← This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
How To Build A Profitable Online Business with Carla Biesinger | 310
00:34:12
Carla Biesinger shares what it really takes to build a profitable online business—from mastering Instagram and email marketing to redefining success on your own terms.
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- [00:11]
Nicole Khalil
I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the this Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together, we're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. And today we're talking about how to build an online business. If you've ever googled how to build a business or walked into the business section of a bookstore, you already know we're drowning in advice. Some of it is solid and applies to every entrepreneur. Yes, you'll need to invest, take risks, find your target customer, market your ass off, and probably leverage other people's time and talents along the way. Some of the advice is debatable, like whether you really need to wake up at 4am to be successful. For the record, my advice? Know how much sleep your body needs. And do that because operating on too little sleep is the equivalent of being drunk all day, and I can't see how that's good for business. And also, I'm the president of the Wake up Whenever the Fuck I Want club. So know that if you'd like to join me. Anyway, my mini rant is over. Back to what I was saying. Some advice is great, some of it is questionable, and some may work brilliantly for someone else but be completely wrong for you. And while we're making a lot of progress, still most of what we learn about business comes from a very masculine perspective. Lots of grit, grind and tactical execution with very little focus on intuition, connection and sustainable growth. But here's the truth. There's general business advice and there's specific business advice. And the real magic happens when you figure out which one applies to the business you you want. What works for a brick and mortar boutique might be a disaster for an online coaching business. A strategy that's brilliant for a solopreneur may fall apart when you've got a team of 50 people. And if you don't pay attention to the difference, you'll spend a lot of time spinning your wheels and wondering why nothing is working for you. Or you may make the same mistake I have more than a couple times and blindly follow the advice of someone who's wildly successful without ever stopping to ask yourself if you even want the the business or the life that they have. Which brings us to today's topic. How to build a profitable online business. Because, let's be honest, the Internet has made it easier than ever to start a business. But building one that actually makes money? That's another story. And if you're here, chances are you either have an online business, want an online business, or just tired of pretending that your side hustle is only for fun. To help us figure out how to actually make money online, I've got Carla Bissinga here with me today. Carla is a business mentor and online course creator who helps women build profitable businesses using the power of Instagram and email marketing. After building a seven figure restaurant in Argentina, she took her expertise online and has since helped over 7,000 clients grow their brands and their audiences and their income. Her approach is all about authentic connection and attraction marketing. No sleazy sales tactics, no bro marketing nonsense. Because success isn't just about hitting seven figures. It's about creating the kind of freedom that lets you wake up every day and choose how you spend your time, who you spend it with, and what kind of impact you want to make. So let's get into it. Carla, first, thank you for being here. And I want to ask you how you knew it was time or that you were ready or what inspired you to create your first online course, because I'm sure there are people who are listening in who are wondering whether or not they could or should. So any advice of, like, how do we know when it's time to go from a wish or an idea to actually doing it?
