Full Transcription at the bottom of this blog post.

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Full Transcription:

Hey Christina, welcome to the show.

Hey Allison. Thanks for having me.

Well, I’m excited to have you here. And normally I’m always talking about branding or Instagram, so I’m kind of excited to flip the script today and we’re going to dive into Facebook groups – how to scale our business with a free Facebook group. I have a Facebook group. I absolutely love it. I think it’s an awesome way to connect with your audience and just go a little deeper with them and really understand like pain points from your audience. But before we get into that awesome information that I know you have for us today, introduce yourself and let us know what you do.

Yeah. So my name’s Christina Jandali, and I am known by many as the go-to expert when it comes to Facebook groups and it, uh, you know, kind of started, uh, as a result on the back end of things, not working when I was trying to grow my business online, figuring out how the heck I was going to figure, figure things out, to be able to get the results that I was looking for. And just realizing that connection was a key piece of that. When I started my group, though, however I did, you know, had a massive skyrocket and income and I was like, okay, I’m onto something. And I started getting obsessed with learning, how to really use Facebook groups to grow my business. And before long people were asking me, what the heck are you doing over there? Because it’s obviously working

Well, I definitely know what you’re doing with your Facebook group. So, but my first question to start off our conversation is how do you know having a Facebook group is right for you? Or it’s the right next step? How do you know when you should create it?

Yeah. So typically I would say first off number one is I think if you’re going to create a Facebook group, you’ve got to have a desire to want to connect with people. And if you want to be like multiple steps removed from your people, then guess what sort of Facebook groups not going to be right for you? So that’s like, step one. But if we’re taking a look at, you know, who have Facebook groups, right? Four there’s, three people that I find on Facebook groups, right? For number one, I would say it’s those that are not even sure what they’re going to offer yet. Like they know that they want to serve people. They, they know that they want to build an online business in some way that they’re looking at developing an offer. Maybe they’re not a hundred percent clear on what that is yet.

They can use a Facebook group to start building community and start doing market research, to learn what their people want to help them dial in and craft that offer. So early stages works great for that. The second ideal candidate for a Facebook group is someone who is, you know, doesn’t have a lot of consistency in their sales. So they see like a few sales here, one or two there, and they just don’t have the, the, the warm lead flow coming in and warm pool of people to pull from to be able to make the level of volume of sales that they want to make. And a Facebook groups gives them the opportunity to have that warm pool of leads that are already tuned in tapped, in turned on and paying attention to them so that when they make an offer, they now have a sizeable group of people to be able to market to. And then the third type of person is someone that’s already been rocking it online. They’re, they’re doing launches, they’ve got sales campaigns, that’s working well for them, but they know that the way that things are shifting in the marketplace right now, people are craving connection more than ever. And knowing that if they have a deeper connection with their audience, it’s going to increase their conversions on their campaigns and using a Facebook group in order to be able to increase the number of buyers coming in through their campaign.

I love that. And I want to go back to something that you said in the beginning, because I think you hit something on the head there, like a key point that I want our audience to really understand when we are in business. I feel like many entrepreneurs when we start off in business and this is how I started. I thought that I had to have like the service or the product first. And then I had to like do everything after that. And what I have found in the last several years, it’s really about building your audience and the community first and get that rolling. And then the offers will come later. And when you do it that way, selling your offer is a lot easier. Would you agree with that?

Oh my gosh. So much easier because otherwise it’s like, and I had the same thinking too, but so too often we try and make decisions about what we’re going to do in our offer in a vacuum. And we just think it’s like, this is what people want. And then we put it out there and then you hear crickets and it’s like, okay, that honestly didn’t land. And so no, it’s absolutely key to be able to understand and really uncover what your people are looking for in language that they’re using so that when you speak, they actually get it and it lands with them.

I couldn’t agree more. Now, let me ask you another question. Do you have any strategies on how to get your ideal clients or your ideal audience to your Facebook group? Cause now we want the group, right? We want to create that sense of community and connections in that group, but how do we get them there? What strategies do you have?

