750 Marketing without the burnout with Chantal Gerardy - Marketing Strategist & Speaker

Well, I got to meet this beautiful lady, uh, when she invited me to come on her podcast. And so we got to do that in person, which is so fun. And so then also inviting her to come be a part of The Next Level Life felt like a perfect fit. Uh, welcome to the podcast, Chantelle.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited that you're here. We're going to talk all things meaningful marketing, but I want to go back to the beginning. So tell us a little bit about your journey and your— you had a huge move across continents, uh, and I'm sure that shaped a lot of your journey. So tell us a little bit about where you, where it all began, and now, now we all— sorry, now the people that you're working and serving with now.

Yeah, sure. Um, so you'll hear from my funny accent along with the fact I'm getting over a cold at the moment. Um, I'm originally from South Africa. So in 2008, uh, my husband at the time and I got the opportunity to move from South Africa to Australia. Now, in South Africa, I grew up there, I went to school there, I was actually a school teacher. I also owned a health, wellness, and fitness center. You know, I had a massive family, Italian family and Dutch family, just massive family. So getting clients was not really a difficult thing because it was always word-of-mouth referral. Everyone knew who you were. You went to school with someone, so someone would just say, oh, you know, go to Chantal and she'll help you out. So it was really super easy, um, in at that time. So when we moved to, um, Australia, we arrived here and my twins were 4 years old and my youngest was 1. So 3 kids under the age of 5 coming from having grandparents, a whole family support, maids, coming to a new country, not knowing anybody, not having any financial backing, and 5 of us living on one salary whilst paying for, for us to get into the country. So you can imagine that things were like particularly stressful, um, at that time. Um, what made it worse was in the first 4 years he was made redundant twice. And when that happened, you know, there's always this thought of we're already halfway through the process of paying to get into the country, like we've given up everything, like do you carry on, do you go back, what do you do? It was incredibly stressful and of course he was struggling a bit with depression. So I actually taught myself social media and worked out, especially with Facebook in the early days, that was a great platform where you could find your ideal clients, communicate to them online, and get them to, you know, become a client of yours without paying for ads. And the, the thing that I'm grateful for the most was the fact that I had to do it. I didn't have Centrelink, I didn't have the support, so I really had to have what I did online actually result in paying customers because else I couldn't actually afford to feed the kids. Like, that's how stressful it was in the early stages for us. Now let me say this, I by far am— I still class myself as not a marketer, not a marketer, um, still class myself as not a marketer, not an online person, not a techie person. But I think it was just that absolute need to be able to do it because I couldn't, I couldn't be running around to networking groups and, you know, meeting other people with, with these small kids at home. Online was really the only way that I could do it. So It taught me a lot, um, in the early stages. It taught me a lot about spamming, what you shouldn't do versus what you should do. Um, and it taught me resilience. It also taught me that I definitely don't want to spend my life online and there has to be easier ways to do this. And it also taught me the benefit of getting things right so I don't spend my life online doing stuff that's not sales-focused. Um, but what it really showed me as well is the importance of, you know, meaningful marketing and making sure that it's meaningful for you so it makes money. It's meaningful for the person that you're helping, um, and it's meaningful for your life, like, for you to be able to enjoy your life.

Yeah, we're so blessed, right, to be able to run a business online and to be able to track people and not have to leave the house. Like, I love it. I love that fact, uh, and wow, like, I, I think that juxtaposition of, like, having to, like, the pressure of, like, having to make it work and figure it all out along, but also starting from 2008 in the social space, like back then, like happy days when you could create organic reach. So good. And so much has changed since that. And I think that like weaving it back to like 2026 now, that also this high need for meaningfulness when it comes to our marketing is so incredibly important as well. I'm imagining you're seeing so much.

Yeah, look, you know, everybody's so excited with AI and everything. And, you know, as people were excited after COVID with getting online and being online all the time. But I think more than anything, people are craving connection. So because there's so much fake out there, people more than anything are actually wanting to connect on a meaningful level with people. So I think this is a great opportunity for business owners. So whilst we use AI and we love AI and there's a place for it, we make sure that there's also space for in our marketing, real true authenticity, mistakes, you know, wearing no makeup when you're doing your Facebook Live, um, and just being really authentic. Um, and I think there's really a craving, craving for people to actually have that still. And what we're finding is that there's, it's, it's actually more, um, accepting and people are more likely to actually engage with you if you do actually have that in your marketing. Mm-hmm.

I, I 1000% agree with you. I was just having a conversation with one of my groups this morning and one of the questions that came through was, what are your thoughts on using AI to replicate new photos? So like you have a professional photo shoot and you have some great photos and then she was like, you know, I could go and create 100 other photos with this. I'm like, yeah, you could. But what is that doing to your trust factor? Like, is that going to serve your audience? Are they going to trust you if you do that? You need to consider these things. And I 100% agree with you. There's places where we can use AI that's going to be so beneficial. And I really want to talk about this too, about, because I'm imagining that's also supporting your concept around like having marketing run without it causing you to burn out. Because as much as we love social media and it serves the growth of our business, it can be really overwhelming. It can be like, it feels like we're on it all the time. So I, that conversation around authenticity, I think is so incredibly important of like determining that need for like, where do you play with AI that serves the growth of your business, but how do you then keep it authentic? So I love that also that weaves together with, with your messaging as well.

