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Welcome to the Marketing Matters podcast for small business owners, entrepreneurs and really anyone who has anything that you want more people to find. Because you being the best kept secret helps no one, right? And that's because you can be so great at what you do. But if you aren't great at advertising what you do, then no one can find you, right? That's why in every single episode, I'm going to show you how you can use paid ads to hit your goals 10 times sooner. It's time you finally learn how to win with paid ads. I'll show you how to score and be known by more. Let's get started. This is about to be so cool to be able to share with you really what this journey has been like on filling a room at the Power of Paid Ad Summit and just learning so much about advertising for an event and the challenges that come with it. Because yes, we did exceed our goal. And I'm going to share all with you, I'm going to share with you kind of the story of how we got there, what was challenging because it wasn't all rainbows and butterflies. And honestly that's with anything, any person, any story, any business that you, you see that is growing and things are going well there. There are also some challenges behind the scenes, like, and I just feel like it's really important to be able to share what those were so that you can take these lessons and use them for your business too. So we're going to talk about, you know, even the pre launch strategy, like how did we grow sales and grow the hype up until the event, how long did we advertise it? How much did we spend? What was the return? How much could someone spend on an event like this? And I'm going to give you all of those answers and I'll be honest, I'm a big fan of earning while you're learning. And let's be clear, I have learned so much. I just got paid to learn a list of lessons and I actually wrote a lot of them out here with you that I, I can't wait to share with you. And I also want to tell you that if you are listening and this is the first episode that you've ever listened to on this podcast, I want to encourage you to go back and listen to other episodes. And the reason I say that is because there's been a journey here, there's been a story here, there has been an inch by inch, brick by brick, layer by layer, day by day effort. And it's not just been going on in the last two and a half years since I've had my business, it's been over a decade in the making of doing paid advertising all day, every day. In fact, I was chatting with one of my coaches about a six figure day that she had had in her business and she said, I said, wow, isn't it cool how in like two hours you were able to generate over six figures in revenue? And she was like, yes, but it wasn't two hours. It was, you know, 15 hours preparing for the two hours and a lifetime of preparing up until then. And it's such a good reminder because I know that. And I was still like, wow, six figures in two hours, good job. Like, that's huge. And it can seem like that it's something that happened quickly, but I promise you, anything that feels like it's growing quickly on the outside, there was so much more of a root system that was developing for years and years and years and years and years. So all the experience that you've gained, all of the every minute of your life that you've lived up until now, as you hear this podcast, you've been developing something. You've been developing a skill, a passion, knowledge. You're learning what isn't working, what is working so that you can help the people that you created your business for in the first place. Right. Like you have this depth of knowledge and experience and your heart is to get it into the hands of people. And the way that you can do that is through advertising. And I'm going to share with you. You know, I know often on this podcast I share wins for my clients, but this is going to be a personal win and I hope that you're able to share some of this because even though it was a win, everything didn't go perfectly. And I'm going to share it all. So let's jump in. Oh, also, before we do that, the there are a few episodes I. I mentioned that you should go back and re listen to because you'll see I did this event a year ago, so I'm going to actually compare as I go throughout this, like what went well last time versus what went well this time and what will we do differently for the next time? So I'm going to share the whole evolution. But if you haven't listened to the whole story, there's a plot, it's been a story in the making and I would love for you to go back and listen to other episodes so you can kind of see where, where I'm at now versus where I was then and where some of my clients were then and where they out. And also if you are not able to be at the Power of Paid Ad Summit, I would love to meet you in the Win with Paid Ads challenge. So if you click the link below this YouTube or podcast video or you go to AshleyBrock.com challenge, there's a five day win with Paid Ads challenge coming up. And you belong in the room. And one of the, one of my favorite things that actually happened at Summit was when you did the VIP Platinum ticket tier. So the VIB Platinum tier, you got access to a lunch where we did Q A each day. And then on the third day we did a coffee chat, like a fireside chat where I just sat on the edge of the stage. We opened up the main auditorium and theater before everybody else came in. It was just the VIP Platinum ticket holders. And we sat there and just asked questions and just talked, just talked with other business owners. I mean, it was so just, it was like, it was like you were sitting at dinner with your friends and you were just talking about stuff that really mattered that excited you. And it was like different learnings on what's working and what's not. It was just so good. And so what's really cool is in the Win with Paid Ads challenge, the first hour of each day, if you're able to get your ticket before the VIP room is sold out, what we do is we go around the room and you get to ask your specific advertising or marketing question and I give you personalized feedback. And what's really special is not the feedback that you get for you. I mean, it is. But what's also special is how you'll see that the other business owners and the questions that they're asking actually really helps you and could unlock like instantly an idea for you. So I would love to get to see you click the link below. It is Monday through Friday and it's an hour of that coaching every single day, followed by an hour of training. It's so good. And it is the thing that could allow you to speed up your results and really, you know, implement some of the stuff that I'm going to talk about today in this episode. So I hope you love it. All right, so let's jump in. So I, I'll give a summary of the backstory. I, I did not know an entrepreneur growing up. I can't think of anybody that I knew that had their own business that comes to mind and that's. That that was, I grew up so blessed. So with the best parents. They were divorced. They got divorced around first grade. And even still like, they were still good to each other. And I learned so much from each of them. And I would not be where I am today without my parents. So let's go ahead and share. I'm so grateful and I know that's not the case for everyone. My parents loved me. My parents poured into me. My parents knew I was incentive driven. And so they would incentivize me to get a good grade or be successful. It was very much a positive reinforcement environment. And I was taught to be like competitive and go get it. And you work hard to earn your money. And one of the things that I learned from my parents was you