The Power of Trusting in Your Vision w/Carol Kabaale

Carol Kabaale shares her journey from a corporate job in hospitality to becoming the founder of her own marketing agency focused on ad strategy and email list growth. 

Driven by burnout and a desire for more freedom and presence in her personal life, Carol made a bold leap, quitting her job and pursuing certification in marketing. She now specializes in helping female coaches and podcasters build sustainable businesses beyond social media by creating intentional email marketing systems. 

Carol emphasizes mindset shifts, trusting one's intuition, and building owned audiences rather than relying solely on social platforms.

Key Takeaways with Timestamps

• (02:08) – Taking the leap: Carol quit her job without telling anyone and pursued a marketing certification to create a more intentional and present life.
• (03:36) – Lesson in entrepreneurship: Early struggles included underpricing, lack of systems, and burnout—lessons that helped her build a sustainable business.
• (05:23) – Own your audience: Carol stresses building email lists and communities outside of social media, which she describes as “borrowed land.”
• (07:31) – Ad strategy for podcasters: She suggests starting with a brand awareness campaign using short-form content from podcast episodes, with a clear call to action leading to a lead magnet.
• (13:26) – Biggest challenge: Carol’s hardest lesson was learning to trust herself instead of relying on others or constantly seeking new certifications.

🧠 "What you don’t change, you choose." ~ Carol Kabale

Connect with Carol: 

• Facebook ad readiness quiz - https://carolkabaale.com/quiz/
• Website: http://carolkabaale.com/
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/carolkabaale
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carolkabaale

Transcript

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:00)

My guest today is Carol Kabali. Welcome, Carol. I appreciate you.

Carol Kabaale (00:06)

Thank you so much, Jin, for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:09)

Of course. Before we get into what to do, could you tell us who is Carol?

Carol Kabaale (00:15)

So a little bit about myself. I am a child of immigrant parents. My family came from Cuba and we relocated to South Africa. And while I was here, I had a pretty normal life. If you can say that I went to school, I went to university, ticking all the boxes as one should when one is a child of an immigrant, you know, just trying to keep your head down and keep going. And then I got a really nice fancy corporate job.

Carol Kabaale (00:42)

After I graduated and got my degree in business development, I worked for Hilton for a couple of years and I really loved the people, but honestly, I just felt like not in alignment. I felt like I was burnt out. I felt like I hated what I had to do every day. And it really clicked for me when I was like, this job is not really going to give me any freedom until I reach a certain age.

And to be honest, I'm a millennial. I'm one of those people. want instant gratification. And I was like, no, I can't wait till I'm 50 or until I'm 40 to have that salary, to have those days off so I can have more time with my partner and my family. it was divine intervention, if you will. My husband, who I had been dating for nine years, he proposed to me.

J. Rosemarie Francis (01:13)

Mm.

Hahaha!

Carol Kabaale (01:41)

And I'm like, yay, finally this man has proposed. I've been waiting nine years. And in that moment, truly Jen, I felt like, gosh, this is my moment to make a decision about how I want my life to be. Do I want to continue living past people, right? Because I worked in hospitality, in business development, missing out on important things like holidays and Christmas and birthdays.

J. Rosemarie Francis (01:43)

Haha!

lord.

Carol Kabaale (02:08)

Or do I want to be a more present person, especially as I was entering marriage? So with that came, okay, I want to be more present. I want to be a person with whom I can build. Without telling anyone, I quit my job. I quit, and I decided that I was going to do a certification in marketing. And in that, I learned that what I really liked the most was the ads portion of it.

because you get to make decisions based off data where the other side of marketing to me feels like more like, it looks pretty, let's do that. Or, the client said this. But with ads, it's really nice because the data tells you where to go and what to do next. So it's very black and white. So after I did that course, I started my agency and it wasn't easy. Like I just said previously, I quit my job.

J. Rosemarie Francis (02:47)

Right, yeah.

Carol Kabaale (03:07)

So I had like no comfy paycheck to fall back on. I also told no one in my family because I didn't want anyone to talk me out of it. And with that in mind, I racked up a whole bunch of debt trying to make this agency work. And about a year into it, I eventually told my husband because I mean, we were getting married, so I had to tell him eventually. And then we sat down and we're like, okay, how can we figure this out?

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:31)

You

Carol Kabaale (03:36)

And one of the things that I had to do is the clients that I was getting, was charging, I was way under priced. I was overworking. I had no boundaries. I had no systems, no structures. And with that, once we made those tweaks, it slowly started to get better. And that was eight years ago. So now I've had my own marketing agency for eight years. have a wonderful team that helps and supports me. And yeah, I'm just really. grateful that I took that leap.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:09)

my God, yeah, I love it. I love this story because, and you know, your age doesn't have anything to do with coming to the realization that you're in the wrong place and you're living someone else's life. And good for you that you discovered it before you got to 50 or 60, like a lot of people do, right? So that's amazing. And congratulations on following that path.

Carol Kabaale (04:29)

Yeah. Yes.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:37)

and not allowing anyone else to dirty your water because when you tell people what you're doing, everybody has an opinion, right? Yeah, so that's awesome. So tell us exactly what you do for your clients.

