[00:00:00] Ellington Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown! 

[00:00:18] Rita Burke: Indeed, we are called SpeakUP! International because we go all over the world. We skip across the globe to find people who are community builders. And today's no exception, but we're way at the end. other end of the world in South Africa!

Today we'll be speaking with Carol Kabaale, and she tells us that she was following the traditional career path that felt that the years were passing and she was caught up in this the cooperate machine, she realized that she wanted more out of life. So she started her own business. And as was expected, there was turbulence and uncertainty.

But today, however, Carol runs a thriving digital agency. The, where she helps online coaches to scale their business. , Carol Kabaale, we welcome you to SpeakUP! International! 

[00:01:29] Carol Kabaale: Thank you so much, Rita and Elton for having me. I'm so excited to actually be here. I think we're going to have a great time.

[00:01:37] Ellington Brown: Carol, it's good that you were able to b e with us this evening. I want to start with you talking about your role as a META certified ads strategist.

[00:01:52] Carol Kabaale: Yeah. So how I got into that role, Rita spoke a little about it. But I really felt in my twenties, like I said, I followed a very traditional career path. Went to school, went to university. I'm a child of immigrants. So it was very expected of me to be successful because people had given so much for me to have this opportunity.

And at my corporate job, I worked in business development and don't get me wrong, the people were absolutely lovely. It's probably why I stayed so long. But I was drained, I was tired, I was burnt out, but the biggest thing that I was facing was, I just didn't want to wait till I was much older in life to really experience life.

I saw people in their 50s and their 60s having freedom of choice. Because they had that income because they had that role. And I was like, Oh my gosh, back then I was like in my early twenties, I was like, I'm gonna have to wait 40 years for that. That's crazy. What? No. I also found that like in the way that I worked, I wanted to.

Hopefully, have a tiny human of my own one day. And I was like, this is not going to work. Like I'm only seeing this child, potentially off the work. And then I'm seeing them on weekends. I was like, this is not enough. How are people doing this? This feels like a trap. So I thought about what am I good at?

What can I help people with? One thing I knew, I always like to come from a place of service. I love to help. I love to serve. Something I love is being creative and I love making decisions based on facts. So becoming a Meta Certified Strategist really allowed me to do all of that because one, I get to create really fun ads for my clients.

So I get to be creative. I always take data driven decisions when we, create strategy or optimize the actual campaigns and I love to serve. And how I do that is in a nutshell, all that ads do, because people think it's some kind of magic. It's not all they do is they amplify your message. So I get to work with fantastic women who are here to be of service. And I get to just, bring their message to the world and I get to be of service. So yeah, I, it's really great to do what I do. 

[00:04:14] Rita Burke: Sounds like that is a truly exciting job or business to have. You mentioned Carol, that the switch over from working. With others or working for others to working for yourself brought challenges.

Talk a little bit about what those challenges were like for you. 

[00:04:41] Carol Kabaale: As I mentioned, I was really young when I started, I think as we all are, when we enter the workforce and I was very eager to please I've, I'm an only child. I'm very much a, I was very much, I'm glad I'm not now. It was very much a people pleaser.

And I was very eager to, get shiny stars. Like I had at school Oh, great. Here's another metal. What I didn't realize is that you're allowed to say no. And you're an adult and other people can mistake your kindness for weakness and take advantage of it. So I often found myself in situations at work where. I was the one doing the bulk of the work, but everybody got credit. I was the one coming in early, staying late, but we all did the assignment, so to speak. But it's me carrying everybody, so there were challenges like that. There were challenges like I didn't know how to speak up for myself. I didn't know how to say no That was a big one.

I had a very big problem with boundaries, whatever was asked of me. I always said yes. How dare I say no. I just, I always, in the back of my mind, I had I guess my parents voice saying to me do not quit. Don't get fired. Make sure you're an adult now, you got to figure this out.

And I was so scared of being fired or doing the wrong thing that I was just like yes. Don't argue back. Don't talk back. Just keep your head down and it's going to be fine. And unfortunately, there was an empty cup. You know how that, that saying like you can only give once your cup has something to give.

There was nothing to give. Absolutely nothing. And I didn't know it back then. I started getting sick, my skin physically, I started getting acne. I just wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping. And, I didn't know words like burnout or like I was tired. I didn't know any of that. I just knew, I remember speaking to my mom.

So clearly, this is actually so funny that it's coming into my head now. I remember the conversation so vividly with, I said, Hey, I feel this way. I feel tired all the time. I'm just so exhausted. And my mom said to me Carol, you can't be tired. You're young. Get over it. And I was like, okay, get over it.

I guess like I was, I just got to push through it. And the more I push, the more I struggled to be honest with you, Rita. Yeah. It was like pushing the boulder up the hill. That boulder was coming back. Yeah. It was just the worst. I smile now, but it really wasn't great. 