Yeah, look, at the end of the day, I always say it comes down to the human intelligence that you put into it. So I think it's really important for people to work out what is your personal branding and what is your business branding and what are your values and how do you actually want to be seen online? I mean, I joke but not joke. I tell the story all the time. My goal was to become a 6-figure business without wearing high heels or makeup. Like, that was my goal, my personal brand. And if you go on and have a look, like, I've massively surpassed that whilst doing that. Like, um, and that was a goal of mine, and that was part of my personal brand where competitors have gone in a different direction, and that's okay. There is a person for everyone, um, and that's, you know, of course, having that abundance mindset. But it is on being clear on what that is so that when you are talking to AI, you can actually prompt it. You're not trusting AI to come up with that blindly for you. You are actually feeding it the human intelligence. And I think this is where the procrastination, the burnout, and the overwhelm can come in is when people go down this rabbit hole of AI where it's like asking for feedback and audit this and should I do another lead magnet funnel and what's another growth strategy and should I do an AI photo shoot and they're doing all these things, but then none of it is actually sales or strategy focused. They're just doing all these things and they're getting overwhelmed, um, with all the information that's coming at them and they're not actually ever completing anything. So it just becomes shelf help and overwhelm. And I actually did a, we were talking about this the other day in a training where we were talking about how there is so much, uh, AI is causing so much procrastination at the moment due to overwhelm. And it really is because people are going in there blindly and they're not actually using it correctly. They're not giving it the necessary information it needs in order for it to actually be able to perform well. And then also people are not taking it and now going and applying it. They're just going down the rabbit hole. Create, create, create.

Yes. Oh my God. So much. And the amount of times that you end up creating, like, I will copy and paste some stuff from, from ChatGPT across to a Google Doc and then it just stays in the Google Doc.

Forever.

So I, I'm 100% agree with you. That overwhelm piece is so incredibly important. So I'd love to hear you share a little bit about what are some of the foundations that we should be focusing on when it comes to your marketing before we even go to any form of AI, right? Like you're bringing in the human intelligence, yes, but I'm sure there's some foundational pieces when it comes to the marketing side of things before we even go to AI. What do you take your clients through?

Yeah, look, I, I love this. So yeah, before you go to AI, before you customize your ChatGPT channel, before you even go onto social media, there are a couple of key fundamentals that need to be in place. And, and, and we just discussed it briefly, but you need to know who you are and how you wanna be seen online. Mm-hmm. Um, and that's your personal brand. Then you need to decide what is the business and what is the business's point of difference. Cuz marketing's not about what you do that's the same as everyone else. It's what you do that's different. So for me, it's around really sitting down and, you know, once you've worked out your personal brand, now actually look at your business brand and go, what are our differentiators? What is everyone else doing, but what is it that we do that is different? Because that is what we're going to be using in our marketing. So it's really important to come up with that. The third thing is then to look at your offer. So what is your juice? Like, what is your, your glitter? Like, if you were to be hit by a bus, everyone at your funeral would stand up and go, she could not shut up about this. She always had a way about, you know, being able to do this. Like, what is that juice or that glitter? Because the thing is, if it doesn't light up your soul, it's not going to be meaningful to you. And you're not going to enjoy marketing it. So when people say to me, oh, um, I hate marketing, I hate going online, I hate talking to people, I go, you probably don't like what you're selling or how you're selling it or confidence in doing it, or you don't like the audience that you're selling to. So there's a disconnect there. So yeah, so number 3 would be definitely looking at, you know, firstly what lights up your soul because you've got to enjoy it as well, but also what is somebody then prepared to pay you for. So for me, it's around that desirable offer Like, what is that desirable offer that you could package together that somebody would happily pay the amount of money that you want for it, you know? And what is it? So it's desirable for you because you enjoy it, it's desirable for them because it actually solves a problem that they need, um, and they're happy to pay you for that. And once you have that desirable offer, going online is just so much easier. So foundations, we've got, yeah, you, your personal brand. Two, your, um, is your business differentiators. 3 would be your desirable offer, and it's gotta be desirable for you and for them. And the 4th one then is looking at, um, your content plan. So for me, it's around how are you going to be able to effectively communicate to your audience out there? So you've gotta know that audience exceptionally well, and a lot of people undervalue the importance of this. But if you don't really know what their pain is, what their aspiration is, or how to talk to them in their language, not your language, you're going to struggle to be talking to them. It's going to be like you're talking French to them when they are, you know, English. It's going to be terrible. So you've got to make sure that you're very clear on who they are, the language that they use, the key messages that you have so that you can connect with them in your content plan. And the last part then is really looking at, you know, what is the overall strategy? Where are you taking them to? Because the number one goal of your marketing is to get a qualified lead and convert them into a sale. Like, that is what it is. It's not make a sale, it's always a lead and then a sale. It drives me nuts when people say, I just want the sale. That's not it. Like, the F word is, is funnel, and it's always follow-up and follow-through. So it's always around what is the outcome. It's not just about foreplay on social media and then no happy ending. You have to get them off social media and into your pipeline. So So it really is then looking at, you know, how do I get those people off? And that, that's obviously, you know, your tactic. So is it gonna be a webinar? Is it gonna be an event? Is it gonna be online or in person? Is it gonna be a lead magnet? Is it gonna be a quiz? Is it gonna be a book a call? And I honestly believe there needs to be multiple different ways to do that. Um, you know, podcast for us being this, I call this partnership marketing. Um, because, you know, we're in a partnership right now. We're in front of each other's audiences and we're talking to each other's audiences and, um, And, and now we're in front of each other's audience. So this is like a, you know, growth strategy for both of us. Yeah. So it's like looking at the overall, you know, content plan, which a lot of people do. They go straight to the creative part and the content part and they go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah online. But the number one rule is to get them off. Yeah. Get them off through a lead magnet funnel and then continue that conversation till you convert them into a sale. And that's the follow-up and follow-through principle. And if people aren't doing that, They just go looking for more leads. They're not ever, ever converting anyone. They're just looking for new leads.