Carol Kabaale (04:45)

Right? So I help primarily female coaches who want to amplify their brand and their messaging. I help them build email lists and ecosystems outside of social media. Look, social media is great, but you're building on borrowed land. So if you are a person who has any type of show, like even a podcaster, right? Like if you're listening and you're like, my gosh, like I need to be on TikTok or I need to be on...

J. Rosemarie Francis (05:13)

Mm-hmm.

Carol Kabaale (05:23)

Instagram or reels or this or that even like with now, we don't even know if TikTok will stay, right? So now you've built this whole following on this platform for it to maybe be taken away. So it's really important and this is what I advocate for all my clients to build things like email lists, to build communities outside of socials so that they can nurture them and it can be their sandbox. It can be their rules. So that's kind of what I help people with.

J. Rosemarie Francis (05:35)

Yeah.

Okay, so so getting all those follows on social media I mean It's like fun, right? I mean, it's a lot of fun and it's exciting but doesn't really Do much to move the needle when it comes to our business, right? Okay. Thank you. So Give us a couple of tips then as podcasters since those are

Carol Kabaale (06:10)

Yes. Yes.

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:21)

you know, our main listeners of how we can transition from that mindset of, you know, I want the downloads, want the downloads, I want the downloads to, you know, I want the email, I the email, I want the email.

Carol Kabaale (06:35)

I'm telling you the email is worth more because once you have the email you can send them every single episode. You can stay top of mind and you can be the first thing that they think about. You know people check their emails every single day. I don't know one person who doesn't check their email and if you happen to be in their email they're excited. They're like yay it's Thursday it's podcast day. Yay I get to see that.

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:50)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Carol Kabaale (07:04)

So the first kind of campaign I would recommend is podcasters are spoiled for choice. They're like, honestly, you guys are, you make my life so much easier because you have so much content, right? Now the problem is that people are not seeing that content. You're relying on an algorithm, especially if you're using Facebook and Instagram, that is not built for you to succeed, you know? So.

J. Rosemarie Francis (07:15)

Mm-hmm. All

Carol Kabaale (07:31)

What I would say is you start off with a brand awareness or engagement campaign. The purpose of that campaign would be for those followers that you've spent so much time gathering, you can spend about like one or $2 a day running something like video views. So you can take this whole interview, for example, Jen, we could like break it up into little segments and then make those into reels and then people watch them for 15 seconds. And the call to action at the end would be like, if you found this interesting, go watch the full episode. So again, you are getting downloads, but it's structured. So that would be step number one. And then while they're listening, right, to the podcast, I would encourage people always, you must have a call to action. You must have a lead magnet. And that's where you'll get your emails from, right? It should be something that's very intuitive, something very easy for you to say and share with your listeners. And that's how it will grow.

J. Rosemarie Francis (08:03)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Carol Kabaale (08:29)

So that's the first campaign I would run. The second one, which I know is probably more applicable is you want those downloads, right? So you want those sales, you want the thing. I wouldn't start with that campaign. Firstly, because people are cold, they don't know you, they don't trust you yet, to acquire that person to take that action is going to cost so much more. So it's actually your cost per result. So how much it costs to get that person to come to you is actually gonna be a lot less.

J. Rosemarie Francis (08:36)

Mm-hmm.

Carol Kabaale (08:58)

if they're already a little bit warmed up. So running something like brand awareness first and making sure that people understand who you are when they see the second ad, right? It's like, that's Jen. I know Jen. my gosh. She wants me to watch her to watch this thing. she's doing that. let me go see what that is. she has a freebie. Let me give her my email because I know you, right? It's just like,

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:12)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Carol Kabaale (09:27)

Imagine you're at a bar, this is my favorite analogy, imagine you're at a bar and you meet someone, right? They look at you, you look at them, you guys flirt a little, you know, you're doing the things and then they come right up to you and they say, hey, will you marry me? You're like, I don't know about you Jen, but personally I would be like...

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:44)

Haha! Yep. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's a good one. I like that. Yeah.

Carol Kabaale (09:48)

I would be like, I don't know you. Yeah. So that's

the same way we have to treat our listeners to our podcasts. We have to get them to trust us, to know us a little bit. And then we have to ask for a little bit.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:59)

Yeah, awesome, I love it. I love that you bring that up because as a blogger, I can attest to the email marketing success, you know? And yeah, so I appreciate that, yeah. All right, so what is, yeah, what is Carol grateful for today?

Carol Kabaale (10:16)

Boom. It's amazing. Oh, I'm grateful for my husband. I really am. My husband is one of the best things I think God has given me. He was sent here to send to me, to guide me, and just to challenge me. Like sometimes I think that I can't do something and he's like, what do mean? Like, what are you talking about? So in my own life, there's been

Before I'd met my husband, there'd been years where I didn't have that level of support. I didn't have that. So I truly am grateful for the fact that I get to have that and I hope everybody gets to experience something similar. I really do.

J. Rosemarie Francis (11:08)

Yeah, those are the best kinds of husbands, The ones that are yours.