[00:07:08] Ellington Brown: Oh, no. A lot of people suffer from burnout and it's not a good thing at all. I want to go back to talking about your profession. At one point, you were in hospitality? 

[00:07:22] Carol Kabaale: Yes. 

[00:07:23] Ellington Brown: Is that correct? How did you make that transition from hospitality to digital marketing? 

[00:07:31] Carol Kabaale: As as I've said, I like to tick boxes, follow paths. For me, when I decided to leave, my work and hospitality I knew I needed some kind of certification.

In my mind, you need a piece of paper to show you can do something. That's what I was taught, right? So I was like, okay, what certification, what course, what path can I take to gain these skills? And that's when I, I did my thinking of what do I want to do next? And how do I get there? And I found this course in digital marketing.

It actually started with social media marketing and it turned out, I hated that because back then when I started, it was very much. Surface level. And to me, it felt very vain Oh, let's make everything pretty and nice. And I was like, but where's the data? Where's the decision? We're just, the client wants it to be pretty.

So we make it pretty. Wow! That seems effective use of our time and resources. Not at all! So I was like, there has to be more. And that's when I found. Like ads managing or running ads that came from data. You took your decisions based on what the numbers were showing you. The numbers don't lie.

That saying is very true throughout whatever industry you're in. If you follow the data, it's there. If no one's clicking on the ad, it's a bad ad. If lots of people are clicking on the ad, it's a good ad. So for me, it was really important to also, I think. Looking back on it now, I was trying to not be responsible for everything.

I think I felt safety in having data to fall back on. So it wasn't Carol making the decisions I could be like, Hey. This is what the data is saying. If you would like to proceed, that's on you, but I'm just the messenger.

[00:09:15] Ellington Brown: Did that get you in trouble being the messenger? You know what they say about the messenger, don't kill the messenger. Can you give us an example of Giving your boss or your team bad news based on the data. 

[00:09:32] Carol Kabaale: Yeah. So when I worked in corporate, like I said, I worked in business development, so we had to make a lot of forecasting decisions for the hotel about trends, about buying patterns, about what offers and specials we were going to put together.

And, you try, especially in my role, because I was still I was an assistant of someone, mine was mainly, my main focus was food and beverage, so I was thinking of specials and promotions for the restaurant and people coming in. I did a little bit of the rooms, but not too heavily focused on that.

And, you come up with a plan and you present it and you're like, okay, let's do it. And then it doesn't quite work out. And then everybody looks at you and I'm like guys, I followed the plan. I got approval. This was what is approved. I can't make magic out of it. Do you know, I, looking back on those moments, I really thought that I had failed.

It's, it wasn't me. Okay. And was the campaign was very limited. Look, I'm the first one to take ownership and responsibility. Like I'm here to take responsibility. If it was me, I would have put my hand up, but it really wasn't. Now that I run a whole digital agency, I know things like advertising is important.

I know things like the algorithm is important and there's all these factors that influence it. So even though I was doing my best, there were all these other things. Other elements I wasn't even accounting for that were already stacked in front of me. So one of the things that I learned with having the data was that like, let's say you have a small advertising budget and you only have 10 to spare.

Your screen, let's imagine this, is as small as a cell phone. So people are going to see your ads. They're going to see your promotions, but it's going to take a long time for them to see it. Whether you're competing with someone who's spending like thousands of dollars, they have this huge billboard.

Who's going to be more successful. So it was, it came down to little things like that, where I had a very small budget, but I had to make miracles out of it. And back then I couldn't articulate and say, Hey, This budget can only get us so far. I had to learn that. And it's lessons like that, that I took into my agency.

[00:11:41] Rita Burke: That is fascinating because to some degree, we can say that's our story. We have a small budget and we're supposed to work miracles. They call it bread out of stone. And so you got to the point, it seems to me like you got to the point where you said. Enough of this. I'm on my own now. I want to hear from you, Carol, some kind of success story, how you've helped a company, a business to move from zero to whatever trajectory that's successful for them, please.

[00:12:20] Carol Kabaale: Yeah. I have a couple. I like to work with women entrepreneurs and particularly like you mentioned coaches. So sometimes when online coaches you have different kinds of coaches. I have this one client her whole business is all about finding women, helping women reinvent themselves. So after 40, so after they become like empty nesters, or they've reached a peak in their career.

What's next? What do we do? So most of the time, what I end up helping them with is creating an automated marketing system that attracts these people, right? And then we usually plan out a launch and a launch is just a fancy way of saying Hey, come look at my stuff. I'm selling it. And in that launch, We set a goal for ourselves.

