Ep 217: She Quit Her Job in Secret—Now Carol Kabaale Runs a Thriving Facebook Ads Agency

Have you ever felt stuck in a job you didn’t love and wondered if there was a way to break free? Carol Kabaale, a Meta-certified ad strategist, knows exactly what that’s like. She secretly quit her corporate job—without telling her fiancé.

As Carol puts it, “I just knew if I told everyone around me, they’d talk me out of it, so I kept quiet and built my plan in secret. And it worked.”

In this episode, Carol shares how she went from her first client to a full-fledged agency, the smart ad strategies she uses to help businesses grow, and insider tips on running Facebook ads without wasting money. If you’re looking for real talk on what it takes to succeed with online advertising (and a little courage to take your own leap), this is the episode for you.

We Also Talked About:

• Why Carol walked away from a promising corporate career (without telling anyone!)
• How she got her first clients and replaced her salary in record time
• The biggest mistakes small business owners make with Facebook ads
• A breakdown of different ad types—and which ones actually work
• Why understanding data is the key to ad success (even if you hate numbers)
• How to know if your business is ready to run ads—and what to do first

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RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Carol’s Ads Readiness Quiz: carolkabaale.com
• Book on overcoming procrastination:  Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy  (affiliate link)

Want regular access to tips, techniques, and advice from experts about growing your business? Sign up here.

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 217:  She Quit Her Job in Secret—Now Carol Kabaale Runs a Thriving Facebook Ads Agency

Trudy Rankin: [00:00:00] I know I’ve asked this question before, but have you ever felt stuck in a job you don’t love, and you wonder if there’s a way to build something better on your own? Carol Kabale, a Meta certified ad strategist, knows exactly what that’s like. She took a leap of faith, secretly quit her job without telling her fiancé, and started her own business.

And as Carol puts it, “I just knew if I told everyone around me, they’d talk me out of it, so I kept quiet and built my plan in secret. And it worked”. 

So what if that daring move to follow your gut is exactly what’s needed to break free and create the life you want? 

 In this episode, Carol shares how she grew her business from one client to a full roster, the smart ad strategies she uses for her clients, and some insider tips on navigating Facebook ads without wasting your budget.

Her journey and expertise are a must hear for anyone looking to break into the online business world with confidence. And [00:01:00] Carol’s leap into entrepreneurship, combined with her expertise in ads, makes her the perfect guest to inspire anyone on the edge of their own big move.

Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m Trudy Rankin, and I bring you stories, tips, and advice from online entrepreneurs and experts who have overcome problems and challenges to get to success because they’ve done it.

So can you, and they’ve got some wisdom to share with you. My mission is simple. I want to help you solve the challenges you face as an online business owner so you can have more time and money for yourself and your family and more choices in how you live your life. 

Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m your host, Trudy Rankin. And today I have Carol Kabale with me. And Carol is a META certified ad strategist. And she’s going to be [00:02:00] talking to us today just about her journey to that space where she’s ended up setting up, becoming an expert and then setting up a digital agency.

But I just wanted to say, Carol, thank you so much for being on the podcast. 

Carol Kabaale: Thank you so much for having me, Trudy. I’m really excited to be here. 

Trudy Rankin: I’m really interested in chatting with you about this area that you work in, because for people who listen to the podcast, or maybe who haven’t listened to the podcast you’ll know that I have a number of content sites that I’ve been working on.

And, just the whole, Business model is build up content sites. You actually have something of value there for people. You monetize them, et cetera, et cetera. And then of course, along comes the helpful content update from Google. And I’m watching a whole lot of other businesses around me crash and burn.

And I’m going should I be continuing to try doing this? Because mine’s going okay at the moment, but they’re small, they’re babies. Should I keep nurturing them and going on, or should I pivot and try and come up with another strategy for driving traffic to my website? And one of the [00:03:00] strategies that came up was basically using ad arbitrage, using Facebook ads and buying likes and engagements to actually drive people to your own website. 

Now, I don’t want to get into that just right at the moment, but that’s one of the reasons why I thought myself and lots of other listeners will be really interested to hear what you have to say about this whole space, using ads to help grow and build your company.

So before we get stuck into that side of things, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, where you’re from, a bit about your background and what you do today to help people? 

