Ep 049: Pay for Play with Alice Santos

Ever wonder what success actually means?

How do you get it?

And how do you keep it?

We all want it yet sometimes it feels only some of us get to have it.

Hi, Teresa Blair here. We are two badass entrepreneurs, bestselling authors, coaches and business mentors, who have had success filled success, questioned our own success and reclaimed it. Let's be real for a hot minute. 2020 has been a roller coaster ride, and many of us have started to wonder if they'll lose the things that made them successful. So we got curious, Ron real about what success is truly about?

Can you put it in a box?

How can you get it?

Can people take it away? Or are you the one with the power?

Does it mean the same to all of us? Or are we the ones that create it?

From PGA golf bros to doctors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and spiritual mentors, we get together to meet with successful people from around the globe to dissect success for vibrant conversations and interviews. Make sure you click the subscribe button on the app store because each week we will drop a new episode to bust through the myths around success and dissect its true meaning. Who's ready for the most badass and massive uplevel in their business? It is back what's back momentum land Teresa's signature six month business and mentorship accelerator is now open for enrollment

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Hello, hello and welcome back to another fabulous episode of a dissecting success. I am super thrilled we have the incredible Ellis Santos with us today all the way from Portugal. It's awfully late for her timing right now. And I'm so appreciative that you could make this timing work. Ellis is amazing. She's a social media advertising boss, let me tell you that she's also really an ambitious, motivated woman that's passionate about helping business owners from the health, wellness and fitness space, grow their businesses fast and exponentially online which is awesome because Don't we all want to crawl businesses on line. She actually started her journey as a model and influencer in the wellness space. And then with all of her knowledge, experience and understanding about social media marketing, she started building her own social media marketing agency that is now focused mainly on helping yoga and pilates studio owners and teachers that want to attract ideal clients, fill out debt classes, build profitable businesses, and serve more people while making more money and working less hours. How low literally advertising your business has really changed. And if you need anybody to show you how to video maximize those Facebook ads and set them up right? Alice Santos is your girl and Alice I am so thrilled welcome welcome welcome.

Thank you so much and I'm so excited to be here today. And yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Oh my gosh you are so so welcome. So let's dive in Alice What does success mean to you? I mean you've done a lot of incredible things but what does success at the heart of it mean to

you as success is a word is follow up is with me everywhere like I'm super ambitious like I should and I don't know I always seek for success so but success for me. I will say that is also about what makes me happy. I'm like super like ambitious but sometimes I forget to enjoy my journey. But that is actually what makes me successful is really doing what makes me happy and being passionate about what I do and make a living out of that so it's about enjoying the process and create the live I truly want to live so I think that would be my meaning for success. Yeah,

brilliant. I you know, there's a common theme that we hear we've you know, over 40 episodes now and it's about joy and happiness. And you know we are we were raised in a culture where it's like you go to university you get a degree you work nine to five, you know hustle hard and you know, but we believe like hustle culture is dead. really find that that thing that makes you happy, because you're spending so many hours of your day doing it. And I, as a fellow social media marketing expert, really understand how it's easy to lose track of what you love to do in our space. And there's so much you can do. And with social media marketing, for those of you who don't know, it changes, literally in the blink of an eye, like, I know that I'll be on Facebook get up to go to the bathroom, come back, and it's all different. And then the world of advertising which you specialize in, which is brilliant, because it is very, you know, very specific, there's so much to know, even just with Facebook alone, Facebook advertising, Instagram advertising. It changes all the time. And I would love to know like, how did you fall into it? How did you What were you doing when you decided this is what you want to do for your career? Yeah, sure.

So like, Theresa shared in my introduction, I started as an influencer model on Instagram, and I grew a lot on Instagram and deep dog. And I started like, I was, I always enjoyed social media. But I also enjoyed a lot of taking care of my health, wellness. I think those are also super important for me, in order to achieve the success that I want, like have a high performance. And I took a degree in business, actually, I was studying in London, and it was marketing and business. And besides like the health and wellness thing, I also enjoy a lot to knowing about business, I always wanted to have my own business or be my own boss, and I didn't want to work for anyone. As I was, like, very young, like, I always knew that I wanted to do my own thing. And yeah, I just basically, we I basically combined my passions. So I actually end up beginning as searches, running ads because I, I saw the opportunity and social media was the thing. And even with COVID and everything that came I saw, like a lot of business struggling with growing, getting clients. And I thought, Okay, I understand a lot about this, I saw the opportunity to learn more about this with courses. And I took several courses, besides my degree like to really understand this, and also took an intensive course in marketing, to really like get, like all the understanding that I needed to be able to start running also advertising for other businesses, but like your shared is always changing. So I need to always keep learning and learning every day to keep up to date with things. But yeah, basically, I was like, I was taking that degree and I saw the opportunity that was aligned with everything I was doing social media, business marketing, and I really love connecting with people as well and serving others really fulfill me. And if I can help in some way with my knowledge, really I just took that opportunity and just started my own business was like actually it was quick and I always wanted to do it. So I saw the opportunity and Okay, let's do it and just go. Okay, I

