Salome Schillack (00:00):

Hello and welcome to episode number 143. This episode is all about how Brittany doubled her email list in two months. And my guest is the fabulous Brittany Bennion. Brittany is one of our A-Lister students who have been getting tremendous results with her list building and her audience building inside A-Lister this year. Brittany is a branding photographer and strategist, host of the Post for Success podcast, and creator of the Brand Builder's Formula. As an expert in the field of personal brand photography, she's sought after by women entrepreneurs across the country, that's the US, and soon to be the world. Brittany helps creatives gain the visibility they need to stand out in their field and build their no like and trust factor. Her superpower is to help women feel comfortable in their own skin in front of the camera. And I invite you to go and check out Brittany's Instagram. She's Brit Bennion at Instagram, to go and see what beautiful photos she takes and how funny she is.

Salome Schillack (01:09):

But let's jump into the episode and listen to Brit share how she doubled her email list using what I teach inside A-Lister. And don't forget. Get on the wait list, we are opening the doors for enrollment at the end of March. And there will be some goodies for those that are on the wait list. To get there, you need to go to shineandsucceed.com/waitlist. Without further ado, here's Brit. Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack. And I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine. And this is the Shine Show. Brittany, thank you so much for joining me. I know the listeners are going to love hearing your story.

Brittany Bennion (02:17):

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Salome Schillack (02:20):

That's fabulous. I love having you in the A-Lister group and seeing you show up to the calls. But before we dive into A-Lister and what you've learned in the last year, I want you to just tell everyone who you are, where you live, and what you do for a living.

Brittany Bennion (02:36):

All right. Well, my name is Brittany Bennion and I am a brand strategist and branding photographer. So essentially, I help women grow are their businesses and brands through visuals that reflect confidence and competence. So it's fantastic. So I get to work with women. I'm from the United States, so I work with women all across the US through online courses. And I also do in-person work, taking photographs and videos to help people, women entrepreneurs specifically, grow their brands. And I am located in the state of Utah, but that's a recent relocation. I was in Michigan for the past couple of years. And in the middle of the year, we moved across the country.

Salome Schillack (03:26):

So a big interruption to everything.

Brittany Bennion (03:29):

Absolutely. And starting over in a new location and all the things that come with it.

Salome Schillack (03:33):

And your business before you relocated it's a large portion of your business is still to this day offline, it's still in person real life.

Brittany Bennion (03:46):

Absolutely.

Salome Schillack (03:46):

Like what we would call local businesses. So you rely on people that you can touch.

Brittany Bennion (03:52):

Absolutely. So it's about 50-50. I feel like I'm running two businesses, but they really compliment each other. I get to work hands on with people in real life, traveling and seeing people. But I really get a lot of joy and fulfillment from being able to expand my reach by doing a lot of my work online through course creation, through mentorship, through memberships and things like that.

Salome Schillack (04:19):

Well, that's awesome. So your online work, tell me a little bit about that. You said you're a photographer and a brand strategist, so how do you do that online?

Brittany Bennion (04:31):

It's a little bit tricky when you think about it. But when you start to deep dive, you think about when you're building a business, any business, it's so vital to have visuals. Everything in our world is tied to visuals. Yes, caption and copy are also very, very necessary, but we process visuals 90% times faster than we do writing. So if you don't have the visuals that A, match your brand and your energy but show you as the professional that you are, you're really missing out on a huge portion of the market. So I really teach women how to get images that convert for their businesses, whether that's them taking their own photos, me helping them find a photographer, me being their photographer.

Brittany Bennion (05:23):

And videos are also included in this. We cannot forget about video because it's so huge and everything's about video right now. But you have to have the visuals that represent you and your brand. Otherwise people are just going to glaze over your work and look at somebody else who obviously looks like they are professional and they care about what things look like. So that's what I do on online. I have a course that teaches about branding. Because we hear the words marketing and branding and you get overwhelmed and stressed and oh, what are all these big words? And I don't want to deal with that, I just want to do what I do in my business. But it's vital that everybody knows at least the basics.

Salome Schillack (06:07):

And I love what you said, that it conveys your energy. Because before you said it, I've never thought of it as conveying your energy. Because even if you think about it, we want to present ourselves in a way that we want to step into that version of ourselves, but also that we invite and present it in such a way that we invite other people to step into what's already there. And unless we can find a way to capture that on camera, then how are we supposed to communicate that online? And so it's so important that people like you have the skill to be able to A, pull that out of someone. Because if you ask me five years ago, what's my energy and what... I don't know, I would just go and copy what someone else does. And because if I'm not a photographer, I don't know how to style a shoe to convey my energy. So how does some of that work? How do you do that with a client online?