save money. And ultimately enough saving allows you to have money like you save money to get money. And what's been a complete mind shift for me that has allowed me to surpass the seven figure mark in my business. And now this year we'll do multiple 77 figures is knowing that it's okay to spend money to make money. And the way that I did that first. For those of you that this is your first episode that you've listened to, I borrowed money. So someone asked me today on my Instagram live, she said, what if you don't have money for ads? And I was like, well, you borrow it. That, that, that's what you do. Because if you don't have, if you can't borrow money to run ads to get clients, then how are you going to get clients? Because you're either gonna pay with money or time, right? And you're gonna post 24, 7 or you're gonna pay to speed things up. Like you are truly cutting a check for speed when you do paid advertising. And so I borrowed money. And I'll be honest, I had worked so hard in my job at the ad agencies. Cause I've been doing ads for over a decade for some of these Fortune 500 companies in these ad agencies. And so I had created a savings account. We had some investment stuff going on, but my business account was basically not fluffed up with money, let's call it that. And so if I wanted to host an event and if I wanted to get coaching, well, that was going to have to come from a credit card. And it ended up coming from multiple credit cards. Because I leveraged the opportunity to invest to be able to get the money. Like I had to say, I believe in this so much. Like, I'm going to put this money out. And you know that movie, it's dirty Dancing, right? I think it's dirty Dancing. And she's like, don't put baby. Never put baby in a corner. Don't put baby in a corner. My new motto is, like, put me in a freaking corner. Because if you put me in a corner, I'm gonna be forced to get out. And you're probably the same way, too. In fact, you being uncomfortable is probably the thing that is hold, like, you. Your willingness to be a certain level of uncomfortable, honestly, is probably the thing holding you back from reaching that version of you that you know is possible. It's like, how tolerant are you for discomfor? And I'll never forget one of my friends and clients, she spoke at the Power of Paid Ad Summit. And I'll never forget her telling me the sentence. She said, it's okay to be hungry. And I was like, what? She's like, it is okay to be hungry. You do not have to be fully fed 24 7. Like, a little bit of discomfort is okay. I'm like, oh, it's like when my son, I take his iPad, because I'm like, hey, we've had our 30 minutes of iPad time. He, like, cries, and he's so uncomfortable. I'm like, oh, that's okay. He can be uncomfortable. And then, like, three minutes later, he's playing with toys, building tower. And I'm like, see, the discomfort was a prerequisite to change. And it's the same thing in your life and in your business. And definitely with hosting an event and running ads, it's uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable. And the payoff is very high. Like, it's like the slingshot. It can only go. Like, if you pull a slingshot back. Like, it can only go forward as far as you pull back. Some of us are like, we just want a little bit of uncover. And it's like, oh, no wonder our ball isn't going far because we're not willing to, like, pull that thing back and get uncomfortable for it to go so far. So just want you to know, as I jump into this stuff I learned about Summit, we have pulled the slingshot as far back. I mean, we just went all in on this. So the. The way that I did the Summit initially was I borrowed. I borrowed money. Okay? So this time this year, fast forward thanks to paid advertising. I had a pocket of money in my business operating account, and I was like, I'm going to go bigger on the summit this time. So last time I spent $15,000 on ads and about another $35,000 on the event. So it was around $50,000 or less on hosting my first summit. Okay. So. And I didn't have $50,000 in cash to host that. Like I borrowed the money. Right. So long story short, you've got to go listen to that podcast episode where I like recap that. But long story short, I invested 50,000. I ended up having a $157,000 day. I paid off my 50,000 that I owed because I got in coaching. I ran the ads, the room filled, it was the right people, they purchased. And so I took the rest of it, set aside money for taxes and what, what, what little I had left. I was like, I'm gonna pour this right back into advertising to grow the business. So I'm very big on delayed gratification. And that's what I did. I was like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this money, I'm just gonna reinvest it back. So that was like the, one of the pivotal moments of last year was having the cash to be able to say, now I'm just going to pour this into advertising so that I could spend more and more and more on my ad throughout the year. And so last year, the, the first event, the first summit that I did, I had me and my one teammate that worked 10 hours a week. It was it. There was no event planner. There was our moms. Yeah, my. And I say our moms. My mom and Kyle's mom, my husband's mom, she was our moms. And Laura Beth, that was. And I think Chelsea was still helping with social media at the time. Maybe I don't even think she was yet. Yeah, so it was like a really small team and we were like hosting this event. We didn't know what we were doing and we just figured it out. And so I just want to give the type A person because I've found when I raise my hand in rooms, I'm like, raise your hand if you like control. And you're type A and organized. And I'm like, oh, it's all of you. We found each other in business and in life. And so I want to speak right into your heart. Type A. Hear me. You cannot, you can not wait for every I to be dotted and every T to be crossed in order for you to move forward. I know that worked in school, I know that worked in college. It does not work in entrepreneurship. And if you want to have the seven figure eight figure business, you must be okay not having every I dotted and T cross. You must do it anyway. And it will be uncomfortable, and you will learn as you earn. And so the. That's what we did. We hosted the event. We didn't know what we were doing. We learned a lot. And I'll tell you this. There are three pieces to a very successful event. And the goal of the event for the first summit and the second summit was to add value. Encourage these women, and at the end, show them a way that they can truly never have to worry about where leads and sales are coming from for the entire rest of their life, because they have mastered advertising. So I did advertise. The definition of advertise is the process of making known. So I did make known the way that people could work with me. And so that was the goal of the event. Encourage, educate, and take action to work together so that your business can grow forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Amen. And for those of you that have listened to other episodes on the podcast, you know those stories, you've heard them. And if you're at the summit, good lord, we had 40 people get up on the stage and earn an award for their success with paid advertising. Your payoff is on the other side of paid advertising, because people can find you. Because here's the thing. People do want what you have to offer. They just don't know that you exist yet. Winky face. Okay. They just don't know that you exist yet. That's what paid advertising is for. So that was the goal of the event. Well, so if you bucket those and you're like, what are the three things that you have to have in an event? Well, you have to have