Yeah. And I think as well, like, that happens if they've gone straight to ChatGPT to uncover or to create the content instead of actually doing all of that work. So I just want to, like, reiterate to anyone that's listening, everything that Chantal just spoke about was before AI. Like, before AI. And I think that it's a great tool and I'm loving it, but I think sometimes people are just outsourcing so much of their own inner knowledge. And they're outsourcing the stuff that they need to be doing in order to really get clear on their offers, really get clear on their audience, and have those conversations. Like, 2 market research conversations can give you so much more information than any ChatGPT could. And I'm such a big believer of that, of like developing those connections, those relationships. But also, like, like you said before, like, get it in their language, right? And, and then also, I think the other thing that comes into play, like what you were saying about with the desirable offer, You're right. It's so, it's so true. It does have to be something that you are passionate about because if you're not passionate about it, you're going to be able to talk about it for the rest of your life. And people feel that. People really do feel when you're not passionate about it or that you feel like you're just phoning it in. And I think that ChatGPT or any type of AI can feel like you're just phoning in your marketing instead of actually getting really different. And I do love how you shared, like, what did you say? You said marketing is what you do that's different. And I think that without all of those foundational pieces that you just mentioned, you're not doing anything different and the content's literally being regurgitated around the market of exactly the same shit, right? Like it's exactly the same and we're so sick of it.

No, it's so true. It's so true. Yeah, I love that. And, and at the end of the day, like AI is there as a tool, but at the end of the day, it's never gonna know the things that you know about your audience and your offer. It's always going to be cold. Mm-hmm. Um, I often compare it to like if you get a virtual assistant, you know, so many people are going offshore, getting a virtual assistant, or even if you just got an in-house marketing person and you say to the in-house marketing person, I help people over 40 with their marketing, and that's how you communicate it to your staff member. If you communicated that to your staff member, your staff member would take that knowledge because they wouldn't have all the other deeper knowledge that you have, but you've communicated in such a superficial way that that person would now go and run with that in their marketing. Now, AI is exactly like a virtual assistant. It's exactly like an employee. So whatever you're prompting into ChatGPT or any of the platforms, if you don't take the time to really dig deep and do those foundational things and prompt it with that foundational stuff, which you can also do when you customize your ChatGPT, at the end of the day, it's only going to give you the super— it'll only give you the level of what you're giving it. And I think it's so important to know that. And this is why if you're gonna be lazy in your business, like honestly, I, it drives me nuts when I see lazy people in their business. Um, you know those people, those people who go, oh my God, I hate being online and I hate marketing and I'm too busy to do marketing. And I'm like, well, if you're too busy to do marketing, you don't deserve to have new clients. Yeah. You don't deserve new clients. You don't have time for new clients. You don't deserve new time. Just go get a job. Right. So it's the same thing with AI. I think it's just important to note that, you know, if you want to be a professional person inside your business, put your big girl pants on or your big boy pants on and, you know, do the right thing. Do the things that need to be done in order to get a result better than anyone else. And that's not just sitting on ChatGPT.

So agreed. So agreed. So talk to us through like what you're noticing as well now that we're coming into 2026. Like you, you mentioned like obviously that connection and that humanness. Is so incredibly important in creating your meaningful marketing. What else are you noticing that you're finding is really like landing for people that's really working for your clients that is so incredibly important for 2026?