Yeah. So the first thing, I mean, one of the, one of the key things is we w we need to make sure that your name is actually going to call forward your people. Because if someone, if you have a lousy name and oftentimes what I see a lot of people doing is they try and have like cutesy names. And so they’ll do like a play on words, but it’s not really searchable. And so when someone looks at the name and the title of the face figure, they’re like, nah, I don’t know like that. Doesn’t I don’t know if that that’s for me. And then they keep scrolling and then they don’t go and they don’t click to join. So that’s just kind of a key piece of just recognizing you want to have that name nailed down. But when you go in, when you’re thinking about building your group, just like, as you’re building your email list or anything you want to be thinking about, what’s in it for people to join, like why would they want to join what’s what are they going to gain from it?

And so I always had, you know, I spent years in corporate space and in the financial space and there was always the saying that that was taught in the financial space. Always have something to invite people to write. You always want to have something to invite people. So you want to have a reason for them to join. And the fact is that you can’t just saying, Hey, I’ve got this community come join. Isn’t reason enough for two people to join anymore. There’s many communities, many places out there just like, it’s not like someone’s going to come on your email list and you say, just become a subscriber. Okay. But what am I going to get out of it? Why do I want to be a subscriber? Cause I can be anyone subscriber, right? Like give me something good. So, so you want to think about just like you would have a free gift or an opt-in for your email list, for someone to enter their name and email and exchange for this free gift.

Do you want to have something in your Facebook group? That’s a value for people to come in and, and join. So maybe it’s a PDF. Maybe it’s a video training that you have in there. Maybe it’s a free challenge. Maybe it’s a, you know, a weekly show that you’re doing on as a series on a topic, maybe you’re doing an interview series, whatever it is, you want to have a result based something that’s inside of your group that you’re inviting people to. And it can change over time. Once you have that, then now the, the, the aim is okay, how are we going to spread the word and let everyone know what’s there because there’s no good. If you’ve got the best kept secret and the best, you know, you’ve solved the problem. And no one knows about it. It’s not going to do any good.

So you have to think about all of the places where you are marketing yourself, all the places where you’re visible and making sure everything is pointing back to your group. So if you’re doing an interview like this, make an invitation for people to come to your Facebook group, if you are. Um, if you have people opting into your email list on the thank you page, send them to your Facebook group and your emails and your auto signature, send them to your Facebook group and the banners of your public pages. Invite them to your Facebook group. Whenever you get the chance, you’re making the invitation for people to come to your Facebook group and you’re driving your traffic there. And we’re, we’re taking a look at traffic for your Facebook group. There’s only really three forms of traffic to get in front of people. So there’s free.

So that’s all your social media, your interviews, guest blogging, guest, posting podcasting, uh, media, right? If you’re getting publications in the media. So that’s all your free methods to get in front of people. The second way is paid advertising pay to play. So you’re paying for ads and you’re driving traffic that way. I recommend you send them to an opt-in page first and then to the group, not directly to the group so you can capture their email address. And then the third way of, of the third method of traffic is joint venture and joint venture traffic is coasting a summit or a giveaway series or something where you’re in collaboration with other people. And you have the opportunity to be able to take advantage of someone else’s audience and the invitation there. So that’s kind of yours, what you’re looking at when you’re looking at growth of your group.

I’ve just gotten into joint venture where other entrepreneurs similar to my niche. But, um, what we’ll do is we’ll collaborate and I’ll go into her Facebook group and train on something and be able to offer a freebie. And then they’ll come into my Facebook group, train on something and offer their freebie. So it’s kind of like that collaboration and we’re building each other’s audiences at the same time and it works really great. And it seems that the groups love that aspect.

