Vanessa Cabrera’s story
In what now seems like a previous life, Vanessa was the marketing director of a successful slot machine manufacturer in the Chicago area. But despite receiving a big corporate paycheck and a comfortable lifestyle that accompanied it, she always experienced the industry she worked in as a boys’ club—so it’s little surprise that she didn’t feel as though she was getting the recognition and respect for her skills and experience that she deserved.
Despite her success, Vanessa sought fulfillment elsewhere. She began laying the foundation for a side gig, where she could put her skills to use in a rewarding way. After her 9-5, she was working on building her website, growing her email list, and landing clients.
In a turn of events, she lost her job. Fortunately, she was ready to take the plunge and turn her side hustle into a full-time endeavor.
“If I don’t start my business now, I’m never going to.”
Pushing past life’s biggest challenges
One week later, she found out she was pregnant. Worse, the father of her child was leaving the relationship. And so, just a few days after taking the exciting jump into the risk-ridden world of entrepreneurship, she was left with no steady income, no insurance to cover even basic medical expenses, and an otherwise uncertain future.
But sometimes, the only direction you can move is forward.
So with unflinching resolve and a huge amount of hustle, Vanessa pushed on. There were hurdles—like driving several hours to a speaking event only to discover that two people were attending it. But by putting one foot in front of the other, her efforts began to pay off over time. Despite her daunting personal and professional circumstances, she was able to continue building her consultancy.
It was fulfilling work. Her roster of clients was growing every week. She had a healthy and consistent income (and the financial security that came with it). But most importantly, consulting helped Vanessa put her skills to use with clients who truly appreciated her experience, guidance, and expertise.
Bigger and better things
Ever the entrepreneur and marketer, she wanted to see the potential of her business. And that meant breaking out of the time-for-money exchange of a typical service-based business. She put a plan in place to scale her offerings into courses, webinars, and social media marketing challenges.
If you ask most marketers what the toughest marketing challenge is they’ve ever faced, many will respond with “marketing myself”. They so often focus on other people or brands’ marketing challenges that it’s hard to find the time, the insight, and even certain skills to market themselves. The same was true for Vanessa.
So while it was one thing to help others market their businesses—something she was already an expert at—it was quite another to market herself. She needed course creators and video editors for her programs. And she needed designers and coders for her landing pages—all things that can require a significant monetary investment as a small business owner. Instead, she tapped into her entrepreneurial spirit and opted for a more DIY approach.
After doing research on landing page builder options, Vanessa turned to Leadpages as a solution. Leadpages addressed three key challenges: a lack of time and skill, support when she needed it, and getting meaningful results for her business.
DIY on a time crunch
Vanessa is an excellent marketer. But she did not have the depth of design and coding skills required to build the landing pages she needed to promote her programs. Nor did she have the time to learn. Leadpages’ templates provided her with hundreds of different looks to choose from for her courses and programs. She was also able to select templates based on popularity and conversion rate, which helped her get online faster and eliminate a lot of the guesswork.
“I’m not a graphic designer, but I need my personal brand to be on-point. Leadpages makes my pages look professional and polished—and that’s why I’ve used them all these years. “
With her templates selected, all she needed to do was drop in her copy, move a few page elements around with the Drag-and-Drop Builder, and publish.
Getting help
One of the biggest reasons Vanessa uses Leadpages is how easy it is to build professional-looking landing pages. But, occasionally, she’d get snagged on something. So when additional help was needed on adjusting a page element or changing the style of a CTA button, she reached out to Leadpages’ customer support team via chat to get help quickly and get her page online.
“Leadpages support chat is my go-to. I work fast so I don't want to search for the answer. I want to speak with someone who knows how to fix my issue.”
The results
Vanessa’s first live course, 10 Killer Content Creation Hacks, was a huge success because she was able to identify and address the two biggest obstacles to her clients’ growth on social media: they didn’t know what content to create, and they didn’t have the time to create it.
Instead of hosting the same webinar over and over again, she turned the content into an evergreen lead magnet—filling her funnel with warm, qualified leads. Using a Leadpages landing page, her course converts at an impressive 88%. And while that number might seem like an outlier, it’s not—she’s seen similar results on landing pages for her other courses and programs.
In 2020, Vanessa has also seen her membership numbers double using Leadpages to enroll her clients—resulting in a 140% increase in revenue.
Plans for the future
Vanessa has grown her consultancy into a number of ongoing paid programs including a 6-week membership program where she coaches groups on the basics of the online marketing world, a 6-week social media strategy course for corporate clients, and of course, her high-ticket 1:1 consulting services.
This year, she’s shifting her focus to helping ambitious women entrepreneurs with social media strategy and landing their dream clients, plus attending speaking engagements to share her story and inspire others.
Every journey in entrepreneurship is filled with challenges—both professional and personal. And while Vanessa’s journey was no exception, it’s certainly exceptional. She’s overcome obstacles that would have stopped others in their tracks. We’re impressed by her hustle, success, and her persistence in the face of significant challenges. We hope her story can be an inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs everywhere.