Specifically for coaches, we tend to have events. So where we invite people to a workshop or a masterclass or like a three day event series. And in that we get people to sign up. My job is to get people to sign up, to register, to open emails. These are all really crucial points because look, an ad is great.

But an ad is just step one. You want them to continue saying yes. You want them to open the emails. You want them to show up live. And ultimately, you want them in that mindset of, I actually have this problem. I hope Rita or Elton is the people to fix that problem for me. I hope this is the right person.

The only part of the selling bit of the success story that I cannot do is the selling. And I often tell my clients that. I'm like, guys. I can't do the sales for you. I can't be on the webinar. I can't be on the sales call. I can only bring them to you. It is up to you to close that. And I think it takes a special kind of person to also understand and take on that responsibility to say Hey, Carol has brought me these people.

Now it's my part. To close them now, it's my part to do that so we've had really successful launches with most of my clients where we have five six figures and even seven figure launches Again, it's different budgets different people now. I don't want to scare anyone here oh my gosh carol I'm sure you spend millions.

No, it depends on the season that you're in. Okay guys it doesn't have to be super scary. You can spend ten dollars a day And be successful. I had a client who she knew all her people on her Instagram, every time she launched something there, they were going to buy, she was, she just kept saying to me, but Carol, I just don't think they see my things.

I don't think they see it. And I was like, okay they don't see it because you're depending on this output algorithm. So what you need to do is put a little bit of money behind it and let's do a retargeting campaign, which is basically just showing everybody who follows you, who likes to engage us with your audience.

Let's show them your stuff. And she did that and she started getting so many inquiries. With a 10 budget. So again, please don't think like you have to be spending millions of dollars on these things, or advertising is only for huge companies. Really, anybody can do it as long as you're doing it strategically.

[00:15:25] Ellington Brown: Oh, being strategic is the key. I want to ask a semi personal question here, and you don't have to answer it if you say, no, I'm not going to, I'm not going there. But I want to know how did Joelle influence your decision to entrepreneurship? 

[00:15:44] Carol Kabaale: Oh, I'm gonna tell you right now! So Joel is my husband, Joel. He's my husband who I love very much. He's my high school sweetheart. And he's also a big reason why I became an entrepreneur, but he didn't know that at the time. When I, when he proposed, so let me take you back to the moment. It happened. Actually. I like telling the story. So we had been dating for nine years.

And I always joke, I think he needed my blood type. And once I told him my blood type, he could propose. Because I don't know what the man was waiting for. But anyway, he got my blood type and he proposed. And in that moment, I kid you not Elton, it was like my whole world flashed before me. I could see every single moment so clearly.

And in every single scenario, I was living past my husband. I was living past my family. I was not present. I was not the person I needed to be. And I just knew the path I was on was not the path I needed to be on. And that's when this whole thing snowballed into me trying to find this new career. So he didn't know that back then. Fast forward when I decided to quit. Another little secret. I didn't tell him! 

[00:16:52] Ellington Brown: Oh God! 

[00:16:53] Carol Kabaale: I didn't tell my dad until my 30 days notice. And I tell you why I often, sometimes I do get asked this questions on podcasts and I've actually had a little bit of a think why I did it that way. But the truth is I didn't want anybody to talk me out of it. Sometimes, people they don't understand the choices you're making and because they don't understand it or because they feel threatened by it or fear of it, they talk you out of it to try and save you.

I'm telling you, I just need one person to be like, Carol, but how are you going to make money? And I would have gone back. I would have begged those people for my job because I didn't have that answer. So to be honest with you, he didn't influence my decision. But he did help me. One great thing Joel did is that he told me, he was like, once he figured it out, that I'd quit.

And I was just at the house because I wasn't going to work. He was like, okay, you need a plan. Are you going to try and figure this out for a year? How long are you going to do this entrepreneurship? That's what he said to me. How long are you going to try this thing? Are you going to do this for six months?

Are you going to do this for a year? Are you going to do this for three months? Do you need me to financially support you? Do you have savings? What is your plan? And by then, because I had kept quiet and because I was doing my little things on the side, I had clients. I had already had two or three clients.

I was like, no, it's fine. I got clients. No, it's fine. I'm going to give it a year. No, it's fine. This is how I'm going to try and do it. But if he had asked me that on the day I quit, I would have had zero answers. I would have been like, you're right, why did I do this? Let me go back and get my job.

[00:18:24] Rita Burke: What an amazing story of insight and understanding of oneself. It's interesting that you said, Carol, that when you're making plans for change that maybe you shouldn't share it because people are going to try to help you to change your mind. And that's what the experts say. You cannot share that kind of thing or you're going to have 10 people around you that are going to say no, maybe not.

So congratulations to you for having made your choice. And ultimately it was a successful choice. Wonderful. So tell her listeners, how do you recruit clients? How do you get your own clients? 

