Bryan McAnulty [00:00:00]:

We've all heard stories of creators who poured time and money into Facebook ads only to lose it and see no results. Or maybe you've heard that Facebook ads are dead and people don't trust advertisers anymore. That's where Zack Spuckler comes in. He's an expert in using Facebook and Instagram ads to grow a business quickly without breaking the bank. Zach is a marketing expert, entrepreneur, and founder of Heart, Soul and Hustle who's helped creators and small businesses generate over 2.4 million in online course coaching and consulting, sales. With his step by step approach to Facebook ads, Zach has taught countless entrepreneurs how to create ads that not only work, but feel good to use. No slimy tactics, no fake scarcity.

Zach Spuckler [00:00:37]:

Don't learn by trial and error, because Facebook ads are not Instagram stories. You're not going to learn trial and error for free. Ads are just clicking buttons, right? Like, yes, you've got copy and creative, but outside of that, and even with that, I argue like it's 90% just pushing buttons. I know what buttons to push. You know your audience, you know your message, you know your content.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:56]:

Zach is here to share his secrets for running Facebook ads that build your email list fast and effectively. Welcome to the Creator's Adventure, where we interview creators from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McAnulti, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, Zach, welcome back to the show.

Zach Spuckler [00:01:20]:

Hey, thanks so much for having me back. I'm excited to be here.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:23]:

Yeah. So my first question for you is, what would you say is the biggest thing either that you did or you are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Zach Spuckler [00:01:33]:

Yeah. I mean, it's gonna sound tongue in cheek because of what we're talking about, but honestly, it's advertising. You know, the big thing that I think a lot of people don't realize is everything that you do in business is going to cost you resources. And I am very much of the oak that I'd rather use financial resources than time resources. And I get it, you don't always have unlimited financial resources. And early on I did put in a lot of time resources. But, you know, like, looking forward to 2025, like, I have a trip planned. I'm going to New York City with my partner.

Zach Spuckler [00:02:07]:

We're gonna go go see a couple shows on Broadway. We're going to visit a friend from Australia. When she lays over in LA for a few days, we have a seven day Cruise planned. We are going to Universal Orlando Studios is opening a new theme park which we are very excited about. And we pre booked our tickets and got our hotel room and all that and all of that to say like, when I am at those places, when I'm, you know, in New York or I'm in Orlando, like, I don't want to be plugged in and be like, how, what do I need to post on social media today and what do I need to like, respond to? Right. And so for me, advertising is the crux of what we do. We run ads pretty much 247 in our business because they are like, I was going to say unpaid interns, but they're actually paid interns. Right.

Zach Spuckler [00:02:49]:

They're like out there finding people for me, finding me leads. And then we use, you know, systems and automations, like move them into our business. Um, but we like right now we're spending about $2,000 a week, which all subjective feels like a lot, but we're spending about $2,000 a week just growing our email list. So I would say like fundamentally just having a consistent stream of new leads and ultimately that means a new lead, a new stream of sales are coming in from those leads at any given time is like the number one thing that's allowed me to do those things. Like go to Australia. You know, we went to, I went to Bali last year. And that's all really possible because even when I'm not fully plugged in, the business is fully plugged into the process that gets us new new leads and sales 24 7.

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:36]:

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And I, I mean, I think one of the things I talk about, I guess the theme of some things on the show is like trying to achieve freedom for yourself in your business. And because that's what we're all after. Right? Like, money is nice, but the reason you want the money is to have this freedom to say, I want to go on the trip. I want to spend time with my family, with my friends, doing what I enjoy. Right. So advertising is a way to, to help you have that time for yourself to do what you want.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:04]:

So can you walk us through like the first few steps a creator should take if they want to start their first successful ad campaign?

Zach Spuckler [00:04:12]:

Yeah, I think the first thing you need to do is get clear on what does a successful ad campaign look like for you? I think conventionally we think an campaign is, I spend a dollar, I make two. But there is a much bigger conversation to be had about the way that you run ads in Your business. So if I am leading up to a launch like we do, we have a five day challenge that we do in January. And so leading up to that launch, my goal is not, oh, how do I get all of these sales? How do I turn $1 into 2? My goal is how do I get as many eyes on the problem, the offer and the solution prior to the launch happening so that when we do our bootcamp, our five day challenge launch, I have like a massive influx of leads. So I mentioned earlier, we're spending about $2,000 a week. Like that. That is the first thing that we did is we said, what is our goal? And for us it was lead generation. Like, we want butts in seats on the email list so that when we start promoting our bootcamp, people come to it.

