#006 Instagram Locked My Account: How to Build a Business Online That Doesn't Collapse When Platforms Fail

Episode Overview

What happens when you get locked out of Instagram with no timeline for restoration? For most online entrepreneurs, it would mean panic, lost income, and scrambling to figure out plan B. But when Instagram restricted Stef's account, her business didn't miss a beat....leads kept coming in, sales calls kept booking, and revenue kept flowing. In this episode, Stef breaks down exactly why platform dependency is killing online businesses and shares the exact systems you need to build a business that survives (and thrives) when social media fails you (because eventually....one day....it will)

What You'll Learn

• Why building your business solely on social media is like building a house on rented land (and what happens when the landlord kicks you out)
• The critical difference between being an influencer and being a business owner
• What Stef owns in her business that nobody can take away and why this is generating leads and sales even while locked out of Instagram
• The exact infrastructure you need: CRM systems, paid ads, email sequences, and owned databases
• What omnipresence actually looks like when you're running a real business (not just playing business online)l
• Why wealthy, affluent buyers can smell platform dependency from a mile away
• Actionable steps to diversify your business starting today (even if you're brand new)

Key Takeaways

🚨 You Don't Own Social Media Platforms Instagram, Facebook, TikTok...you don't own your profiles, your followers, or your reach. You're building on rented land, and the landlord can change the rules or kick you out anytime.

Notable Quotes

"You are not building on social media. You are using social media to build what you own. One is desperate and fragile. The other is strategic and resilient."

"If your business falls apart the second you stop posting, you don't have a business. You have zero leverage."

"These platforms do not owe you anything. They're businesses and they will always prioritize their bottom line over your ability to post content."

"Wealthy buyers want to work with someone who has their shit together—someone running an actual business, not posting and praying."

"Stop renting land and start owning infrastructure."

Resources Mentioned

• Repurpose.io - Content distribution tool for cross-platform posting
• GoHighLevel - Stef's recommended CRM platform

Transcript

0:01

Okay, so I need to tell you what's been happening this week because it's actually a perfect example of something that I have been drilling into my team's head for years, and if you are building a business online. This podcast episode is gonna be for you. Okay, so today is day five of me not being able to post on Instagram. Yay. I love this so much. Like I'm talking full restriction. I can't post I chatted with MetaPort, went through their whole process.'cause I'm, I'm meta verified so I get a little extra. Uh, support. And do you know what they told me? They told me that they think it's a glitch and they're not able to do anything about it, and they're having to have a human review it. And when I asked how long that would take, they told me that we can't give you a timeframe. So basically, I'm sitting here locked out of a platform that a lot of people would consider their entire business, their livelihood, how they generate money, and. While I'm restrict restricted, while I'm locked out, you know what happened to my business and my income? Absolutely nothing. I'm still generating leads, I'm still making sales, I'm still booking calls. My business is running like normal, and that's what I wanna talk to you about today because if you're building your entire business on platforms you don't own, we need to have a conversation.

Speaker 1:36

Welcome to the Call Her Coach podcast. I'm your host, Steph Willis, neuro operational coach and creator of becoming her the neuro identity calibration system behind high-end Regulation for female entrepreneurs. This. Podcast is for high functioning type A women who are done with surface level mindset hacks and ready to understand the science behind success and wealth. Here we blend nervous system science, wealth psychology and tactical, no bullshit business strategy so that you can rewire your identity, expand your capacity, scale your business, and increase your income if you are ready to regulate, recalibrate, and become the most wealthy version of yourself. Let's dive in.