I mean, you're going to love what I say because it validates you as in what you do, but it is getting support and getting a coach and having that accountability because we all have AI, right? And a lot of people would say to me, Chantal, aren't you worried people can just go and in 2 minutes, you know, ask for a marketing strategy and have a marketing strategy? 'You worried about your job?' I'm like, 'No, I'm not.' Like, people are craving working with a human being and getting direction, clear direction and support. But not only that, and you value this too, and this is why I said it's a big pat on the back for you, you, you with your mindset, um, it's all the other things that come with that humanness of, 'I'm feeling tired today, I'm not feeling creative today, I'm really struggling with my time management. I don't know how to be productive. I had a fight with my kid today. And it's the humanness that having a coach or that support, which is really, really beneficial when you're feeling so isolated and alone in running your business. So I'm seeing a lot of that and I'm seeing a lot of, you know, I recently had a lady, she online, she found me. Stalked me, saw we had a few people in common. We had a sales call and she said to me, can I talk to one of your clients? I don't want to just see your 300 reviews, I want to talk to someone. I said fine, gave her one of my clients, and my client, um, spoke to her, whatever. And when, when she got off the call, because I had no idea what she said, when she got off the call, um, and this lady signed up, her name's Jane. And when Jane signed up, I said, hey Jane, by the way, what did Michelle say? Like, I was so curious. Like, she goes, 'Oh my gosh,' she goes, 'she was talking about how, like, you've been so supportive with her son as a single— like, because she's a single parent— how that she's had, like, really, like, bad mindset days, and you jumped on a call at 5 o'clock in the morning and you had a chat.' And, you know, and I'm not encouraging this sort of behavior, but at that time I was free and I was happy to do it, um, you know. But, and she just said, she goes, 'Not that I need any of those things,' but she said, 'because I'm looking for processes, I'm looking for direction.' And she owns a massive company with a big team not that I'm looking like for any of that, but she said it was just the fact that it sounded like you were like a best friend in business. And she went, oh my gosh, it sounded like not only do I need direction, not only do I need, you know, this direction, support, process, systems, but I also want somebody who's got my back, you know. And, um, so yeah, I'm definitely seeing a lot of that. And I suppose that's probably why, like, I went on and did my trauma cert and my breathwork cert over the last years, because I just noticed how with overwhelm and procrastination, a lot of people are losing creativity when it comes to their marketing.

Um, and even also like taking that to the next stage as well, like learning to check in with yourself of what is pushing your nervous system out and what's actually keeping you in alignment and noticing what's for you and what's not for you. Like, I even think that that's really incredibly important as well with AI and with anything that we're doing, that having that ability to like do some breathwork and check back in with yourself and tune into what feels right for you, to then be able to make really positive decisions from that place, is so incredibly important and essential in this time, in time in business, because of that overwhelm and that, you know, everything is causing us to be pushed outside of our capacity, or it's setting our nervous system off into feeling unsafe, right? With all the, the news and all the things that are happening in the world, like, it can be so hard to even keep yourself just in really good positive energy for your business, which is so incredibly important to do in order for you to maintain and not burn out, right?

Yeah, look, 100%. And you know, with marketing and with business, with running your business, it's— some of the stuff is tough because the easy stuff that's easy for you is not the stuff that you need to do more of. You need to be doing more of the stuff that you don't like to do and the challenging stuff and the hard stuff because that's the stuff that you don't know that's going to actually get you to the next level. That is the stuff what the other people ahead of you have done in order to get where they are. You know, for example, you know, jumping on a sales call or, you know, uh, retargeting people in an email list. Like, there's some uncomfortable things that you're gonna have to do, which is gonna push that your nervous system. So, you know, ChatGPT is not gonna be there to say, hey, listen, you know, how you feeling right now? Yes, you know, validate what you're doing, but also challenge you with a few things and get you to look at yourself and you know, and just, and be that support system that, that, that you need and just give you that sense of safety, like you're not alone, you know, and you're not doing it for them, you're just obviously just directing them. And as Michelle would say, I call her on her shit, right? So it's like, you know, ChatGPT doesn't do that. My, my girlfriend, I was out the other day and I asked my girl, I asked Andy, who's my ChatGPT, I asked him something and when I got off, Fiona said to me, oh my gosh, your ChatGPT is such a kiss-ass. Like, he's such a kiss-ass. He literally kisses your ass.

It's so funny, isn't it? Like, it's so true. Like, it can be either that way or it can be so masculine that as a woman in business, you actually sometimes just need someone to be like, hey, take a nap. Like, you need to just take a break, step away, have a break before you come back and make that decision because you don't want to make that decision in the emotions that you're in. Like, ChatGPT is so programmed from a masculine point of view that I'm like, you're never going to get that supportive mind, like, supportive coach that, you know, you need. So I 100% agree with you.

So good.

Um, so talk to us a little bit about, like, we've talked about the overwhelm piece, but when it comes to marketing, it's such a beast. Like, honestly, it is such a beast. We feel like it's something we always have to be doing. How do you support your clients by building something that's sustainable, something that is actually something that people can do without burning out or getting to a stage where you're like, I have to get off socials, or I have to just turn everything off because I'm so done. Like, what do you do to support people through that?