Carol Kabaale: Amazing. So as you mentioned, my name is Carol Kabaale. I was born in Cuba, but I live in South Africa. It’s quite nice here. And I came here and I did, as immigrants do everything right. I went to school, I went to university, and I got my first big girl corporate job. And I worked in a hospitality company. I actually worked for Hilton [00:04:00] in business development, and I did that for four years. And I’m not lying to you, Trudy.

It was, the people were great. I would never change the people. Some of the people are still some of my best friends to this day. I had them at my wedding. They were just divine human beings. Now the actual work is terrible. It was absolutely terrible. There was so much of it and never ending and I was eager to please and young.

I had like bright stars in my eyes and I was so proud of my first job that I would never say no to anything. I had no boundaries and that quickly back then I didn’t have this verbiage but I was burnt out. I was tired. I was drowning. It was a lot for one person to take on. And that being said, my now husband and I had been dating for nine years.

I often joke that he needed to find out my blood type before he actually married me. So I think he did. And then he proposed. And [00:05:00] that being said, It’s weird and it’s a little bit woo, it’s a little bit spiritual, but you know that moment in the movie where like your whole life flashes before you? You just see everything and you’re like, that’s honestly how I felt.

I just felt is the next 40, 60 years that I get to have on this planet going to be this? Is this my life? constantly living past people, constantly missing out on life. And the other thing is, everybody who I considered successful was rather old, in my opinion. I was like, how are you only able to have this freedom in your late 40s, 50s, 60s?

By that time, I was pretty young. I was like, No one’s going to want to see me with a bikini on a beach on Instagram. No, I want to enjoy that now. How do I live now? And I didn’t know [00:06:00] exactly what I wanted, but I knew I wanted that lifestyle. I wanted that freedom. I wanted that choice. And so I went to try and figure out how I was going to do it.

What I really enjoyed most about my job and business development was the marketing aspect. I love data driven decision making and ads really allowed you to do that. So I went and I got a certification in doing ads and I started small with a couple of clients that I was very open and transparent with.

I said, Hey, you’re going to be my first practice client. Yeah. You’re the first one. Are you comfortable with that? And so it feels like an eternity ago now, but yeah, that’s how we started with the one. And then we grew and now we’re here like six years later with a whole agency and a team. Weird.

Other fun facts though, that I do like to mention always, I have a little Boston Terrier. His name is Charlie and he is the true love of my life. Don’t tell my husband. He’s like amazing. I love him. And I also love [00:07:00] Chardonnay. I love books and I love pizza. In fact, I love Cobb’s. Like anything with Cobb’s is really my favorite.

Trudy Rankin: It sounds like you’ve been on a journey that a lot of, not just young people, but people who are much older have gone through and have had to go through and to finally face up to the fact that they’re not happy at their work, they’ve got to find a different way of doing this.

Otherwise life, the rest of your life’s going to be dull, boring, mundane, and very unhappy. I’m going to ask you a sort of a curiosity based question because I find what you said fascinating because in my past life as a chief information officer and a project manager, and I’ve worked in corporate, I’ve had lots and lots of employees, and one of the key things that I found that tended to differentiate people who are going to succeed from people who were just going to coast, basically, versus that when you ask them to do something that might be just slightly outside of the realm of what maybe they were doing just at the moment, they would say [00:08:00] yes and that would force them to learn new skills and new things. And I’m fascinated that you say that you said yes to everything, basically, and you got to the point where it was too much, and you were burnt out. If you were able to go back and coach yourself back then, knowing what you know now, what would you say to yourself when you were going, This is too much.

I’ve said yes to too many things. What would you say to them? 

Carol Kabaale: I’d honestly say to myself two things. I’ve thought about, it’s weird you asked me this question because I’ve thought about it before. I would still firstly say yes to everything, as weird as that sounds, but I would probably have given myself a deadline of when to stop.

And I say that because I feel like Saying yes to everything really taught me what I do and what I don’t enjoy. And I needed to go through that process to understand that. And then I would say to myself, [00:09:00] once we’ve gone and we’ve set that boundary of Hey, let’s do this for a year. Let’s do not do this for four years.

The first year let’s learn as much as we can. Let’s not four years into it, we’re still doing it. The second thing I would say is I think you need to find your voice because what stopped me a lot of the time was, I was always the youngest person in the room and it was very weird in my mind that I had the answers.

