#135: How Facebook Groups Exploded My Business To 6 Figures

Hello, health coaches. I am thrilled to be diving into what's going to be a three-week series here on the show. We're going to be talking about all things, Facebook groups, because honestly, when I look back over the past decade of my business, I realized Facebook groups, what have been the single most useful tool over this entire time. I've created many Facebook groups, so many. I still have them all just sitting there somewhere in my Facebook account. I'm like, Oh my gosh, remember this one? So many of them. And as you know, of course, we have our current health coach power community group, which is active as heck. I love it. And we just went over 10,000 members last week. So this is like huge. What a milestone. You know, I promised you guys that when that happened, because we were getting close, we were in the nine thousands and then we were creeping up on 10,000.

I said, we're going to celebrate, we're going to celebrate with a free master class and teach you everything that I know about Facebook groups. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. So Mark your calendar right now for February 24th at noon ET and register to join me at healthcoachpower.com/FBclass that's healthcoachpower.com/fbclass. I will put that link over here in the comments for those of you that are here with me live or watching the replay. This is going to be a full length masterclass, by the way, something that I would normally charge at least a couple hundred dollars for, but it's my gift to you. All of you, all of you, who've been part of this group. Who've been listening to this podcast and been watching the show on YouTube, helping us celebrate this gigantic milestone. Anyway, as for today, kind of leading up to our masterclass today, I thought I want to give you a behind the scenes, look at how Facebook groups have helped my business and how they helped me go from struggling specifically, financially, where I was just barely making anything that amounted to a salary. It was kind of just side money. You know, the money that you spend maybe to go on a small vacation at the end of the year, but that's about it, to where I am now with a multiple six figure business that fully supports my household.

It's like chills to even say that out loud, cause it's been quite a journey. So for those of you that are just starting out, I have been there. It has not been just smooth sailing and everything was so easy for me, but it's so hard for you. Maybe that's how it feels sometimes not true. We all start out in the same place. So I want to tell you the story and if you have any questions as we go along, go ahead and ask me I'm here live so that we can interact. I want to and go back to 2014. I don't know what you were doing in 2014, but at the time I had a new baby, my second and I had just moved out of state again. Oh my gosh, we moved so much. We just moved from the DC area up to New Jersey. Things were kind of hectic. We had the baby, my other son was about three years old. My marriage was failing and my business was kind of all over the place.

I had been ignoring for many years, the advice to choose a target market. Just ignored it. Couldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. Had no idea how to wrap my brain around it. Really didn't have anyone to look to for guidance on this issue. So I was floundering. And finally, finally, I remember we had just moved into this house in New Jersey. I narrowed down what I was doing to not, not one target market, but three I'll admit it three. And I always hear this from you guys. What if I have two target markets? What if I have multiple target markets? I understand. It's not great. It'll keep you running in circles for a while, but I have been there. And so, what I did with my three target markets is I started a Facebook group for each one.

I don't know why I did that. I really don't. I must have read something, seen something. I have no idea, but I decided this is what I'm going to do. I don't recommend that you go this route by the way, but this is how the story went. So the first Facebook group was for moms of kids, ages one through 10. Now some of you might even remember it. If you've been following me for a while, maybe you were even in that group, it was called 1 Meal Mom. And the goal was to help moms feed their family and specifically to make one meal that the whole family would eat. And let me tell yak, that group took off like gangbusters. I invited my mom friends. They invited theirs. You know how mommy groups spread this kind of thing, everybody before, you know, it was sharing pictures and stories and asking questions. And the group grew and grew and grew and it's super active and it was super fun. Everybody loved it. So you probably think, wow, Michelle, you had it made in the shade, right? Hit the jackpot. But here's the thing. After months of running that group, every time I tried to sell something to this group of women, crickets. No one was interested, no one bought seriously. It was like zero sales, zero interest.

So, in the meantime, of course I had also started a group for women who did not necessarily have kids. They were a bit older. They were professional women, big careers, the type of women who tend to be perfectionist dealing with chronic stress. This Facebook group was not so active. Like a bunch of women from my community joined the group. So, they were there, but they were kind of quiet. I found it hard to get any activity. And yet these were the women who were contacting me and signing up for private coaching. Sometimes they would even say, Oh yeah, I saw that thing that you posted in the Facebook group. Oh, I read that article that you put in the Facebook group the other day. And I was like, wait, what? You saw that? Why didn't you leave a comment? I had no idea. But what I learned about these women is that they were simply too busy and not as interested as engaging in the group, but they were there.

They were lurkers. They were quietly watching and they were the ones who wanted to pay me for private coaching. That was a lesson learned. Let me tell you something. And finally I had this teeny tiny little group for health coaches. It started with about 16 members, all personal friends of mine. And after a while I noticed every day I was getting requests from other health coaches who wanted to join the group. And I was like, no, this is just a group for my friends. Sorry, decline, decline, decline, decline. But I realized one day health coaches are looking for this kind of support. They are actively seeking it. So, eventually I opened up our tiny 16 person Facebook group to the public and whoa. It was like the flood Gates opened. And now we have over 10,000 members. I got to tell you; I don't run that many Facebook ads either.