Yeah, so this is a great question. So often I'll say to people, um, you know, like, their strategy, their marketing strategy, and their software and their systems is like an irritable bowel syndrome. Like, it's like an absolute knot, like an elastic ball of knot. as opposed to, you know, just a simple straight line of this is what you do, this is what happens, this is when you get a result, and you all live happily ever after. So I don't know if it's the fact that I had twins and then another kid, and I don't know if it's the fact that I did triathlons, I do triathlons, which is like 3 different sports next to each other and then put them all together. Um, but what I like is I like frameworks and I like structure, because if you've got frameworks and structure, it gives me a sense of control. Okay, which I absolutely love. So I find, especially when I work with my clients, time blocking is a huge important part of this process. It's like if you're a business owner, you're going to have to dedicate 10 hours a week to your marketing. If you are a virtual assistant, it's going to be 20 to 40 hours usually. Okay, that's what we're finding in the marketplaces. Business owners will have to do 10 hours and they still freak out at that. If it's a virtual assistant, it'll have to be 20 to 40 hours, which is half day or full day. And then it's about looking at the time of the day that you wanna do it. So for example, like if you're more creative in the morning, do it in the morning. If you're not great in the afternoon, don't go and pack, don't go and time block as, uh, you know, to go and set up a lead magnet funnel in like an automation platform at the last day after you've just done sales calls and coaching all day. Like don't do that to yourself. Like set yourself up for success, not failure. So when you look at it and you go, right, well, if I'm a business owner and I've got 10 hours to do, there's 6 key areas that you've gotta be focusing on every single week. So once they've been set up and audited and you've got a strategy, they then need to be managed. So there's 6 things on— I've written them here so I don't lose them. But number 1 is Google. So on an ongoing basis, you've gotta make sure that you're taking care of your Googles. Don't worry about your keegles, worry about your Googles, right? And Google is YouTube as well. So you wanna make sure that Google and YouTube, that you're satisfying Google because Google is the number 1 search engine. So you don't have to pay for ads, but you do have to make sure that you are managing your Google My Business platforms. And you're doing the right things on each of those platforms. The second one obviously is your website. So people go, ah, I've got a website guy. Well, I can tell you right now, your website guy is screwing you. Okay? Most of them are. They take money every single month and they do very little. It's very important for you to get control over your website. Make sure that you've got the right words on your website, which is SEO words. Make sure your customer journey's right. Your flow is really good. You've got multiple lead captures on there. and you are checking the backend to make sure your plugins and everything are working. Uh, but so your website is an ongoing thing. You also wanna be tracking your website, like running heat maps and, and an SEO, um, you know, an SEO audit every month so that you can check, you know, how you're ranking. So website's another one that you've gotta be doing, right? So number 3 then would be social media. So that when I talk about social media, it's all the know, like, and trust stuff. So all the trust builders, all the authentic stuff. What, what are your values? What are your key messages? What are you doing out there to educate people on your points of difference and what it is? So why you, why this, right? Then we go into lead generation. So lead generation are the sales-focused activities. Is that, you know, following up with sales calls? Is that promoting a lead magnet funnel? Is that running a webinar? Is that a book a call? Is that appointment setting? What are your actual weekly sales-focused tasks. And this is where a lot of people don't do this, right? Because this is the stuff that like freaks everyone out. So they do that, ah, spend 10 hours in Canva this week, as opposed to if you've got 10 hours in marketing, and most business owners won't like the sound of that, but you cannot do less. Um, you know, you would be hoping that 3, 4 hours of that's going to be sales-focused activities, right?

Lead generation, being visible. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, like, you know, so, well, I like to say Content is the know, like, and trust is the visibility. Lead generation is sales-focused. It means converting. It means closing that gap, getting them to the end. So then we've got email marketing. So now that we've got those leads in there, how do we continue to talk to them, build that know, like, and trust? And we do that through automations, and we also do that through newsletters, newsletters. After email marketing, we've got partnership marketing. So are you getting into the media? Are you doing awards? What about B2B? What about podcasts, co-blogging, co-eventing, joint ventures, competitions? These are all partnership marketing ideas. So there's those 6 areas that need to happen like on an ongoing basis. And on top of it, you should be allowing time in your diary as well for training. So at least 1 to 2 hours of training per week with action steps. So whenever you train on something, you make sure that you've got 3 to 5 action steps you're going to take from that training that you actually action. You've also got reporting. So on an ongoing basis, you need to be reporting and looking at your analytics and data at least, um, once a month. Um, and there's one more that I can't think of right now. It'll come to me later. Um, but yeah, you wanna make sure that, that you've got all of those things in place. So there's 9 things that are in place, and you wanna make sure that you're doing them on an ongoing basis. So having that time-blocked in your calendar, maybe all in different colors, is now going to give you the discipline of this is what I need to do in order to get to the other side. But bearing in mind you've already audited what you've got, you've already set up what you need, and you already have a strategy and a plan. That's the implementation part. The implementation part is how do I do this all the time? And that is having it in your diary.

And I'm sure that anyone listening to this, they're already in overwhelm.

How do they go, what?

Going to that of like, oh my God, 10 hours, uh, plus also all the things that need to make sure that they're across. How do you maintain that within your business? So you must have a team, like there's obviously things that you do and parts that your team do. You talk us through how you maintain that so it's sustainable for you and you're not burning out.