Yeah, it’s something that I know many of my students do, those cross interviews. And I really think that the way that things are really shifting in the marketplace right now, and I think joint venture traffic is becoming more and more valuable just because there’s, there’s more noise. There’s more things going on. There’s more people tuning in and having that warm introduction from someone that ARD that they already know like, and trust that just automatically carries over the authority, the trust, everything carries over because it’s a warm introduction. So it’s a phenomenal way of doing that. In fact, you can, one of the ways of doing those cross interviews is even thinking about putting on an event for a month and you have different speakers coming in for a theme that you’re bringing in an interviewing inside of your group, and they’re promoting to their groups, they’re promoting to their audiences and you can do those cross lots to be able to boost up those numbers.

Yeah, that’s really cool. And it really goes back to building that community and making those authentic connections. So I, you know, a question that just came to mind when we were talking about, you know, the name of your Facebook group and why join, what, you know, what is your audience going to get out of it? We often preach on social media. You need to niche down in your business and be niched on social media. Do you need to stay niche within your Facebook group?

Such a yeah, I think, yes, we talked so much about niching down so we can come into focus. You’ve got to be clear enough to know who’s in your group. So I want you to think about this. Like you go to a party and you’re hanging out, you’re at a dinner table and there’s a bunch of people that are talking around with you, right. Or you’re meeting, hanging out with a number of people you’re going to gravitate to the people that are like you, right. You’re going to want to hang out with the people that are like you, you’re going to want to talk to the people that are like, you there’s always going to be someone you’re like, Oh my gosh, don’t talk to that person. Right? Like, stay away. You don’t want to talk to that person. Right? No eye contact [inaudible].

So, so we naturally gravitate to people that are like us, that we have things in common with. And if people come into your group and they don’t resonate with everyone else in there, because it’s so general, they’re going to look around the room and be like, I don’t know if I belong to this room, but if you’re niche enough down that when people come into your group, they look around and like, wow. Like I found my people, like this is where I belong. Like, I really feel like this is my space. These are my people. They’re going to be way more naturally engaged. They’re going to want to show up more and they’re going to continue to show up more. So you want to create that experience for your people, that you’re building a community of people that are like-minded

You think it’s a really good idea. If we’re going to stay niche, like for myself, I’m all about like Instagram strategy and Instagram content creation. But I know my audience once in a while wants a little more. So that’s when I bring on guests, other experts to talk about other avenues in a business it’s not so much coming from me, I’m going to stay niche, but is it okay to have experts in your group to share other things, you know, on how to build your business or, you know, whatever is related to what I’m doing? Is that a good strategy?

Yeah. Cause enhances, right. It’s enhancing their experience. And so they know what they get to come to you for. And you’re bringing other people in to serve and support and enhance the experience that they’re having with you. And the fact is we can’t be the expert in all areas and they’d be better suited to learn it from someone who’s living and breathing it and doing it in those areas. So yes, a hundred percent otherwise, if that’s the only thing that we talk about, it can get a little bit boring, but to bring people in and to have that common interest is the glue that keeps sticking together. But being able to expand from there and bringing in other people. Absolutely. I think it’s a great idea.

Here’s the ultimate question. We now have our Facebook group and we want to serve our audience, but here it comes to the point of, well, how do we scale our business to, with a free Facebook group? What exactly should we be posting?

Hmm. So I like to look at it as like, when you’re looking at content in your group, there’s two categories, there’s maintenance and then there’s your campaigns. So your maintenance and here’s the challenge. You guys, here’s what most people don’t ever talk about. Most people think that everything’s about the maintenance of what’s going on in their group and that’s just maintenance. It should take a very small amount of your time, effort, and energy to focus on maintenance. Okay. And so here’s what maintenance looks like. Okay. It’s keeping consistency going, meaning that you’re creating regular content or posts that are coming up. So this is how I like to look at it for your consistent consistency in your maintenance. You do one core piece of content a week. So that means a live stream. If you have a podcast, you could have a podcast interview. If you’re, if you’re streaming at your group, it could be a, if you are a blogger and you’re DJing blogging, it could be like a shortened version of that into a text format.