- [04:07]
Carla Bissinga
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. I'm so excited to talk about this topic today. So I created my first online course in 2016. So I left the restaurant in 2015, and I actually took a job in an online marketing agency. And after about five months, I realized that I didn't like someone else telling me what to do every day. And while obviously running a restaurant, it's not necessarily the industry you want to be in if you enjoy freedom and flexibility. So when I left, I definitely knew that I didn't want to continue working in this industry. And I kind of got the idea that maybe I should build an online business that would give me the freedom to just travel the world with my laptop, no big team, no investors, and just sell things online. And so I basically started taking online courses to learn about how to sell things online. And I very clearly remember I was in Mexico at the time. I was going for a beach walk with my boyfriend at the time, and I said to him, I think I'm going to create an online course. And he was like, okay, I think that's a great idea. But I had no idea what it was going to be on, who the customer, like, ideal customer was going to be. And I was just like, yeah, I think this just really aligns with my vision for my life and my lifestyle, and I think I'm just going to go for it. So I had a little bit of a financial Runway of about six months, and I think that's a really important factor to have when you're starting a business, because it's very difficult to build a business when you're in constant financial stress and scarcity. And so I definitely recommend having a financial Runway of 6 to 12 months, so you can just really give it your all and just go. Go for it without having to worry so much about how much money is coming in. And so I spent the first six months really just building my audience. I actually had an idea for an online course that I wanted to create, but it turned into something completely different. And I just spent the first six months growing my audience on Instagram, building an email list, really understanding what questions people had. And I. My first course, it was going to be about how to manage all of your social media in 15 minutes a day, which is probably pretty unrealistic. And I. So I opened an account on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and somehow my Instagram account just took off. And within six months, I grew to 10,000 followers organically. And people just started asking, how are you doing this? Like, why does this seem to work for you when I'm trying so hard and it's not working for me? And that's kind of what gave me the idea to pivot and to launch a course on Instagram marketing. So it was really the input from my audience that really led me to my first offer. And when I first launched it, I remember very clearly, I just had a goal of enrolling 10 people just to really get the validation that this is something that people want and I can continue going for it. And I got my 10 people. One of them was my dad, bless him. But I did get my. My 10 people. And it just really gave me that confidence to keep going. Then it kind of was. The first two years were a bit of a struggle because I just really didn't know what I was doing. So it was a lot of trial and error trying different launch strategies, kind of thinking maybe the product is the problem and it's not something that people want. And so creating a new course, launching that, and I was a little bit stuck in that cycle. In the end, I figured it out. But I think there's probably not ever a time when you're, like, completely ready. Right? At some point, you just have to go for it.
- [07:53]
Nicole Khalil
Yeah. Never, never, never. Okay, so I'm gonna pull out a few things that really resonated with me that I think are fairly universal. Maybe not a hundred percent of the time, but more often, than not, and that is, first, you probably get some insight into that this might be the route for you if you have a strong desire for freedom.
- [08:14]
Carla Bissinga
And.
- [08:14]
Nicole Khalil
And if you constantly are thinking, you're not the boss of me when you're at work. Right. Like having somebody else be in control might not feel good. And you really have a strong desire for freedom. I couldn't agree more with having a financial Runway. You don't make good business decisions when you're super stressed out about money. And so six months was what I had. And so that resonated with me, knowing that you are going to both need to be committed and flexible, which seems paradoxical, but you're gonna need to pivot what you think is going to be your business or how it's gonna run or what is gonna be. The focus is gonna evolve and grow, and you learn by doing. And then the last thing is. I can totally relate. My first client for my. I did an online course on how to build confidence for women. And my first signup was my husband. So sometimes you just need those people who, like, don't it is that you're offering. They just want to support you, and that actually helps in those sort of baby step beginnings where. Where you're figuring things out. Okay, so, Carla, you said this, but I want to reiterate. Every entrepreneur faces challenges in the beginning. You're working with a lot of women who are building businesses. What are some of the biggest struggles you see women facing and needing to overcome when they first get started?
- [09:43]
Carla Bissinga
Yeah, I think one is there's a lot of different fears, right? Fear of being visible. It actually took me two years before I posted a photo of myself on Instagram. And I have this a lot where women are like, I just don't feel comfortable in front of the camera. I don't really know what I'm doing on video. So that fear of just showing up, fear of what other people think about you, if they're going to judge you, what your friends are going to think, I think those are all absolutely valid. And to overcome those, I think first of all, you need to just, you know, take baby steps. Like I always say, if you're not comfortable yet being in front of the camera, maybe just start taking videos where people can hear your voice. Maybe use a filter. Right. Like, I don't do my hair and makeup every day, so I definitely understand, like, I'm not camera ready all the time, but we can use things like subtle filters to just make us feel a little bit more comfortable or confident and just practice. Right. I did a 30 day live challenge back in, I think it was 2019, where I was going live every day on Instagram for 30 days. And by the end of it, I was just like, I don't care. Like, I. This is what I look like and this is what I have to say today. And on some days I was like, I don't really like I have anything today that I want to say, but I'm here, I'm showing up because this is the challenge. And after that I was just like, I can do a live. Literally, wait. Someone wakes me up at 4am and I'm like, you have to go live. The other thing I think, which is also a struggle and probably even seasoned entrepreneurs still get sidetracked by that, is the shiny object syndrome, where you just feel like there's all these people, all these experts with all their different courses and coaching offers, and everyone seems to have the magic pill that is gonna make or break your business. And so it's very easy to get sidetracked and to jump on and jump in different courses. And then in the end, you're just spreading yourself really thin and you're not really giving one thing a really good shot. That was definitely also my issue in the beginning. I think another thing probably has to do with the fear of visibility is thinking like, you have to build a website, and when you have a website, then you can be ready to launch your business. And you don't realize that, yes, you might have a beautiful website, but you have no traffic going to that website. So kind of focusing on, on the wrong things at the wrong time.
