Ugly Cry Confessional

The Momentum Marketing Podcast

Owning a business and being an entrepreneur is not easy. It is not for the weak or the faint of heart by any means. And if you're ready to hear some Ugly Cry Confessions of a mama entrepreneur, I got your back. Here are some stories that I hope will uplift you when you're having some hard times. I'm Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I'm a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author in each episode. You'll get real world, practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you're ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you're in the right place. Hey, there and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. As always, I am your host, Jillian Kendrick and I am so glad that you're here with me today. I normally have a regular schedule that I record my podcast. Like sometimes I batch them, usually I do them once a week because I just want to be in that habit of creating content. But this is extra special because I just recorded, I guess this week or last week's podcast just the other day. But I woke up this morning just so inspired to share these stories with you and my goal with giving you these Ugly Cry Confessionals as I'm going to be calling them is so that you can understand just because social media shows all of the good stuff doesn't mean that there isn't hard stuff. I think we need to do a better job at sharing the good as well as the bad in order to shepherd the next generation of entrepreneurs because and I'm really getting on my soapbox here. But I genuinely believe and you can just look at the market and it's proven that small business is the lifeblood of the economy. Small business is the lifeblood of so many communities. I mean, I can look at my own community here in Central Florida and I can say, ok, these major corporations exist and they provide jobs to people, but those people also need housing and they also need restaurants to go to and they also need the bodega and also need the mom and pop gas stations. And they also need pediatricians and they also need daycares and they also need, also need a small business entrepreneurship. Being able to create income by providing a service or a product and provide a solution that people need is just absolutely essential and so crucial to communities, to the market, to sustaining family and the impact not just the financial not just the social, not just the, oh, this looks pretty on Instagram impact, but the genuine impact the life blood that you can pour into other people by serving your community as a business owner or as an entrepreneur. It's almost immeasurable. And this is why I'm so passionate about doing what I do and serving entrepreneurs, small business owners, parent entrepreneurs, just like myself so that I can pour into you and you can pour into others. So welcome to my new segment called Ugly Cry Confessionals, The Confessions of a serial entrepreneur. Because I want to share some of the bad along with the good as you might know because I've been sharing and promoting a little bit of my upcoming new webinar. I am creating a new web webinar and creating a brand new program that I'm so excited about. I love list growth. I love lead generation and that's what this new training and new program is going to be all about. Let me help you with lead gen, let me help you with list growth. I love it. I'm really, really good at it and I want to share my own strategies that I've developed over the years with you. So in the process of creating my brand new training and developing this new program, laying everything out. I've been working on some Facebook ad testing because that's just another part of the process. And here's my ugly cry situation for you probably about two months ago, I was running some Facebook ads for like months and they did really, really well. I was so excited. I was like, man, I've got this. I finally achieved my Facebook ads, expert status and I was doing really great. I have gone back and forth with my personal confidence and ability to write copy effectively, especially on Facebook or, or meta rather if you look at the meta guidelines for running adss through Facebook or Instagram, they have a lot of rules, they just do, they have a lot of rules. You can do this, you can't do that, you can select a target market, but then you can't necessarily call out that target market within your ad or you can't say anything that would include demographic information, right? You can't say something like looking for Asian singles in the Chicago suburbs, right? Like you can't say that, but you can target certain people, different demographics, different geolocation. You can totally do that. So you have to be really careful, especially in my experience about the way that you go about writing your ad, the copy that you use. And at the end of the day like that, the game, that's the magic, that's the secret sauce is your ability to write interesting and compelling copy but still doing it within the meta guidelines that are very, very strict, even gosh, even more strict than they were 3-4-5 years ago. I mean, I don't know if you're anything like me, I was just saying this on a coaching call the other day. I don't know if you're anything like me, but the photos on my cell phone are about 70% of my son and 30% screens shotting other people's ads just because I'm so curious, like I want to learn and I want to know and I wanna, I wanna do and be active with what's in the market and what's working and what's not. So I'm