Zach Spuckler [00:05:08]:

So that's the first thing is getting really clear on your goal. The second thing is in that same vein, I would say is getting really clear on what is the actual plan to return that re. So I know a lot of people are like, I need to grow my list. The money's in your list. And I always say the potential for money is in your email list. Right? You can do whatever you want. You can grow that list massively. You can go get a thousand leads tomorrow with Facebook ads.

Zach Spuckler [00:05:32]:

Like, you might not know how, but you can. And, and, but that doesn't mean you're going to return the money on those. So once you're clear on what you want to do, and you could even say like, these steps are kind of like in tandem, is what is it that you ultimately want or how do you ultimately want to return from those ads? So for us, we are list building every single day, pretty much, unless we're in the middle of a promotion. And so we actually look at, our goal is to return our ad spend in 60 to 90 days. We want a dollar in to be $2 to $3 out in a 90 day cycle. And so knowing that I also get to make decisions where I'm not like, ah, we didn't make a lot of sales this week. And so like, maybe we pull back on advertising. I know the opposite is true.

Zach Spuckler [00:06:15]:

My goal is the 90 day long term. And so that's the second piece is you've got to get clear on how do you want to return these. The third thing you want to look at is what am I actually because of those two things needing to promote. So for most people, the answer to these first two questions is going to be either like a low ticket product or lead generation. And so the next step is going to be what does that need to be to move people into my product suite. And so when you are looking at what you want to promote, it's really important that you be thinking about whether it's a low ticket offer or a freebie that's just getting a name and email that you're actually looking at. Does this align and qualify people for what I have coming up next? Right. And I think a huge mistake that I see people make is this is a little hyperbolic.

Zach Spuckler [00:07:01]:

But for example, if I was going to try and get you on my email list to teach you about Facebook ads, but I ran an ad that was like how to grow with Instagram reels. There's just massive misalignment. Just because you care about Instagram reels doesn't mean you care about Facebook ads. And there's levels to this, right? Like we are promoting something right now called the 2025 Course Creator Planner by quarter or plan by quarter. And it's literally a quarterly planner that does not guarantee that you want Facebook ads. It just tells me that you're a course creator. If you opted in for the planner. For me, going into our biggest launch of the year, I'm okay to lower that qualification threshold, but probably 80% of the year, we run a freebie called your $15 a day Facebook ad strategy.

Zach Spuckler [00:07:42]:

Because if you are downloading that freebie, one, you're interested in running Facebook ads. Two, you're willing to spend $15 a day. And three, if you have those first two things, you are a qualified customer for me or a potential customer. So that, that really key pieces. You don't just want to be boosting posts, you don't just want to be growing the list. You don't want to be putting content out there. You want to be making sure that whatever you advertise does those three things. Number one, is it clear where the path to return the revenue is? 2, is it clear what the goal is? And then once you have those things, is it clear how you're actually positioning whatever you're putting out there to move into the actual revenue generators in your business? Those would be the first three steps I would be looking at.

Bryan McAnulty [00:08:24]:

Yeah, it's super important. A couple comments and thoughts there. So I really like how clear that offer is of the $15 Facebook ad strategy because like it's exact, the exact qualifying thing is also the value for the customer. So like that's perfect alignment and the customer acquisition cost and like when you get that paid back is super important. And is something to like, a business has to understand, number one, from the standpoint of like, I don't need to make money this week because this is the longer term game that I'm playing. But then also understanding, like, what term is that? And is it a term that's still short enough that it can make sense for your business? Because I think like a 60 to 90 day, like, that's a great payback period to, to be able to get that actually. And for a lot of larger companies, like, they're spending like, the competition is so tight that they're going to spend so much that they're saying, okay, maybe in a couple years will get the money back. And like, that works if you've got all these investors and everything.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:31]:

But for the average course creator, you can't say like, all right, sounds good. I'm going to spend this X amount per day on Facebook ads. Hopefully two years from now, I don't find out that that was all a bad idea. And so, yeah, knowing those numbers is really important. I'm curious because I see people struggle with Facebook ads. I've had problems with Facebook ads in the past. Most of our strategy right now is not involving paid advertising. And one of the things that we ran into as a problem before was trying to balance getting the right leads.

Bryan McAnulty [00:10:07]:

And so it sounds like you have mostly a free lead magnet strategy. But you also mentioned, like the low, low ticket offers. And I'm curious if you have any advice for this because we've tried before where, okay, we find some way to get cheap leads who are interested in like a lead magnet that we have seems like it kind of aligns and we get a bunch of them. We pitch an offer which, like, other people are buying the offer so it should work and nobody buys it. And then we found out like, okay, well, we found these cheap leads, but maybe they're cheap because nobody wants them because they never buy anything. And so when do you. Or is there anything you can really know other than just by testing? Yeah, of like, is this lead somebody who's going to eventually buy from me versus somebody who's not?