- [12:14]
Nicole Khalil
Okay. I've experienced personally every single one of the things that you said. I will also add in the fear of visibility is for me, and I think a lot of people I talk to is the fear of the technology. There are so many different things we think we might need or don't know how to use. You know, so it's. There is an element of that, but I couldn't agree more. We practice our way through our fears. There's no other way to do it. And gosh, I call it Shiny Penny syndrome. But the way I always put it is I'm enamored by a good idea, I love a good idea, and I get sucked into them so easily that I've created like a. I have to ask myself, is this A good idea and then is this a good idea for me? And then is this a good idea for me right now? And the reality is most ideas are good ideas or I wouldn't be interested. It's that if it's a good idea for me or if it's a good idea for right now. That's usually because I have distracted myself away from my top priorities so many times anyway.
- [13:16]
Carla Bissinga
Yeah, I actually have a good ideas list where I just write down things for later and if I ever want to revisit it, I don't think I've ever actually revisited it, but I know they are there. So I feel like I can move on with my day and I can come back to these.
- [13:30]
Nicole Khalil
Oh my God, so smart. Because I think a lot of times the reason we implement is because we don't want to. And I'm just going to air, put, put in air quotes, lose it. Right?
- [13:39]
Carla Bissinga
Yeah.
- [13:40]
Nicole Khalil
And having a place where you put it with the idea of I'm going to circle back, maybe make once a quarter, review your good ideas or whatever. But how often we look back on ideas 30 days or 60 days later and we're like, didn't even remember it or not a good idea anymore. So I love that idea. Specifically for online, what advice or tips or strategies might be different if you're trying to build an online business versus all the other businesses that are out there and all the other advice that's being given?
- [14:21]
Carla Bissinga
Yeah. So obviously every business has different channels of how to attract customers. Right. So if I'm thinking about the, the restaurant, for example, you might be able to get some clients who find you on Instagram, but there's probably other things like Google reviews, TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc. So there's definitely online platforms that can help you attract clients. But if you're creating an online business, selling online courses or online coaching, first of all, you have a really huge benefit because you can literally market to any in the entire world. So you're not just relying on people who are in your area. But so you, you definitely need to understand how to locate those people on whether it's Instagram or TikTok or YouTube and how to attract them. Luckily for each platform there are certain ways on how to do that and then you need to create content that really speaks to them. Right. So there's two different ways I'm going to speak about Instagram. I think it's definitely applies to other platforms as well. But if I know who my ideal follower is and I know who who they follow. For example, I can then go and find them and connect with them and kind of attract them over to my feed. Now if my feed is kind of a mess and doesn't really speak to them, they're very unlikely going to follow me or follow me back. Right. So I really need to think about those two things. I need to create content that really serves my audience and creates value so that with every post that I'm putting out there, I'm. I'm serving them and there's like, they're getting value from it. And so they want to continue to follow me and engage with me. And then once I have that, I can then go and find more of these ideal people.
- [16:12]
Nicole Khalil
Okay, so you said something that I want to hone in on the upside of having an online business is you can market to literally anyone and everyone. Right. You have the entire world's population at your fingertips. And that can also be really overwhelming because you don't want to market yourself to everyone. You're not for everyone. Everyone's not for you. So any tips on how to determine who your ideal audience is and whether or not you're actually attracting them?