Brittany Bennion (07:15):

Well, I love what you have picked up on because always say a brand is not the sum of your visual aspects. So we think a brand is, well, I've got to pick out my fonts and my color palette and maybe a couple of graphics. And while that's all great and wonderful and it makes everything look cohesive and it ties it together and it adds to brand awareness, if the whole point behind it is, what's that energy driving it? What is it about you that brings it all together? And that's the powerhouse behind it.

Brittany Bennion (07:48):

So when it comes to learning about that, a lot of it comes down to authenticity. I know that this is a buzzword that's thrown around all the time is, we've got to be authentic. Well, you have to show who you are. But it really is so true, there's really power behind being authentic and understanding your reason why you are doing what it is that you are doing. I know we've talked about this, and it happens in ad creation too. We just talked about it recently, where you had said, "You can either attract this type of people with this type of energy because you're having this copy and these visuals. Or you can attract this other type of person with this energy and copy and visuals." It goes for your ads, it goes for your business, it's in everything that you do.

Salome Schillack (08:39):

And it can be a subtle shift. I've heard you talk about subtle shifts in how we hold our bodies when we're taking selfies and subtle shifts in the angle of your face. It can be a subtle shift and yet a powerful shift, and I think that the devil is in the details. But we need people like you to tell us how to take what we feel inside, who we feel we are inside, and communicate that visually because if you're not... Like I consider myself I can see good design a mile away, I can see a good photo a mile away, but ask me why or how and no way I can't do that, I can't do that. And that's why people like you are so important because you've broken it down into this beautiful step by step, right?

Brittany Bennion (09:30):

Absolutely. And I do teach it step by step because just like anything, you can learn it and it doesn't have to be over complicated. Just those simple, subtle things like you're saying. When we're taking a selfie, you know when it's a good selfie or a bad selfie probably because the light looks terrible. You stand right in front of a, this is my biggest tip, it's just stand in front of a window for a photo, it's a night and day difference. And if you don't know that, you may not recognize what the difference is. So it's little simple things like that. I always talk about, everybody has a double chin. We stress out and we say, "Oh well, don't take a photo of me, I don't like my chin." But what a lot of people don't recognize is everybody's got a double chin, it's just how you hold yourself.

Brittany Bennion (10:22):

And if you know a couple of simple steps, of course you can look a little bit more elongated, a little bit more composed. And, of course, what I always think is the most important, just confident. Women don't have that confidence that they should. We're fighting against generational stigmatism, just everything that tells us to be quiet, to be small, to don't be loud. So we're fighting against this and having to find our own confidence, especially in a world that you can be very vulnerable. So it's an interesting shift to have to learn, how do I show up visually? How do I have the energy? How do I not judge myself or even worry about the judgements of other people? And a lot of it stems from understanding your purpose, your why, why are you doing this, and how you just gain that confidence to do it no matter what. Whether or not you need to lose those extra 10 pounds, whether or not you have a bad hair day, or you haven't been to your hairdresser for a while, whatever it is.

Salome Schillack (11:31):

It's a fine balance, isn't it? We, have to overcome all of these things. And in order to overcome it, the voice that screams the loudest is our own and then we can use simple external things. Like I remember for me, one of the things that changed dramatically when I started doing online business was wearing lipstick. Never, ever, ever did I wear lipstick and then I saw the difference that makes on camera. So now I always got lipstick with me.

Brittany Bennion (11:59):

And you always look fantastic.

Salome Schillack (12:00):

Well, thank you. I'll take that. But it's such a simple little thing. And it's just if somebody who is a pro like you doesn't tell you that, like the thing with standing in front of the window. You said, "Oh, you can look at the photo and go, 'Yeah, the lighting is off.'" But most of us don't know why do the dark circles under my eye look even darker, oh, the lighting's off. Go stand in front of the window, ah, now the lighting's good, now it's getting hidden away a little bit more. All those little things, we need people like you to tell us that stuff.