motivation. You have to have people believe that they can do it because they themselves are worthy of being believed in. You have to have validation. Which means, okay, you're teaching me this. But. But how are you credible and how have you helped other people? Because I'm. I'm a big fan. Like, I'm happy to share with you my revenue. I'm going to share my ad spend and my revenue. I'm happy to share that with you. What I'm more happy to share about, if I'm being honest, is the women that I've helped do it. Like, yes, it's cool that I've done it. And what's cooler is the hundreds at this point of women that have taken this knowledge and applied it. That is what's cool. So validation is super important, and it's for you, too. Don't just launch something and never have worked with anybody or have feedback an abundant amount of feedback readily available. Because someone will pull out their credit card and buy what you have to offer if they've seen that other people have done it and are happy about it. Right? Like they actually loved it. Because. Because what that says is, I would rather have your thing than this money, because the thing is worth more in the long term. That is the goal, right? So you have to have motivation. And let me go back to the motivation for two seconds, too. If you just tell people, like, I'm trying to think of a perfect example. If you just told someone, here's a playbook. Check the boxes. And they didn't actually believe that it would work, or they didn't believe in themselves that they could actually do it, they would not get the result. It would be useless. And so they. You have to have the motivation to believe that you can do it and believe that the payoff is on the other side. And you have to have validation that other people have done it. And then the third piece that you have to have is education. Let me tell you this, because I feel like I'm the most honest on this, on this podcast about every single thing that's going on in my life. Behind that, people don't see behind the scenes, right? And so that honesty is, like, one of the most important things to me, if not the most. I mean, you. I feel like the. Yeah, I. Don't get me started on honesty. I just feel like it's like, core to who I am. And so anytime I've ever been hurt by something that someone has done, it has been due to a lack of honesty. And so I'm just so big on that. So I'm going to be honest and share all of this with you. So I'm going to be honest here. At my first summit, all I did was educate. I just had incredible speakers. Educate the audience. And then at the end, I was like, oh, by the way, I have a way you can work with me. You should buy it. Like, that's kind of how the event went. They were like, huh? I thought you were gonna. I thought you're gonna tell me to set up paid ads. Like, the first event I hosted was educate, educate, educate, educate. Oh, surprise. Do you want to learn how to do this? You should buy my program. That's what I did. Now I still gave them value. I told them the eight paid ads, mistakes. The very first event I hosted, it was super helpful, but I was so nervous to be like, hey, I can help you. And it makes me think, like, what if I went to a doctor's office with a problem and they felt bad helping me. Like, oh, I know exactly what surgery we could perform, but it's gonna cost you money. I'm sorry. It's gonna cost you money. It's like, you're gonna have to pay me to do the surgery. I'm sorry. Like, could you imagine the doctor's like, you need the surgery. It will cost this. And like, your life depends on it. And I'm gonna be honest, I feel kind of the same thing about the livelihood of your business. I'm like, if you don't figure out how to advertise it and you don't have people coming to your door, you're going to post on Instagram forever incessantly and hope that it clicks. And like, hope that it clicks versus knowing for certain that you can target and you can be found. And gosh, lord forbid, Instagram shuts down one day. What are you gonna do if your business is solely built on Instagram and Instagram literally breaks or shuts down? What are you gonna do if you don't know how to advertise, if you don't know how to diversify, if you don't know how to run YouTube ads or TikTok ads or Google Ads or any of the other ads, like, ah, what would you do? It's like renting versus owning your house. If you're renting the house and they take the house from you, you ain't got the house, like, you're out. You're sol. So that's why it is so important to share what you have to offer. And so I had to be an example of that. And I'm going to be honest, it was uncomfortable the first time being like, hey, you could pay me and I can teach you and it can change your life. Like, it was so uncomfortable. And so what I invested in over the last year was sales training so that I could become. Become comfortable and confident in saying, I can help you. Here's the value. The price is only a tiny fraction of the value that is possible for you. And here's how we get started today. Like, it has completely changed my life. So at this event at the Power of Paid Ads Summit, I, I from the beginning was like, hey, the definition of advertising is the process of making known. And I will advertise my services so that you can know how we can move forward and no matter what, this is be valuable for you. And so I'll tell you this because I was so obsessed the first event with just educating what I know about educating is when you over educate, you overwhelm. When you over educate, you overwhelm. And so I watched people's hands go into their head and they were like shaking their heads. I could see the deer in headlights. I'm like, I just said something that didn't make sense to them. She's confused. And I was like, watching the audience, I'm like, they are miserable. They're in pain. Like, they don't understand what I'm saying. And a few of them, like, still bought, which was lovely on the first event I'm referring to at the first summit that I did. But I knew that there were other people that were so, like, confused by the logic and the overwhelm that they didn't take action because they were overwhelmed by that. And I was like, dang, they are not going to figure out how to do advertising. Like, they're not actually going to learn the step by step because they're so overwhelmed right now. So I course corrected. Have you ever course corrected? Like, like court, like, overcorrected where you're like, oops, went a little bit too far. I'm gonna be honest. Okay. And I shared this with my mastermind ladies, but I'm guess I'm gonna share it with you right now. I overcorrected so much on the education that I should have done more education at the summit. Like, I was so into the motivation and the validation. I'm like, look at these stories. Listen to how they did it. But I had less of the. I mean, I still had education. Don't get me wrong. I had frameworks, I had visuals, I had charts. It just could have been more. And what I found from the VIP room is they loved when we got in the nitty gritty. Like, when I, when I was like, hey, here's this specific strategy. Here's how you could test and use a different call to action for your different ads to measure which is performing best. They were like, whoa, tell me more. And so like, I. You can only learn by doing, right? You can't learn by assuming. You learn by doing. And so after having done that, I was like, wow, I'm going to incorporate this more into the next event. So I wanted to share with you a few things I learned like that that I'm going to incorporate into the next event that I do. One is just having a balance and education, validation and motivation. Okay, I joked, I said this to a few people. I'm like, my cup runneth over