- [16:44]
Carla Bissinga
Sure. So I think. I think goes for this question. And then also when you're actually creating content for them, I always encourage my clients to think about one specific person. So whether that is a person they've made up where they're like, okay, my. My ideal follower. Her name is Lisa. She's 37. She lives in New York City. She has the dream of building her own business. Or maybe you've already worked with someone where you're like, this was my absolute dream client. I would love to just work with more people like this one. And so I'm going to create my ideal customer or my avatar based on that actual person. So I really think once you have a person in mind, it's so much easier to then write to them. And you know, it's like as if you're writing a letter to your friend. That's how you can start writing your captions or your emails. And if it resonates with that one person, it's going to resonate with so many more people who are like that one person.
- [17:41]
Nicole Khalil
I'd never done that before. When I wrote my book, my writing partner had given me that advice to create an avatar. And I actually struggled with it a little bit. Cause I'd never done it before. And I ended up combining two women who I adore and think are like, exceptional and struggled with confidence in my experience with Them. And so all of that to say, having somebody specific in mind. I called my avatar Laurison because it was Lauren and Allison meshed together. But so often I thought of them very specifically, and I think that that's really good advice. Okay, keep going.
- [18:22]
Carla Bissinga
And then in terms of. I think your second question was, how do I check if I'm actually attracting them? I think you can quite easily see based on who's following you, are they a certain demographic, are they interested in certain types of things? So you just kind of need to check out who's following you and then see, okay, am I actually attracting the right people or not?
- [18:45]
Nicole Khalil
I'm curious your thoughts about. I think there's the inclination to want to create a very large audience or a large following. And obviously the ideal situation is large and engaged. But I have learned the hard way that engaged is better than large. Your thoughts?
- [19:05]
Carla Bissinga
Absolutely agree. Yeah, I think, and this is where a lot of people get stuck or get hung up on is the idea that in order to get more customers, I need to have more followers. But actually, if you think about how many customers do you really need per month, right? Maybe it's 10, maybe it's a hundred. It's probably not a hundred thousand. So if you just work on building really strong relationships with the people that are following you instead of always chasing new people and forgetting about the people that are actually watching what you're doing, you're gonna have much better results.
- [19:41]
Nicole Khalil
Couldn't agree more. Okay, so let's talk about social media. I hesitate to use the word versus maybe it's and email list. What would you prioritize and why and how do you leverage one for the other? Like, how do you get your Instagram or TikTok followers to join your email community? Or how do you get your email community to follow you on social media? Like, any thoughts there?
- [20:07]
Carla Bissinga
So it. Social media is great for visibility, right? Because we can create a post and it can reach so many different people. So that's typically my first step, whether I'm using organic social media or I also use paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram. But that's kind of my first touch point. Then once they're following me, I'm then pretty much immediately going to try and turn them into email subscribers. And that's just because my email list is really my biggest asset. It's the only audience that I really own. And people want to receive offers and promotions in their inbox versus on Instagram or other social media platforms. You kind of have to, you know, provide more value and then kind of slide in or sneak in the call to action to take the next step.
- [20:59]
Nicole Khalil
Step.
- [20:59]
Carla Bissinga
So I think both of them combined are just so powerful. Unfortunately, with email marketing it's not as sexy as Instagram and I think therefore a lot of people don't really focus on it. But I always say like, if you have a following on social media, take that extra step. Create a freebie that they can download so you can get their email address and just send maybe two newsletters a month. You can even turn your Instagram captions into email newsletters. We now have AI which is so incredible. Right. So we can take an Instagram post And just ask ChatGPT to turn this into an email so it really doesn't have to take a lot of extra time. But for me it's always like when I send out one email with a promotion, I immediately make so many sales on Instagram I have to work harder for it. It definitely works as well, but it requires me to show up more to really, you know, because people are just swiping and scrolling and with an email, if someone opens it and it's a very clear message with a link with what they're going to get, it's a very easy click.
- [22:08]
Nicole Khalil
Again, aligns with my experience. Now I do think people more and more hesitate to sign up via the free offering or anything like that for people's email lists because we don't want to get inundated. Like the amount of crap emails I think most of us get nowadays is thoroughly overwhelming. What advice do you have for people to create a community that people actually want to be part of, where they actually want to open and read your emails.