Salome Schillack (12:38):

So give us your base steps for taking confident selfies. I know I'm jumping straight to a very specific thing, but I want to hear your base steps for feeling confident when you are taking selfies, especially for someone who's just starting out with their social media, who doesn't necessarily want to convey the, I'm the Instagram influencer, look at me type of thing. They have some knowledge that they want to share and they just want to show up and share their knowledge with their people and attract their same energy like this, the same people who have the same energy and just help us quiet that internal voice a little bit with a few external tips, please.

Brittany Bennion (13:28):

Absolutely. Well, the very first thing that I teach when it comes to what I call the brand builders formula is visibility. And this means that you have to understand that it's important for you to be seen and that it's okay for you to be seen. Like you said, Salome, we are 100% our biggest critics. And it does start with our mindset because we have to understand is it worth it for me to even show up in the first place. If you're not there, it doesn't matter how many wonderful pictures you have or terrible pictures or anything, you are not going to feel that authenticity and that energy's going to come through as cringey. So you have to have the mindset to understand is this important for me and my business and why is this important for me and my business.

Brittany Bennion (14:21):

One of the questions that I often say to my clients, and I have to say this to myself all the time, I'm all over camera and all over pictures and I take my own pictures and I have other people take pictures of me, and I still have that same voice in my head and I still stress out. But one of the things that's my go to is I say, "Think about the people you love most in your life. Are they going to love you less because you choose to go after your dreams or you choose to show up or you choose to sell the thing?" Most of the time your answer is no, they're not going to love you less. And I don't know about you, they probably will actually love you more.

Salome Schillack (15:07):

Yeah, for sure.

Brittany Bennion (15:09):

And if I just hold that in my mind and when my clients hold that in their mind, then that immediately boosts up their energy to say, "Okay, I do have the right and the ability to show it visually." Then the next step is really to feel confident in your body. How many women do you know that would raise their hand right now and say, I feel confident in my body?

Salome Schillack (15:36):

Maybe not as many as I want to.

Brittany Bennion (15:39):

Definitely not as many as you want to. And even if you do feel confident, you always want to feel a little bit more confident.

Salome Schillack (15:47):

That is true unfortunately, it is true.

Brittany Bennion (15:51):

So I teach a lot about posing your body. Because we do things naturally with our body but when you sit for a photo, all of a sudden you're very hyper aware of every single part of your body, all of a sudden you're like, "I have hands. What do I do with hands? I've never used my hands before, where did they go?" And you start to feel awkward. I always start my client's of, I say, "Just walk. Just walk towards the camera." Everybody knows how to do it. And I guarantee everybody forgets how to walk when I tell them to do that.

Salome Schillack (16:28):

That's [crosstalk 00:16:28].

Brittany Bennion (16:29):

And so it's just shaking up. I always say, if you're just start out, just take a couple of deep breaths and add movement to your photos. Now, if you're taking selfies, it may feel a little bit tricky to do this, which if you're on your camera, burst mode is your best friend.

Salome Schillack (16:49):

Oh, yes.

Brittany Bennion (16:51):

Set your camera to burst mode and you can do this actually on a lot of DSLRs as well with the remote if you're going to do that or if you're lucky enough to have a partner or somebody helping you out. Burst mode will save you so many times.

Salome Schillack (17:06):

I love it.

Brittany Bennion (17:07):

And then just start doing things that you naturally do. So if you normally work at a desk, if you normally are cutting hair, if you normally are painting a picture, or if you're normally playing music, whatever it is, that gets you into a place where you start to feel a little bit more confident doing the thing that you are doing.

Salome Schillack (17:25):

I love that. So you take the pose out of the posing.

Brittany Bennion (17:30):

Right. And if you take it to the next level, a lot of it has to do just thinking about lengthening everything. All right. When we sit at our phones or at our desk, how are you sitting? If you're driving your car and listening to this right now, how are you sitting? We're all hunched over, we're crunched in, and nothing of that conveys confidence, all right?

Salome Schillack (17:53):

Yeah.

Brittany Bennion (17:53):

So think about lengthening, pulling your shoulders back, stretching out your neck. That's the key to getting rid of this double chin. Stretching out your neck, that looks beautiful.

Salome Schillack (18:07):

Everyone's stretching out necks with me right now.

Brittany Bennion (18:09):

So everybody's stretched out. You feel like a turkey but here's the thing, camera it's a 2D representation. So it compresses what you look like. No one's ever going to look at you and say, "Oh, she looks like she's a chicken with her neck out." Because it compresses and you look leaner. So everything needs to be long. So shoulders down, back up, sit up, I always say think like a ballerina. I was a competitive dancer growing up, so I see lines and I see movement. But if I say, "Just think like a ballerina, even for those hands."