[00:19:10] Carol Kabaale: So I do run ads for myself, but predominantly I get a lot of referrals. I think it's really important as entrepreneurs.

I don't know why we like to always look for new clients. What about the ones you got? What are the ones you did good business with? We're constantly looking for the new person or how do I get more people? The people who are there, they can speak well of you, especially if you guys have had a good relationship.

A lot of my clients, I'd say 80 percent of my business currently comes from referrals. Whether we work together for three months or we work together for a year. Most of my clients stay with me for a year, but that is very uncommon. I have found in my agency experience. People tend to churn through agencies.

They're like, Oh, I was with this agency. I'm in the next one. I'm trying this one. And I'm like, why? My clients stay with me for a year. And then the reason they leave is most of the time because they're like, no, I care. I'm going to try something different. I'm just going to take a minute or I'm writing a book.

Like I'm not focused on. Doing this right now. It's not generally because we get bad results and I respect that. I'm like great I know you're not in the season When you're ready come back, so that's how I attract clients I think it's really important to have good relationships with your clients being very transparent with them.

There's something as a human that I hate is a lie. I can tell you both right now, like you can do a lot of things to me, but if you lie, oh, it's game over. Oh, it's game over. So I take that value very seriously with my clients. When it's bad, I tell them when it's good, I tell them just as well, because I think sometimes, I don't know, I've seen this in specifically my industry.

We like to sugarcoat things. Oh, it's not so bad. Oh, it's oh, it's bad. No one is clicking on the ad. We need to tell people that. Oh, it's bad! We've spent 500 dollars and nothing's come out of it. I have a campaign that we literally ran two weeks ago. We spent 150, which isn't a lot. In the grand scheme of the whole campaign, but we got nothing out of it.

And I have to explain that to a client, but I have to be like open and honest and say Hey, this is what we tried. This is the new strategy we tried. This is the new thing. Unfortunately, it didn't produce anything. That's it. If I lie what does that say about me? No, I can't do that. 

[00:21:28] Ellington Brown: I think most people know that it's like a crap shoot .

It's like rolling the dice, you put, you prepare, you make it very eye catching, lots of eye candy, you make it appealing, at least from your perspective, and then you let it go. And then either say, Great things happen or good things happen. Or as you said, nothing happens. So I think most people at least understand that, sometimes you don't win.

It's you go to Las Vegas, go in there with, 

[00:22:01] Carol Kabaale: I will say this. It is like gambling. If there's no strategy now we lost 150, but that's not the only campaign we were running. So that's why I think people get lost in, in running ads. They're like, Oh, I put 10 in. I'm not a millionaire. Why didn't it happen? You see that's wrong because that's gambling. 

This was testing a strategy. We tested it. It didn't work. What else is next? See, that's different. 

[00:22:28] Ellington Brown: All right. So then obviously you have multiple strategies. Prepared. So it's almost like playing ABC and hopefully by the time you hit C, if necessary, it the project explodes and you got tons of people looking at it and lots of clicks.

Okay, so I understand your perspective now. Speaking of strategies. You've had multiple ventures going. So what lessons did you learn from these experiences? 

[00:23:06] Carol Kabaale: I will say, okay, so I like to think my agency has gone through three iterations. The first one was when I just started. It was just me. I was a one woman show and I was really trying to do it all.

I thought I could do it all actually. I was like, of course I can. I can figure it out. I can do it. So I took a lot of those bad habits from my corporate job and I brought it into the agency. I just thought I could do everything. I thought I could yes. What I learned from that is you cannot be of service if you actually don't know how to do that service.

If you don't actually have the solution, you're actually being, you're doing a disservice to your client by saying, yes, I can, when you can't. Because you are holding them back while you try to figure it out. So that's something I had to learn. The next iteration of my agency was that for a brief period I was in partnership with another lady.

And her and I, we were great together, but ultimately we had different goals. My goals in life is to have an agency, to have financial freedom, but I ultimately want to be a mom. I want to be a wife. I want to travel. I want to be. That's what I want to be. And I think there's nothing wrong with that.

These are my goals. I don't need a million dollars to do those things, right? I just need. I have a number. It's close, but it's not a million. I have a number. But she was very driven and she wanted to build like this multitude of an agency with so many employees and multi million and she wasn't really She didn't want to have a family or have a husband or thing.

So she was like, her business was going to be that for her. And ultimately that is where the clash came, where I wanted time freedom. She wanted revenue. So we were both pulling at different strings and ultimately we had to like separate, which is fine because again, we had different goals. The last iteration and in that iteration, we actually hired a team and that's when we started hiring people, which is great.

This iteration of my agency, I think is the best one because I have truly my dream team. I have women who my whole team is women, which I'm very proud that I get to be like that person. Firstly, I always feel this weird Oh my gosh, Carol, you get to hire people. I still get goosebumps. I like me, I hire people.