- [22:42]
Carla Bissinga
Yeah. So I think it's the same with social media. You want to give value, right. You want to use it to nurture your audience. And then thirdly, you want to make promotions or make office. So I think like something that has been really helpful for me is to come up with a theme for my newsletter. So every Monday I send out a. It's called Coffee and Confidence. It's like a three minute read to start your week with confidence and like a little marketing tip in every single email. And then sometimes in that email or at the bottom of the email, I have a little invitation to join a webinar or to download something or to, you know, jump in on an offer. And then sometimes when I'm in a promotional period, I might have some other emails that are story based within a link to buy or just some really short emails where it's really clear. Like this is the offer. If you want it, click here. But every single Monday I send out this coffee and confidence Lucilla and I get so much positive feedback on that. People literally tell me like I don't read anyone's newsletter, but I always read yours. And I think it's just something that over time, like I even branded in the in in the subject line, it always has a little coffee emoji and confidence. So people know this is the newsletter and they know that there's something of value inside. And I think it's just part of building trust, building your expert status and just really, you know, showing that you're showing up in the inbox with something of value.
- [24:13]
Nicole Khalil
Great personal takeaways. I think I'm pretty good at. I send a weekly email and I get a lot of positive feedback. Similarly, my favorite compliment is yours is the only one I actually read every week and the data is really good as far as how many people open and all that. What I'm not good at is even making an attempt to convert into sales. Any advice about what percentage should be value add versus sales or. I feel like if you're trying to sell something in every single email, people are like, forget it, not interested. What are your thoughts?
- [24:52]
Carla Bissinga
So I definitely agree with that and I, I'll actually have to look back over my my email schedule, but pretty much I do the weekly newsletter that's usually just value. Sometimes you know, I'm hosting a retreat in September so I just put it like as a PS and it's a really soft invitation and then usually once a have something going on that I'm promoting over a few emails, like nothing crazy. I actually don't do any like two week launches at all. So I think that your numbers will tell you right. If your open rates go way down or your click through rates are super low, it's probably a sign that this isn't really working and so you might just want to pivot your strategy. But I think also people, you know, they do expect to receive offers in your emails and often people are waiting for something that you have that you can help them with. And so I feel like it's just a matter of figuring out different ways of giving them that option to jump in, but doing it in a way that feels really aligned with you. Like I'm not someone who is super pushy or super salesy. So something that has worked really well for me is creating more story based emails. Like I went to a party on Saturday where the theme was Neverland And I told this story that as a girl I wanted to join this circus. And so I dressed up as a circus girl. And I shared this story of how I still believe that even though I never joined the circus, I've kind of created my own version of Neverland because I get to do what I want, where I want, I get to travel and that I've spoken to entrepreneurs and heard that one thing that would make Neverland better is to have more money. And so then I just had like a little link where I said, if this is something that you're working on right now, I currently have this bundle. If you want to check it out, here's the link. So it's still, you know, an email that gives someone something to think about and it's not a really hard push. So these have worked really well.
- [26:52]
Nicole Khalil
You mentioned earlier paid ads. Can you talk a little bit about the strategy of that? Because A, I've done it a few times badly, and B, the most successful people I know and talk to are leveraging paid ads. So what do we need to know?
- [27:12]
Carla Bissinga
Sure. So I run. I basically the idea for me with ads is that I want to run ads to something where I can very quickly see if they're working or not. So I run ads to a free webinar where it's a 60 minute webinar. About 45 minutes of it is just teaching and value. And then 15 minutes is a pitch for my course. And then people buy or they don't buy and they go on my email list and then they receive a few emails and they just stay on my list. So that's working really well for me because I can just immediately, within a matter of days, see is this profitable or not? And then keep it on or turn it off. I've also done ads either to a freebie where, you know, then they enter the funnel and there's a bunch of emails and then eventually there's an offer. For me, that process is a little bit too long, so I actually don't often do that anymore. I also, this is something that some of my friends do. They send ads to a paid offer, something like a $27 offer, $37 offer, something that's a really easy. Easy, yes. And then they have multiple upsells that works really well as well. But you for that one, you really have to have all of the upsells and your backend office set up. So that one I think is definitely more advanced. I've had clients who literally just started with a $5 a day or $10 a day budget. That's also how I started myself. And then just slowly, as I understood what's working, I just continued to increase my budget. So I definitely recommend learning about it and starting with a small budget. I actually don't recommend hiring an agency unless you understand how they work, because it's very easy for an agency to spend your money. And, you know, it's like, it's in that way. It's a little bit like gambling. Like, do you trust someone to just take your money and implement without you having any idea of what they're doing and what's working? I would much rather learn how to do it myself, put in a little bit of money, see what's working, and then eventually, potentially hand it over to someone else.