Brittany Bennion (18:43):

When you're like, "I don't know what to do with my hands." Just think like soft ballet hands and you get into place. Everyone knows what a typical ballerina would look like. So those are some really great ways for you just to get started. Do the movements that are comfortable and think about elongating everything. And then all of a sudden you start to feel empowered. It really brings a good energy and vibe into it. And then like everything else in this world, practice, practice, practice. You're not going to be great the first 10 times, 20 times, 30 times. But I promise you're going to get better.

Salome Schillack (19:21):

I love that. I love that. And I think we should allow ourselves and give ourselves grace to learn and grace to just do it without the judgment.

Brittany Bennion (19:32):

Absolutely.

Salome Schillack (19:34):

Just go and practice it and have fun and do it without the judgment. I love that. And I love that about the ability that we have selfies. Because you can lock yourself in your bedroom and practice every night for a month, and a month later, then maybe you start taking the selfies you want to share. Because there's no one saying you have to share every single one you take. But if you practice for a month, a month later, it's going to be better, right?

Brittany Bennion (20:02):

Absolutely. Just like everything else in life.

Salome Schillack (20:05):

Those girls that we see that know exactly how to hold their bodies, they practiced for a long time, right?

Brittany Bennion (20:12):

Absolutely. And they've been taking photos for a long time. When you see somebody who looks so fantastic and you're like, "Oh, I wish I could be like that." You just scroll down their feed, you see that they've been doing this for two or three years. And I guarantee you will hit a point, a very, very understandably line of demarcation from when they didn't understand to when they got it. And you're like, "Ah, there was the switch." And it will happen to you as well.

Salome Schillack (20:42):

It will. Yes, it will for sure.

Brittany Bennion (20:43):

You just have to be willing to go through that learning phase and that awkward phase. Think about it like when a child's nine or 10 and they lose their two front teeth and they just look awkward no matter what, they're cute but you've got to get through that phase. So everyone can do that.

Salome Schillack (21:03):

Oh, that's funny. It is a bit like that. So that's amazing how you help people. Now, tell us a little bit about where your business was a year ago.

Brittany Bennion (21:14):

So a year ago, we're smack in the middle of COVID.

Salome Schillack (21:18):

We're still smack in the middle of COVID.

Brittany Bennion (21:20):

We're still smack in the middle of COVID. But I think by that time we had all settled into the realization that this was real life. I had in my mind made a plan. I knew that my family was going to be relocating. And so the year prior I had decided I'm going to get into this online space, I really want to have some traction with that, and I was doing well. I had built an online course and I had a small email list that I thought I knew what I was doing with them. I had just started a podcast.

Brittany Bennion (22:02):

So I'd been about seven months into my podcast, I really started to be consistent with everything. And I knew I needed to jump start, get to the next level. And everybody I'd heard was saying, "Grow your email list, grow your email list, grow your email list." And no matter what they were doing, and of course we want to do all of the flashy things, we want to take good pictures for our Instagram, and we want to change our color palette and we want to do all of these things, everything probably but grow our email list. So when everybody is shouting, grow your email list, everybody who's successful is shouting grow your email list, you better start listening.

Salome Schillack (22:42):

Amen to that. I've heard people say they'd rather change their tires and grow their email list. But that is everybody who's successful is shouting grow your email list.

Brittany Bennion (22:52):

And they're saying, "If there was one thing that I wish I would have started sooner, it was to invest time in growing my email list. So I knew that I needed to do that and I could either do it by myself and maybe collect some emails here and there or try and fish in those Facebook groups and put a freebie out there. But that wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go as fast as I wanted to go. Or I could figure out another way, which obviously led me to you and Facebook ads.

Salome Schillack (23:29):

Oh yay. And so you joined A-Lister, and what happened after that? Because there was a period of time where you were learning at the beginning and then what happened?

Brittany Bennion (23:43):

Well, I had tested Facebook ads before, so before you came into my world. I had, just like everybody else, I hit that boost button.

Salome Schillack (23:55):

[inaudible 00:23:55] boost button.