It's strange, but I have an all women team. Most of them actually no, now all of them are in South Africa, which is really cool. And yeah, it's just been really fun. We're more selective about the clients that we bring on as well, because we've niched down what we can really be successful at and what we can't.

And I think, like I said before, it takes some kind of discipline to know Hey, I can't help you. Please try somebody else. It's not just about revenue. 

[00:25:55] Rita Burke: We are having this amazing, truly wonderful conversation with Carol Kabaale here who is in South Africa, and she no doubt is a community builder.

At SpeakUP! International, we seek to inspire, inform, and educate, and I believe the story that we're hearing right now certainly will do that for our audience. So thank you so much, Carol. I've heard about Joel. So we know that he plays an integral, a very important part in your life.

Tell us, Carol, who would you say, or what is responsible for the person you are today?

[00:26:39] Carol Kabaale: That's a nice question. I like that question a lot because I'm getting a lot of feelings. A lot of different answers want to jump at the front and tell you I want to say truthfully, I think it's me. And I know that sounds very vain, but it really is. I. My parents got divorced when I was really young and I was raised by my mom, but my mom happened to be a narcissist.

So again, I didn't know that word back then. I know it now. But my mom tried her best and with that I learned that if I want something I need to be very independent of it. And I need to be very like, if this is how it has to happen, I need to figure it out. I didn't know that I was doing that back then, but I've always been an advocate for my own way forward.

I was telling my husband the other day this weird story how my parents sent me to school with no stationery and no books and things. And I was like, why would they do that? And I was like, because they didn't read the paper. And then I remember being at school and the teacher telling me, you need to go to this place and whatever.

And then I went back home and I said to my parents, Hey, I don't know what you guys are doing, but you need to take me to the shop and I need to buy the stuff. And then when they wouldn't, I like literally drew them a map of they said, it's here. And it's like little moments like that.

That's one thing. We don't have that much time. I can't tell you everyone, but there's been so many little moments like that where I just had to advocate for myself, speak up for myself. And in the moment, I promise you, Rita, I didn't know I was doing it, but now looking back on it, I was like, every single moment I was choosing me, I was choosing my way out of this not great situation that I had found myself in.

[00:28:26] Ellington Brown: Wow, that is amazing. You talked earlier about your company being very selective. Terms of who you were going to bring on board, who you more or less knew you could help versus others that may, they're very enthusiastic. They really go. They have the money, but you felt that you could not help them.

So you more or less referred them to someone else. 

[00:28:58] Carol Kabaale: Yeah. 

[00:28:59] Ellington Brown: So how did you decide to specialize in helping online coaches with Facebook ads? 

[00:29:09] Carol Kabaale: It's the people I like the most, if I'm honest with you, Elton.

It's the ones, I looked at it and I was like, what clients? Give me the most joy. Like what people do I wake up in the morning and go, you know what? I have a client call with Elton and Rita. Yay. Not the clients where I was like, Oh my gosh, I have a client call with Elton and Rita. Watch these people ask me 20, 000 questions.

The same questions I answered last week. Watch. And I was like, Oh, I was just like, I can't do that. And ultimately I thought that growing the relationship with Nishing down wasn't limiting myself. It was just becoming more specialized in my field. I really thought about it.

I was like, I can either grow laterally so I can know a little bit about everything. Or I can say, if you're a business coach, if you're an online coach or you're a service provider, which usually is very similar, like I'm your person. I have this much experience because I only work with these people.

I'm in your niche all the time. I'm seeing what's happening all the time. Therefore, I get to grow vertically. I get to grow up and up and up instead of thinning myself out and knowing a little bit about everything. I know a lot about one thing. I'm okay with that .

[00:30:23] Ellington Brown: I think that's really good because it, Reduces the amount of air that you pull out of your, all of your head because you spread yourself so thin till yes, you're tapping all of these different genres, but it's like the jack of all trades, but the master of none. And so you don't want to get to that point because well, it's your wind up.

This is what you're saying earlier. Oh, my God. I got to talk to client what's in what's Oh, I don't you know, I really I'm not ready for this person. I don't want to have to deal with this person. Yes. Is there where I can just call them back? Yes, I do. I do understand that. And because of the fact that you specialize.

And what your organization will take on. Can you describe the results of that? You have been able to achieve for online coaches through your digital agency. 

[00:31:20] Carol Kabaale: So we like to run three different types of campaigns. Primarily the first one is a nurturing campaign. Sorry. The first one is an awareness campaign and it's mostly for people who know that their audiences are in the target group.

