051: Copywriting Tips with Laura Belgray

Kate Kordsmeier 0:00

Well Hey

there. Welcome back to the Success with Soul podcast. I'm your host Kate Kordsmeier. And today we are talking to one of my favorite writers, Laura Belgray. If you are not subscribed to her email list, I urge you to go out and subscribe right now because she is so funny, and will give you so much inspiration for improving your own emails. So if you're unfamiliar, Laura is the founder of talking shrimp and co creator of the copy cure, which she does with Marie Forleo. She's a copywriting expert who helps entrepreneurs find the perfect words to express and sell what they do in a way that gets them paid to be themselves. Through her work with hundreds of clients, including online biggies like Marie Forleo, and Amy Porterfield. She's seen firsthand that putting you into your copy and all through your business is pure magic for getting people to love you up, share your ideas, and happily click your Buy button. So if all of that sounds good to you, I think you are going to love this episode. Let's get into it. You're listening to the Success with Soul podcast with Kate Kordsmeier ex journalists turn CEO of a multi six figure blog and online business. But it wasn't that long ago that Kate was a struggling entrepreneur who lacked confidence, clarity, and let's be honest money. But all those failures, experiments and lessons learned helped Kate create a thriving business that impacts 1000s and brings freedom, flexibility and fulfillment to her life. If you're ready to do the same and make something happen with holistic, soulful, step by step strategies from Kate and other experts, you're in the right place. here's your host, writer, educator, Mom, recovering perfectionist, bookworm and sushi connoisseur, Kate Kordsmeier. Lara Bell, great, I am so thrilled to have you on the show today.

Laura Belgray 1:58

Hi, I'm thrilled to be here. Kate, thank you for having me.

Kate Kordsmeier 2:01

You're welcome. My pleasure. And we were just saying before I hit record that your emails are like one of the only people whose emails I read almost every single one that comes out. I just love your voice. You're so funny. And you're just so you and your emails.

Laura Belgray 2:19

Thank you. Thank you. You know, I love to hear that. In fact, I think I may have trained people to tell me that not to give me that compliment that mine are the only ones that they read. I really appreciate you complying with that wish.

Kate Kordsmeier 2:33

Oh my gosh, well, I always crack up like even thinking about it. Now, you sent this one email out about when people let you know that they're unsubscribing. And you use this example of like, would you ever walk into a store and be like, I hate these sweaters I'm leaving and like, run out and I just like it cracks me up. I really laughed out loud, hard when I read that and have referenced it a few times. I even sent an email out of my own and was like, as Laura Bell gray says and it was so funny.

Laura Belgray 3:02

Thank you. Thank you for referencing my Yeah, I think of that as the flouncing email. Yes, we've covered that. That hasn't. There's a word for that. Yeah, flouncing.

Kate Kordsmeier 3:12

Okay. Tell everybody listening who's like flouncing. What is this?

Laura Belgray 3:15

Flouncing is when you decide that you must announce your departure that you you say I'm leaving. I'm unsubscribing. This is a bridge too far. I just, I don't like your tone. I don't like your language. I'm unsubscribing. Or I'm leaving or unfollowing. Like you really don't have to announce always. Yes, always in all caps. Usually, when it's email, usually, it's a guy named Bob, I get a lot of emails from for some reason, guys named Bob telling me that I email too often, and that they are leaving. Or they give suggestions on how to email them better. And though, then on Instagram, plenty of people say it, especially if you post anything political. Anything about the world? I didn't follow you for this unfollow.

Kate Kordsmeier 4:04

I see, this is why I had to reference one of your emails, because at the start of this year, I decided like, fuck all that I'm just going to be me. And I'm going to share sometimes political opinions or just thoughts on the world. And if you don't like it, like nobody's forcing you to subscribe to my emails. So bye bye. If my free content isn't isn't resonating, go ahead and leave. And I have definitely gotten some hate mail this year, which most of it is pretty easy to just kind of laugh off, but sometimes it does kind of hurt. How do you handle that?