Brittany Bennion (23:56):

And I promoted posts. This is old school Facebook ads when you just thought it was oh, a quick click, there wasn't a ton going on behind the Facebook ads. And maybe I saw a little bit of traction here and there. And then I was like, "Okay, I'm really going to get to learn Facebook ads." So I started playing around with it. And I was so frustrated, I didn't know what I was doing, there was so much jargon. Everybody who I... I signed up for every single webinar, I signed up for every single freebie. How do you do Facebook ads? And I took every single training on Facebook ads. And all I got was more and more overwhelmed and more and more frustrated.

Brittany Bennion (24:43):

And I had almost given up hope. I was like, "This isn't going to work for me. All I'm doing is wasting my money, all I'm doing is wasting my time and my dollars." And then you did a training through... So I know you through Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy. So you did a training and it was fantastic for starters. You walked me through the steps so easily that I was able to understand it and grasp it. So I was like, "Okay, Salome's my girl, I'm going to do A-listers." You didn't have it open, so I waited until you opened it, and I jumped on board. And it's great. I love your course, same thing. How you teach it's really easy you to understand because I'm very step by step, I'm very visual.

Brittany Bennion (25:32):

And so I dug into the course and I was going through and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to get some wins." But I didn't follow the step by step. So I like your step by step but I was like, "I'm going to jump." I think you even say in the course, you're like, "Do not jump to module six just because you think you're ready to make some money, you've got to do all of these things." And I was like, "Ah, she doesn't know my business." And I'm like, "I'm going to dive straight into module six because I've taken enough free trainings, I should know all of this stuff." But to make a long story short, that didn't work well for me. And that frustration came back in and I had to take a step back. I had to take a step back because a lot of crazy things happened. I ended up home. So I have five kids.

Salome Schillack (26:26):

Wow.

Brittany Bennion (26:27):

So I ended up homeschooling my kids, my husband was finishing his PhD, we were looking for a job. We moved across the country, I was getting settled. And I'm sad to say this now, but I had to say goodbye to showing up in the way that I wanted to for A-listers for quite a while. And just a few months back, back in quarter four of 2021, I said, "This really was my goal for this year. In 2021, it was my goal to get through Facebook ads and understand it and comprehend it." So I jumped back in to the A-listers calls and I have been coming almost every single week since then. And it has completely changed my outlook on Facebook ads. I'm seeing success, lots of success that I'm so happy about. And I'm just ready to take it to the next step and to just keep pushing. So I've been really grateful to have that because it was a win for me.

Salome Schillack (27:36):

Oh, that makes my heart so happy. I want to congratulate you, but not just congratulate, I want to just honor because you're one of the students who you did make a commitment to yourself to learn Facebook ads, and it did get hard and you did pull back and life did happen, as it does with so many of us. But the difference between what you did and what most us do, me included, is when we've backed out of a commitment we made to ourselves or we backed out of a commitment we made or a goal we set for ourselves or life has happened or we didn't get the result, we tend to hide and stay away because of shame, because of judgment. And it's all just in our own minds, but then we don't come back. And you did this incredible thing where you announced that you are back and it wasn't just an announcement, you actually came back. No shame, no guilt, just I was gone and I'm here now. And it's quarter four, but I'm giving it my all. So I just want to honor you for that.

Brittany Bennion (28:51):

Oh, thank you so much. I do remember the feelings of hopping on the call. And in my brain, we think things are a lot bigger and scarier in our brains. And in my brain, I was like, "I haven't reviewed the material." iOS, I'm sure that happens to so many people, iOS came in and all we heard was panic and alarms and warnings and this is never going to work and it's so expensive and don't even try this again. So all of that fear came back for me. And then we go into quarter four and everyone was like, "Don't ever start a Facebook ad in quarter four because it is so more expensive." I was like, "If I don't do this now, when am I ever going to do it?" Because there's going to be an excuse every single time. So I'm either going to just dive in and commit or I'm going to have to do it the even extra harder way.

Brittany Bennion (29:46):

So I do remember showing up to that call and I was very intimidated. And I had to say, "Salome, I don't know what I'm doing." And you were very gracious. I think you said something along the lines of, "Well, look who's coming out of the woodworks now." And I had to acknowledge that and I said, "Yeah, you're right. I'm coming out of the woodworks and here I am." But since then, I've learned so much from the other women in A-listers, I've actually made some really great connections with them. And even today, we had a call and you were quizzing us and in a friendly way. And I just got off that call and I felt so proud of myself that I knew a couple of the answers and I followed you through. And it was very exciting for me, I was very happy.