really want to talk about something that you just touched on. Because I think it's brilliant. Like you see an opportunity and you make make it a career, or you make it you know what you're doing, it's always changing. But I want to talk about something that I know that a lot of my clients asked me about. And I have people reaching out to me on both sides, businesses who want to work with influencers and influencers who are people who want to become influencers. Are you still an influencer? Can we talk about that a bit? And I think advertising really does tie into that because I see a lot of influencers do paid partnerships in the sense of they don't not only get paid by a company to promote it, but they put money behind it to run ads. I would love to kind of dive into the influencer world a bit because to me it is something that a lot of people have questions about and I would love to know what your experiences

Yeah sure. So basically my experience with influencer is more from my agency so I'm not like independent. So basically my agency was giving me also work as an influencer but of course I also have like brands reaching out to me but I am really selective with the brands that I work with. So I don't like to promote things that I don't believe in. And my profile on Instagram is really aligned with the healthy wellness lifestyle and I'm if you see my stories now I stopped for a little while because my other business got through I need to focus on my real business like this social media aspect is more to share and like like a hobby I will say but yeah i got i get some collaborations where like people send me the products I never actually did like a bite partnership like where where brand pays pays me for promoting their products normally what I get is the products for free but I never explore actually that's well so I was doing more modeling work and sometimes my agency also like partnerships as well for me but I never explored that in terms of getting more brands to to play me or I never assumed influencers like really reached out to brands that they want to collaborate with and I never did that but it's probably something that I will explore more on the future well once I have like my business really established and I have time to dedicate to that cybo her things but yeah the only thing that I work with with free products but yeah, I'm really restricted with the brands that I collaborate if they are not sustainable organic or there is really difficult to find so normally I sorry I don't think that we are a good fit because I really only promote things that I believe in so normally is organic sustainable things so yeah if I in a future do something with that I will only reach out to brands that fit my my values and I align with my lifestyle but yeah it's something really interested that I interesting that I definitely need to explore more in the future as well.

I love it you know what I really find fascinating about your story Ellis is that a lot of people wouldn't you know once you are you know reaching that level of influence online on your social media right like you have a big following I know you have a huge following on Tick Tock and also a big following on your Instagram and you know you will modeling and like the whole idea of being an influencer and a model you know that is a lifestyle that I see so many young women aspire to and yet here you are and you're like well I'm a model I'm an influencer you know kind of want to do something more and you know then to jump into you know a business that focuses on social media advertising and also something that you know as you said, and I feel like it Vbi like it supports your ambitious nature because of the constant change you have to be on top of it. So offering social media advertising expertise, right like that is like in its own so valuable because it changes every five minutes like it changes a lot and so you know you keep up with all of these things but I just find it so fascinating that you know from an outer world perspective, right like this live model influencer like fashion like lifestyle is something that a lot of people vt you know, aspire to achieve in their life and you got that and then you decided to do something that is different by actually building your Social Media Marketing Agency focusing in on advertising you know, which is building a whole new business and we all know it takes time and dedication and work to build a business so I'm just curious you know, what made you like what caused you to have this pivot where you're like, you know, I have this like cool like personal brand right? Like I'm doing this I'm modeling them I'm getting free products you know, whether you did it, you know, like monetized it more nod right? Like even for your modeling work to then be like may actually, I'm gonna do something else as well.