So they're, they post great content, but it's just not being seen whether that's on Facebook, on Instagram or WhatsApp, and they just need more eyeballs on it. They want to stay top of mind. So with that, we generally see that like we can outrank the algorithm. Quite easily, and it depends on some people.

We've done it like 20%, 30%, even like as high as like 100 percent over because the reach is so good, the engagement is so good. Now, that is for people who know their clients are on there, but they just can't see their stuff. They're creating all these beautiful things, like even this interview. I have people who like spend so much time on videos and things and No one sees them like, wow, that's terrible.

You want like people to see your things and unfortunately most of these social media places are like a pay to play. You have to pay a little money and then the algorithm's gonna show you to the right people right's. So that's the one campaign we do. We get some pretty good results. That's actually.

The easiest campaign to see an ROI on, because a lot of these people are just waiting for you to make an offer, but nine out of 10, they don't get to see your stuff, hence they don't buy. So we see the fastest results with that campaign. The second one is my favorite because I'm more of a play the long term kind of girl.

So I like to encourage all my clients to go for this campaign or do this campaign at some season, right? And that is a nurturing campaign. It's very simple. You give something of value. The lead gives you something of there. So in, we ask for an email, a phone number, personal information. What we're trying to do is build An ecosystem outside of the platform.

Cause in 20, I think two years ago, yeah, 2022, 2021, my Facebook account was hacked and I've never gotten it back till this day. The hacker people, I was literally in my account and I was watching them change my password. And they locked me out and Facebook couldn't help me. No one could help me until this day.

I have no account and it's my personal accounts. It wasn't a business account. It's a personal account. Had it been a business account, maybe yes, they would, I would have gotten it back. But because it was just a personal account, Facebook was like, eh, it's gone. Now imagine my whole business was tied to that account.

And I see a lot of business owners, depending on this platform, they've just built a whole thing on this platform. And if that happens to them, if they don't have emails, if they don't have a way to get in contact with other guests, what will they do? So that's one that I always ask for, because you're building on borrowed land, right?

You're building your business on somebody else's space and nobody wants to do that. So that's, A great one that I always go. It's a nurturing campaign. And the last one is the one my clients generally come for. They're like, I want more sales. And I'm like okay. You can have more sales, but you're going to have to wait.

And then they're like, they get shocked. What do you mean? I have to wait. I want more sales. I want more money now. And I'm like, okay, let me tell you a story about how I met my husband. So I made him nine years ago. Then he took me on a couple of dates. And then I waited nine years and then he gave me a ring.

Then I waited two years and then I got married. Do you see what I'm trying to say? You need to know people. You need to get to know them and then you can ask for a sale. You can't just see an ad. Most times if you see an ad and you just directly buy something, you are either a very impulsive shopper or you were really looking for that solution.

There is no way you see an ad today for something and you're like, Oh, I'm going to just buy it. No, nine out of 10, you stop. You think you look at it, you compare, you go to other websites. You think about it some more, you come back. That's time. That's time. And in that time, what my team and I do is that we put things in place to make sure that our solution remains top of mind, right?

While they're searching, they'll go, Oh yes, that place. Oh, yes, that coach. Oh, yes, Carol, because ultimately people buy from people. So if they see you enough and they believe you enough, they will buy from you. Same thing with marriage. 

[00:35:43] Ellington Brown: So it's all, so it's all about engagement, getting people to engage. And I noticed you mentioned earlier how, okay, give us your email address and we'll send you every month, blah, blah, blah.

Or send me, send me your email address and I'll send you 10 ways. 10 things you can do in order to, spread the word. 

[00:36:09] Carol Kabaale: There you go! 

[00:36:09] Ellington Brown: In order to get them to communicate with you. So I do understand that and I do agree with that a thousand percent. And so I know you had a bad thing with Facebook.

And so I'm just wondering what makes Facebook ads particularly effective for online coaches who wants to scale for their impact? 

[00:36:32] Carol Kabaale: So for me personally, what I find is that the people who have money are still on Facebook and that's just the truth. They're not on TikTok where people are dancing and pointing and doing all kinds of things.

They're not on LinkedIn, sending messages and being super professional and, In my opinion, fake, because no one speaks I hope this email finds you well. Oh, congratulations. Oh, I'm no one speaks like that. So I feel like that place is it's very corporate y and it's very strategic. It's you're playing a game within a game.

Also, we've run ads on LinkedIn. They're very expensive and they yield quite a little. And ultimately for my clients, you don't necessarily wake up in the morning and go on Google and say, online business coach, what you Google is like, How to make more money, how to become better at sales, how do I grow my email list?

How do I find purpose? Things that you can't really quantify, right? And by having a place like a Facebook ad, you can have a video, you can have images, and you generally take them from the ad to a landing page, to an actual website, or maybe you take them to your profile, where again, you can continue to educate them and show them, Hey!