2:25

Here's what I see all the time, and it drives me absolutely insane. People will build these massive followings on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, and they think that they have a business. They're posting every single day, maybe multiple times a day. They're doing all the reels. They're staying on top of the algorithm updates, and they're doing everything right. Like, you can't say me, but air quotes, right? And then one day, whether it's a restriction like mine or a hack or the platform just decides you violated some rule you didn't even know existed. Or maybe it just said you violated a rule that you didn't. In fact, because AI and technology sometimes messes up and then guess what? Poof. Gone. Their entire income stream along with it also gone. That is not a stable. Business if that is your only strategy. That is a house of cards. At the end of the day, we have to realize that we do not own Instagram. We do not own Facebook. You do not own TikTok. You don't own your profiles. And I'm not saying don't use social media. Don't build on social media. Social media is bad. I love social media. Obviously I use it. That's how I generate an income. But at the end of the day, we don't own these platforms. We don't own our profiles, nothing. So you're essentially building your business on rented land, and the landlord can then charge whatever he wants. He can go by whatever rules they want. They can kick you out whenever they want. They can decide tomorrow that they don't like your face and there's nothing you can do about it. Do you guys remember Vine? Huge platform. Everybody was on it. Massive influencers built their entire careers there. Where is it now? It died. It's gone. And do you remember a long time ago when Facebook wasn't a pay to play platform when organic reach was actually a thing? Yeah, that also changed overnight too. We love this. Yay. These platforms do not owe you anything. They are not your friend. They're businesses and they will always prioritize their bottom line over your ability to post content a hundred percent of the time. So. Let me tell you what I do own what nobody can take away from me, and this is what I always recommend for anyone that's building a business online to make sure you have these things. Okay, I own my CRM database, meaning. That every single person who comes into my world, who I have a conversation with, whether they find me on Instagram, Facebook through my podcast, whatever, my ads, they go into my system that I own. I have their phone numbers, I have their email addresses. That information lives in a database that I control. So if Instagram goes down tomorrow, if my profile is hacked, if something happens and my Instagram account of almost 20,000 followers gets. Removed. I still have direct access to thousands upon thousands of people who I'd have a conversation with over the past, you know, few years of me building this. Okay. I own my ads infrastructure. I don't own the platform, but I own my ads infrastructure, right? So right now, while I can't post organically, my ads are still running in the background. As of today, we have, I think, three sales calls already booked. Um, and I haven't posted in over a week. My ads are running in the background. They're generating leads. They're still filling my calendar because that system doesn't care if I post stories or not. It's automatically putting out that content for me. I also own my systems. I have email sequences. I have text follow-ups, I have phone conversations scheduled. None of that requires me to post on social media to function, and at the end of the day. The most important thing you can own is your reputation and your relationships, and those are built across multiple touchpoints, not just on one platform. So when Instagram decides to lock me out for five days or even longer, who knows at this point with no explanation, no timeline. Like almost zero help. To be quite honest with you, my business keeps running. My income doesn't stop because I didn't build my business just on Instagram. I built my business using Instagram as one of the many tools that I use. Big, big, big difference. Now, I talk about omnipresence a lot when I'm coaching and helping. You know, women start, build, and scale their own businesses online. So let me show you what omnipresence actually looks like when you're running a real business and you're not out there playing business, which we talked about in a previous episode, and trying to be an influencer online. Okay? You are here because you're building a business online. You're not an influencer. Okay? Two totally separate things. Paid ads are running. Those paid ads are capturing leads. Those leads are going into my CRM system. Organic content when the platforms cooperate, drive people to my lead magnets, which then go into my CRM. If you're new here and you don't know what a CRM is, that is a customer relationship management tool. Okay. So like a Salesforce, like a go high level. Um, Mondays has a CRM. There's a ton out there that you could use. I personally use and love go high level. Okay. Um, next email and text follow ups, email nurture sequences, text nurture sequences. I get to talk directly to people and I own that connection with them. Phone conversations, zoom conversations, high value touch points. And guess what? There's zero platform dependency