Yeah, sure. So great question. So the number one rule is no virtual assistant until you're a six-figure business. Okay, that is the rule. Sorry guys, it is a rule. These people that are spending money in outsourcing before they've actually learned and set up things properly themselves, you should be investing in yourself and your setup and your understanding of your business. When you're a 6-figure business, go and get your first virtual assistant to manage 20 hours a week of, um, of the marketing. And the reason for that is, guys, and I know all of you are like, what? The reason for that is so that you don't get screwed because people will come in and go, yeah, I can do lead gen, I can do appointment setting, yeah, I can do sales, I can do whatever. If you haven't actually built a 6-figure business and if it's not working before they come in and if you do not understand it and if you do not have funnels in place, you're not gonna be able to look at what they're actually doing and see whether or not it fits as part of your entire ecosystem. And guys, I see this every single week, so I'm not BSing you. Every single week people come to me and they've invested so much money and they're further behind than they've ever been because they were going for quick fixes. Yeah, so that's getting a virtual assistant too soon, doing Facebook ads too soon. All right, if it is not working without ads, it will not work with ads. End of story. It makes sense. Right? Why would you put money on something that's broken and it's not going to work? So unless you've got heaps of money to throw down the toilet, go for it. I know people who've lost tens of— there was a lady, when was it, beginning of this year, $30,000 in Facebook advertising. She doesn't even have her email marketing set up.

What?

And the company— she went to an ads team, they said, don't worry, it's gonna work, put in, put in another 5 grand, put in another 5 grand. Put in another whatever.

How do I sleep at night?

And $30 grand, $30 grand down the toilet. She had to get rid of a staff member. This is a true story. She couldn't employ a staff member anymore, had to get rid of a staff member. Okay, $30,000. She doesn't even have email marketing in place. So another rule: no paid advertising unless you've got email marketing in place. And I'm not talking about Mailchimp, all right? Mailchimp's too much of a baby for it. So that's not what to do at first. And now what I do, so what I've learned the hard way and what I see all the time. Um, so what I do now is I am now, okay, bearing in mind I've had my business for 15 years, right? I have a social media and email marketing manager. She's an Australian. She manages my social media and my emails, and she also does a select few of our clients. We don't do a lot of stuff for other people. I think we're about 8 clients. But so she does that and that just keeps her going with mine. However, her and I meet for 1 hour a week. We plan out the emails and the content and the overview and then she finalizes and puts it together because we've got templates, frameworks and we've customized our ChatGPT as well, right? And my friends always laugh. They go into socials and go, I can see that was her post. Oh, I could see that was your post. So like, they, they try to tell the difference and guys, you can, but there's enough of me in there that I feel it's balanced, right? So that's her. Then I've got Brian. So Brian is, he's a 40-hour virtual assistant per week. He manages my software company, which is HighLevel, which is called, um, OBM Hub. So we needed somebody dedicated for that, but he also manages my calendar, my emails, and then any of our tech questions. We've also got a WordPress website as well as our GoHighLevel website. So he manages all of that for me. So I needed somebody who could do that. And then recently this year, I got a 2IC. So my 2IC, she is doing— she's on, she's on the phone, because where I was neglecting everything over the last 2 years is when I'm doing podcasts, when I'm speaking, I'm traveling, when I'm doing all this stuff, I cannot be doing sales calls, I cannot be following up. So we're getting in more leads all the time, but nobody was on the phone phoning them and having conversations. So Joe came in and did that for us this year. So that's my team of unicorns. I've got 3, 2 of them are part-time and 1 of them's full-time. But you know, my business needs that, it sustains that, we've met our financial obligations to get that. And guess what? I meet with them. We have frameworks, we have structures. So we meet every Monday for a planning session for an hour all together. Each of us says what we're doing in the business, including me. I say what my role is for this week. So I'll say, I'm gonna be on this podcast so I can build know, like, and trust so we can generate more leads. So we don't just say the task, but we say the outcome of the task. It's very important that when you're outsourcing or delegating something to someone, they understand the outcome. And then that's the planning session for the week. On a Friday, we have a review session. This is what we did. This is what worked. This is what didn't work. Our open rates, our click-throughs, um, answer any other questions, what were our wins, what were things we can improve on. And because we've got project management systems in place, the re— everything else, like I don't hear anything else. I just work and I do me and everything else is running around in the background.

Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I think it's always so good to hear the insights of what's happening behind the scenes because we just don't get to see it often. And then secondly, I'd love for you to speak to, because I, I agree, like I think I hear a lot of stories as well, people outsourcing their marketing way too early. Um, and then also outsourcing it without being hands-on at all is also another one that I hear a lot of where I'm like, what are you doing? Like, why? Um, if you are the vision of the visionary of the business, you should be driving it. So like, I'd love to hear, like you mentioned, like your role, like your role is obviously the visibility piece and the sales element and the like, know, like, and trust. How do you define your role within the business? Like, is there something that you think about when you when you think, okay, how am I approaching this month ahead? How do you approach your role?