Like through these years, maybe there was one year that I ran Facebook ads quite heavily, but most of that growth has been entirely organic. So thank you. And thank you for sharing this group. And thank you for showing up. Love you guys. So those are my three groups and you might be thinking, okay, cool. But I don't even have enough time to run one Facebook group, never mind three. Or, what would I even do with 10,000 members? It's overwhelming, right? Even if it led to paying clients, you still might be thinking, how would I manage a group that large. So, next week on the show, that's like a whole separate topic. I'm going to tackle that and show you how to make running your Facebook group. A) manageable, B) a good use of your time, C) enjoyable for you. Because like I said earlier, I was doing this as I'm a mall mom, a new baby and a toddler in the house.

And these days, you know, my kids are older, but I'm a single mom. Hello, quarantine. And hello, homeschooling. You know what I mean? So I've always had to work really smart and efficiently. So I've left to say about that anyway, next week, we'll talk about making good use of your time when you're admining a group. But getting back to this little trifecta of Facebook groups, how did they actually help my business grow? I know a lot of you are thinking to yourself and asking our group and you should be, well, how does this actually turn into paying clients? And you should be asking that if everything that you do in your business, wait a minute, why am I doing X, Y, Z? Why am I sending emails? Why am I holding workshops? How am I going to connect that to actually signing clients and making money?

So the first thing that my Facebook's did for me, and this was just like an accident, right? This was not something I went in with the intention of finding out. But I learned very clearly that if I wanted to make money, I needed to let go of the mom audience. Even though they were so much fun, I needed to focus on audiences that were turning into paying clients. It was like that classic case of social media, not telling you the whole story, you know, like sometimes you'll see someone has a Facebook group with a billion followers or they have a huge Instagram following and you think, Oh man, I wish I could be like that. You know, I wish I could have a business that big they're doing so well. And we start comparing and despairing, but you cannot see somebody's bank account based on their social media following.

I promise you, I know so many coaches in the industry that have those big followings, but they're not making money on the backside of it. So remember that and what my one meal mom group that is sort of an example, it would have impressed the heck out of you, but $0 coming in. So not actually that impressive. Anyway, as my business got more focused on the clients that were ready, willing, and able to pay me the ones who were interested in hiring me, the ones that had a big problem to solve one that was worth them spending money and time on that's, how I started to grow. So it was market research and that's one of the very, very best parts about running a Facebook group. Because even once I narrow it down on my target market, inside a Facebook group, you guys, you get to know our target market inside and out.

If you're paying attention, you get to know their behaviors, you see their questions, you get a sense of what they care about and what they don't really care about. It is so insanely valuable. Samantha saying, I hope that's true. It's true. And when you really truly understand your target market, because you are having a conversation with them on an ongoing basis, you are better able to serve you show up in a way that makes more sense to these people. Sometimes I have people say to me, Michelle, it's like, you're reading my mind. And I'm like, well, no, I'm not reading your mind, but I am reading your Facebook group posts. It is so immensely valuable it's to my business to be able to do that. Because then when I am going to sell something, I know exactly what this group of people wants. Now, one of the biggest mistakes that I see coaches making when it comes to selling, right?

Cause we do want to connect the dots between just running a fun group and actually earning money. Coaches do this. They're like, okay, I got this Facebook audience. I have a hundred people. I have 500 people, whatever it is, I'll advertise my services inside my Facebook group. And then they'll buy from me today. No, that's not the way it works. It seems like it should work. But I'm here to tell you that is not the best way to go about it. Your Facebook group is what we would call top of funnel. I'm pointing up here. Cause that's the top of the funnel. It's a good way to get people in the door and into your world. Like you're not even asking them for an email address, you know, they can just join your group. It's free. It's so easy. There are no barriers to entry, but once they get there, if you are constantly selling, selling, selling pictures of your products, testimonials offers, offers, offers those new members are going to run away screaming.

So don't do that. And instead you want to give, give, give, give so much value that they can't help, but think, wow. I wonder what I would get. If I actually paid to work with this person, people say that to me, your free stuff is so good. I knew that paying you would be amazing. I would get amazing results. You want to simply focus in your group on moving members down your funnel. So what that means is you go from your Facebook group, you have a member and next you want to get them onto your mailing list. If you can do that, you're winning. That's what your Facebook groups should be doing for you. In my opinion, that's what it does best. And then from there, once somebody is on your mailing list and your mailing list is like a whole other topic that I'm obviously not going to be able to cover today.