with that. Everything feeds into one place that I control. Everything is designed so that if one piece breaks, IE, like my Instagram, my organic content, the whole machine doesn't stop. I keep earning an income, and this is what I mean when I say you need to think like a business owner, not someone trying to go viral on social media. All right. Now let's talk about the difference between how most people approach building a business online versus how you need to start approaching this. If you are serious about being successful online, being a real business owner and building wealth, leveraging social media as a tool. Okay. Now, a lot of people out there. They're playing business, they're playing influencer. They're out there and they're posting every single day. They're hoping that the algorithm likes that piece of content. They're praying that their content goes viral. They're, they're, they're crossing their fingers that, you know, Instagram doesn't shadow ban you. The amount of times I have had people question, like when I'm doing hot seat coaching, um, trainings, and they're like, how do I know if my Instagram is shadow banned? Like. Yeah, that should not even be a question. I would have no idea if I was shadow banned, to be quite honest with you, because I have built a system and a machine that works around the algorithm. Now, are there strategies around the algorithm? Should you do real? Should you do these things? Absolutely. Like at the end of the day, these social media platforms are gonna reward you with social currency by using their platform, how they want it to be used. And it's a social platform. So using and doing what they recommend and what they're pushing out. Yeah, that's gonna help build your audience, build your following, build your network. Okay. Now the difference between an influencer and someone who takes a business ownership approach is you have multiple lead sources. You should never be putting all your eggs in one basket. Now, if you're brand new to creating content and building a business online with social media, I recommend getting comfortable and familiar with one to two platforms. There's a website out there that I like to use. It's called repurpose.io, where you can post for me. My favorite platform to post on is Instagram. I'm familiar with the tools. I'm familiar with editing. I can get in there quickly. I find it very user friendly, so I like to create all my content on Instagram. Okay. One piece of content then gets distributed to YouTube shorts, TikTok, Facebook, Facebook pages, LinkedIn, um, all these other platforms through repurpose.io. So I create one piece of content. I've created workflows inside of that website, and it repurposes all that content to my other platforms. So I'm all about working less and doing more. So you have multiple lead sources. Even if you're only familiar with Facebook and Instagram, you can have an omnipresence leveraging tools like that. and then all of those feed into one owned database. Your CRM, you have systems that run, whether you post today or not. That's why I'm a huge fan now of paid ads. It is a skillset, there is a learning curve with it. I hated ads for the longest time, but guess what? If I didn't have, I only have two ads running right now. And I spend under a thousand dollars a month for those two ads. If I didn't have those ads running right now, I would be up shit creek without a paddle because I wouldn't have any lead gen coming in. And if you have a business, at the end of the day, if you do not have leads coming in, you are not bringing in any revenue. That is the cornerstone, the foundation of running a business. You have to generate leads. I don't care if you're McDonald. You need to generate leads to come through your drive through. Okay? Leads pay the bills. So you have systems that run whether you post or not organically. You are not out there hoping that the algorithm favors you for today. You are paying to guarantee that your message gets in front of the right people and you are building assets that nobody can take away. The thing that I wanna get across to you and the perspective shift is you are not building on social media. You are using social media to build what you own. You see the difference there. One is kind of desperate and fragile and out of your control. The other is strategic and resilient and completely within your control. We have to, as business owners, control our controllables, and I am gonna be honest with you, if you're trying to attract wealthy, affluent buyers to your business, they wanna work with someone who has their shit together. Someone who has systems, someone who is running an actual business, not out there posting and praying, not out there, just woo woo willy-nilly giving motivational advice and being your biggest cheerleader. Like, no, fuck that. I'll be your biggest cheerleader for sure, but I'm also gonna give you systems and a strategy and feedback and criticism to make you a better entrepreneur, a better business owner, a better woman, and I get it. Again, if you're brand new to building a business online when you're first starting out, organic social media feels like the only option because it's free and it may be, and that's completely fine. That is okay, as long as you know that that's not your long term strategy. I've been there. I built my business for almost