Welcome to Let's run Facebook ads with me, Nick Boddington. This podcast is your go to for mastering Facebook ads. But as you know, success doesn't stop at the ad itself. We'll dive into everything from funnels and e-commerce to email marketing, lead generation and more. If you're ready to take your skills to the next level, check out my new school platform@school.com. The Ads clinic. Inside you'll find how to videos and live dropping clinicals where you can ask your Facebook questions and get the answers you need to grow your business. And lastly, if you enjoy the podcast, it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the channel. It's the best way to help the podcast grow and keep bringing you valuable content every week. Let's get on with the podcast. I built a Facebook ad agency that turned over more than 1 million pounds a year. We had a team of employees, some pretty big clients. And from the outside, it probably looked like I'd built a really successful business. And I had, but I just wasn't happy. In fact, I got to the point where I really wasn't enjoying the business anymore at all. which is quite strange when you think about it, because I spent years working towards exactly that, building an agency, growing the team, winning bigger clients and increasing our turnover. All the things that you're supposed to do when building successful business, right? But somewhere along the way, I created the business that was just taking more out of me than it was giving me back. So I made a decision. I decided to completely change the way we operated. And today, I now run a very different business model. I'm happier, the team's happier, and I genuinely enjoy what I do again. And the interesting thing is, I've used the very same thing that helped me build the million pound agency to rebuild this business. Facebook ads. So today I want to do something a little bit different. Rather than showing you around ads manager talking about the campaigns, creatives, all those latest updates, I want to tell you a little bit about my journey, because I think that there are some really important lessons in it for anyone who's running a business, and that's you. And particularly for those of you who are working incredibly hard, trying to grow, but perhaps not enjoying the journey as much as you thought you would. Let's go back a few years. Hey, while I've got you, I just wanted to ask. Would you like me to go into your ads manager and actually see what's working? Because I bet your ads aren't broken and I bet we can fix something. There's a reason our top clients stop guessing and start scaling. So if you've got campaigns that are burning cash, or you're having trouble barely even breaking even on them, let's have a look and let's see what we can fix. 100% no fluff, no sales pitch, just a pro-level ad review. So book your 30 minute free Facebook ad review session and walk away with some instant wins. Go to the Ads Clinic icon and book your call today. Do it now before you forget, but make sure you come back to listen to the rest of the podcast. Enjoy! When I first got involved in Facebook advertising, I could see how powerful it was as a platform. Here was a platform that allow businesses to get their products and services in front of people who might have never heard of them before. And you didn't need an enormous marketing budget to do it. You could just start small, test things, see what worked, and gradually just build from there. And that's what I loved about it. You could actually see the impact you were having on a business. You could launch a campaign, generate inquiries, bringing customers and watch that business grow. And I got pretty good at it. Over time, that developed into a building, an agency. We started taking on more clients. We built a team and we started working with larger businesses, managing bigger accounts, bigger budgets, and the whole thing kept on growing really quickly. And eventually we built an agency turning over more than 1 million pounds. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly proud of it. And we worked really hard to get there. We helped some fantastic business achieve some amazing results. And I've learned so much along the way. But here's something I didn't really appreciate the time. There's a massive difference between doing a good job at something and enjoying running a business built around it. And as the agency grew, I started to discover the difference. You see, when you're running an agency, especially one that's growing, your job changes. When you start out, you're doing the things you love. For me, that was Facebook advertising, building campaigns, testing ideas, working out how to generate more customers for businesses. But as you grow, you spend less time doing just that. And suddenly you're managing employees. You're dealing with the recruitment staff issues, client expectations, meetings, and all the other things that come around running a larger business. when you're working with bigger clients, there's often a lot of pressure, more people involved in decisions, more expectations, more demands of your time. And I found myself spending more time dealing with the problems that came with running an agency than doing the thing that made me want to start in the first place. Now, I know some of you absolutely love that side of business. You love managing big teams, building huge organizations and dealing with things and, well, everything that comes with it. And that's fine. But I realized that wasn't really what I wanted. The problem was, I'd spent so long building this business, I almost felt like I had to keep going because that was what we're taught. Right. Growing your business, increasing your turnover. Employ more people, get bigger clients. And then when you reach those targets, you set even bigger ones. But I started to question myself, what am I actually doing all of this for? Because if I'm running a successful business but I'm stressed, I'm not enjoying myself and I'm constantly thinking about work. Is that really success? And for me, the answer is no. I'd reached a point where something needed to change. So I started thinking