in validation and motivation. But the education I could have done more. Which is why, like, for instance, the challenge that I have coming up, like, I am educating more and the challenge I'm going to, I'm going to make certain that every day there's a specific lesson, a specific concept and specific homework so that no matter what, every person walks away from that challenge. And like, that was helpful. Whether you have a zero just getting started business or a seven or eight figure business, you're like, that one strategy, this one thing was absolutely worth 10 times what I paid, period. That's why I offer a guarantee for the challenges that if you don't think in the challenge that the challenge itself was worth 10 times the value of what you actually paid, then we will refund your money for the challenge, period. So, like, I am taking that feedback, I'm putting it into place. And so I will do more education next time. And then someone else asked, they said, did you, did you listen to your speaker's speeches before they spoke? Kind of. So most of them I did, yes. Most of them I did. And a few of them multiple times. However, when you get on stage, not everything is going to be exactly as you prepare. And so there were a few, like, comments, a few things that the speaker shared. And I was like, and I had a conversation with them after. I was like, hey, this one thing, I'm not certain we should have said it this way. Just feedback for the next time, right? And they were all very receptive. Like, that's a great point because nobody's perfect. So it would be weird if everybody got on stage and was like, my speech was perfect, there's no feedback needed. I am out. Like, no, they worked so hard. And after reflecting, I was like, hey, here's a few things I would, I would change for the future. And also someone else asked me, she's like, one thing, there's a feedback thing. She said, hey, the timing like kept changing. And what she meant by it was at summit, we would have like a 5 minute break or a 15 minute break and it would, it would change. It would be like another five minutes or we would add or remove time. And I'll tell you, one of the reasons that we did not share an itinerary, itinerary for the power paid Ad Summit was because in a live event, you never know who's having tummy issues. You never know whose kid just called from daycare. You never know whose car was having issues. You never know just where someone's at mentally. Like, things can change at a live event. And so I will probably never Share an itinerary because you need to be able to, like, be on the fly. And so until you kind of see the behind the scenes of what can happen and like, the real life moments that you're like, oops, we need to change this. Oops, we need to change the time. Time. It. It is, it is. It is hard to be perfect. And there are some things that we will build in next time based on the timing that we saw. And we'll be like, hey, I think we need a little bit more time for this versus this versus this. So that was something that we learned. So let's see. Two other differences this time. Thanks to the coaching that I've had. I was so confident and excited. Like, I actually could not wait to share how the women in the room, how we could work together. Like, I couldn't wait to share it. And I still, like, know a few things that I. I was given feedback. I'm like, oh, let me make this part a little bit more clear. But the only way you get better is through feedback. The only way you refine and actually have your revenue climb is by refining. Like, that is the. That is the very thing. So learn so much there a few things we'll do different for the next event as well. Someone specifically said the panel Q A that they would have loved to ask the people on the panel questions. Brilliant. We will be doing that next time. Because I had, like, different people in different phases of their business, like, come up and share some of their stories. And so the crowd was like, man, I would love to ask them a question. So fair. So should have done that. Definitely. We'll do that next time. Minor changes. Someone was like, there needs to be more bathrooms. And I agree. So we will do it at a different location next time. Most likely water bottles. Random. Like, there are a few random things. I'm like, I agree with you. We'll. We'll take care of that for next time. We had water and tea and coffee, but it was water in a container, not like water bottles because we were trying to conserve some plastic. But, like, little things like that were helpful. Let's see. Oh, the other piece of feedback I loved for the summit recently was about connecting with the other entrepreneurs, like having little pods where they could, like, break into feedback and ask each other questions and get to know each other a little bit. Like actually facilitating that. Obviously you're in a room, so there's something to be said about, go connect, go talk, have a conversation. And I know sometimes it's. Sometimes there's Introverts. And they're like, hey, I do want to talk, but it would be so nice if you could guide me into that conversation. And I actually really like that. So we're going to do something. We're going to figure out a way to like weave in either in the VIP room or the, the lunchroom or in the like actual day and have different pods to give feedback because I think that would have been so cool because that like just sitting around a circle with other women who have their business and like giving and receiving feedback. Like that was the vibe in the lunch sessions, in the coffee side chat. And I just wish the general admission and VIP admission could have experienced what we had there. And so I'm going to figure out a way to like just have those connections be able to be built in the rooms. That's something I'm going to think about for next time too. Let's see. The one other note that I had to learn was that the people pleaser in me, she, she struggled. There's a part of me, I don't know if you felt this way. Maybe you just genuinely want everyone to appreciate you, to love you, to be thankful for you. And so you do everything to make certain that that is so. And then when you feel like you do and they are like, there's a few people that are like not pleased. It's like so hard. It's so hard. And I've just got to decide that it is okay that not every, not I am not for everyone. You are not for everyone. And there is like statistically no way to make 100% of people happy. Now the good news is I would say 98% of people who attended the summit gave the best feedback. They were like, this one thing, this one. And it was like, my life has changed. There was pre summit and post summit. I have never felt this excited for my business. I am on fire. I mean, it was so much the strategies someone said. I went home and changed my ads. I did a new testimonial ad and changed my messaging about the pain point. Like they just took it and applied it. And I really believe that if you look for the good, you can find it, but if you look for the bad, you won't. And so there were a few pieces of feedback that I'm gonna be honest, were really hard for me. And I, to my knowledge, I mean, I'm human. There could have been one scenario that I missed, but to my knowledge, I actually had my team send me anything that was constructive or negative in my opinion and send it to me because I wanted to have a one on one conversation with every person that had something challenging happened. Now, not always, as the company grows, will that be me? I'd love for that to be someone on my team. But for now, I was like, you know what? Please send me every person. And I read it, I acknowledged it, and I reached out to them in the kindest, most genuine way, saying, hey, I