constantly looking at other people's ads, screenshot and stuff. I like this. I don't like that, blah, blah. And I was looking the other day through some ads and came upon a couple of really old screenshots and by really old, I mean, maybe like 4 or 5 years or so of other people's ads that I read through and was like, oh, that would not work right now. Oh man, that copy was so good and juicy. Oh, that's compelling stuff. Oh, that's a really amazing offer. I can't do that now. Right. Meta has limited, severely limited what you can and can't say in ads and I totally get it respect. I fully understand that they're trying to prevent stuff like M L MS or get rich quick schemes or pyramid schemes. They're trying to limit negative exposure of what they call like unrealistic claims or unrealistic outcomes to their audience, which is great. I don't disagree at all with doing that and protecting their user base. I think that's great. But I also know that the way that I market, the way that I do things, the way that I share is, I'm not going to say any number or share anything that's not 100% absolutely true and realistic. In fact, I can show you all the reporting, all the screenshots, all the everything of any number I've ever given any claim I've ever made any amount of money I've ever said I can show you all the screenshots all the things and actually prove what I've done and what I've built for myself and for clients and there's definitely marketers out there that can't do that who fluff their number members or will say that they did something for themselves, but they didn't actually quite get there or yes, that's the truth, but it's not exactly the full circle story of how they got to that point. I totally get it and I understand what meta is doing. I don't disagree at all, but it's so hard when just the other day. So going back to my Ugly Cry Confessional when I was running these ads a couple of months ago, I was getting at 600 and 30 I think it was 634. I would have to go back and check. It was at least 620. I think it was 634. I will go back and verify that but I was getting at least 620 if not more leads every single month consistently for several months. Like I have all of the data, all the screenshots, I can prove it. I can show you everything. So nothing that I've done, nothing that I'm saying is unrealistic. But I can completely understand where Meta's AI might look back and say, oh, well, that could be considered unrealistic, but I can also show you screenshots of other people in my industry or I guess competitors, I suppose I don't really look at that as competition but colleagues of mine and other people in my industry who are doing the exact same thing or who are saying I get 1000 leads a week, which is totally doable and completely realistic. So why is that one Ok to run and mine isn't? You know? Anyway, so I was running these ads for months and months. I was getting more than 600 leads a month added to my list. I was doing really, really well. And then I wanted to pivot and create this new training. So I stopped the ads for a while and have been in the process of creating my new training. I'm so excited. You'll hear all about it as soon as it comes out. And also if you're not on my email list, go to jilliankendrick.com and sign up for my opt in my freebie and get on our email list that way you're subscribed and I'll get everything to you once it's ready. So I stopped my ad. I'm in the process of creating my new training, my new program and a couple of days ago I started a new Facebook ad saying how I can get 600 or more leads a month. And this is my new training to show you how to do that. So exciting and again, 100%. Absolutely true. I can show you the numbers. The ad runs for a week. I wanted to look into testing a couple of audiences, but the ad runs for a everything goes great. And then because it went so well, I went yesterday to turn the ad back on and let it run indefinitely because I'm ready to go. Except now the same ad that just ran that had those numbers in it, that Facebook or Meta rather initially approved. It's now saying that that ad is rejected, rejected on the grounds of being considered an unrealistic outcome, an unrealistic outcome just to give you some perspective on reading directly from the transparency. Facebook policies, website ads must not contain promises, suggestions of unrealistic outcomes is specified below for health, weight loss or economic opportunities, including claims of unrealistic results within a specific frame time, promoting exaggerated or deceptive claims related to pursuing legal action, claims of curing incurable diseases or promoting claims to change or someone's sexual orientation or to suppress someone's gender identity 100%. I totally agree. And I can remember seeing or screens shotting ads from five years ago that said how I made $100,000 in two weeks, those kind of ads have been shut down. And it might be true for that particular entrepreneur who might have a massive list but can be very deceptive to somebody who's brand new or somebody who's just starting out. When business is a numbers game, you can launch the same product, the same service, the same offering to a small audience as you can to a big audience and you're gonna get two different results because it's a game of numbers. So I went to turn my ad back on. It said it was rejected for unrealistic outcomes. And I just sat there thinking, oh gosh, it was just approved like a week ago. What happened? Nothing changed. The ad didn't change the copy, the content, nothing