And these people would look for me for the answers, but then in the same breath, dismiss me as a human being because of my age. When they needed my help, I was very valued. But when they were like Carol’s just here, oh, Carol’s just a millennial, that was the thing. So I think stepping and owning my power back then to be like, hey, I’m here because you need me.

And you can’t think of the things I think would have actually brought the tone in and gave me a little bit of more standing up for [00:10:00] myself and being like, no, we’re not going to do that. And instead of okay. Yeah, that’s me.

Trudy Rankin: I love that answer because it is, it can take a long time. And I speak from hard experience can take a long time to find your voice and to have the inner or innate confidence to realize the value that you do bring into the room and know it in your gut instead of having to have people tell you that. You don’t need to have somebody tell you, you know it. So as you went through this journey to the point where you wanted to just move away from corporate, start something of your own so that you could shape the, how you spent the rest of your life working, What was your trigger point or your goal point that you said, Hey, I’ve got enough people on my books, I’ve got enough clients, enough customers, so that I can leave my job.

What were your criteria for leaving?

Carol Kabaale: Oh, Trudy, you’re gonna hate this answer. I [00:11:00] wasn’t as methodical and put together as you see me today. Back then. What happened was is one day I just said enough is enough and I quit. In fact, I just, I remember it very clearly. I googled polite resignation letter template.

And I found one and I copied and pasted it and I sent it over to HR and immediately, because the lady in HR and I had a great relationship, she phoned me and she said, are you sure? I said, Oh, I’m sure. Oh, I’m sure. And after that, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t even tell my fiance. I did my work to my last day, packed up my things and I, I left and I came to where my husband lives in the house we live now.

And he’s Oh, what are you doing here? I was like, Oh, do you know what? They’ve actually said I can work from home. [00:12:00] They want me to study and do some stuff. Big fat lie. Big fat lie. But I had a plan in my head and I knew I needed to protect the plan at all costs because I knew everybody around me was going to talk me out of it. Because my parents are, again, they’re immigrants, but they’re professional people.

They’re doctors. That’s all they’re going to do all their life. Like they don’t understand that. You can leave your job. Their job is their job. That’s what they’re going to do until they die. My husband, he’s very logical. He’s an engineer. So without telling him every single step because I didn’t have it, I didn’t want to have that conversation with him.

So he could find a fault in my plan and bring doubt. So I kept quiet and I don’t know, I don’t really recommend it, but it worked out for me. I just lied and I kept it to myself and I was like, I’m going to figure it out. And once I figured it out and I can own it and stand in this truth that no one can shake me out of this decision, [00:13:00] then I’m going to tell people.

And that’s what I did until, I finished my certification. I got my first couple of clients and then I’m, my husband’s not dumb. He was like, Are you still doing that course for them? How are you working for me? He always had questions. I’m like yeah. I’m still doing it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Working on it. Yeah. I wasn’t working on it at all until one day I was like, okay, listen, I probably know you already know, but I quit a month ago. I don’t have an income. I’ve been doing this thing. I have a couple of clients. They’ve been paying me a little amount. And that’s what I’m doing now.

And he was very supportive, but I think it’s because I knew and I had a plan to give him and it took me a while to get there. So yeah, that’s how I got there. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s interesting. That’s fascinating because, so many people have got so many different stories about how they went from employee to, fully occupied and fully financially stable in their agency.

[00:14:00] And it doesn’t always work out that well because you were, in some ways, not without condoning the lie side of things. So often, It’s our loved ones who end up planting the biggest seeds of doubt in our minds about whether we can do this because they, they want, maybe for their own security, they want a fully fledged plan when there’s no way in the world you can know what that is because you’ve never done this before.

And how you do it is going to be different to how I do it and how somebody else is going to do it. So that’s fascinating. That’s an interesting story. So in terms of, moving, once you’ve confessed, okay, you confessed and you’ve got a couple of clients, how long did it take you to build up your clients until you had replaced your salary?

Carol Kabaale: Very quickly. I’m going to say by client number three, I was matching my salary. And Every client after that, I literally got to the point when I hit my first eight clients, I’d made [00:15:00] more money than I would have ever made in my position. 

Trudy Rankin: Yes. 

Carol Kabaale: And that was very weird. Also because most of my clients, I was very fortunate.

I work with clients who aren’t necessarily based in the country that I’m based. So I’m very fortunate. I have an exchange rate that works in my favor, which is nice. So it was very easy for me to hit that goal and still be competitive in my market. So I was like, why would I ever go back?