Zach Spuckler [00:10:57]:

Yeah, it's a great question. There's two things to think about. Number one is it does ultimately come down to is that freebie aligned? So when people tell me like, oh, I've got all these leads and they're buying from me, or my product is converting, but then I ran ads and they didn't convert, the first question I always ask is, did those lead ads like the ads, the leads that came in through the ads, did they come in conceptually the same way the other people came in? Right? Because if you listen to me on this podcast, then you go get my freebie. You're. You're more qualified than someone who saw me on social media posts, clicked it, and dropped their name and email because you listened to me for hopefully, you know, 30, 45 minutes. There's some level of, I know what this guy's talking about. I have context, I have insight. And so lead quality is a thing, right? And so we can't dismiss it and be like, well, maybe it's the ad or maybe it's the lead.

Zach Spuckler [00:11:44]:

You know, I always say, like, where the lead come from does. Does matter. And typically, ad leads do convert at a lower rate. So I. The. The second thing that I tell people is we just recorded one of our podcast episodes where I talked about some of the trends that I think are going to be very pervasive in 2025. And one of them is what I call slow burn. And what that is is that a lot of people, they.

Zach Spuckler [00:12:07]:

They grow their list really quick, or they get lots of cheap leads, or they tap into a cheap lead source, and. And so they double down and they triple down, and then they make an offer. And what I ask, the question I pose to, and I do this in my membership with our students a lot is I say, like, did you warm these people up? Right? Did you show them before the offer was even presented why this offer matters, why they should care about this offer, why, based on what they raised their hand for, this is a relevant offer. And what I see, I'm not saying you need to, like, segment your audience like crazy, but. But what I see a lot of people do is they grow their list. They get, you know, hypothetically, a thousand people, and then they go, oh, well, this was my freebie on Instagram reels. And then I did this, like, Instagram ads masterclass, you know, just to carry over the example. And, like, nobody signed up and they didn't convert.

Zach Spuckler [00:12:51]:

And it's like, well, yeah, those are. You didn't paint the. Did you paint the picture? Right? It's like we were talking about reels. Now I'm trying to get you to understand why this matters. Um, other ways that I see this, especially in, like, B2B marketing, is people like, do you like, here's my get your business going checklist. And then it's like, launch your product course. Well, if someone's just trying to get their business started and you don't nurture them for 60, 90, 180 days. They don't have the confidence in themselves or you that you can do it.

Zach Spuckler [00:13:18]:

So the slow burn concept isn't necessarily about alignment. It's about nurturing relationship. Because what I can tell you is that I have people come into my ecosystem all the time who are like, I've never heard of you before. And then they experience something small or simple and that moves them forward. The other element of this is, is it a quality lead magnet? The lead quality, in my opinion, is highly contingent on the value you present them. Because I think anyone listening to this can easily raise their hand if I say, oh, did you download a lead magnet in the last two weeks? Totally. And then if I'm like, keep your hand up if and only if you opened it a second time, most hands go down. I really pride myself on the lead magnets that I create.

Zach Spuckler [00:14:03]:

People reference. And so I have people like our course grader planner. Like, you're like, it's a planner. There's nothing special about it. No. But we always accompany it with a video. And it is a planner that people literally this year somebody emailed us and was like, when is the 2025 version coming out? And like, it's the same planner. It literally the exact same Planner.

Zach Spuckler [00:14:22]:

It says 2025 instead of 2024. Because it's the same planner from 2023. Sure. And we adjust the training video that goes with it. But that speaks volumes about who we are, but also that they're receiving value. So I also think that lead quality, yes, it's determined by, you know, your freebie positioning. And yes, you need to nurture the leads, but also on that first impression, did you give people a reason to stick around? Right. You need a high value freebie and I don't.

Zach Spuckler [00:14:48]:

I always think people conflate value with length or like, like hardiness. That's not always true. Our planner is 17 pages. It's maybe 300 words if I counted the whole thing. But the value is in that we sit down, we have a video that goes with it, and we walk you through a really simple planning process that people like. Right. And so you have to ask yourself, like, if I'm doing, like, my big mistake, please, please don't make this mistake. It's like your freebie is like five tips to blank.

Zach Spuckler [00:15:18]:

That's not a good freebie. No judgment if you're doing it. But if I can, especially with, with ChatGPT and AI, if I can go type this into Google and get the answers faster without giving you, my email, or even at more length, you miss the opportunity. It's not about getting the name and email, it's about nurturing the relationship. And so all of that to say when someone says, I'm getting really cheap leads. Two things to check from a technical perspective, make sure you're targeting is good and make sure you're not getting what we call stick spam leads. Essentially like leads from like, you know, no judgment, sweeping generalization for sure. But like India, South Africa, Philippines, Sri Lanka is another big one.