However, your format, I prefer video because it creates a deeper connection, much faster with your audience and allows people to engage with you the best. But you choose, you do one piece of deep dive content. So if you’re doing one piece of deep dive content, all of your other pieces of content that week should only evoke desire, demand, and interest for that main core piece of content that week. So let’s say I was going to do a training. Let’s say I was going to do a training. And I was going to be talking about, uh, let’s say I was going to talk about engagement in your Facebook group for one week, right? So I’m talking about engagement for your Facebook group. So I’m doing this and I’m going to do three steps to massively boost engagement in your Facebook group. Let’s say I do that on a Thursday.

I like Thursdays for main piece of content. So then now what I want to do is I want to create conversation around my main topic for that week. So I don’t want to scatter people. So Monday, I might say you feel about the engagement in your Facebook group. Oh no. You get to understand, like, what are people’s experiences like? Oh, I feel like hiding. Cause no one’s showing up. I feel like I’m not being valued because no one’s engaging with me, you know, whatever that might be in or on the positive endos. So it’s helping me understand the experience that people are having around that key topic that I’m going to speak into, which helps me understand better, understand them and connect with them as well. They’re opening up and sharing. So that’s day one. How do you feel about that topic? Day two could be the biggest myth or the biggest mistake that people make, like the biggest myth about engagement or the biggest mistake that people make that kills engagement in their group or the one thing that you must know.

Um, you need to know if you don’t want to, you know, if you don’t want to see dropping engagement levels or if you don’t want your engagement to be based on algorithms or I’m just making it up here as we go, right. Just to give you guys an example. So we have the feeling one, we have the, um, you know, the next question that you’re diving into, and then your third one, um, you could do something. So we have like the, the question we have, the method or the mistakes, something along those lines, the third one that you want to don’t jump into. Could, I’m thinking about if I could just blank with my, you know, if I could, if I could just blank my engagement, I would finally be able to blank or finally be able to have, right. If you’re in weight loss, if I could finally lose X pounds, I would be able to blank.

So you’re finding out what they, what would they be their measure of success for that topic? Like, if I could just blank with, by engagement, what does that mean to them? If I could just double my engagement, if I could just booze get what was the language that they would use to describe what they want and why would that be important to them? Then I could just fill in the blank. Then they could, um, finally sell it the programs. Then they could finally meet a man and the dreams, and they could finally, whatever that might be. So I’ve created content and conversation in like one line or a couple lines for that main topic on Thursday, which is going to teach them how to boost engagement. So by the time I do my training, if you ever have people not showing up for your lives and not showing up for your train, you’re like, where is everybody?

Because we haven’t created enough conversation around the topic, but now, because the conversation has been going, that’s the next natural step. And then let’s say Friday, maybe Friday is just a fun Friday. You do a quote from what you shared, or maybe you just ask a fun, mindless engagement post for people to share. Like, what’s your favorite book, you’re reading or something that’s not necessarily rated. It’s just fun. And so that’s your content for the week. And that doesn’t take a lot of time to be able to produce, but that’s maintenance, right? That’s the ongoing maintenance of what it is that you’re doing on that key live stream. You can invite people, you can have a call to action to invite people into your funnel or invite people to sign up for a webinar, invite someone to sign up for some sort of sale enrollment call with you, depending on what you’re doing.

So on that main dish training, you can make the invitation for people to take that next step with you in some way. So that’s maintenance. Then we move on to campaigns. So your campaigns are live experiences that are designed to take your members and turn them into buyers. And so one of my favorite ways of doing this is like a five day challenge. So you bring people in, you invite people, you say, Hey, in five days, we’re going to do blank together. In five days, we’re going to grow. We’re going to add a hundred leads to your Facebook group in five days, we’re going to, um, you know, in five days you’re going to do your first, uh, you know, you’re going to create your first Instagram real in five days, whatever the outcome that it is that you’re going to help people create over those five days.

