you're doing either way.
[00:31:51] That is so profound. I mean, that's so true, right? You only know no one wakes up and is like, I know how to send emails, right? Like, I send an email to my entire mailing list with a typo in the very first word.
[00:32:04] My gosh, I do that all the time.
[00:32:06] And then once you're comfortable with that, you're like, No one really cares. Like any and the one person who is upset? Oh, here's another funny stories. When I did my launch, somebody literally wrote in the email, Screw you, you can go to hell in capital letters. And then I actually responded because he was upset that I didn't like, respond to an email. I actually said, Hey, we actually did respond. And he's like, Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I cannot believe, like, I let my anger out on you. I've been having supplier issues. So like, it's just a projection of what they're going through, right? So you've got to be comfortable with that in order to unlock all the other opportunities. Another thing I will say is like, I think a lot of people are like, I don't know how to market, I don't know how to write sales copy. But all of those things, like, there's templates for that.
[00:32:47] Yes, there's templates for everything, and they're skills that you develop to write. So it's very similar to reading. You don't pick up Harry Potter in kindergarten and go, Oh, I'm going to learn to read, write you read a picture book and then a picture and word book. And then like little less pictures, a little more words, and then it gets a little more complicated and it evolves. And that's the same as sales copy. You're not going to write this wonderful email on day one. We when we add our physical product company, I remember writing these emails. I mean, like this is so different from writing an email that's like, Come join my membership. I don't know what to talk about. We only had 12 different products. I couldn't put all 12 in every email like it was hard. And then in about a year, we were like, It's just another email. We'll just write the emails. And then we hired a company that gave us templates and we were like, We'll just use the templates. And then after using the templates for about three months, we were like, Oh, I'm starting to see the patterns. And then I evaluated the patterns and I started writing my own emails without templates. And that is the evolution of everything that you do. It's all like that. So just like, don't be done on yourself for not being perfect. Most people lose the game because they don't play. Don't be that person, right? Just send the email like the worst thing that's going to happen is people don't resonate and don't click. Or maybe somebody's going to write something nasty back. We've had some whack emails come through. I had somebody who was like, obsessed with me for two years would email
[00:34:06] every time I emailed back would block them. They'd sign up under a new email like it was crazy. But guess what? Nothing happened, like it was just somebody projecting their own insecurities onto me. So don't let other people's projections hold you back because you can. You can learn all that right. And I know that there's like a really high level talk, but just to be super actionable is like, send the email, just send the email right. And I remember one of the first times I sent an email, I was so nervous to send it. I actually had somebody else send it for me because I was like, just so nervous to hit the send button. I was like, just all you have to do is just click that button. They're like, Well, you can click. I was like, Yeah, we just click it for me. You just click the button, you know, and it's little things like that. It's like whatever it takes because it's all, it's all comes back to that. It's just that fear holding you back. So just send the email right? Just send the email, just post the Instagram, just shoot the reel. Just do the video whatever you're thinking. I know this could help me, but I don't know how you know enough to do it right. You know enough to Google how to send an email with Klaviyo. You are that smart. I know you are because you found this podcast. Just do it. Try it. Get it wrong. Mess it up. Because that first step is what leads to the thousand step. But you can't make that thousand step where you're a full functioning company until you do something.
[00:35:17] Thank you for that. And I think for anyone that's listening, it's like if you haven't tried it, a five day challenge, you definitely should do it no matter what industry you're in, because I've personally tried it to be able to go live, whether it's for five minutes or ten minutes in the Facebook group, having everyone their Facebook group introducing themselves, I had people make business besties. I had people like, you know, meet up in real life from the from these challenges. It's just about I think a lot of people think five day challenge is like, I don't know, maybe think it's like a marathon or some kind of physical activity. But for me, from a consumer's point of view, what it is is rallying a group of people who share the similar vision in like a safe space. So whether that's a Facebook group, whether that's email and it was just so transformative to be able to lead them, right?v Whether it's talking about how to use a best facial massage tools or how to use like rose hip oil, right? and they're asking questions, and that's how that's how you sell, it's not just by giving someone a coupon, but just like being invested in their journey, whether it's beauty or psychology or whatever. So on that note, it's like, how can people find you? How can people find the five day challenge and just get into your world?
[00:36:21] Absolutely. So if you want to stay connected, the best way is to head over to Instagram. I'm at heart Soul Hustle on Instagram. And if you want to learn like the challenge process, I know we were very esoteric today, which I always love that too. But if you're like, like, what do I say? What do I do? What do I send? We actually have a toolkit. It's thirty seven dollars. It's called the Challenge Lunch Tool Kit. You can go to toolkit.heartsoulhustle.com and it's thirty seven bucks and we basically give you the entire framework. So we give you email templates. We give you trainings on how to structure your day. We give you a visual chart of how a whole challenge runs. We got trainings on the challenges. We've got a little bit of Facebook ad bonuses in there. If you're thinking about foraying and advertising, which I recommend, but you can, you can check that all out. But you know, the biggest compliment to me is when somebody just DMs me on Instagram and says, like that was helpful or I appreciated when you said this, so you don't have to pay me to appreciate the conversation and if you're really feeling froggy, should be a message on Instagram. I do respond. I do love hearing from people. And yeah, that's that's the extent of it. I would love to see you out there. Just if you're like a challenge is not for me or I listen to this or I read the page, and it's just not a good fit. That's OK. I would challenge you at the end of this episode to just do one thing you've been putting off. Dm me and tell me that you did that. To me, it would be a huge success and just make this interview all the more worthwhile, even though it was
[00:37:39] already. Wow, that's amazing. I mean, that's exactly what I did. I DM’d as well, and I think I think we're going to have to have you come into our Facebook group, Small Biz PR Pros. So I'll get in touch with you for that. I think that's it's such a brilliant way to do marketing. That's not just like throwing money in this, you know, at Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. Thank you so much, Zach.
[00:38:01] I appreciate you. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it.
[00:38:13] Just finished another episode of the Small Business PR podcast. I hope you loved it as much as I did. Now, if you want to get free organic press features, get on to top podcasts and build relationships with editors at your dream outlets. Join me and hundreds of small business owners in the PR starter pack. It's the world's only PR tool that combines my proprietary CPR pitching framework with updated and super detailed media lists, so you'll never need to search for an editors contact again or wonder exactly what to write in the pitch. Email from proven pitch templates to gift guides to podcast lists, and so much more. It's the PR secret weapon of small but mighty businesses who know that they're meant to go bigger with their message. Even if they're just starting out, go to prstarterpack.com and see how founders from every industry leveraged it to get on to the New York Times, PopSugar, Vogue, Shape, Wall Street Journal and so many more journalists. No PR agency retainers, no expensive contracts required, and best of all, no ads or relying on relationships or other people to vouch for you because the PR starter pack has everything you need to feel ready and confident to pitch like the industry expert, you know you are. I know you're going to love it. So go to prstarterpack.com and I'll talk to you next week.