Zach Spuckler [00:15:58]:

Sometimes when you don't put the parameters right, you can get leads. Like if somebody comes to me and they're like, I'm getting leads for 20 cents, I'm like, stop them now, something is wrong. You are not getting leads that cheap. But if you're getting leads for, you know, a $2, $3 and you're going, they're not converting. Generally what I'm saying is like, they cared enough to opt in, they cared enough to get their, them to give you their email. Did you care enough to provide the value, nurture and make the connection for them? Because when you make an offer to someone, our goal with our audience is that when someone sees an offer, whether it be through our funnel, through a launch, especially through a launch where it's time based, we want them to get to the promotion of that thing and say like, oh wow, how did you know I needed this? And we're like, well, because we've actually been subtly implying that you need this the whole way along. So just one last note, I'll say on that, like, we have our, like I said, we have our bootcamp coming up in January. So we have pre planned our podcast episodes for the four weeks before we invite people to the bootcamp.

Zach Spuckler [00:16:57]:

And those podcast episodes will go out via email to all of these new course creator leads we're collecting. And so the first podcast is like, here's some trends to be aware of, like I just talked about. One of them is like, you need to be growing your audience consistently. I do that with Facebook ads. No pitch, no sell, just by the way I use Facebook ads. Then our next episode would be like, if you want to grow your audience in 2025, here are the strategies you absolutely must implement. You better believe ads are going to be on there. Then the week before our bootcamp it will be a 100% ad centric episode.

Zach Spuckler [00:17:27]:

And so all that time, and that's honestly a tight Runway for us, just because of the holidays, I got busy. But like you want to be mindful like, we people shouldn't get to your launch and be like, do I need this product? They should get to your launch and be like, oh, my gosh, you have been priming me for. I mean, they, you don't want them to say that, but you want to know, I've been priming them this whole time. To me, when people say I'm getting low quality leads, I say, you either have a low quality nurture, a low quality lead magnet, and then again, there is the potential that you've got some targeting or technical issues. But 90% of the time when someone tells me lead quality is low, I'm saying I want to look at the journey from lead to sale. Has everything been accounted for in there? And I would, I would, in your particular case, personal advice, I would look at, if you did that and you still have those leads in your system, I would look at if any of them converted 30, 90, 180 or a year later. Because we do have people that follow us and opt into our planner. They opted in for two years in a row and then bought something.

Zach Spuckler [00:18:24]:

I'm in this for the long game, you know, and like, that can be frustrating. And you might be like, I don't want to wait two years for a customer. You have to wait two years on everybody. But if you maintain a relationship for two years, let me tell you, like, there are so many unsung benefits to that. That, that, that's the way that I'm looking at lead quality.

Bryan McAnulty [00:18:41]:

If they said yes, if you're making profit in 60 to 90 days and then you have some, some people, a couple years later, they end up buying, like, that's just a bonus, basically. And so, yeah, definitely keep that in mind. And with regards to, like, the, the spam lead idea. Yeah, I think I have experienced that there's this kind of space within Facebook ads where you can get these like, spammy leads that for some reason they just seem like to be people that want to put their email everywhere.

Zach Spuckler [00:19:12]:

Yep.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:12]:

And like Facebook, if, if you mess things up, Facebook basically says, oh, you want this? Here I've got. Yeah, here's. Here's a lot of them. And yeah, so that could be an issue. I think with maybe one of our campaign ideas that I was referencing, that didn't work. Well, I think for us, it probably could have been something where we were not getting people at the right part in their journey. So maybe they're somebody who could eventually be a customer years from now. But for us in our business, of course, and community software, like somebody has to want to be a course creator and, like, decide, like, I'm gonna run a business, I'm gonna use this, I'm gonna pay for a tool that's gonna help me do that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:56]:

But somebody who's maybe just kind of interested in it is not the same person necessarily as the person who's, like, ready to go and buy something. And so in your business, whatever that is, realizing who's the category and like, the description of the person who's ready to spend money with you right now versus the person who, like, maybe they're interested, maybe they will be a customer, but it's not going to be for a few years.

Zach Spuckler [00:20:20]:

Yep. Yeah. And that's. And that's the thing is just realizing that, you know, again, it, like, it is all. It's all about that long game. Right. And you're in a unique space where it's like, it is a software lead. So if they buy a competitor, they're probably not going to necessarily buy yours.

Zach Spuckler [00:20:33]:

But keep them on the list, nurture them, talk to them. Because I'll give you a really specific example. I won't name names, but we're with a software company right now that, like, we're due for our annual renewal in 28 days. And they emailed us and was like, oh, your annual fee went up 50% and no concessions, no conversation. I've been with them for 10. This would have been the 10th year. And immediately I'm like, that's because, like I was saying earlier, it's all about relationships. Right.