Yeah, great question. Actually. When I was like young I was also always studying a lot to be the best student and all that kind of things and we just a modeling career. I don't felt fulfilled enough because you don't, you're not providing services you are not helping other people. And it was like great to do the jobs and I enjoy it. Of course, it's something I still doing once in a while, but I always wanted to have like my own thing and have a bigger impact. And of course, it's always With my lifestyle and sharing my lifestyle, I was inspiring a lot of people. And a lot of people were reaching out ask me recipes and how I how I have so much motivation, like tapes and all of those things. But I was not feeling that I was doing the impact that I could be doing our serving in certain way. And so, and I was not basically in control of my of where I wanted to do or when I would wanted to work. Like with the modeling side, of course, if I, if I really dedicated to just being any fly, sir, of course, that you also are in control. But I didn't felt that was what I really wanted to do in order to achieve like big things in life. So I wanted to build like something for myself, and also at the same time, make an impact and help others with that. And I feel much better doing that. And I have been learning so much. With this. I'm so grateful that I just did this because definitely building a business is not an easy thing. Especially at a young age, I could like just getting a job and like everyone else. But actually, like I just jump and start right away without thinking too much. I didn't overthink anything. And I just did it and I think was like just the best decision I ever made. And yeah, I have been connecting with so many people around the world, just by building this business, something that my influencer career probably will not like, allow me to just networking so much, you know, to like, build connections and to do more business with people. So was like a blessing. And I'm so glad that I just made this decision and took like the heart door, basically, because this was definitely a journey and this journey, that it's not easy. But I'm really enjoying a lot.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs can relate, you know, being an entrepreneur is there's a lot of rewards, there's a lot of risk. You know, I think it's great. And you know, because you specialize in social media advertising, maybe we can just talk a bit about what success looks like in that space. What is success in the world of Facebook and Instagram ads?

Sure. So for that silo, the things is not just enjoying the process, we need to definitely look at old like ROI, results, number of leads that you get for your clients. And of course, your clients need to enjoy the journey with you as well. So I value a lot like customer service. And I always care about like the my professionalism and how they feel by working with me. And yeah, and also like being able to customize everything for the brands, one of the things that I really blessed is being able to really take time to understand my client's brand. And sometimes people go to big agencies where they are just numbers, you know, and here I have the opportunity to really take time with my clients and understand their brand very well to like, build a successful campaign for them. That really is a line and it's exactly what they wanted, basically. And it's exactly the exact message that they want to share to the world basically. And so yeah, I will say that success in social in social media advertising is really being able to at the same time as getting the results that your clients want and basically have a high high ROI, return on investment. Also look at the KPIs. And all of those things like the numbers is super important. Look at the data and know how to to adjust and improve optimize campaigns and always keep growing and getting the best results for your clients I would say that results is an evaluator to bring for your clients is what defines this success here.

That's great. I totally agree. And I think what people need to understand is that social media is pay for play. Right? You can put out as much organic content as you want. But platforms like Facebook, if you have a business page and people don't know you exist, one of the most impactful ways to be noticed is by advertising it could be something as low as probably I like to give my clients a budget of $10 a week minimum. But you know, you need to have an advertising budget and you don't need to do it all yourself. You know I have scissors, I'm not a hairdresser. Right? There are people out there we go. And I am a social media marketing expert and I, I know ads. But when people come to me to like, I don't take on the clients to run ads, I specialize in strategize ation, and storytelling, because there are people like you who exist who specialize in advertising, and people out there who have social media, you need to know that you need to have you don't need to, and it's highly recommended that you have a marketing budget to spend on social media, because you could only reach so many people organically.

Yeah, exactly. I always say there's a balance between organic and advertising, I think people shouldn't just depend on one of the things and combine both to get the most out of it, basically. So yeah, definitely.

I'm so curious, Alice, and, you know, blegh, you sort of mentioned like recommending a budget, but people always say, you know how, like when you run an ad and obviously, you know, we understand that, you know, when somebody hires you, you do a lot of the backend stuff like actually understanding optimizing, figuring out the audiences running the split testing. I mean, there is a lot when you open like the business manager and Facebook alone, it's like, oh, my God, what is happening? Right? Like, it's not just like being you boosted post, and then it all happens. But have you found that there is a certain amount like when you've been working with, you know, your clients specifically, to fill that, you know, online studios and to get more people into that glasses, because I know that that is a is an area that you're working with people on quite heavily, like is there like a magic number that you have found off money to spend maybe a day or month where you're really like, you know what, once you go past that threshold, your results are really changing? Like, it's almost like, you know, taking it to a new level, understanding that not everybody listening, when they are the beginning of the journey may not be able to make that investment right away. But tell us a little bit more about that. Because I know this is a big question that people have is like, well, how much do I have to spend?