Carol Kabaale (11:11)

Yes, mine, don't mind, I'm conscious guys, sorry, please don't mind.

J. Rosemarie Francis (11:21)

Awesome. All right. You know, something occurred to me during the time you were explaining who you were. And I wanted you to just briefly tell us, so I'm in the US, I'm Canadian, and I understand business in Canada, US and England, right? It's more or less the same. What is it like? What is the, what is the,

Carol Kabaale (11:26)

Yes. Hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (11:48)

environment like for startups and small operators like yourself.

Carol Kabaale (11:55)

So I would say like, I, most of my clients are in the U S actually. So that's actually very helpful. but I would say if when I have had South African clients, which is one or two, it's pretty much the same thing. It's the same thing, but maybe different pricing. there's this really nice quote that I like. It's like same different level, same devil. So it's like, you know, some people are going to pay you more, but it's the same problem. Some people are going to pay you less.

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:00)

Okay. Okay. All right.

Carol Kabaale (12:24)

but it's the same thing. So yeah, I would say that I would say here in South Africa, there's, you know, there's a lot of challenges like in any country, but I would say that entrepreneurship is a great way for people to step out of that and, you know, reach other countries where maybe they have a stronger currency and you're able to do a lot more with doing similar work to, you know, if you were working in corporate.

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:45)

Mm-mm. Right, okay. All right, I always wondered about that. Okay, all right. So what has been your biggest challenge? You mentioned about talking to your family, about what you started out doing didn't feel right. So you switched to what felt right. What has been your biggest challenge in that eight-year journey and how

Carol Kabaale (12:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (13:20)

Did you address it and would encourage someone to address that type of challenge?

Carol Kabaale (13:26)

I think for me was not believing in myself and not trusting my gut or trusting my intuition. I often felt that I needed to rely on others to help me achieve things. And very quickly I learned that when you have partnerships, they can be great for a season. But ultimately, if you are not in alignment with that person and that person has different goals, you eventually will drift apart. So during

my eight year journey, there was, I think like four years or three years of that, that I was in a partnership with someone and we drifted apart. We had different goals. I wanted to grow the business a different way to have more time freedom. And she wanted to grow the business in a way that it was like more revenue focused. Like she wanted it to be like a million dollar business. And that both goals are fine. Personally, I would rather have more time off and spend time with my family and go on more vacations. Oopsie.

There we go. And she just felt that she wanted to have, you know, that big corporate company. And that's not what I wanted. That's what I was running away from. So in that, I would say, learn to trust yourself. And the next thing I would also say is you don't need another course. I don't want to, you know what? Coaches are great. I, I work with them all the time, but truly you don't need another course. You don't need another certification.

J. Rosemarie Francis (14:35)

Right.

Carol Kabaale (14:55)

You need to do, you need to get up and do it. And once you do it, you will realize what is missing. That for me also was a big turning point because I just felt like, my gosh, I got to get another course. I got to learn about this. ads are changing. And I was constantly feeling like I wasn't giving enough. But here's the truth. My clients were getting great results and they weren't seeing all this thing in the background that I'm like panicking about.

J. Rosemarie Francis (14:59)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Carol Kabaale (15:22)

And as long as people are happy and you are delivering good service and you come from a place of service, I really don't believe that you need to feel inferior. You have the knowledge, you have the information, it's now time to turn it into knowledge.

J. Rosemarie Francis (15:38)

Awesome awesome. I like that because you know, like Seth Godin says the lizard brain, right? Will always challenge you and and challenge your own thought process. So awesome. I appreciate it. Okay All right. So I appreciate you coming and talking to us and tools of the podcast trade I'm not gonna ask you to give us your parting shot

Carol Kabaale (16:04)

so I would say yes. Okay, okay. Okay, great. So if you want to get in touch with me everywhere online, my name is just Carol Cavale. I'm sure it'll be in the show notes. And if you feel inclined like, hmm, I maybe should be running Facebook ads or I want to figure this out. Like if this is something for me, then in the show notes, I'm sure it will also be there. There will be a link to my Facebook ads quiz. It's literally two minutes.

J. Rosemarie Francis (16:04)

sorry, sorry, before you do, could you tell us how to get in touch with you?

Mm-hmm.

Carol Kabaale (16:33)

and it will tell you if you're ready to run ads and the type of ads that you should be running. So if you want to know before you go and spend money and say ads don't work, go take my quiz and see where you stand.

J. Rosemarie Francis (16:39)

Mmm.

Awesome, I love that. Yeah, we'll definitely put those in the show notes. All right, thank you again and any parting shots.

Carol Kabaale (16:51)

Yeah. I would say, this is my quote for the year, and I'm living by it, what you don't change, you choose. So I want you to sit with that today and say, what am I choosing that I don't need to be choosing? What you don't change, you choose.

J. Rosemarie Francis (17:15)

Wow, I love that. That is, I'm going to be using that in my blog post. I love it. Thank you, Carol Kabali. Yeah, I appreciate you.

Carol Kabaale (17:20)

I love it! Thank you.