appreciate your feedback. And one of the pieces of feedback that I got the most, I say the most, probably five to six people. Specifically, there were five to six people who shared with me that they were disappointed that we did not set up ads at the event. And although I had posted a podcast a couple weeks prior to the event and did a story series and did an email, multiple emails about specifically what we would not be doing which was launching ads, we were not going to have 400 people with their laptops open yelling from across the room, I'm getting an error. My wi fi is we were not going to do that. And although I communicated it, I admit I could have communicated it even more and more clearly. And so now I am making certain that everyone who does the challenge or the summit knows we will not set up ads at the event. And what's crazy is today one of the ladies in the Mastermind, her name is Blakely, she messaged me and she's like, ashley, I just wanted to let you know I'm in the Mastermind. I was going through the course and thank God you did not do this at summit. She was like this. I thought we were. You were just gonna teach me how to take a post, boost it, do it the right way, and be on my way. She's like, this is deep. She's like, this is depth. She's like, I'm having to re watch twice and be like, wow, that's how ads work. That's why you would do it like this. And she was like, thank you for doing exactly what you did. She's like, I. She said, and I quote, today Blakely said to me, I would not have purchased if you had taught any of this. And I. And then she explained and she said, because I would have been too overwhelmed. I would have been like, wow, this is too much. And I. And. But now she's like, I'm so glad that this has depth to it. I'm so glad that this is not just a 30 minute video that I paid this for. She's like, I see how this is a machine. I see how this is strategy. I see how this is different. And I'm like, that is what I'm talking about. I could. She was like, you could not have done this in a day. I'm like, I know I couldn't have done it in a week. Like it just takes more time than that to do it the right way. And so many people want the quick fix. They want the injection, they want the, the how can I just get the quick fix? And, and preferably as cheap as humanly possible. That is not this. I, I said today I don't normally have like super strong opinions that I do verbally because I just keep the, keep some of my opinions to myself. But I was like, there are some people that do what I do. They don't have the experience that I do. That's that's just fact. But they teach ads or they teach some part of ads. And they are so big on like the five dollar crew. And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go out here and I'm gonna say 5. If you want to spend $5 on ads, you probably don't want to work with me. And it like pains me, it like causes me physical pain to be like, you probably don't want it if, but it's true. If you want a cheap solution, if you do not want a long term solution, if you do not want to put on the work, if you or someone on your team, right, or if you want to see how much juice can I squeeze out of this lemon to get this to go like, like this four dollar ad. Like it's. I'm probably not your person because I'm going to be the advocate that is honest with you and says that more data allows you to make better decisions. And being uncomfortable is the very thing that allows you to hit your goals sooner. And the cheap fix, when you buy cheap, you buy again. And I want to be known as the go to for the ads that actually work because it's not just one ad, it is a machine that we're building. And so you can start with $5 a day on your ad and then you can go to 10 and go to 50 and go to 500 and 5000. But that's like it's okay. What I'm not saying is it's not okay to start with $5 a day. What I am saying is that I want you to get as uncomfortable as humanly possible in your business so that you can get to your results sooner. And I know that you'll delay it by spending $5 a day forever. And saying, how much can I go with? $5. So can you get results? Yes. Will they be delayed? Just. Yeah, because you got to get more data. You got to get. Get more out there. So let's see. So we're not setting up ads. That was a hard. That was a hard conversation. And I shared with people. I'm like, listen, I could have done a better job. And now I'm taking that feedback. And I've already said it 200 times, like, for the challenge and for the summit, I'm like, we're not setting up ads. And I think that the example and the visual I want to give you is, like, if I had done ad setup at the summit or in my challenge, it would be like this. It would be like me pretend. Okay, can you close your eyes and, like. Well, if you're driving, don't close your eyes, but can you close your eyes for just a second? And I want you to imagine that you have never driven a car before. Okay. You've never driven a car before. Okay. AKA you've never launched ads before. All right? And so I come to you and I say, here's the car. Here's the keys. You turn the key. Put the key right here. You're going to turn it, twist it. Yep. Car is on. Drive. You would be like, where am I going? What else do I need to know? That, yeah, the thing's on, but what do I do next? What's the strategy? Like, you would. You would not know. You would not be able to get to your destination. Happily, you were told, here's the key, here's how to turn it. The machine is on. And what I wasn't going to do is have 400 people turn a machine on in their business, and they don't understand the strategy or the direction, and so it doesn't take them anywhere. I actually. The core of my heart and soul is that business owners figure out how to advertise so they can actually go somewhere. They can actually be with their kids and pick them up at 3. They can actually change people's lives. They can actually pay for their whole family to go to Hawaii. They can actually build a compound on 93 acres for their family because they finally figured out how people could find their dadgum business that they've worked so hard for. That is my mission. So, no, we're not going to set up ads in three days. No, you don't want to. I promise. I promise. You want to know how the machine works, and I promise if you build your own machine, you will know how that baby works so that when something happens and you're challenged and you run into a roadblock, you're taught, what is my next move? What is the data say? How do I know what to do next? How do I know where to turn? That's me. Remember when you were learning how to drive, you hopefully had a parent or a spouse or somebody sitting next to you in the car saying, this is what you do. You had a coach guiding you along the way. They just give you the keys to the car and say, bomb voyage. No, someone has to teach you traffic laws. Someone has to be there when you're scared and you're like, which lane am I supposed to be in? Someone has to guide you on how you get from A to B over and over and over again so that later you can get to A to B on your own. So that is why we don't set up ads on the summit or in the challenge, because I promise you, you will get the car on and you won't know where it's headed, which is why you need the playbook and why you need a coach. So I'm going to take this feedback to heart and continue to share my message that you gotta. You, you. You don't want a quick fix and there's strategy here and that strategy matters. All right, I'm looking at my notes to see if there's anything else I met. I message, you know, my husband said something really kind to me the other day. I said, what did you think about Summit? Because he wasn't at my first event. And