Salome Schillack (30:36):

Oh, I love that. We have an amazing community. Somewhere in some life, I did something right to attract such awesome people to our courses and to my team as well. I'm still figuring out where that comes from, but it's just I love, love, love everyone in our community. I did make a joke about you coming out of the woodworks, but I would 100 times rather have someone come out of the woodworks than stay hidden, why? Because I feel they're behind a lot of that. Did you feel you were behind? Because that's a big thing I hear a lot.

Brittany Bennion (31:09):

I thought I was behind in my head. But every single question that I asked or I brought to the group or to the Facebook group or to the call, it was never treated as if I was behind. It was like, you are exactly where you're at and the next step is this. And then I would take the next step. And to this day, it's like, "Okay, now Brittany, you've figured this out, the next step is this." And it takes away that stress and pressure of you have to know it all all the time and be perfect. Women entrepreneurs, we feel this pressure that everything has to be perfect, you can't mess it up. And I think that that's really one of the roots about Facebook ads. And I'll admit, I hate this, I hate that the answer is always, you have to test it.

Salome Schillack (32:00):

It's a hard question, it's a hard answer.

Brittany Bennion (32:03):

It's hard answer, but it's a true answer. And it's the only way that you can learn. But there you really guide us in our testing so that we're not just throwing spaghetti at the wall and we don't know what we're doing. You say, "Okay, these are the hints that are showing you maybe you should do this or maybe you should at this." And then the testing isn't just wandering around aimlessly, throwing money anywhere, it's really pointed in the direction, it gets us results in the way that we want them.

Salome Schillack (32:37):

Oh, I love that so much. I love it. It is my personal goal and mission to make sure nobody wastes money on ads. But you know what, there's a... For me, this thing that you touch on where you say we you hate that we have to taste it, I feel like for me it taught me to be more flexible in my thinking around getting things right. When you're tasting ads, there's no... Ads doesn't go around saying, "You loser, your ads didn't work." It just doesn't return a result. There's no judgment, it's just either it worked or it didn't work or it halfway worked or parts of it worked and other parts didn't.

Salome Schillack (33:30):

And for me because I was very afraid of failure when I started incredibly, incredibly afraid, I remember the first time I posted publicly, I promise you, just my stomach completely turned on itself and then jumped into my chest and then into my throat and then back down, and it was literally just a comment I left on somebody's post. That's how perfectionist and afraid I was of public shame or a failing. I had to unlearn all of that. That's probably why my business failed for the first three years. But it's that Facebook ads teaches you that there's no failure, it's just feedback, it's just data.

Salome Schillack (34:15):

And data is not going to hurt you and data, there's no shame in data. It has zero meaning, it is just a number. And you learn to become a little bit more flexible in your thinking and a little bit less judgmental of yourself and your results. And you become braver because you go, "Okay, well, between here and getting ads that work, I'm going to have to taste 10 times. So let me just get through these 10 failures as fast as I can so I can get to success." Which speeds up the whole process, and that was my experience. Anyway, it's why I'm grateful to Facebook ads, that it is so hard sometimes.

Brittany Bennion (34:55):

Well, I think you're right. I think if we are able to take the emotion out of any aspect of our business and start to think of it like a scientist... I have a good friend that always is saying, "If you're thinking about business like a scientist, they're mixing up ingredients. And if something explodes, they're not like, 'Oh, well, that's it, we're never going to figure that out.'" They say, "Oh, well, that didn't work."

Salome Schillack (35:17):

Exactly.

Brittany Bennion (35:18):

"Let's try something else." So taking that... It's hard for women to take emotion out of things that we are so personally invested in, but that's the key.

Salome Schillack (35:28):

Especially if the product is our thoughts, which for online course creators, the product we sell is our thoughts, it's our teachings, it's our personality. So we walk a different tightrope than... I have some friends with amazing e-commerce businesses, but their products get judged and they don't get judged themselves, it's a different ballgame for us.

Brittany Bennion (36:00):

It really is. And a lot of it comes down to the mindset behind it. I have written on my board next to me, and this is something that I say anytime I get frustrated, is I say, Facebook ads are such a great use of my money.

Salome Schillack (36:15):

I love that.

Brittany Bennion (36:17):

And it's whether or not I'm getting results and I'm getting conversions or I'm not, no matter what, it's still a great use of my money because it gets me that feedback and it gets me in front of people that I want or it tells me how to shift and change so that I'm getting closer to the audiences that really are going to connect with me.