But once somebody is on your mailing list, the sales mostly come from your mailing list. Don't ask me why. I'm sure there's lots of psychological reasons and this, that and the other. But I can tell you that this through my experience is true again and again and again. So my business exploded to six figures when I learned not only how to get people into my Facebook groups, but how to convert them to my mailing list and then make offers for things that they want. Because I was listening consistently. It's all part of a very simple system, but it is a system. And I'm going to be explaining more about that during our free masterclass that I mentioned again, that will be on February 24th, it's called create and run client generating Facebook groups. It's free. So, go sign your little tushy up at healthcoachpower.com/fbclass.

Okay. So, what I just described to you, those three Facebook groups that I used to run, those were for marketing purposes, those were marketing groups. That's when you start a group in order to reach potential clients, right? You're hoping to do exactly what I just said. Get people into your group. And then some of them hopefully are going to turn into paying clients. So that's one kind of group. The other way that I have used Facebook groups through the years is in the operations of my business. And that's totally different, right? Like if you were a big corporation, your marketing team might be on the third floor and your operations, you know, they might be on the sixth floor. There, there are different parts of the business. So, if you're doing something as part of the operations of your health coaching practice, that means you already have the paying clients, your marketing team did its job.

You have the paying clients, and now you're using Facebook groups as a way to service your clients. So every time I ran a group, every time I've run an online program, I've always had a Facebook group for members scratch that in the very early years of my business, Facebook didn't exist. So we were using like Yahoo groups or Google groups or whatever it was at that time. And these days I do see a lot of people saying I don't want to be on Facebook so much. And I hear you. It's still the place that most people are and the place that they can access most easily, they are already logged in. They already have the app on their phone. They don't have to go somewhere else and create a new login and remember what it is. And remember to go there. Most people are going to be showing up on Facebook or they can show up on Facebook so easily.

I still think it's the best place to run a group when you have some sort of program and you want to have a community to go along with it. Anyway, every time I did something like this, the groups were amazing. They were fantastic. I enjoyed it so much. Every time I finished a program, my clients would beg me to keep the group open. And they always said, this was the best part. This was the best part of the whole program. I liked the information. I liked the recipes. I like talking with you, Michelle, but it was the group is the energy of the group that everyone didn't want to add. It helped them go through the program, get the support that they needed. And I think most of all have some fun along the way. Cause if you're not having fun, boring people, aren't going to stick around.

So that taught me a lot. And I hope to share this with you when you're connecting with people, especially when you're talking about health in particular nutrition, it can be kind of dry. Like not for you. Not for me. We think this is the most fascinating stuff on earth, but like we're health nerds for normal people. It has to be fun. And if it's entertaining, then, then they're going to stick around. They're going to be there for it. They're going to want to hear what you have to say. And when they do that, they're going to get results. When they get results, they refer their friends and then they and their friends become fans for life. If on the other hand, it's dry. It's science-y, it makes them feel bad about what they're eating. They're going to disappear on you. I have always felt when I've run a Facebook group, that I'm the host of the party.

I'm not like it's not a show. I'm not like on stage and everybody's in the audience necessarily, but I am the host. So it's my job to make sure everybody's having a good time to connect people to each other, right. To help everyone get what they're after, uh, you know, enjoy themselves at this party. And it doesn't feel like work at all. In fact, it feels like I want to pass a tray of hors d'oeuvres and offer a drink and listen to your stories. And ultimately, if we can create that kind of welcoming environment for the right people, the result will be in our bank account because we are seen as a leader just by virtue of running the group. Even when, you know, if you have only a, you know, six months of experience or you're straight out of school or whatever it is, and you feel like, who am I, when you are the leader of any sort of organization or group people will inherently look to you as someone who knows what they're talking about, someone who's in a position of leadership, right?

So, in the third part of this series two weeks from now, I'm going to talk more about how to make your group fun and entertaining as the hostess with the mostess or the host of your party in order to build that engagement. Because whether your goal is marketing or your goal is more on the operation side of things where you're serving your paying clients and engaged group is always going to be more valuable to you and to your members. Samantha saying, I just started a group committed to serving them. Yeah. It really takes stepping outside of ourselves and not being like, okay, what do I want to post into my group today? And a lot more about what are they want to talk about and starting the conversations and seeing where it goes and let it go places that you may not have thought you were going to go today.

But now suddenly you're talking about who knows what? And in that way you are serving them best. And you're serving yourself too, because then you're like, Oh, okay, this is what they need. This is where their interest really lies. And then remember on February 24th, again, I'm hosting an entirely free live masterclass for health coaches create and run client generating Facebook groups. And you should totally go register for that. Now head over to healthcoachpower.com/fbclass, get yourself signed up and invite your friends. This is going to be like a big old community event. I don't usually give away quite this much for free, but like I said, big milestone in the business over a year, big gift for you. I look forward to seeing you there. Everybody take care. I'll be back next week.