I told him it would have meant a lot to me if he was there. And we just didn't think about it, you know, he was like, I, I don't know. I. I'm sorry I wasn't there. And I was like, well, it would really mean a lot to me if you were there the next time. And if that man did not get. Both of my boys woke up, you know, ready, fed, take them to school every day. And he was at that event venue by 8:30am every single morning. He kissed me before I went on stage. He came and hugged me every time after. He was on the front row smiling at me every moment I got nervous every moment I lost my place in my speech every time. I literally forgot a whole section of my speech and had to go off stage and be like, oopsie, he was there. And what I know about having someone who's there for you, whether it's life, business, whatever, it means a lot when you Got someone who, like, believes in you and shows up for you and can just be that support. And too many business owners, they don't have that, that type of support. And I don't take that for granted at all. It's also one of the reasons I love getting to be that for the women I work with, because not, not everybody has someone being like, let's go with your business. And I love being that person, but I also love being the person. It's like, let's go. And here's some direct feedback that you need, you know, so it's really special that he was there because you just. When you have someone who knows your heart, it's like, you can mess up and they love you anyway. And, you know, some people didn't know me, and honestly, there's little situations where I said something wrong or messed something up, but I feel like that's the humanity and all of us. And I also feel like the whole point is you can't get feedback until you do. So whatever it is that you're scared of doing, I would say go out in front of everybody and just do it. And the people who are your people, they will see you and they will be like, that's my person. That's what happened to me at the summit. It's why we surpassed our goal. And so I want to talk a little bit about the, the ad strategy, what I spent and how that went, because I know you're. You're wondering about that. Oh, yeah. So let's talk about. Sorry, I was looking at my notes. So one of the things that we did this year that we didn't do last year was this year we actually built a wait list. So for a couple months, everything that I posted or did, my cta, my call to action was join the waitlist during the waitlist. Join the waitlist during the waitlist for when we opened tickets at Summit. And then what I did is for everybody that was on the waitlist or that was a past client, I did a 20, I think it was 24 or 48 hours only. I gave them the absolute best price on their tickets. Loved that strategy, by the way. It was so smart. They got rewarded and they did get the best price. And it incentivized action because there was a deadline, was scarcity. I said, for the first 100 and for 24 to 48 hours only, you're getting this price. And so we actually, with my CFO Hannah, who is also my mc, the Wealth Collaborative, her Instagram, if you are looking, if you have money, like a good bit of money that you need to manage in your business and your personal. Her team is wonderful. She's helped me so much, but she's my CFO for my business. She's my. Essentially, I'm her on the go CMO and she's my on the go cfo. And you need both in your business, in my opinion. And so she's mine. And we were talking about, like, ticket sales and the price point. And like, we actually included that 100 of our tickets would be at the lowest possible price because we're going to offer that to people that joined the wait list or were a past client. And that worked really well. And so what we were able to do is price the remaining tickets out to kind of balance that out, which was really cool. So it's just like having a CFO that can help you think through how do you want to take care of your current clients and how do you want to make sure that the business is profitable. Right. I think so many of us, we have this. I mean, I don't know if you feel this way. Maybe it's just me, like, it is good to have profit in a business, you know, like, you have to have that to. To keep growing. And so, like, my goal, because last year was not profitable, I was like, how can we be profitable this time, just on the ticket sales? And so that was like a big goal of mine. And here's what I found and something I want you to think about too. As you, like, price your offers are. Your price says a lot about the value and the people in the room. And so I will tell you, it's just a different audience with people at different places in their business. When I was charging 97 to 3.97 a ticket versus 397 to 1597 to take it like it was, or 497 to 1597 to take it. It's just a different. Someone is in a different place in their business. And so I really want you to think about what does your pricing say about you and the value you have to offer? Because out of respect for the room, it's super important that if you are going to have a higher value ticket, then there's that there's higher value in the room. So we did a wait list. And what we did is we opened up the wait list on October 15th. And so we ran ads from October 15th to January 15th, which was the day of the summit. So we had three months. November, December, January, we had three months of ads and then like three months of hype before that. So that's what we did. Organic hype for three months and then paid hype for three months. And the previous year when we did this, we only like decided we were going to do the event 60 days in advance. We announced it 45 days in advance and advertised it like 35 days in advance. So we had a much different scenario this time and much more lead time. And I found that the majority of my past clients and people on the wait list did buy in those first 24 to 48 hours. And then the second best day of ticket sales was Black Friday. That Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend. Huge. Because I did a discount and I did promise that it wouldn't be that low again. So it was like the last chance. And that did really well. And one of my biggest regrets is not spending more on that weekend because I could have sold out the event then versus waiting. I think VIP Platinum sold out that weekend though, which was cool. So VIP Platinum, and that's what's interesting too about events. So my VIP Platinum tickets sold out first and then VIP was second and then general admission was last. General mission is at the very end. So that's something I want you to think about is your highest value. Tickets will go quicker. Isn't that interesting? So just something to think about as you plan and advertise. That's why I really like having like an A or a B option on, on mostly anything. I mean, I could be convinced otherwise depending on your scenario. But like I like to say, here is one option, here is option vip. Because there will always be a certain percentage of people that will opt for the higher value thing. In fact, so many of the women, they were like, I only go vip, I go bigger. I go home. And just know like for you and your customers and your clients, there's people like that too. I'm like that. I'm like, if I'm gonna do it, let's just do it. Right, right. And so just think about that for your, your business too. Make sure that you have another option that allows someone to have a more premium and special experience. Let's see. Looking at my notes. Yep. So what ad spend? Okay, So I spent one hundred and four thousand on Meta ads, twelve thousand dollars on Google and YouTube ads, and five thousand dollars on TikTok ads. So that equates to around $120,000 on ads. And then ticket sales was over 