I am the expert at growing your email list. I am the expert at helping you find purpose and fulfillment. I am the expert who's going to help you with sales. Not something super tangible. 

[00:38:01] Rita Burke: Miss Carol, it sounds to me as if you should be the director of some MBA program. Because it's all in your DNA, and it is truly amazing!

Now I want you to tell our audience, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given, please? 

[00:38:23] Carol Kabaale: So first of all, I want to thank you because that's very kind of you. I don't consider myself like that, but I'm going to start doing some work on that because yeah, that felt like it was too big of a compliment for me, but I'm going to accept it.

I like that. Thank you so much, Rita. The best piece of advice that I've ever been given is you don't have to be the best. You just have to be consistent. And I stand by that a hundred percent. You don't have to be the best. You just have to be consistent. Nine out of 10, especially in entrepreneurship, we like to look at this side and we go, Oh, how come that person's more successful?

Oh, how come they get more clients? How come they get more views? How come they they're, they show up. They do the work. What were you doing? The last other one that I liked that it's read it on my it's my mantra, if you will, for this week. And this is my new favorite one is what you don't change you choose.

[00:39:19] Ellington Brown: Oh, 

[00:39:20] Carol Kabaale: So that one is also one that I have really been letting think in because I like that one What you don't change you choose and I think that's good for business for life for everything Like what are you choosing? Because you're not changing it. 

[00:39:35] Ellington Brown: Wow. I do like I do I like that and I am going to borrow that mantra it definitely puts you it puts you in a zero one You Position, either you do it or you are, you change it or you are accepting it.

And, that really puts you in a place where you have to really look at yourself and say, wow, what is it that I am doing at this very moment to make myself or my company or my employees better. And so I'm wondering. You're focused on bringing like ease, wealth, and joy to the lives of your online coaches.

So what strategies do you use to achieve that? 

[00:40:25] Carol Kabaale: So I like to, like I said, we like to do a lot of data, but I also like to focus on what are they doing, right? Especially if we're doing a launch, especially if we're doing a big event, I always ask them like, What self care are you doing? What is your goal? Do you have something like a mantra?

What's going to help you to carry on when you can't? Like when you're just tired and you want to carry on, you're like, Carol, I hate this. I'm like you got to do some more. You got to do some more. What's going to keep you going? For me, it's really about finding that yin and yang balance of being present and having all this data and having all these strategies and putting them into place and trusting that myself and my team have got your back because we really do, but also pouring into your cup, because ultimately I ask of my coaches and my clients, I ask such a big role they have to sell, but only they know their secret sauce.

Only they know what makes them special and energetically, it takes so much to make that connection with someone to be like, are we in alignment to continue forward in this business venture? And that is tiring. That's why I always ask them, Hey, what do we have to do? How can I support you? I have a client today, Christine, she is launching and I have, I've literally been speaking to her all morning.

Hey, I'm sending you thoughts. Go and have a thing. Do you need something? Are you okay? Is there anything I can help you with? I think just being there for them and them knowing that someone is rooting for them is just, I think it helps. I don't want them just to think of them as Oh, Carol's the person who does my ads.

No, I want them to think I'm your biggest cheerleader. Cause I really am. Cause when they went, I get a win and I get to do fun things and be like, yes. Christine had a great launch and I was a part of it. I helped. It's awesome! 

[00:42:15] Rita Burke: So what I'm hearing then is that what you do with the people you work with, your clients, it's a human to human relationship and you're fully aware of that.

And so you tap right into that humanness and to some degree, some people would talk about empathy, but you are there and I'm very happy to hear that. Is it intentional? Or is it just something that happened on the way along? Or did you intentionally choose to be this kind of person? 

[00:42:50] Carol Kabaale: I chose, it's very intentional, it's very intentional.

I, I wanted to be this person. I guess a part of me needed to be this person. To show, myself that people like myself exist. People who are not out here to do wrong and Be ugly and not have your back and just be good. And like you said, be very empathetic. That is one quality that, it's weird you brought it up, that other people have mentioned in me.

They're like, Carol, you just seem to get it. And I'm like I do. We all go through this pain. Whether, I may not know the exact situation you're in, but I can feel when you hurt, I hurt. And that's not great. Like, how can I bring you out of that? I had a week and a half ago, I had a client who she's in a niche right now, who is going through it.

Like it's, she works with people in tech and everybody in tech is getting laid off. They're getting fired. It's not great time for people in tech. And she phoned me crying, Rita. Like I kid you not, she was on the phone with me crying and I just held space. And I just kept quiet and I just let her do her thing.

And then afterwards I did something that I've never done before. And it was very awkward. It's awkward for my husband. Like she wanted to talk to someone in tech and just get their feel for it. And I was like, I'll find you my husband. Hold on. And my husband he's not a camera person. He was like, what do you want?

