Today I’m so excited to introduce you to our newest Foundations Coach in the Inner Circle, Chontelle Fossey. Like all of our ecommerce coaches, Chontelle was once an Inner Circle member. It really warms my heart that our coaches first came to the group to solve the same challenges that our members have, used our training to grow their businesses, and are now committed to helping others to succeed.

Tap HERE to listen to the interview, or keep reading to hear Chontelle’s top tips for building a strong foundation in your ecommerce business.

From Inner Circle Member to Business Growth Guru

Chontelle sells houseplants online from her home base in New Zealand. Since her market is fairly small, and she doesn’t have access to existing platforms like Etsy, she has always relied on selling directly from her own website. So it’s been extra important to her to drive traffic to her website with a paid social media strategy.

Chontelle had joined several ecommerce courses over the years, but found her home in the Inner Circle because of our focus on building a strong foundation. She learned that having a structured plan to follow, plus expert coaches that she could reach out to with questions or problems, really fast-tracked her success. And she loves being able to pay it forward now as a coach herself!

Finding Your Audience With Ads Made Easy

Chontelle kicked off 2024 by guiding our members through our social media ads workshop. Ads Made Easy is a very thorough and effective testing method to identify and target your ideal audience of buyers using social media ads. It’s all about identifying the fastest, cheapest way to find your ideal people, so that you can feel like social media is working for YOU, not the other way around.

 

“Once you’ve done the [Ads Made Easy] testing, it’s almost a set and forget exercise where you have this evergreen ad at a really ridiculously low cost per day.”

 

So for just a few dollars a day, you can quickly “fill your bucket” as we say, with a huge audience of people who are going to be really excited about your product. At the foundational level, our #1 priority is to keep that top of your sales funnel constantly filled with a large number of the right people. You don’t do it once and move on, you have to always have this “tap” running in the background to keep your bucket full.

One Month Of Testing Saves Several Months of Spend

Chontelle is a believer in sticking to the plan and committing to at least a full month of Ads Made Easy testing because it can save so much money later on.

 

“If you cut corners, then those people aren’t going to necessarily be your people. So it’s going to cost you more to bring them to your website because you haven’t done the testing to get the lowest cost possible.”

 

She teaches a holistic approach to tracking campaign performance, using Google Analytics (aka GA4) to measure results against the Meta Ads Manager. She really digs into the data to analyze audience quality, tracking metrics like time on site. A high bounce rate or low time on site can indicate that more testing is needed, and that even though your ads might be getting traffic to your site cheaply, it’s not the kind of traffic that will actually buy from you.

Marching (Slowly) Toward Conversion

Another reason Chontelle is such a believer in Ads Made Easy testing is that this top of funnel ad is not going to get sales. It’s going to provide a very large pool of potential customers that you will re-target later on. So if you aren’t attracting the right people up front, you’ll waste a lot of time and money later trying to persuade them to buy when they were never interested to begin with. Driving traffic isn’t cheap, so putting the work in early on to identify the right audience pays dividends further down the funnel.

The #1 Ads Mistake Store Owners Make

Chontelle has found that when first starting out, lots of people are impatient with their tests and include too many variables at once. And when they throw too many elements into the mix, it’s virtually impossible to identify what is working and what isn’t. The process is (and should be) slow and methodical – testing one variable at a time, completing one test before moving on to the next.

Roadmap For Success: Slow Down To Speed Up

Chontelle tells us that to successfully build a solid foundation for your ecommerce store, you have to take it slow, follow the lessons one at a time, and don’t cut corners. Give yourself time to implement the strategies and don’t allow yourself to get distracted.

 

“There are so many shiny objects in front of us all of the time that it is really easy for us to go off on this tangent and go over here and look at this.”

 

Attempting to learn too much at once keeps you right where you are. You start doubting yourself, wondering if there’s something wrong with your site, and falling down rabbit holes. Whereas making slow, steady progress compounds over time, and ultimately fast-tracks your success.

Chontelle attributes her store’s meteoric success to following the Inner Circle method in this slow, methodical way. In fact, she was able to leave her “day job” and dedicate 100% of her time to her own business.

By embodying patience, attention to detail, and a willingness to learn and apply, Chontelle has not only elevated her own business but now dedicates part of her time to helping others in the Inner Circle. If you’re a member in need of help with the basics, book a call with her! You can also learn more about our foundational programs in the links below.

RELATED LINKS:

Chontelle’s website: https://thelilypot.co.nz/

Episode 123 – Ads Made Easy

https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/10x-your-audience-in-the-next-30-days-episode-123/

The Secret Way To Make Big Progress With Chontelle Fossey

https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/the-secret-way-to-make-big-progress-with-chontelle-fossey-episode-124/

Build A Massive Audience With A Brand Video

https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/build-a-massive-audience-with-a-brand-video-episode-162/