a decade on free organic social media. I've made millions of dollars with just free organic social media. But if you just stay in that place, if you never evolve past a post and pray. You are not building a leveraged business. You're building a business on a foundation made of sand, and we can't have businesses that don't have a solid foundation to where that structure can grow and scale over time. Imagine if my freaking business was. Organic Instagram content. Now, is it like, imagine if I didn't have my ads running. Imagine if I didn't have my CRM and I didn't own all that information of my thousands upon thousands of leads that I've had conversations with. Imagine if I didn't have my email list. Imagine if I didn't have their phone numbers. This restriction would have meant no leads and no leads. Again, means no sales, and no sales means no income. And no income means your girl would be homeless if I was just. Banking on a post and pray organic free content method for five days and counting now with no idea when this is gonna get fixed. Can you afford that? Can your family afford that? I know we can't. That's not a business. I that is a liability. All right, so if you're listening to this and you're realizing that you're way too dependent on one platform. Here's what I would recommend you do, um, sooner rather than later. Okay? Number one, get a CRM system if you don't have one. If you are in the high ticket world, um, I am actually creating a high ticket CRM that you'll be able to plug into eventually. Um, but get a CRM if you don't have one. I don't care if you use what I use or if you just track all of your leads in a Google sheet. I don't care, but you need a place where you're capturing phone numbers and emails. Not just followers, not engagement, but actual contact information that you own. I have seen way too many people build their businesses online and then for whatever reason, their accounts get shut down and the ones that bounce back and make it, they have a system, number one and two, they have a brand. People notice when they go missing and they're like, where, where is this person? How can I find this person again? What happened? And they build their following back up. Over time they'll get it back. It takes some work. Yes, a hundred percent, but it doesn't stop them. Now, number two, uh, create some type of leave magnet if you don't have one, something valuable that you can give away in exchange for someone's contact info. It's very, very, very basic, very simple with AI these days. Um, that can give you a good framework on things that you could create depending on your niche. Okay, so for example, this could be a free training. That's my lead magnet. I give away a free training. Maybe it's a checklist, maybe it's a guide, whatever makes sense for your business and your. Ideal avatar, but you need a reason for people to give you their information, period, point, blank. And number three, start emailing your list. Even if it's just once a week, even if it's your list is tiny, have five people, I don't care. Start building that muscle of communicating directly with people that you have a relationship with outside of social media. Now a couple other things that you can be working on is diversification to at least two to three platforms. Again, if you're only on Instagram, get on Facebook. Start a podcast, get on YouTube. I'm not saying that you have to be everywhere and create a million different pieces of content because hello. That can be overwhelming for sure, but you need to not have all your eggs in one basket. If you're only doing organic, maybe look at doing some paid ads, okay? Even if it's a small budget, maybe five, 10,$20 a day. You need to understand how to guarantee that your message gets in front of your people. Organic content and organic reach is great, but it's not reliable at the end of the day. Paid traffic is a much more reliable way to generate leads. And then, um, lastly, build a content system that doesn't require you to show up every single day. Email sequences, evergreen content, scheduling your posts, systems that work while you sleep. if your business falls apart, the second that you are not posting. You do not have a business. You have zero leverage. You have a full-time job that doesn't pay you any benefits. Okay. So, I mean, I'm not, I'm not stressed about this Instagram situation. I'm annoyed for sure. I'd love to be able to post right now, but stressed or worried about money or freaking out about how I'm gonna generate leads for my business. No, because I built a business, not a social media dependency. I actually have strategy. If you're serious about building real wealth, about building a real business online. You, Gladys, start treating your business as a business and not a hobby. Stop renting land and start owning infrastructure. These platforms do not care about you. I promise you. They don't care about your family. They don't care if you make money or not, but you should care and you should act and you should build accordingly. Alright, fam, that's what I got for you today. If this resonated, share this episode with someone that you feel like it could help. Send me a dm. Would love to hear what's going on. If you have had any experience or any help with what I can do right now, uh, that would be amazing. So I will see you next week for another episode.