Yeah, ideally, it also really depends on the business on the stage of the business, because if it's someone that already have a following already have hot, hot, warm audiences, is going to be easier to get the results that you want, like in a short period of time. But when I'm dealing with a client that literally anyone, basically anyone knows that they exist, and we are reaching just cold audience, it takes more time and investment in someone that already have an audience that we can target, or build look alikes, or like, it really depends on the business that I'm working with. So I always give like a free like the free strategy session where I get to know like their business, and see exactly where they are and say the budgets according to the ad spend, according to that. But normally, in my agency, the average lead to, I would say the ideal as if it's a cold audience that we are trying to reach and really grow, I would sell like normally we spend like between 501,000 per month. We start with the low budgets at the beginning like 10 or $20. So their currency actually, because I work internationally. So it depends on where they are. And it's about we start with about just 20 in this case, I will say dollars per day at your desk, we start with a low investment and then to understand why it is working and what is not and then move the money towards what is working and increase the budget accordingly. But yeah, I would say ideally, if you are thinking about running ads or work with an agency have in mind that you will expand it please 500 to 1000 minima like this is really the minima to get to like results and everything and this will be the budget like 500 to 1000 will be that ideally did I normally say to my clients and for them to have in mind how much we are going to expense them.

I love it. Oh my gosh, I'm such a marketing nerd. I feel like I can talk to you forever. And I'm sure the people Listening probably have so many questions, we're going to drop your contact information in the show notes so people can follow you check out how you are, you know, showing up as an influencer and Facebook advertising specialists on the social media space. And they can probably I'm assuming I shouldn't assume it's okay for them to reach out to you and, you know, potentially want to work with you or ask you questions. Because, you know, the world of Facebook advertising changes so fast. And I just want to empower, you know, those listening to know that you don't have to do it alone. And there's experts like Alice out there who will help you. And before we wrap up, I would love to know, what advice do you have for someone who is on their path to success?

will have that question. So I would say first, keep being consistent with your daily activities towards your goal, no matter how small they are, like, just keep consistent, like, even in advertising and social media consistency is key in everything in life. So the same applies to your business, I think, like consistency is so important. And also keep persisting, like, the journey is not going to be easy. So you just need to persist and never give up. No matter how hard or difficult your journey might turn is always temporary. And you will be able to overcome that if you don't give up of course. So this is like my advice. Yeah.

Be consistent. Uh, you know, I think that that is so, so important. And, you know, I just really appreciate you, you know, sharing your beautiful story for being here for reminding us that consistency and showing up right, like with that intention is so key. And, you know, I love that you're specializing on the advertising things, and actually the ads because I think that that is really something that is I mean, I know that that like once we start building ads, like that is like something that I'm like, No, like your go to Alice, like she can help you with this, because it does become fairly complex. But I also really appreciate that you gave our listeners a little bit more of a range, right? Because people always want to know, you know, how much to invest in I think so many business owners, especially when they're starting online, and they're starting out, and they're trying to get that brands out. There's so much confusion on you know, how much should I spend and how much is too much and what's too little. And, you know, I feel like there's a lot you can do on a smaller budget. But you know, once you're ready to read, you know, dial and once you have your office set, and you really know what you're doing and you're ready to drive some some results. Like it's like you have your studio set, right? Like you're ready to take people into the classes, everything's working, right? And you're like, Okay, I need more traffic, right? That's really when you know, when I feel like, you know, reaching out to someone like Alice could be so powerful because she can really help you drive those right clients to your business without you having to do more, which hallelujah is so bloody important because we have a lot of things that need to get done in our businesses. And if you're a solopreneur or if you have a very small team, having people on your team like to take one thing off and help more people come in. It's just so so important. So Alex, if people want to connect with you, where's the best place for them to go before we wrap this episode?

Okay, so you can reach out like in our platform, but where I'm more more active now is Facebook and LinkedIn because this is a platform that I really specialized for my own business, as I shared like Instagram is more for the inflation, influencer part where you can reach out there as well. I go there every day. Not that I don't pass that much time. Now there. Now is more on Facebook and LinkedIn. So definitely if you want to have a quicker response, Facebook or LinkedIn is the way to go. But I also check my Instagram but yeah, this is my advice.

I love it. Inspired by this if you're ready to put some advertising money behind your business and get more clients and more seats filled and maybe even if you're in a different space outside of health and wellness, I know that Ellis does branch out from time to time as well. She has an expertise in this who shall reach out to Alice you can find her at LS Santos Oh 204 on that is on Facebook or just Alessandra is on LinkedIn. We're gonna drop the links as well in the show notes where you can just simply find it there. Ellis, thank you so much. She is such a bright light. I really, really appreciate you. You're another one of those fabulous people I get to hang out with once a week and it's just so fabulous. And I've learned so much from you over the last couple of months. Just as you share, so thank you for being here. I know our audience, we will enjoy this episode and peace, everyone. We'll see you soon.

Thank you.

That's a wrap for another episode of dissecting success. enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe to Black Hawk on Venables and Theresa Lambert's podcast dissecting success on the