And once I like hit that goal that I made that amount of money, I was like, I can never go back because on this side of the fence, I have everything I’ve wanted. I have time freedom. I have choice. I have amazing people that I get to chat with on zoom and they’re my clients, but they also become like these weird relationships that you root for them and you are friends and so much about their lives.

And on top of [00:16:00] that, I get this lovely amount of money that helps me do all these other great things and I don’t have to get up early every day, I don’t have to put a full face of makeup on, I don’t have to sit in traffic for 45 minutes and sit in traffic 45 minutes back, deal with people’s internal Game of Thrones politics that they like to play and drag me into.

No thank you, no. I’m so happy. 

Trudy Rankin: I’m laughing because I’m nodding my head. Yes absolutely. And, it’s interesting because I’m going to ask you one more I guess agency based question and then I’d like us to move into some more of the tactics side of things.

But how, but at what stage, Client number or timeframe. How long was it before you brought in somebody to help you to be part of your team?

Carol Kabaale: It’s weird you say that. So when I started my business, one thing I did take from corporate is that I knew I could not do it alone. So after I did my certification the next thing I did [00:17:00] is I was looking for a mentor and I stepped into this world, which, is now popular.

I think the pandemic has made it very popular, which is coaching. And, everybody back then, it wasn’t as, not bad, but like as popular as it is now. I feel like everybody wants to be a coach now, but back then it was like a very small little tight lipped community. And I met this lovely woman and I hired her as my business coach.

So when I was setting up my business and having my first client, my second client, my third, she was there the whole way. She was like, Hey, so now this person is interested, like what proposal are you going to send them? I was like, what’s the proposal? What’s that? Oh, you will, you need to send them this thing and it’s got your, okay, great.

Carol went and built it. Carol went and sent it to her. Okay. With the proposal, you’re going to need a payment link. How’s she going to pay you? I don’t know, like I have a bank account, okay, but there’s someone in there… she literally guided me through all these tiny little steps all the way until [00:18:00] I got to like about my eighth client, and again, I was by myself.

Now, another fun fact there is that I thought I had to, and I dragged this with, from my corporate life, which I don’t like in the, I actually think I’ve had three versions of my agency. The first version was that when I was by myself, and I did everything Trudy. Absolutely everything. I wrote copy.

I’m not a copywriter, but I wrote copy. I built landing pages, not a web developer. I set up automations and I helped clients with things. I’m not a VA or an online business manager, but, and I ran ads. So I did everything and I was exhausted then too. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what are we doing? And then it happened.

I got my first ever, touch wood, first and only re chargeback. And I remember it very clearly. My phone went like this, and it said like negative 500 [00:19:00] dollars. And I was like, What is this? What is happening here? How can it be in a negative? And I quickly learned not to bash that platform, but it’s the blue one and we all use it.

They like to take the complaints, the person who’s complaining sides, besides hearing the seller, the service provider side. So this client had gone to them and said, Hey, this person never did anything for me. And she got all her money back without asking me any questions. Then I had to prove, yes, I did the work, here it is, and I had to like compile all of this, and then I got my money back, which was actually quite nice.

But in that moment, my coach and I were like, okay, I think it’s time for you to hire. And she was, and I was like, hire? And I had again imposter syndrome because I was like, who am I in my twenties to be hiring anyone who’s going to take me seriously? Are you kidding me? She’s Carol, it’s not about that.

And the first person she actually [00:20:00] encouraged me to find someone either locally or like on Fiverr and give them one task. The idea was not that this person would be my employee for life, but I just needed to get used to the idea of having one person, giving them tasks, getting comfortable with that and being like, how does that relationship work?

And once I realized, and I did a list of everything I actually like doing, everything I hate it, and everything I wanted to outsource. Once I got a price for it, I was like, Oh, I cannot wait to hire. Because if I pay you that, and I just add a little bit on top, I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to do that.

I can only focus on this. And that’s how I started growing my team. Yeah, 

Trudy Rankin: I like that. I like that. I like that a lot. Because once, once you brought somebody in, once you bring somebody in to do the stuff that you don’t like, or you’re not good at, it does free you up. It really does free you up to do the stuff that you do enjoy, or that you really shine at.

And you’re gonna, you’re just gonna do far better that way. I’m [00:21:00] impressed that you had the insight to bring in a business coach from the very beginning. So many people try to do it by themselves. And it just takes twice as long or even longer just to actually learn all the things that you need to learn.