Yeah, so right in the very beginning, when I first started, obviously as a business owner, solopreneur, you're everything, right? And then following a couple of different systems in that. So for example, I've got a good friend, Deborah Chantry Taylor, who does EOS, the Entrepreneur's Operating System. And they talk about, you know, having integrators and having visionaries. So when I understood that there's different parts, When you first start, obviously you're everything. And then it's about what do I love doing and what brings me joy and what really works in the business. And that is me stepping into my role as the educator, as the strategist, as the motivational speaker, as an MC, you know, running my podcast, doing events. That is all the stuff that generates the leads. But I needed, I needed people to catch what I'm throwing. So the first person that I actually brought on was the social media and the email marketing person. Because when I was throwing in leads, I needed to make sure that from social media to email, the first thing that was happening was that they were being retargeted and encouraged to book a call, else I'd just be generating leads and there was nobody catching those leads here. And I was doing the sales calls in the very beginning, right? So that was my role. So then from there, we, we did that. That was really important. Um, but then we had the digital marketing stuff, and this is a good time for me to bring in what a freelancer is because a lot of businesses keep saying they're going out and they're looking for a virtual assistant. When they're looking for a virtual assistant, they're not looking for the— they say they're looking for a virtual assistant. What they mean is they're looking for a freelancer. So let me describe the difference. So whether or not it's Australian or offshore, it doesn't matter. But a lot of people get this wrong because they go out and they go, I want 2 hours a week, I want 5 hours a week, I want 10 hours a week. What that means is, is that other person is doing 20 other jobs and has 30 other projects and 50 other obligations and 60 other things on their mind whilst they're managing your task. And I think it's really important to know that freelancers are generalists, usually. They know a little bit of everything and they are working on 1,000 different projects. And if you go online, you'll see it all the time. People say, I've waited months for this, I never got it, it was never done properly. Because they've gone out, they're looking for help, and it's a freelancer. When someone says, I'm looking for a virtual assistant, they really should be saying that they're looking for, um, their personal own virtual assistant. And that means that person is going to grow with the business. Okay, they are the ones then that are happy to do training to improve their role in your business. They are the ones who will look at your analytics, they will problem solve, they will look at what's working and not working and optimize it. Now, when you go to a freelancer, that's not going to happen. So when you— it usually happens like when you're a 5-figure business owner and you go, I really need help, I don't know what I'm doing, I really need help. It's because you need a strategy. It's not because you need— you need strategy or support. You don't need a freelancer or virtual assistant. So when you go out and you get someone else that's a generalist, they come into your business and they potter around and they do a couple of little things but they're never gonna look at the entire ecosystem and they're never gonna look at the entirety of it. They never go, it's not, they're not invested in your business because once you've paid them, they're done. Right? So it's really important that business owners know the difference between a freelancer and a virtual assistant because my second hire was, so my first hire was email marketing and social media. My second hire was the digital marketing one because that I was outsourcing it to freelancers like web developers and people that would go and on a project base. They would do stuff, you know, to my website and do— and it would take forever. Things wouldn't happen in time. I'd go into the backend and notice that plugins hadn't been checked even though, like, you're paying for a monthly maintenance. And I went, I want control of my, my vehicles. This is my traffic, my income, my vehicle. I don't understand it. I don't, like, know it. So this is when I went, right, I'm getting my second hire. I want this person specifically to have digital marketing skills so that they could be really focused on SEO website, the back end of the funnel. So not just the content, which was the social media and the email, but more advanced email marketing and conversions and CRM and digital marketing. So that was my second hire. And then my third hire was to get me off the phones. So get me off the phones and to get someone else there. Um, and then of course putting a structure in place, meeting with them. At least we meet Mondays and Fridays. And then also the other one is working bees. So working bees is when they meet with each other for an hour each a week so they learn each other's roles and they also support each other or ask each other questions. Or, and, or working bees with me. So for example, Chantal, we've got an award coming up. I'm writing the award for you. I've already done some of it. Let's sit down now and have a working bee and we'll go over it together.

I love that concept. That's such a cool idea. And I think it's so cool that then they speak to each other because you really are then developing a beautiful team culture rather than just be individuals working in different parts of your business and then not talking and it's not benefiting the overall. So I love that concept. That's so cool. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. My goodness. So talk to us about 2026 and what's next for you. What are you stepping into next for 2026?

Yeah, I'm in work mode. So if you've been following me sort of the last 2 years, years, I was very— I was doing a lot of traveling, a lot of charity, a lot of personal development, which has been amazing, absolutely amazing. But I made the decision that if I was going to invest in my salesperson in my business, like if you invest in any team member, you don't think that you're just going to invest in the team member and just get on with it, like, and carry on doing what you're doing. For me, I decided that I was going to spend the next you know, year really digging in, making sure that person was successful in that role and just making sure that I've got my unicorns and my systems and really just take a back seat for a year. And I'm happy to do that. And if you follow me on socials, you see that you'll actually message me and say, "Chantal, is that you taking a back seat with the whole, like, traveling stuff?" Because I still travel quite a bit. But I decided that this year was really about just working um, not just smarter, but I was also going to work a bit harder this year because the last 2 years I did really have this laptop lifestyle kind of mentality, and it was great. But if you want to do a jump, like if you want to jump in your business and go to the next level, I've got to get uncomfortable. I'm gonna have to learn some new shit. I'm gonna have to do some new uncomfortable systems and strategy stuff. I'm gonna fail a lot, like in this year. I know it, it's coming. Every time I've had a jump, I've failed and have to pick myself up and carry on again. So I prepared myself and went, right, this year that's what I'm doing. Am I excited about it?