changed. I even went back into the exact same ad that I had already used and tried to turn it back on and they still like said it was rejected. So of course, then I'm feeling all of these floods of crazy emotions of I'm not good enough and I don't know what I'm doing and other people are better than me. So why don't I just let them do it and, and I'll give up and go do something else, right? All of these crazy, not stupid thoughts. I don't necessarily want to say that those thoughts are stupid. But I think there is something to be said about our ability, not only as entrepreneurs but as humans to control our thoughts. Because a thought is just that it has no more weight than what you actually give it. A thought is just simply a thought. It can come into your head and you can say, ok, I'm going to give that time and attention or you can say no, that's a bad thought. I'm just going to get rid of it. And I truly believe no matter how successful you become, no matter what you do, no matter how much you meditate or pray or clear your mind, these thoughts are always going to come, they're always going to be there. There's always that twinge of humanity and pessimism inside of even that absolute happiest of people. There's always that little bit of imposter syndrome that will continue to creep in and you know, knock on that door to try to get into your thoughts. So no matter where you're at in life, no matter where you're at in business, no matter what you're doing or what you're trying, just know that your thoughts are only as powerful as the power that you give them. Your thoughts are only as powerful as the time and attention that you give them. And you can choose to let a thought come into your mind and say, ok, nope, that's bad. I'm not doing that. I'm not going there or you can choose to let it live rent free inside of your head heart. So I'm sitting there yesterday all of these floods of bad thoughts and I'm not good enough and imposter syndrome and like all the things I've tried and I've tried and I had my setback and I actually, a couple back to my original story from a couple of months ago. I was running those ads. I was doing really well. I had turned them off for a while and then I went to go and turn on another ad and it dinged me for the same thing, the unrealistic outcome, which also is really, really hard to just another soapbox, really, really hard to, to be a marketer and to market how to do something and how to grow a business without using numbers or without making some sort of claim, really, really hard to do that and not very, not very compelling content when you can't use stuff like that. So I go to turn these ads back on a few months ago and Facebook again dings me for unrealistic outcomes. I went to appeal it and when I appealed it, Facebook or meta actually canceled my ads account and I was just completely devastated, ugly cry imposter syndrome. I'm not good enough. I, what am I doing? Just all of the like terrible thoughts, right? And then as we know the sun also rises and there's always chocolate ice cream to eat your feelings. So after working with Meta to make things right again, and all of that has been resolved since I really thought that I was over that hurdle. And then this thing happens yesterday where I get dinged for the same thing. And I'm thinking, gosh, they just approved this out a week ago. What's happening? Why is this happening again? Why is it have to be so hard, ugly, cry, ugly, cry, ugly, cry. And then this morning miraculously after again, a little bit of chocolate, a little bit of sleep, a clear fresh perspective. I actually log into my inbox having done nothing in the last 12 hours or so since looking at this and all of the ads have been approved. Just absolutely miraculous. I have no idea how that happened, but I'm very excited and I know how hard I worked to make sure that I was compliant with as many of the meta guidelines as I could possibly be. So we'll see. Hopefully I'll give you an update that everything stayed and was working well. But I just want to say nothing in life is easy. Nothing in business is easy, becoming an entrepreneur and creating something from absolutely nothing is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Granted. It's also amazing and fun and creative and inspirational and so fulfilling and so frustrating sometimes. But this stuff is hard. Let's not discount that this stuff is really hard. And so I just want you to know that whatever roadblock you're coming up against whatever you're going through right now. If you can have that grit and tenacity, if you can just keep going, if you can just keep pushing through and keep the faith that what you're doing is important and can be impactful to others that I promise you you will get through it. The sun also rises, there will be light at the end of that crazy dark tunnel. And let me tell you, this is not my only ugly cry confession. There will be lots more of these stories to come. I after over 13 years in business, I have a lot of these. So I'm excited to share some more ugly cry confessionals of an entrepreneur with you. But that's it for now. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing podcast. If listening to this has brought you value improved your life or given you any insight to help you build momentum in your business or in your life, please share it with a friend and I'll see you on the next episode. Bye.

The Momentum Marketing Podcast By Jillian Kendrick Episode: #9 Topic: Ugly Cry Confessional Contact: [e-mail] IG: instagram.com/automatedmama