170,000 now. Yes, that was a, you know, fifty thousand dollar in profit between the ad Spend and the tickets. Right. Well the event itself cost more than 50,000. Okay. So the. Because, because you think about the expenses. There was photography and videography. There was the event venue rental. There was the snacks for the coffee, tea, water. There was audio visual and the whole production team. There were swag bags and gifts. There were banners and branding and then there was workbooks for the actual program when people purchase. That was a whole design expense and all of that. But granted we already had the workbook. We just updated it to the 2.0 version. There were outfits, there were team travel, there were was the whole team. Because I, I had my sales coach, I had my event strategist who worked with Tony Robbins and Amy Porterfield and Jeff Walker and some of these big names. So she was there and help. She was wonderful. If you ever want to host an event, gotta have Kristen reach out to me. Kristin at yes Events. She's wonderful and just tell her I sent you. So I had my sales coach, the sales girls, I had Kristen. I had a hair and makeup team. So Jensen at Rainy Beauty did my eyelashes and my hair Ginger at Clayton & Co. Salon did my hair updo for the post event celebration. And then Starla at stunning by Starla did my makeup each day. I had my mom and mother in law just help with like event running every day. Mom helped get Chick Fil a breakfast and Starbucks every morning. I had what I've called my life and executive assistant Rose. So she was going to target at 10 o'clock at night getting something underneath my dress because it was going to be see through. She brought Starbucks, she was my sidekick. Had my lipstick ready, my chapstick. I mean she was just there to help me change and undress and here's what's next. Like she was incredible in just helping me be prepared for my next move. So hair make and then I had Laura Beth as director of operations. I had Meredith at the side stage. I had Melissa, the overall operations working with Laura Beth. Long story short, I had a team and I mean obviously Lacy and Katie on my team who are both Lacy helped like set up and coordinate the event. Um and then Katie really helped with some of the behind the scenes on the course and the workbook getting that already. I mean there's just so many pieces and so many layers to this team which is so funny because a year ago I had Laura Beth and my two moms. So year over year, yes, we got, we, we like 50%, 65, 75% increased our total ticket sales and our price was more Than double. And our team was way more than double to. To put on this event. And we worked for months and months and months every single day on summit stuff. Every single day. And it's like, so much. It's so much work, and it's so worth it. Like, super worth it. But I just wanted to share with you. It was 120 on ads, 170 in ticket sales, but then there were greater than 50,000 in expenses. So in theory, we were actually under, like, in the negative before the event started. And then we did do seven figures in 24 hours. I know. So good. It was the right. It was. It was. And it was the. The women that I had prayed for that would be open to the feedback and would do the work and would actually get the result. Like, that is who found this program, which was really cool. And so could I. Could I have done a better job? Yes. I'll be honest with you. On the per. After the first day, I went back to my hotel room, and Laura Beth and I always stay together. And we stay at. We stayed. Even though I live, like, 40 minutes from the venue, I needed to be right there because we had to wake up at 5am every day to get ready and get everything up. So we shared a room. Because we're always talking strategy and next steps and all these things. Well, have you ever had a moment where you actually do something really well and you get a good result? And then. Actually, it was day two. Sorry. It was day two, you actually do it, and then you come and you take a moment and you. You just. You're frustrated with yourself because you know you could have done better. Have you ever had that moment? Like, it's not that you're not thankful. It's not that you're not grateful. It's that, like, you reflect. You're like, dang it, you could have done better on this specific thing. Well, I wanted to share with you because it's just honest what I could have done better. I love launching ads. I would have rather played in my ads manager all day than, like, practice my speeches again, you know? And so my speeches were good, and I had this knowledge in me because I've been doing this for so long, but, like, I could have. There were a few moments where I just didn't land the plane or I got sidetracked a little bit. And so just like. And I know that's human, and I get it. I'm not being overly critical. Some of you were so kind. You're like, ashley, that was so much and you're, like, sitting here listing all the things you did wrong. And I'm like, no, I'm just reflecting on what I could have done better. And I am acknowledging the things I did well. I am acknowledging that I did not have the shakes this time on stage. I had to shake. Like, last time, I was so scared to get up on the stage. I was, like, convulsing. It was like the stage overtook me. And this time, I couldn't wait to get up there. I was like, this is who God has called me to be. And this is where God has called me to be, and with the women he's called me to serve. And so I got up there and had no shakes. Like, I just felt confident. I felt like. I just felt like I was in my right place, and like, I still could have done things differently. And so for that reason, like, there were moments where I just reflected, and I was frustrated with myself because I could have done a few other things better. And it's the very thing that'll allow me to make the next one better, which. I've shared a lot of that with you. But the whole point of why I wanted to tell that to you, specifically about how I would have rather launched my ads than practice my speech is for you. You would probably rap. Oh, you know what I'm do? I'm gonna read what I wrote to my. Read to my mastermind. Okay. Are you ready? So this is from U Squared. Okay. U Squared by Price Pritchett. All right. It says, as human beings, we ordinarily go with the obvious. We fall into the habit of relying on behaviors that seem to have worked for us over the years. When we take an approach that seems very serviceable and enables us to perform well and succeed, we become attached to it, and we do not readily relinquish that habit pattern. In fact, there's a tendency to follow our favorite approach more and more often so that we get better and better at handling things in that specific way. But if you want to accelerate your rate of achievement rapidly, you must search out and vigorously employ new behaviors, new attitudes. You must be willing to break out of your routines in order to take the quantum leap. The things that worked for you in the past very likely could sooner or later lose their effectiveness. Even if your customary approach still holds promise for maintaining your present level of performance, it may not help much when you want to achieve higher levels. And if you continue to use those old routines and also maybe even lean on them, when your performance flattens out or sags, you Create a trap for yourself. And there's a certain irony here. Your historically most dependable behaviors can become the major opticals to your future success. It's possible for them to actually cripple your progress. They may stand as a personal boundary to the limit of what you can accomplish in your life. So I, you know what works for me? Launching ads. You