I want to circle back now to what I mentioned at the very beginning where I was saying, we’ve had this helpful content update and there’s the strategies that are flying around the internet one of which is to use. what they call, I’ve heard it called ad arbitrage, where you pay for Facebook, a certain type of Facebook ads, to then generate traffic, which, and you obviously have to prepare content as well, but you generate traffic, which goes back to your website, which, where you’ve got Google AdSense on it, or you’ve got some of the Mediavine, or one of the other things, you get more from the ads, From the traffic that goes to website, then you pay for Facebook ads, right?

You know this arbitrage thing. Can you just talk a little bit about? That as a strategy, what you’ve seen about it, assuming, [00:22:00] I’m sure that you have heard of it because it’s just all over the place, people selling courses on it and things, it’s, it’s the fad of The quarter. 

Carol Kabaale: Yeah. It’s what do we have this month? 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah.

Carol Kabaale: I will say before I answer your question, I just want to make sure everybody’s on the same page as to what ads actually do, because that’s the little bit of a teacher in me. And for anybody who’s never heard of ads or Oh, I don’t know what it is. It sounds very scary, very technical.

I’ve never thought about it. Ads are not a scary thing. I want to just remind you that. Ads just take whatever it is you have, whether it’s a piece of content, whether it’s a website you want to highlight, whether it’s a lead magnet that you have, whatever your business has, or an actual physical product, and it just highlights it.

Puts a giant magnifying glass on it and it says to people, Hey, come here, come see this thing. It’s happening now. So it’s not a big, scary thing. All it does is amplifies your message that more people can hear it. So to your point, A type [00:23:00] of ad that you could run to something like that is like a traffic ad, where you’re basically saying to Facebook, so in Facebook, you have different objectives of what you want your ad to do.

So one of them is like awareness, you want to get eyeballs with awareness, you can track things like reach and impressions. And what that means is how many people physically saw the ad. Now that might be nice for brands who want to stay top of mind. You want to be like the obvious choice, right?

There’s a little yellow app that constantly wants us to buy from there made, in Asia. I think we all know the one. Once you see an ad for it, you can’t unsee it. awareness ads constantly in your mind, right? Then the next type of ad that you could do is probably like a lead ad. And that one I would prefer as a nurturing ad.

So it’s because you give them something, they give you something. So I will give you this checklist, this training, this meditation, this ebook, this course, I will [00:24:00] give you something. And you will give me your email in exchange for it, right? Now, those are my favorite type of ads because I actually feel like you get something tangible.

You get an email, which is worth something. This email, you can now nurture this person. You can reach out to them. And if Facebook goes to bits tomorrow, you still have an email. It’s a very powerful thing, right? And then the last type of ads, which is the first type of ads that most people want to run. And I highly say, please don’t do this, is a straight sales or conversion ads.

So everybody wants ROI. Everybody wants money and sales. So they just go and say, okay, here’s my product. Let’s send traffic directly there. But the mistake with that really is Let’s imagine the scenario. You’re at a bar, right? You’re at a bar, you’re having a drink, and some person comes up to you and they’re like, Hey, marry me.

I don’t care who you are. Like, no, I don’t know you. No, I’m [00:25:00] not going to marry you. But if you follow Awareness, they see you, you see them, you do some eye flirting with each other, person comes over, buys you a drink, you guys start talking, and that’s the nurturing. And then finally, he’s hey, do you want to go on a second date?

Do you want to go on a third date? Do you maybe want to get married? That’s the conversion. You’re more likely to say yes to that, right? Because there was all this warming up, because there was all this getting to know each other a little bit, and that’s really what you need to do.

Because if you don’t do that, what’s going to end up happening is that your sales, you know what, I’m not going to lie, some people might just be like, yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Okay. But that is going to cost you, your cost per result is going to be so high that is it even worth it at the end? 

Trudy Rankin: I think that’s a really good description.

I like the way you talk about what ads really are. So notice my stuff and which of course brings up the point that you’ve got to have good stuff [00:26:00] before you run ads. And because you can throw away, I’m going to tell you the one thing that I think that does really super scare people who do, who have maybe played around in the ad space a little bit, and that is how much money you can spend and waste if you don’t have everything lined up.

Carol Kabaale: Oh, yeah. 