- [29:22]
Nicole Khalil
I think that's great advice. I recently talked to a friend who spends 40,000amonth in paid advertising, and I almost fell off my chair until I found out she that Results in almost 200,000amonth in sales. So obviously a smart decision. And I started, like, going, oh, my God, do I need to do that 40 grand? And she was like, you're not gonna start with 40 grand. Take 400 bucks for the month. See what happens. I haven't wrapped my head around it yet, but that makes sense to my brain and feels much more approachable. Okay, my last question. And I know we're a touch over time, but I have so many questions. Building a profitable and scalable online business often requires some sort of balance between freedom and growth and investment of time and energy and strategies and mindset. Right. Like, there's a yin and a yang for all of this. How do you encourage entrepreneurs to focus on both?
- [30:26]
Carla Bissinga
Yeah, and this definitely has been quite a journey for myself. And I only, again, in the last couple of years, came back to this, that I'm actually designing my lifestyle. And then my business kind of adds to it. Because I think we start a business because we have a passion for something, and we have this idea that we can turn our passion into profit. And then sometimes it just turns into this thing where we're just working 24 7. We work on the weekend, we, like, work late hours, and it just kind of becomes this thing where we're like, well, I was actually earning more and working less when I had my job, so why am I even doing this? So I very much structure my life, and then I built my business into it. So I block off weeks when I'm on vacation. I usually do a whole month in Asia every year where I don't really work at all. I don't work on Fridays anymore. I book in my workout classes. I started doing things like pottery classes that I literally schedule in throughout the day and then I work around those. And I found it actually really helpful also with productivity, to have shorter periods of time where I'm really focused because I'm like, okay, I have to write my newsletter. I only have two hours and and I'm just going to get it done. And it's just really helped me to live my life how I want to live it and then have my business that's supporting it. And, you know, there's different phases that we're in. Like I'm in Lisbon during the winter, it's not that nice outside. So that's kind of my get down and work period. And then in the summer, I might only work two or three days a week and spend a lot more days traveling or just being by the beach. So I definitely also plan my year around that a little bit.
- [32:16]
Nicole Khalil
I wish I would have heard that advice many, many years ago. Like so many things, I learned that one the hard way. So thank you for saying it. So if, like me, you want to learn more from carla, go to carlabsinger.com she has a free Instagram masterclass and also a free masterclass on turning your knowledge into passive income. So if you're interested in either or both of those, again, go to carlabiesinga.com, we'll put the links to both of those in show notes. And also if you're looking for more good insights for entrepreneurs, you can find links to other episodes like our recently released how to scale your business or how to build your email list in episode 202 and some tips on handling your finances in business in episode 203. Carla, thank you, thank you. Thank you for your wisdom. I have so many more questions I could have asked you. I so appreciate you being here today.
- [33:12]
Carla Bissinga
Thank you so much, Nicole. I love being here. Thank you.
- [33:15]
Nicole Khalil
My pleasure. Okay, friend. There is no one size fits all formula for building a successful online business. What works for someone else might not work for you, but what we do know is that success requires clarity, consistency, and the courage to keep going even when things don't go according to plan. It's about building a business that supports your life, not one that consumes it. As Carla shared mindset matters just as much as strategy and sustainable growth comes from balancing freedom with smart, intentional decisions. Whether you're just getting started or scaling to the next level, remember, you don't have to hustle yourself into the ground to build something profitable. You can grow a business that aligns with your values, your energy, and the life you actually want. Because making money on your own terms, well, that is woman's work.