know what is my habit? Launching ads. You know what I didn't want to do? Practice my speech. I didn't want to do that. I knew I should, like, don't you know what you should do? You just don't do it. And you look for reasons why you should do the other thing. I'm like, well, I gotta keep running the ads, right? I gotta, I gotta, I gotta show them. I gotta show them that I can do this and teach them, you know, like, that's like what humans do. It's like, oh, we avoid the thing that we know we need to do. And you may be sitting here, whether you're a client or not a client, you may be sitting here thinking, I need to be going to launch those ads or I finally need to jump in and figure out how to do it. And if the first is you and you're my client, go watch the ads. Okay? You know, you can go watch those modules and go do it. If you're not a client and you're not a customer, you belong in the Win with Paid Ads challenge so that you can understand these strategies. And we're going to talk about settings, messaging, targeting, refining, AKA testing and profiting, and how those four lead up to the Profiting in the Win with Paid Ads challenge. I hope this was helpful and if you have any feedback on this episode, I would love it so much. And I'm going to continue every single week on this podcast to give you the honest, unfiltered, just truest, behind the scenes data. And I'm going to encourage you, I'm going to challenge you. And the last thing I want to leave you with, the last thing I want to leave you with is this thought about I felt. So I'm gonna try to figure out the best way to say this. One of the things that I felt before I made the first move to invest in myself and to really take a leap of faith, I felt resistance to pay money for something I did. And what I found was, if you are unwilling to pay, you will be unable to charge. And the moment that I said, I am going to become the type of buyer that I want to attract, everything changed for my life and My business. And I had three ways that I presented that we could work together at the summit for basically the three different levels anyone is at in their business, whether they are just getting started or have a seven or eight figure company that they're scaling. And I had five spots for my top tier offer and I sold all five of those spots are now taken. And what I found in that room with the people that were like, you know, really investing in themselves and their business at the highest level. And by the way, I just want you to know, whether you did the beginning or the middle or the highest offer, no matter what it is, you did the exact right move for you at that time. Just like I did when I paid 3,000 the first time and then I paid 50 and then I paid 125. You made the right move for you. I believe that. And when you are investing in something and you are actually doing something where you require people to pay like a premium or a certain price, what I found is the people who actually did the highest value offer, they appreciate and love getting sold to. Because they know, like someone said this to me recently, they said success recognizes success. And I know that I have become the type of buyer and I'm like, sell me on the value. You have something for me. Great, I will hear it out. I can't wait actually to be sold to because I love paying for value. And so that was not always that way. I wanted to see how low can I go? How can I get the best you know you want. Can I tell you a funny story? I actually used to think there was not a difference in quality of clothes. I was like, lululemon and Old Navy are selling the exact same thing. There's no such thing as quality. Someone's just scamming you and they're putting a brand stamp on the back and calling it Lulu. And they're saying it's better. False. Those pants just fit differently, okay? They are made differently. And there's something to be said about things that are made with quality and something that is last. And I'll say it once I've said it probably already on this podcast once or twice. When you buy cheap, you buy again. And I would rather be known as the go to for the quality solution to paid advertising. Because no one else teaches this comprehensive method where it's like, how do you do Google Ads and meta ads and TikTok ads and you know, Facebook and Instagram ads? How do you do it all? And because most advertisers are typically specialists and strategists because that's how it actually works in the ad agency. There's actually very few that actually are not good at just the strategy, but actually implementing and setting up multiple ads. So that's why this is a bit different. And so you may want to be known as the Lululemon in your industry, and if you want people to pay you Lululemon prices, you have to be willing to pay Lululemon prices for the things that you want. You're like, oh, why is nobody. I want people to pay me this now. Now, I would never. I would never pay that. But, like, you should. Like, that is subconsciously going to throw some stuff off. I think it's called cognitive dissonance. I think I've talked about it before. It's, like, where you say one thing, but you believe another. And, like, there's this internal, like, battle within you. And so one thing that Macy taught me is she was like, become the $20 million version of you today. And the $20 million version of me invests. She anticipates the good. She knows it will work out, and she knows that the price that she charges is based on value. And so I want that for you, too. I want that for you so bad. But if you're struggling to invest in yourself and you're wondering why your sales aren't exactly where you want them to be, I just want you to think about how you view and think about money. Because for me, it was so scarce for so long, and the moment that I shifted my belief system a little bit about money, it really helped. And actually, I have a podcast episode with my husband called, like, the spouse secrets and how to get your spouse on board for big decisions. And it is not about a battle. It is about alignment. And so if you haven't listened to that episode, I feel like you'll really enjoy it earlier in the podcast. And it's on YouTube as well. If you want to see us sit next to each other in my bedroom as we recorded that episode. It's really cool. All right, well, I really hope that that was helpful for you in some way, shape or form. I'd honestly love your feedback. And if this was helpful, I would love for you to leave a review of the podcast that would mean so much to me or subscribe on YouTube or both. Because my mission is that there's no business owner out there who doesn't know how they can become findable and doesn't know how they or someone on their team can do their own ads. I'd love to hear your honest feedback. I'd love to hear if you have other questions about the event that I didn't answer that you had hoped for. I'd love to share those on an upcoming episode. In fact, if you have other, like, questions about ads and you're like, I would love for you to answer this question. I'm making this podcast for you. Literally. I just want you to listen and be like, that is helpful. I love that podcast and every time it comes out, I can't wait to listen. So if you have questions on anything, just reach out. You can send me a message on Instagram or you can email my team@infohleybrock.com and say, podcast episode idea. And we will, we will add it in there. All right. I believe in you, and I can't wait for more people to find you. And when you advertise your name, you can make it rain. And we're going to talk exactly about how you can do that and then win with paid ads Challenge. So click the link below or go to ashleybratt.comchallenge and I'll see you on the next episode.