Trudy Rankin: Got all your ducks in a row and things. So when you bring on a client or when a client’s, a potential client’s talking to you what process do you use to figure out or work out what kind of ad they should be, or ads they should be running for their particular business?

Carol Kabaale: So I mainly work with service based businesses. So I have a little model that I like to follow. It’s an automated marketing system. And what it does is the ads are the traffic. They all put eyeballs on you. But like you say, we need to build everything else out.

We need to have an emails campaign in place. We need to have nurturing happening in the background. From [00:27:00] the emails, are we taking them to a sale? Are you inviting them to an event? Are you inviting them to a masterclass? Where are you taking them? Do you need them to get on a call with you? So those little channels are also mapped out.

And then finally, do you maybe have a small product? Something that’s maybe just under 97 that can maybe offset the cost of running ads? Because maybe they’re not ready to fully invest in all your services, but they’re like, oh, that’s nice. I’ll just buy that for now and figure and use that and that tiny sale can help you to really offset what you’re paying to get these people in here.

So that’s what I always tend to suggest, unless they are very insistent that they need one thing and one thing only. And then I want to understand why they think they need that one thing and one thing only. And then generally, we come to some kind of compromise Fine, we can run sales, but we are going to [00:28:00] need to do retargeting as well.

So everybody who sees the ad and doesn’t buy, there’s a strategy for getting them back to buy. So it’s not just one ad, there’s layers to this thing, right? So that’s what I would do. Other criteria that I’m very, it’s a hard boundary for me is You touched on it briefly is I need people to have a tried and tested offer.

And what I mean by that is I need you to have at least sold at least five of these things organically, right? And I want at least five good reviews, right? You can sell stuff and no one gives you reviews or I’m going to need proof that they had success with your thing. Cause I’m not going to amplify a poop emoji.

No. It’s not me. That’s not what I’m doing. So that’s one of them. And then the next one is just to understand that my job is to bring you opportunities, right? My job is to build you the best kind of ecosystem for [00:29:00] nurturing these leads. But unfortunately there’s one component that I just cannot do for you.

And that is the sales. So if you are bad at sales, if you have a low conversion rate, I have plenty of people that I can suggest that can help you improve your sales. I cannot physically do that for you. There’s been times, honestly, where I, we’ve brought brilliant leads, people who are ready and I’ve watched because I asked them, Hey, can you just record one sales call so I can see what you’re doing?

And I’m cringing through it. I’m like, imagine the person on the other side. I can’t fix that. That’s on you. You need to take that ownership and say, if 10 people come in and I can only close two, you have to live with that. You either have to improve those numbers or say, Carol, you, we need to bring in a hundred people so I can close 20.

Trudy Rankin: And that’s an interesting analogy, I think, because that brings me to my next and my last question, because we were real quickly running out of time. You mentioned earlier on that you really [00:30:00] enjoy the data driven side of things. And that was one of the reasons why you chose to go into ads.

Talk to us just a little bit about that whole, the whole data and the data analysis side of running ads. What would be the key things that somebody who’s running a business really wanting to get into ads might have to think about when it comes to the data side. 

Carol Kabaale: I think in terms of the data is be very truthful with yourself on how much you want to spend.

Be very truthful. If you only have 300, you only have 300. If you have a thousand, you have a thousand. And understand that, especially if you are running like a lead ad where you want an email, and we use baby numbers for this example. If your emails are coming in, getting one email costs you 1 and you’re spending 10, you’re going to get 10 emails.

But if they cost you five, you’re only going to get two. You have to make peace with that, right? Because unfortunately you can’t, the price is set by the algorithm and there’s many factors that can influence that. Now you can try and [00:31:00] improve your chances of lowering that thing by having great creative, by having great copy, by having an amazing offer, by making people want to take the thing, right?

But it’s not guaranteed. that you are going to, grab those people. For example, I have one client, she works with people in tech, product managers, product developers. Her cost to get someone to work with her is about 30. Now, what she’s selling is like close to 5, 000. So the ROI makes sense then, right?

Like you’re spending 30, but you get someone for 5, 000. It makes a lot of sense. I have also a fitness coach, right? Her cost to get someone is so cheap. It’s like literally 2 to get someone to give them an email. There’s tons of people who want to lose weight. That’s why, right? And then what she’s selling is not as expensive.