And then at the end of those five days, you’re then moving into your offer. Okay, we’ve did this this week. Your next step is going to be this. Here’s how I can help support you with that. You’re presenting your offer, and then you’re going into your sales sequence. So you’re really taking your whole people, your, uh, members through a free experience from free to paid. So cold to closed in a matter of a week, week and a half period of time to help serve them with that. And that’s your, that’s your active campaigns that are really going to be the pieces that are driving your business. So when you’re looking at scaling through that method, for example, the very first time I did a challenge for my leading a kick-ass Facebook group program, I did $5,000 in sales, right? The next time I did, it was 55,000 in sales. The next time that was 85,000 in sales, you know, and then onto six figures. And so on, the scalability came from dialing in the sales campaign and getting masterful with being able to take those leads and turning them into buyers. That’s where the true scale comes from. It’s not coming from your daily content.

That’s really interesting. And I loved how you broke that down between maintenance in campaign. One quick question about maintenance, when you were doing all of those conversations, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the feedback you get from your members, does that guide your training on your lives on your Thursday? Yes.

A hundred percent. And I would take all of their answers and put it in a document and use their language, use their words. And absolutely, I mean, it’s the best market research ever,

Right? Yeah. And I liked how you said, use their language. I think that’s key because sometimes we’re stuck in our own heads and we feel like the language has to be like, you know, so beautifully written and really, that’s not how we speak in real life. So we have to use their terms. And then another question about your campaigns. How often are you doing this in a month? Are you doing like one campaign a month?

So I would say it depends on the person. I would say you want to do at minimum one campaign every quarter. And I would encourage probably to do it every other month. And if you’re super, um, if here’s, here’s my experience, when it comes to campaigns, when you first started doing them, they feel like a lot, the more frequently you do them, the easier they get. And so when I first started my Facebook group, I did three challenges in six weeks because I found it so hard to do the first one that I just wanted to get out of my own way and just get into motion of doing it, to figure it out because I knew the faster, I figured it out, the better I was going to be able to produce better. I was going to be able to get through, to create the results that I wanted.

And so I don’t recommend in three and six weeks, I was a little bit crazy. And then I put a lot of time in between them after, but I was like, this is guy, this has got to get easier. And I got to figure this out. And the only way I can figure this out is just to do it and fail forward to, to figure it out. But I would say at minimum every quarter, but ideally if you’re doing them every other month, you’re creating quite a bit of consistency of your cashflow. You’re getting masterful at it. If you do that, think about that. If you did that every other month, if you did six in one year, how good you’re going to get at that and how much you’re going to increase your numbers and how much you’re going to be able to scale up, because you’re only going to get better and better in dialing in your messaging as well.

I love that. And it does seem so attainable when you say that’s only six a year. So I love that. Now I do have another question. And this question actually came from my audience who was wondering about paid Facebook groups. So basically requiring a monthly fee to be in the group. And of course get all the material and training and whatnot. So, first of all, I want to know, what is your feeling on paid Facebook groups? Like should entrepreneurs be asking for a fee to be in their Facebook group and then, you know, if they are going to do it, what does that look like? What’s the setup.

Yeah. So, so first thing, the value of a free group is it’s a container to create mass amount of lead flow, coming in to build a pool, be able to convert those people into buyers. So when we’re looking at looking at having a group that is for paid people, only the pool shrinks significantly, and now we’re in service delivery. So the purpose of the group is now service delivery on what our, what we promised the purpose of the Facebook group when it’s free is to be a lead generator and a conversion tool to be able to create buyers. So the purpose is a very different now number of years ago, Facebook said they were adamant that you could not charge for Facebook group, that it was against their terms and conditions. So if you ever had a Facebook group that was for paid offer, you couldn’t sell the Facebook group.