What are you doing? I was come on, I'm gonna need you to do me the biggest favor. And he came and he sat with her and we talked and she felt better and she felt seen and she was like, okay, I now know what to do. And I feel like that was worth more, me doing that. Than anything else I could have done for her ads in that moment.

[00:44:33] Rita Burke: Do you know, Carol, I was dumbfounded when you talked about TikTok and LinkedIn and which other one? Three of them you said are not necessarily great people. Spaces, I was dumbfounded. Do you think a lot of people believe that? 

[00:44:53] Carol Kabaale: I think a lot of people believe that they, here's the thing. It doesn't matter what Avenue is.

Let me not backtrack, but let me adjust my statement. It doesn't matter what platform you're on. Truly, I do believe that whether you're on LinkedIn or Google or TikTok or whatever it is, it doesn't matter because those platforms are just The accelerant, right? They're just the place to get the traffic.

What is the most important, and this is the part that I really dig into my clients, is The rest of the journey, what happens after they see the ad. Now, what I find is that on these other platforms, particularly for my niche, the ROI is not there. We run the ad and we don't bring people to that journey. We don't bring people to the email, to the event.

So for me why are we there? I want to be at a place where I can actually bring positive change. So we don't run those ads, but I'm not saying you cannot have success with that. I met someone while I was doing one of these podcasts who, I don't know if you guys remember Clubhouse.

It was like this app that was really cool. Everybody would jump on and speak like we're doing now. And it was really cool. Cause you had to get a special pin, a special invitation. It was like invite only. It was like the hot flavor of COVID, like everybody wanted to be on Clubhouse. It was so great.

And now where is it? It's gone. Like no one talks about it. So it doesn't really matter. The platform, what matters to me. Is what happens next. That's why I put so much emphasis on every step and Nathan. Yeah. 

[00:46:30] Rita Burke: I said it before, but I really believe that I am doing a crash course as an MBA student because you're teaching me.

A lot. And I've been a business woman for many years as well. Maybe not as successful as you are, but I'm in a crash course. And I thank you. Is there anything in particular that we did not ask you that you would like to leave with our listeners today? 

[00:46:58] Carol Kabaale: No, honestly, I want to thank you both. Actually. I just want to take a moment to thank you both for holding so much space for me, for having me here today, for sharing your platform with me.

It's really kind. And I just want to thank you. Like it's been very fun and I hope people listening got something out of it. I sure did. And I hope they did too. So 

[00:47:20] Rita Burke: Are you going to come back? 

[00:47:22] Carol Kabaale: Whenever you want me to? 

[00:47:24] Rita Burke: Are you planning to write a book? 

[00:47:27] Carol Kabaale: I would like to. It's on my goals. It's one of my goals, actually.

Maybe next year I was speaking to my friend who, Sean, who's a copywriter and actually helps people write books. I was like, maybe I should write a book. She's about what? And I was like, Oh, yeah. I'm gonna figure that out. 

You figured out getting supply for schools as a kid. So you'll figure this one.

I will figure this out. I was like, I don't know yet. It's gonna come to me. Give me a second. Let me. Everything is figureoutable. They say. And so I can see it. I can hear it. I can feel that you will figure it out. And so I so much. It's been a joy listening to your story and all of the wonderful things you are doing to help people grow their businesses.

Thank you so much. I 

really appreciate it. 

[00:48:12] Ellington Brown: So thank you so much, Carol, for joining us today. We got a chance to talk about a little bit about you and how you got into being a META Certified Ad Strategic individual. We got to talk a little bit about your early career and how you transitioned into entrepreneurship.

Personal relationships, which help you make a career choices initial challenges and obstacles. And we also talked about the evolution that you went through, going through multiple ventures and the specialization of Facebook ads and how they actually work and then the business model and impact of your organizations support of individuals who use your organization. 

So thank you so much for all of what we've got an opportunity to talk about. We could have talked to you for at least another hour. It would have been so easy to do that. A, because there's a lot of things that you've done that we'd have an opportunity to talk about.

And secondly, you have an abundance of information that you are willing to give to our audience. And I hope that they learned as much as Rita and I did, and please, as Rita said, once you write that book, or you happen to turn the page and start a new chapter in your business, please let us know.

We would love to have an opportunity to talk to you about it. Thank you. And please come back and have a great evening! 

[00:50:07] Rita Burke: Carol Kabachi. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:50:14] Ellington Brown: Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International! If you wish to contact Ms. Carol Kabaale, please be prepared to submit your name, your email address, and the reason why you wish to contact Ms. Carol Kabaale, at https://carolkabaale.com/. Ms. Carol Kabaale has other social media accounts you can use to contact her that will be listed in the description section on Spotify and other social media platforms.

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