Salome Schillack (36:40):

I love that for so many reasons. I love it because it's a complete reframe and it's an affirmation that you can repeat, and I love it because it's true. There is nothing else you can do right now for the same cost as a Facebook or Instagram ad to get you closer to making money online. Despite iOS, despite the fact that it's not as easy as it used to be, it is still easier than everything else. And the feedback is instant. You get that feedback so quickly and you do not have to waste money on it. Love that.

Brittany Bennion (37:19):

Now, I really like, and I want to drive home that point, is that even though you may hear iOS is messing things up, now you can't connect with their email, everything's so much more expensive, you shouldn't do webinar conversions because you'll never get a return on your... You hear it all, and it's all this fearmongering. Even if all of that is 100% true, it is still the best place to put your money, even if it's all true, and it's not even all true.

Salome Schillack (37:51):

Yes, that's the thing, none of it is true. It's just a bunch of dudes spreading fear because then you buy their thing. But no, shouldn't be that way, shouldn't be that way.

Brittany Bennion (38:04):

And I know that because on our calls, I see how cheap it's for people to get engagement. My conversion ads are cheaper than they've ever been before.

Salome Schillack (38:18):

And you're not alone, I see a lot of people whose ads are cheaper now than they were before iOS because they're doing the foundational stuff right

Brittany Bennion (38:28):

And I'm going to be even better at that foundational stuff, not skip to module six, get back to module two, and it's going to be even better for me because I just-

Salome Schillack (38:37):

Yeah, it is once you get those engagement adds up. Brittany, you are such an inspiration to me. I love that you came back confidently. You walk your talk, you just do what you say you do. And what you teach in your course around confidence and around not judging yourself, you put that to practice with Facebook ads. And I know we can have confidence in one area and then totally lack it in another. But I love that you use what you teach, apply to yourself in this situation. And I know your list building is just going to grow and grow and grow. What is next for you? What does 2022 look like for you?

Brittany Bennion (39:26):

Oh, I am very excited for 2022 because just in January alone, I've probably increased my email list by 10% because of the list building ads. So I do have an online course that I have launched in the past, it's getting rebooted. I'm relaunching it to a very fresh, very engaged list. And I plan on launching three times this year and just seeing where that goes. So I'm very excited.

Salome Schillack (39:56):

Oh, that makes me so happy. I can't wait to see how many incredible women's lives you will touch and how many double chins you'll turn into confident, beautiful selfies.

Brittany Bennion (40:10):

That's right. And Salome, thank you again. I know I was almost emotional earlier today because this really was such a fear of mine and it's not. And I'm not perfect at it, I'm not, I have a lot to learn. But I'm not afraid to learn it anymore. And that's because of you. And so I really, really appreciate all that you do and how much fun you bring to it. So it's not stressful, it's not dark or down or anything like that, it's really fun, and I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Salome Schillack (40:44):

Thank you. I love hearing that. I do try to make it fun, I do try to create a safe environment for everyone to learn this thing that is a bit scary sometimes. So thank you to you. Where can anybody go who wants to learn more about you and about your upcoming course?

Brittany Bennion (41:03):

Wonderful. You can find me just about anywhere at Brit Bennion, that's B-R-I-T, just one T Bennion. So I'm on Instagram @BritBennion, my website is britbennion.com. And I have some really great freebies on that website that will you get on the website, you'll figure it out, and they'll give you lots of tips to help you be more confident in your posing and in what you wear and how you show up and everything about building a brand.

Salome Schillack (41:31):

Oh, I love that. And if you go to Brit's Instagram and you tell her, I sing too, tell her Salome sing to you so that she knows you've listened to this episode, and then she can come and tell me how many of you are taking confident selfies as a result of this. Thank you so much, Brit.

Brittany Bennion (41:48):

Thank you.

Salome Schillack (41:49):

If you are ready to start building a arriving audience and fill it with people who are ready to buy your online courses or your membership and you want a supportive community to hold your hand every step of the way, I want to invite you to join me inside A-Lister when we open enrollment again at the end of March. A-Lister is the only program that shows you how to finally find your right people online and make your first sale using Facebook and Instagram ads. There are also some juicy bonuses for those that are on the early bird wait list. So make sure you go to shineandsucceed.com/waitlist and sign up today. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week. And remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.