Zach Spuckler [00:21:00]:

So that, to me, sours the relationship. It's not about the fit. Like, it's going from 500 to 800 a year. We do just fine. We can afford it. But it's this kind of callous, like, well, you have the money, you'll pay for it, so keep it. That, like, left a sour taste in my mouth that now I'm actively looking for alternatives. So it's not a.

Zach Spuckler [00:21:17]:

It's not a.

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:17]:

Same thing happened to me with a vendor we use for something.

Zach Spuckler [00:21:20]:

Yeah. But it's like, had I even nurturing me that whole time, even though I wasn't a customer, one to ten years later. I do have competitors that have. I'm on their email list that I'm like, we're probably going to switch to them now. So just, you know, there's that benefit too.

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:37]:

Yeah, definitely. So how would you say somebody could get started if they've got a tight budget, but, like, they're interested in doing this? They're saying, okay, I Want to do this? I don't really have much money right now, but how can I start learning how to use these? Sure.

Zach Spuckler [00:21:51]:

I mean, there's two things that I'll say. One is you do need some kind of budget. I think $300 a month minimum and about $100 to test is the way to go. Right. It's like if you. We. We have this saying that we like to use chase two rabbits, catch none. Which is saying, if you're like, I only have $10 and I'm going to put all this time and effort into learning Facebook ads, that $10 is going to get you anywhere.

Zach Spuckler [00:22:15]:

And now you've lost. Like we talked about earlier that time resource, trying to figure out how to make it work. With $10, you really need about three to four hundred dollars a month minimum. So start there. If you're like, I'm just not there yet, it's okay. Plenty of people do just fine as creators without. Without advertising. I prefer it, but that doesn't mean you have to start there.

Zach Spuckler [00:22:35]:

Right. So that's the first thing. Second thing is get educated on how the platform works. There are a million ways to do this. Like, you know, you can join one of our programs or you can go to. It's called Facebook Blueprint. Facebook Blueprint will teach you the technical aspect for free. It's a Facebook resource on how the ads manager works.

Zach Spuckler [00:22:52]:

Not vibing with me. I think Facebook is too technical. Go to YouTube or Google, ask ChatGPT. But here is what I unequivocally know. It costs money to learn Facebook ads. So don't put yourself at a disadvantage by not doing some foundational research as to how to spend your money, because you can. Absolutely. This is not meant to scare you.

Zach Spuckler [00:23:12]:

It's not like you're going to do this on accident, really. But you can go in and spend $500 in a day and have nothing to show for it. Whereas had you just spent the two hours it would've taken to understand what you were doing, that would've saved you a lot. So, like, look up a tutorial on YouTube. Make sure it's current for the current year you're in. Um, you know, go to Facebook Blueprint. Find someone who you like. If you're like, vibing with me, go Google me.

Zach Spuckler [00:23:38]:

I've got the free resources you can check out. But it's like, I tell people all the time. Cause this is a very common question I get is like, how do I learn? It's like, learn from something or someone. Don't Learn by trial and error. Because Facebook ads are not Instagram stories. You're not going to learn trial and error for free. You post a story, it goes bunk. It disappears in 24 hours.

Zach Spuckler [00:23:59]:

Post a Facebook ad, that sucks. You just spent a hundred dollars. Now you're out the hundred, the time it took and you have nothing to show for it. It's really like vitally important that you get some form of foundational education. Again, I'm not saying go buy a $2,000 Facebook ads course YouTube will do. Too many people go in blind thinking they're going to figure it out. And honestly, 2024, 2025 Facebook ads, way more conceptually simple. It's actually very hard to mess them up these days, but still know what buttons you're clicking.

Zach Spuckler [00:24:28]:

So you know what you're looking at. It is a new language. You don't know how to speak it. You wouldn't like, I mean, I've done it, so this is a bad example. But you wouldn't, you wouldn't go to France not knowing any French, but then also be expect to converse with the locals. Right. That's what you're doing with Facebook. Don't go into this place where you don't speak the language and go, yeah, yeah, I know it enough that I can have this fully understandable conversation with the platform in my business because you just won't be able to.

Zach Spuckler [00:24:53]:

So that's, that's the big thing. Get some kind of education. And then in terms of like logistically starting without being too technical, I'm a huge advocate for just getting lead generation ads going. Like just start growing the list. Because the other stuff you do are a lot of times it's either really hard or it's really vanity. So like you run ads to get views on your Instagram reels. Great. Does that actually equate to dollars? Not really.