You’d have to have it as a bonus. Okay, you’re buying this outcome, this training and the bonuses. You’re going to have a Facebook group to community to go along with it. Then Facebook did a pilot study for having a paid Facebook group where it was a subscription model, membership style type thing where people would pay to be part of the Facebook group. They ran a pilot for that. The pilot was not successful as what they expected, and they decided not to fully roll out the campaign. So if you are going to charge for your group, it’s important to recognize people. Aren’t buying the group, they’re buying the promise of what you’re selling. And the group is just that container in which you’ve facilitated, but then now you’re in service delivery. So it’s not necessarily providing more opportunity for backend sales and, um, upward, uh, you know, for those, those continuing of sales, it’s in service delivery on what you’ve already sold. So the, the question would be, are you looking to create more buyers or are you looking to facilitate what you’ve already sold? And that gets to help you determine what type of group you’re intending to open up.

So do you think it would be a good suggestion for entrepreneurs to keep your Facebook groups as free? So you can get the lead generations, right? Drive massive traffic, grow a community, but then beyond that, if you want it to, I mean, you can build your own membership or subscription off of your website. And then when you’re doing your challenges, right, you’re doing your campaigns lead into a membership program, and then that’s where you would give your services and your promises through that, but keep the Facebook group as a lead generator.

Exactly. You’ve got it. Yeah. So that’s like your feeder and then you’re going to have your other group that’s going to help. That’s going to be in facilitation for the promise. Yes, you got it.

That’s awesome. Um, now, any another quick question or, um, like an idea that came to my head is when your Facebook group is really growing, especially by the numbers, is there a way to keep the engagement going when you have such a huge number? Like, is there a way for you to kind of, I, you know, I always say on Instagram, you need to kind of go through your follower list, right. And kind of get rid of the people who aren’t even interacting. Cause they actually hurt your engagement rate is the same thing said about a Facebook group. So,

So engagement, there’s great questions and engagement. There’s a few things when it comes to engagement. So first off like, think about this for a moment. If you had a football team and everyone was playing quarterback, is it going to be a very effective team? Right? No. And, and so the T everyone on the team plays their part. And so when you’re building a community, everyone in the community plays a different part. You’re going to have some people that are likers that are taking like, and you’re going to have commenters that are always commenting. You’re going to have cheerleaders that are like, woo, everybody. Like you’re doing a great job. Just being that kind of support. You’re going to have connectors who are wanting to connect members or connect members with other people outside of the community that they’re looking for, resources or things that are supplying that connection point for them.

You’re also going to have lurkers and lurkers and the people that are often the buyers I might add, they’re watching, they’re consuming, they’re reading, but you don’t necessarily know that they’re there. And, and so you need all of those types of members in your group to create a true feel of a community for it to work together. Now, as your group grows, your engagement is going to your percentage of active members will drop. Just like when your email list, the bigger your email list gets. Typically your open rates are going to drop. They’re going to come down a little bit. That’s just part of scaling and growth. You’re going to start to notice that, but you absolutely can keep that higher heightened level of engagement in your group and engagement on your group is going to depend on two things. So you need to have your meaning.

Facebook is going to be showing your content. Your post to people is going to be based on two things. It’s going to be based on having a consistent, consistent stream of new members coming in. And this doesn’t need to be a massive stream. It can be a small trickle, but consistency is key. So you’ve got to be having new members coming in and replenishing and coming in and bringing new life to your group, whether it’s a trickle or that’s lot doesn’t matter, but you need to have that consistency rolling in. So that makes a difference. The second piece that makes a difference is the number of active members in your group. And so you can check the stat in your group insights, but your active members are not just people that are liking and commenting. Your active members are actually people who like, and comment yes, the obvious pieces, but they’re also consuming your content.

Meaning they’re clicking, read more, they’re watching your videos. So even though they might be lurking, they’re still actively participating. Even they can’t see them. So Facebook looks at your active numbers and making sure that your active member, uh, at your active members are, are decent enough to warrant them, to show your group to other people, to show your posts and show that to more people. So that’s what really matters the most. It’s not so much about whether or not someone’s like you’re commenting it’s about whether or not they’re actually active in the group. Thank you for clarifying that, that really made a lot of sense.

And I’m happy that I asked that question.

This was an awesome conversation. And I feel like in a matter of a half hour, I just learned so much more about Facebook groups. I’m excited to do more with my Facebook group.

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