So again, the ROI makes sense. So you’ve also got to put yourself in what, how niche down are you looking? Cause the more you [00:32:00] ask of the platform, the more your cost per result will be. And then you take data driven decisions with that one, with your cost and two, following what it’s doing. If one ad is doing well.

We have this rule, don’t touch it, leave it. In fact, go and see how you can replicate it. What other versions can you do of it? How can you use that organically in your other content? How can you put whatever you did in that ad that’s working so well in your email sequences? How can you bring it up in conversations?

So it becomes from one really good nugget, a whole little ecosystem is born. It comes from data. You’re not just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it’s going to stick. 

Trudy Rankin: I like that answer. And I’m curious because a lot of people, unfortunately they think about data and then they immediately just back off because they think, Oh, it’s about maths.

It’s about numbers. I’m not good at numbers. I can’t do this. What would you say to somebody who’s, Pretty maybe they’ve got imposter syndrome about their ability to deal with numbers or they really just don’t feel [00:33:00] comfortable with, dealing with those analytics. What kind of advice would you give to somebody to help them just take that first baby step towards getting comfortable?

Carol Kabaale: I would tell them, if Carol can do it, you can do it. And why I’d say that is because when I was in high school, I was failing math. Failing maths, so much so that here in South Africa, you have two types of maths in high school. One that’s called, one that has like a lot of algebra and equations and things.

And one that’s more like simpler and more like problem solving. So it’s it’s an easier version of maths. I was doing the latter, the harder one. And I was asked to leave. I was asked to go to the other class because I was failing. I was getting 40 percent and I was failing. Failing, but I was determined to not fail this thing.

I was like, no, you will not push me into that other class. I actually told them, legally you cannot ask me to leave. So pull yourself towards yourself. I’m gonna do this. So if someone like myself can [00:34:00] do that. And then I went to university and I had to do statistics, which I hated, and I got through it. And now when you look at now, like for example, business manager, it can be overwhelming.

But what I’ve learned to teach myself is I just do one tiny section at a time. So understanding what I need. So first, first thing is maybe you understand your budget. So you get your mind around that. You become comfortable with it. Then you learn the next step, which is maybe What key performance indicators are we, do we need to look at?

Is it the reach? Is it this? There’s so many. They give you a choice. Don’t worry. You just focus on the three you want to look at. That’s it. The other ones, forget about them. And by narrowing down your focus, you actually narrow down your strengths because everything else is not important. We’re here.

We’re here, we know that this is what we need to look at. And one day when you feel a little bit more comfortable, add something else in. Be like, Oh, interesting. Okay, I like that. Add another thing in. Oh, this is interesting. And I promise you by [00:35:00] taking it one bite at a time, I don’t know if you’ve ever read that book Eat That Frog.

I love that book. How do you eat a frog? One bite at a time. How do you overcome something that’s scary? One, one step at a time. That’s all you need to do. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s fantastic because I know it is something that people do struggle with. So that’s really good advice. Just take it one little bit at a time, get comfortable, then add in the next little bit.

Carol, that’s been really fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you. and hearing what you have to say. If people are interested in either just reaching out and getting in touch, or if they’re interested in working with you, where would they go? 

Carol Kabaale: So I’m sure you can find it in the bottom of the show notes, but you can go to my website.

It’s carolkabaale. It’s just my name and surname. com. And on there, I have a wonderful quiz. It’s about six questions and a test your ads readiness score. So if you found this fascinating and you’re thinking, Oh, maybe I should be running ads. Don’t worry. I got you. You can figure it out. This quiz will tell you if you’re [00:36:00] ready to invest and if you should be investing in ads right now.

Trudy Rankin: That’s fantastic. And for people who listen you know that I love quizzes, I love a good quiz. That is my jam. That is my, that’s my special area. So I’m really pleased to hear that you’ve got a quiz and I’m sure people will enjoy actually going and trying it out, just finding out if they’re ready for ads.

Great. So thank you so much, Carol. It’s been fantastic. 

Carol Kabaale: Thank you so much for having me, Trudy. 

Thank you so much for listening today.

Carol Kabaale: I hope Carol’s bold story of betting on herself reminded you that sometimes a little courage can help make the dream of business ownership come true. Her advice on setting up smart ad strategies was a really good reminder to always work with purpose. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review.

Your feedback helps us reach more people who need these kinds of insights to keep moving forward. Thank you for joining me and I’ll catch you in the next episode.[00:37:00]