Zach Spuckler [00:25:16]:

You try to get somebody to buy your low ticket product. Those ads, generally speaking, are just more challenging to run. It requires solid copy, solid landing page, solid image, which you typically learn from lead generation ads. What your audience responds to lead generation ads, even if they don't go great, you walk away with a name and email where you can build that relationship. Right. So I'm just an advocate of like if you're going to do ads and you have no idea where to start, start with your freebie or your, your lead magnet and get people on your email list so you can start building those relationships with them.

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:50]:

Yeah, yeah. That way you don't have to have everything so perfected in this offer and funnel that they have to buy right then or else you lose. You've got the chance and the opportunity to even, let's say like your email sequences and your copy and everything is really pretty bad. If you've at least got them there to stick around long enough, then as you improve all of that, then maybe they will be people who will buy from you later on.

Zach Spuckler [00:26:14]:

Correct. And I have people that buy from me who have told me point blank, like, I don't really like the brand, like the color, the vibe of the brand, but they connect with me as a person. And then not only to what you were saying, it's like when people build that relationship, they may buy from you later. And those are the people that tell people about you. So like we, in one of our programs, we have like an affiliate referral program and we have probably a couple hundred affiliates that just every time we do a bootcamp, we get 10 to 20 people that are just like, you need to join Zach's ads boot camping. You need to come to this bootcamp. But those are people who rewind one, you know, 12 to 24 months, signed up for a lead magnet on $15 a day ads, maybe bought the low ticket offer, maybe didn't eventually came to the launch and now we're like, I see the value in this and there's, there's just so much value in the relationship building, which you can't do if they don't buy. Which is why I avoid purchase ads.

Zach Spuckler [00:27:08]:

And you're not with just reels and engagement ads.

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:12]:

Yeah, yeah. It's a great point about taking the whole thing as something that you have to learn. Like I my kind of viewpoint from it, and I think most creators should probably think the same. Is that like the first thousand dollars or so you spend on ads, like, that's just figuring things out and learning for yourself. Really. Even if you're gonna learn from like outside sources too, you shouldn't expect that. It's like you just put some money in and maybe you'll get it out. And you shouldn't, you definitely shouldn't expect, well, okay, maybe now if I just try a little bit more money.

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:44]:

That's, that's not really the path. And so it's, it's kind of worse than gambling because it's not like, oh, if you just spend more, then maybe eventually the chances is going to happen for you. But with ads, like, if you're just spending money on the wrong thing, like you could spend a real lot and it's never Going to convert to customers. Exactly. And so that's not to scare anybody away from this, but basically, like you mentioned that example of the reel. Like you got post a reel, if it doesn't really get views, it's done. Okay. Now you try another one with the ads.

Bryan McAnulty [00:28:13]:

You're paying for it. So it's gonna be getting views. But as somebody brand new to it, it's very easy to say, okay, well, is the reason that I'm not getting sales because I just need to spend more. And so there's a whole mess of things where you can really get in trouble if you don't learn how things actually work.

Zach Spuckler [00:28:31]:

Absolutely. And I think the other thing that I always tell people is like, don't get caught up in this. Delusion is a strong word, but I'm going to use it like this delusion that like, oh, I'll just spend a dollar and make two. Because I always joke, like, if it was, like if it was, if it was this easy that you just throw up a page, throw up a product, spend a dollar, make two, like, no one would be working. This wouldn't be the world's best kept secret. Like, everybody would just be sipping. At least in the online course space, we'd just be sipping mimosas on the beach, running our Facebook ads, maybe delivering client content. But like, that's not what's happening.

Zach Spuckler [00:29:09]:

So clearly this is a skill and a process that needs refined. Are there people doing it? Sure. Are they the minority? Yes. What I tell people is with lead generation, I think you can win because I've done it for hundreds or thousands of people. Like, you can get the leads, what you do with those leads and how you nurture and build that relationship. That's the true value of advertising. Like, and those are like, ads are just clicking buttons, right? Like, yes, you've got copy and creative, but outside of that, and even with that, I argue like it's 90% just pushing buttons. Like in the most self deprecating sense, like, I'm a glorified button pusher, I know what buttons to push.

Zach Spuckler [00:29:53]:

You know your audience, you know your message, you know your content. Right? And so what that means is that yes, learn ads, but to your point, it's easy to go, well, I'll just spend more. And then like, maybe that will fix it. Generally when ads are not working, ads are like the iceberg from the Titanic. You only see what the ads are doing. But everything happening under the surface matters. Your copy, your landing pages, your content. So yeah, learn ads, run your grow Your email list.