about what I actually enjoyed. And the answer was pretty simple. I love Facebook ads. I love helping businesses grow with them. I love looking at advertising and looking at an ad account and finding what's working, what isn't, making changes, and seeing those results improve for the client. And I particularly enjoy working directly with business owners, people who are passionate about what they do. People who built something and generally wanted to take it to the next level. But perhaps they'd been let down by another agency, or they'd been running Facebook ads themselves and just weren't very good at it, and they weren't getting the results they wanted. And I realized something. I didn't necessarily need to run a large agency to help these people. In fact, I thought I could probably help them better by working more closely. So that's when I started moving towards coaching, and we pivoted the business. Rather than just taking someone's advertising account and managing it for them. I wanted to sit down with the business owners, look at the business, understand their numbers, and help them learn how to run successful Facebook ads. And I absolutely loved it. And I still do love it because suddenly I was back doing what I enjoyed. I talking about advertising. I was looking at campaigns. I was helping people understand why things weren't working, and more importantly, I was helping them get results. And that's where I noticed when you work with someone 1 to 1, you build a completely different relationship and you get to know their business. You get to know their challenges. You get to understand the margins, their customers, their sales processes and what they're actually trying to achieve. And they get to know you. They start to trust you. They start to understand what you're doing and why you're doing it. And that led me to completely rethink how we offer our services today. Our business operates very differently from the traditional agency model. We focus on working 1 to 1 with business owners, and if someone wants us to manage their advertising for them, we don't just automatically say yes, we want to work with them first. We want to understand their business, and we want to see whether we can genuinely help them. Because here's something that I've learned after years of working with hundreds of businesses, not every business is ready to scale with Facebook ads, and not every business is a good fit for us. Sometimes the problem isn't the advertising, sometimes it's the offer, sometimes it's the website, sometimes it's the sales process. And sometimes, quite simply, the numbers just don't work. So rather than taking someone on as a done for you client, charging them a monthly management fee and then discovering all these problems after, I'd much rather work with someone directly. First, we can identify what's going on, what's going wrong. We can start making improvements. we can see how well we'll work together. And if we get to the point where it makes sense for us to take over the management of the rats, then brilliant. But if they're perfectly capable of managing the advertising themselves with a bit of support from us, and that's absolutely fine too, because ultimately I want to help people build successful businesses. and I want to work with people who value, what we do. And that's been a massive change for me, and it's made the whole business a much more enjoyable place to be. And this brings me to where I am today, because I can generally say I'm happier in business now than I have been in a long time. We've got a great team. We've got people we actually want joy to work with. we're more selective about the clients that we take on, and I've got back to doing something that I'm really passionate about teaching Facebook ads and helping businesses grow. So we've built the AD Clinic, our free community, which has grown to thousands of business owners, 7500 currently. And we're trying to improve their advertising. And I absolutely this love this side of things, being able to jump on live calls, answer questions, look at people's advertising accounts and help them overcome their problems. Seeing someone who's been struggling with Facebook ads and then suddenly start generating profitable leads or sales is amazing. Watching a business owner go from having absolutely no confidence in advertising to understand exactly what they're doing. That's what I enjoy and the team enjoys it too. don't get me wrong, we still have the challenges. We still have those difficult days, we're still running a business, and that comes with all the pressures that we all know of. But there's a massive difference. I actually enjoy what I'm building, and I've realized that I'd rather have a business as profitable, enjoyable, and gives me the freedom to live my life than a business that's much bigger and takes over my entire life. And I think that's something we don't talk about enough as business owners. So looking back at this journey, and there are three things that I really well that really stand out to me, and I think they're relevant to pretty much anyone watching this video who's running a business. The first is a bigger business doesn't necessarily mean a better business. I think we're all guilty of chasing numbers. We want more revenue, more customers, more employees, a bigger office, a bigger business. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's ambition. Right? I'm still ambitious. I still want to grow. But I think you have to ask yourself what you're actually trying to achieve. Because a business turning over 1 million pounds isn't necessarily a better business than turning over half a million. What matters is how profitable it is, how much time it takes to run, how stress it creates, and whether it is actually giving you the life you actually want. And I wish I'd understood that a little earlier. The second. Second. Second lesson is something when it comes down to Facebook advertising, the numbers have to work. And I think this is more important now than it has ever been, because the cost of advertising is always going up year on year. And that means your margins are incredibly important. If you're running an econ business, for example, You're selling products. The very tight margin, it's going to be difficult to scale profitably. You've got the cost of the product. You've got the cost of the shipping. payment fees, you've got all the other operating costs, and then you've got to pay to acquire the customer. So if there's hardly any margin left, you haven't got much room to work with. compare that with certain lead generation businesses. Perhaps you're selling a high ticket service where one customer could be worth several thousands. Right. You've probably got much more room to spend money to acquire that customer. That's not to say that lead generation is always better, or that e-commerce businesses can't be incredibly successful. Of course they can. But you have to understand your numbers. because Facebook has is not a magic solution for a business that doesn't make enough money from its customers. And I think too many people blame Facebook ads when the problem isn't Facebook ads, it's somewhere else in the business. You need to know how much you can afford to spend. To acquire a customer. You need to understand your conversion rate, and you need to understand what the customer is worth to you. Because once you've got these things right, advertising becomes a completely different proposition. And the third reason is that I genuinely believe that Facebook has is still one of the best opportunities available to business owners. and I know it might sound strange, but when you've got people constantly complaining about advertising, it's getting more expensive. That matter keeps on changing. That their ads used to work and now they don't hear that all the time. but I've been doing this for years, and I've seen the platform go through enormous changes. And yes, the way we run Facebook ads today is very different from the way we ran it years ago. the importance of creative has changed. The way we find customers has changed. The technology behind the advertising platform has changed, and the way we structure and test campaigns has changed and evolved. But the opportunity is still there every single day. Businesses are using Facebook has to generate customers and grow. And that's what excites me, because you don't need to build a massive agency or have an enormous marketing department to take advantage of. This time you need a good product or service. You need an offer people actually want, and you need to understand your numbers, and you need to allow and follow a simple process when it comes to your advertising. Testing the right creatives, understanding what your customers respond to, giving campaigns enough time and budget to produce meaningful data, and making decisions based on the data, rather than constantly guessing if you can get those things right. Facebook can absolutely be incredibly powerful for your business. It helped me build my original agency, and it's helping me build the business that I've got today. Two similar businesses, but completely different models built using the same platform. I want to finish with something that isn't really about Facebook. It's about why we're all doing this in the first place. Because I know a lot of you watching this, a business owners, you're working hard, you're trying to generate more customers, you're trying to improve your advertising, and you're trying to grow your revenue. And at the same time, you're trying to find some client, some kind of balance. Time for your family, time for friends, time to travel, time to enjoy yourself. And sometimes when you're caught up running a business, it's very easy to forget why you started. We've become obsessed with the next target, the next revenue milestone, the next big client. And we forget that the whole point of building a business for the most of all, for most of us anyway, is to create a better life. And that's probably the biggest thing I've learned from my journey. I spent years building what I thought was the business I wanted, and when I got there, I realized it wasn't making me particularly happy. So I changed it. And I'm so glad that I did, because today I enjoy what I do. I get to travel. I get to enjoy the people I work with. I'm proud of the team we've built, and I genuinely look forward to helping businesses grow. I don't even know who we might have a client as our client next week, and that's what success looks like to me. Not just turnover, not just how many employees we've got, but building something that I enjoy being part of. And I suppose this message I want to leave with you is this don't be afraid to change the direction. Just because you spent years building something doesn't mean you have to keep doing it in the same way forever. And don't get caught up in trying to build a successful business. You forget to build a life around it because ultimately, what's the point in having a successful business? If you're miserable running it anyway, that's a little about my story. It's something I've wanted to share for a while, because I think we spend so much time talking about advertising strategies, campaign structures, and getting better results that we sometimes forget about the people behind the businesses. And I'd actually love to hear your thoughts on this. So if you're running a business at the moment and you're genuinely enjoying it, or you have found yourself getting caught up in the constant pressure of trying to grow, let me know in the comments. Because I've really been interested in seeing and hearing about your experiences. And if you're struggling with Facebook as remember, we've got the Facebook Ads Clinic, our free community where we help businesses like you grow through Facebook advertising. I've put the link below and it's in the top comments. But most importantly, whatever stage you're at with your business, make sure you're building something that you actually want. Because I've learned that the hard way. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you for joining us again today. please feel free to drop us a message. We'd love to hear from you and any questions that you would like answered. We can do that here on the podcast. You.