I am. That's so good. And I totally agree with you. Like, people don't realize, I think, sometimes about how much that willingness to fail is so incredibly important to take yourself to the next level, because so many people are just scared to even be seen failing, or just to be seen to just not get it perfect. And it just holds people back so, so much. So I love that mindset of like going into the year of like, I'm gonna fail a bunch of times and see what happens. As long as I pick myself back up, we're good. I love that. And so, um, a couple last couple final questions for you. If you were, uh, talking to someone and a business owner really wanted to take their marketing to the next level, what would you suggest they focus on?

Definitely their current— I mean, I always start with current state. It's where you are how you got there, why it's happening, um, and what needs to change. Often people will, like, if they're honest with themselves, they will come up with it. It's the same as like saying to somebody, you're overweight and you want to lose weight, like, how did you get here? What do you need to do? Most of them will say, uh, I really shouldn't be having that chocolate, I really should drink more water, I really need— if you actually ask, if people are honest with themselves, they'll actually come up with that themselves. If you're really, really honest, they'll be able to look at it. And possibly that's what I did with myself around 2026. I looked at and went, honestly, if I want to do a jump, I'm gonna have to— I'm gonna have to do this next thing of being uncomfortable. Like, you know, so I think, yeah, just ask yourself some really honest questions, and then you've got a decision to make. So at the end of the day, like, the quality of your life is really the quality of the decisions that you make. And every day where there's opportunities, and every day there's an opportunity for you to make decision about something. Yes, I'm going to go to the gym. No, I'm not going to go to the gym. Yes, I am going to put marketing into my diary. No, I'm not going to put marketing into my diary. Um, you know, so there's decisions that you get to make, and at the end of the day, it's like, if you're going to do it yourself, great, go put it in your diary and do it yourself. Like, put it in your diary. 10 hours a week, I put in your diary. And if you say you don't have time to do 10 hours of marketing a day, a week, you don't have time for new clients. So, um, just stop your business right now. Um, sorry, hard truth. But if you, if you really, really like, you want to make a jump, then I think the important thing to note is that there's, there's nothing wrong with getting support. There's nothing wrong with getting help. Um, when I started out and became a triathlete, I was doing 3 disciplines plus putting them together, and I was getting injured. I was getting burnout. I was just getting up every day and I was cycling, running, swimming, cycling, running, swimming, and it was just like exhausting, and I was not enjoying it at all. And when I suddenly went, you know what, this is ridiculous, I'm just going to get a freaking coach and I'm going to get a plan. And every day I woke up and I just followed the plan, and I went, ah, today I've got to get up and do this and do that. Didn't question it, just followed it. Suddenly I'm like, I became third. I came third in South Africa and I was 80th in the world. And it's like, and I was enjoying it because I didn't have to think about it. I just could follow the plan and it was so much easier. So there's no shame in that. Um, you know, there's no shame in that. And a lot of people go, I don't want to invest money in it. And I'm like, well, you're never staying. You, you aren't. You are where you are and you're either moving forwards or backwards. You're never actually staying where you are because prices are going up. Things are getting more expensive. Times are getting harder. They're not getting easier. So there's never going to be a good time to do it. And if you don't invest in it, but what's your other option to carry on doing what you've done? And 3 years down the line, I mean, I spoke to a lady the other day, we called her 3 years ago, she inquired and she was like, no, no, no, I don't need you, I'll just set up a lead magnet funnel and I'll just go do my website and whatever. So we called her, she's done nothing in 3 years.

Goodness.

So what is the cost of 3 years doing nothing?

Like, you gotta pay in time, right? If you don't pay with money, you're gonna pay with time.

She could have bought, like, she could have got help, she could have signed up, she could have got help, and with you know, 8 weeks to 5 months, she could have had it all set up and ready to go. 3 years later, like, yes. So at the end of the day, you have that decision to make. Like, you get to make that decision for your life, and it's okay. Some people are happy where they are. Yeah, I don't judge people. I'm like, some people are really happy just being where they are. They like to stay where they are. But there's others that have, have got goals. So Amazing.

Well, thank you so much for everything you shared with us today. Can you share with everyone how they can find you and connect with you?

Yeah, sure. So if you have a look at any of your favorite podcast platforms, you'll be able to find me on the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. You can have a look at the episode that we did together as well. The website is onlinebusinessmarketing.com.au, and if you head to free resources, we've got a whole lot of free resources there. But there's a really cool one called Marketing Gap Quiz, which will identify what your gap is, because you must have a gap. If it's not working, there will be a gap, right? So hopefully this will be able to help you.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Chantal. It's been such a joy chatting with you today.

It's an absolute pleasure.