Zach Spuckler [00:30:19]:

And there's benefit to refining your other skills because it will improve your ads. So, like, we have our bootcamp. We've been refining that sales page for two and a half years, and I finally feel like it's dialed into the point where I really like to spend money on it. We have a couple of offers that we've been refining the internal messaging on for a couple of years. So it's like, yeah, absolutely. And to what you were saying, it's like, don't think that if you have a problem that's not being fixed by ads, you will not fix it by spending more. Ads are an amplifier. They will show you what is and isn't working and amplify that throughout the entire business.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:55]:

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And I like to say to newer creators that, like, if you haven't gotten sales yet, like, ads is not the first thing you should do. You should go and get sales another way, because you need to find out, like, does the offer work? Is the copy good? And all of those things. Otherwise, if you spend money on ads first and it doesn't work, what didn't work? Was it actually the ad or was it the copy, the funnel, the product? Something else along the way there. And once you've gotten sales and you've kind of dialed that in and realized, oh, customers have questions about this. Oh, I need social proof here. Now you've noticed something's working, and now you can start turning on the ads for it.

Zach Spuckler [00:31:30]:

Yep.

Bryan McAnulty [00:31:33]:

So I'm also curious, like, I guess four or five years ago, I feel like there was a lot more talk about Facebook ads and like, oh, this is the big thing. I don't feel like that's happening right now. But at the same time, I feel like there must be opportunity there. Even if people are talking about it. Clearly there is. So what has really changed in between then in these last four or five years?

Zach Spuckler [00:31:59]:

I think the biggest thing, not to play the same tune again, but is that you can't just. Especially during the pandemic when everybody was online and everything was very novel to people. Course graders, we do everything remote. Right. And if you've been a course grader, going into the. The, you know, lockdowns, you were just like, oh, cool, now I now don't have to leave the house and no one else can. Super fun. But it's like, if.

Zach Spuckler [00:32:25]:

If you were newer to this space, there was a massive influx of people. Right. And so there were more people online, more people aware, more people, more people, and a lot of this was novel to a lot of these people. And so I think that it was really, I don't want to say easy, but simple or straightforward to do. Like, I'll just run ads to a webinar. I'll sell my $300 course. I'll do that all day long. And what happened was, in my opinion, from 2020 to 2021, everyone tried doing that, and it became watered down.

Zach Spuckler [00:32:58]:

And so what you end up with is, like, saturated, jaded, frustrated markets. And so the reason I think less people are talking about it is, to be blunt, it was sexy to be like, spend a dollar and make $3 in the next 30 days. But, like, that's not the game anymore. And to be really blunt, that was never the game to begin with. That was a weird opportunity. In time that we saw a massive influx of people. Markets change, markets evolve. And if you're banking on, I need to spend a dollar today, make a dollar tomorrow, or $2 or $3, you're not actually operating in business.

Zach Spuckler [00:33:32]:

You're. You're operating in, like, essentially, like, selling options short, right? Like, you're. You're gambling. You're playing the stock market. You're day trading, in a sense, and there's nothing wrong with that. It'll work, but then market conditions can change, and it stops working. So I think the biggest change is that it isn't just about, how do I get a ton of people on my thing. Webinar show rates are down, engagement rates are down, conversion rates are down.

Zach Spuckler [00:33:55]:

You can deny that, or you can go, great, I'm aware of this. How do I cut through the noise anyway? And I think, in my opinion, that's why less people are talking about it. Because it. Nobody wants to, like, Nobody wants to sell you on, like, oh, yeah, you're gonna have to learn this. You're gonna have to commit to it to six to 12 months. It's not gonna be an overnight thing. You're gonna get a thousand leads over three months. You're gonna sell them something, they're not gonna want it.

Zach Spuckler [00:34:17]:

You're gonna have to study the audience, refine your copy and messaging, optimize your sales page. It's going to require software. But I do think that even pre2020, especially as this stuff was, like, nuanced, it all felt easy. It felt like cheating, right?

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:37]:

And it's like, yeah, like 2019. The idea of, like, even having a webinar was still, like, so new. It's like, wow, this person, they're gonna be like, online. I can Watch them. They're gonna say something. And now it's like, well, what are you talking about? There's another webinar. Like, I don't need to go to that now.

Zach Spuckler [00:34:54]:

Yep. Yeah. And it's. It's just having that awareness that, like, you have to do things. Ultimately, what we originally said is, like, ads are just a tool to find the people. You still have to build the relationship. So, like, for me, the way that that looks is like, my personal brand is very front and center in a lot of what I do. And what I mean by that is like, my.

Zach Spuckler [00:35:16]:

My personality is front and center. So, like, the people who have been in my ecosystem for more than three to six months, like, they know I'm a Swiftie. It's nobody. It's no secret to anybody. You come to a webinar live, we listen to Taylor Swift before it starts. Um, if you have been with me for more than a year, you have. And been on more than one or two live trainings. Like, you've met my cats, you've met my dog.

Zach Spuckler [00:35:38]:

Like, they. They're part of the brand. Right? Um, I tell stories, like, we. We just sent an email, like, about the trends that we're seeing in marketing through the lens of, like, the new Wicked movie, which. So good. Definitely go see it. But it's like that. That's me sharing who I am, because people are building relationships with people over slick sales presentations right now.

Zach Spuckler [00:35:57]:

Um, if that becomes less present, do I feel the need to present, like, tell these stories all the time? No. But the reality is, I don't think story is going out of style anytime soon. So I tell stories, I share photos, I give context. I share. When I'm traveling the world, I talk about it. When I was in Australia, we did an escape room, which I was, like, very adamantly against. Had a really great time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:19]:

We.

Zach Spuckler [00:36:19]:

We got out with five minutes. Um, but I. But I put that in my email, right? And I put the picture of us getting out of the escape room in the email. And ultimately, the big thing that I want to communicate about this is that that is the big trend change. Like, in 2020, you could just be like, I made lots of money doing X, Y, Z. Come to my webinar and learn how. Buy my $300 product. Good luck.

Zach Spuckler [00:36:41]:

I hope it works. Now people are like, who is this guy? There's a million of you, right? And so your vibe is what brings in your people. And so if somebody is, like, repulsed by Taylor Swift because they're a total hater and they're wrong. They're not going to come to my stuff. Right. Like, and that's fine because ultimately it builds a deeper connection with the people who are willing to stick around.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:01]:

Yeah. If anything, I would only argue that it's even going to be more important in the future because now we've got AI and all this. People want a connection to an actual person. And to understand that, okay, I'm. I'm learning from this actual person and, and he cares about these things that I do too, or I can connect with this too. And so, yeah, I think that's only going to be more important going forward.

Zach Spuckler [00:37:23]:

Yeah, 100%. And that's what it is. The more connected we become, the more connection we ultimately crave. And I think that that's really what it comes down to.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:34]:

Yeah, definitely. So on the show, I'd like to have every guest ask a question to the audience. If you could ask our audience anything, whether something you're curious about or just kind of want to get people thinking about, what would that be?

Zach Spuckler [00:37:46]:

Yeah, the question that I love to ask, I came up with this while we were talking. I was going to ask something else, but I've asked this question before, and I really do think it's powerful, is what is the resource that you have finite and less finite? Because we never really have infinite resources. And really what I'm talking about is time and money. So when you look at your time and money, where are you limited? Because at the end of the day, growing a business requires both. And so I always invite my students to just say, what is my most finite resource? If that's time, you gotta figure out a way to spend more money. If it's money, you need to figure out a way to spend more time on the things that convert. So the question is, what is my most finite resource? And once you've kind of identified that, the true question is, knowing what my finite resource is, what can I do to amplify my resource availability? And what can I do to decrease my reliance on the resource that's finite? Super abstract, I know, but from an ADS perspective, like, if I was really gonna distill it down, if you were like, hey, I don't have a lot of money. The short version of that question is, how are you maximizing your time and how are you creating more of it? Right.

Zach Spuckler [00:38:56]:

And it can apply to money, too. You've gotta look at your resources because you're always limited. And that could be team, ads, content strategy, repurposing, but it's always a Good thing to ask because, you know, like, I actually have a tattoo on my arm. It's like an hourglass. It's like I got it when I was younger. It's not my proudest tattoo, but it is a good reminder because there's that old. We've all heard the old story of, you know, the the bank has 583,000 whatever minutes. I always forget the exact number, but it's like, you know, how much money would you take out every day? And it's like, that is how many minutes you have every day.

Zach Spuckler [00:39:29]:

So I won't get into the nuance of that. But all of that to say, like, really evaluate your resources. What is your. So just super quick short version, I'm a talker, sorry, but the short version is what is my most finite resource? What can I do to amplify its availability? And what can I decrease my due to decrease my dependence on it?

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:48]:

Yeah, a powerful question. I think that's great. So, Zach, thanks so much for coming on the show. Again, before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Zach Spuckler [00:39:56]:

Yeah, if you want to check me out, you can go to heartsoulhustle.com we have everything over there. Our podcast. You can buy the evergreen version of our bootcamp for 25 bucks. You can find the $15 a day freebie. So I won't link you up to a million things. Heartsoulhustle.com check it out. Something vibes with you. We will capture your attention and we will advertise to you.

Bryan McAnulty [00:40:14]:

Awesome. All right, thanks, Zach.

Zach Spuckler [00:40:15]:

Thank you.

Bryan McAnulty [00:40:16]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators@creator climb.com if you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, check out The Heights Platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9am US Central. To get notified when new episodes release. Join our [email protected] until then, keep learning and I'll see you in the next episode.