Laura Belgray 4:38

I agree. Because I am I'm definitely not impervious. Like I don't have that thick of skin. So I might write something knowing that people are going to hit that certain people are going to hate it and hate me for it and unsubscribe and probably write me something nasty, but then when they do, I it still stings. And I'm like, oh maybe I shouldn't have maybe I shouldn't have put that at the top of The email maybe I shouldn't, maybe I didn't need to maybe I didn't need to write it like that. And then Shut up. Shut up, everybody shut up in her voice and just take it like it's fine that they it's fine that they hated it. And it's fine that they're leaving with that's what I wanted. That was my intent was to weed out people who would hate this.

Kate Kordsmeier 5:20

Yeah. My friend jack, he's been on the show before too. He says his goal with email is buyer unsubscribe, I'm not really interested in anything in between. And I'm like, that's so good. Because Yeah, I don't need just a bunch of people hanging out getting free stuff without ever engaging with me without appreciate, you know, like, it's just Okay, then then go ahead buy,

Laura Belgray 5:41

right, that person was not going to buy. And some, Well, some people would email lists who are creating an audience aren't necessarily selling anything. I mean, I think that you should be if you if you want to call it a business, you should be selling something. But if you're doing it just to like create a movement or create an audience create engagement, for your own gratification, like for the art of writing to people and then enjoying it is so it doesn't really matter whether they're going to buy, but you don't want them in your audience. If they don't like Like, if you're not for them. That's okay. Right? gonna be for everybody. So that's something to remember. Nobody is for everybody. Not one thing, not one brand that you not one great painting or movie or TV series for anything that you love and think is unbelievable. And everybody should love it. There's somebody out there saying, not for me, right? Make that thing any less Great. So it doesn't make you any less great. If somebody is like, not for me, or if they're even stronger than that. Like, I hate you. How dare you?

Kate Kordsmeier 6:44

Oh, I got you are a disgrace. How dare you? I was like, oh, a disgrace. That's no.

Laura Belgray 6:50

Yeah, that's pretty exciting. I felt a little tingle. I haven't been told that I have been told don't shove your political opinions down down my inbox. And I won't bring mine into yours. I'm like, well, you weren't? I didn't.

Kate Kordsmeier 7:07

Yeah, I didn't ask. You asked me to email you. And that's part of what I've been trying to tell myself when I do get those kinds of emails and it does sting a little bit is like, Well, I'm not just one thing. So people are I didn't follow you for your political views. I'm like, okay, but like, I also share pictures of my kids. You I don't see you getting mad at me when I do that. Like I got a cute picture of my dog today. You didn't get pissed off and tell me stay in your lane when I posted that.

Laura Belgray 7:38

Right? Exactly. And people who get it understand, especially in this past year, that political is personal. That it's not that politics is not a separate thing. It's not going out of your lane to talk about your views on politics, politics. I mean, the root word policy is people, right? politics are about people. So I probably is probably not the root word but something good I bought it for a pillow I took ancient Greek in in high school because it was a substitute. It allowed me to get out of taking history, probably a mistake, but I didn't want like history text. The reading was too. too much for me. I hate textbooks. So I took ancient Greek and hoi polloi means the people and so politics are about this is stuff about the people, right? your opinions are our personal

Kate Kordsmeier 8:34

right. And this brings me to an interesting question and I know we're like already getting way ahead of ourselves because I need to back up and like who you even are and but before we get to that stuff, it brings up an interesting thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately which is do I need to always agree with the people that I either it could be an individual person or even a you know Corporation? Do I need to agree with their political views in order to buy from them or subscribe to their emails or you know, like how do you feel about that? Do you feel like no we have to agree on everything in order to

Laura Belgray 9:12

right so I'm I'm not one of those people who looks to see like what is this organization doing to help the world I don't inspect that that far I'm not that responsible consumer but if I hear if I get wind that they are homophobic and mystic racist, bigoted support anything any organization that is then provided then I'll then I will boycott that said, like during the toilet paper crisis of 2020 I did order mega Scott comfort plus rolls from Walmart. Mm hmm. With normally support and it was just desperate times and that's the that toilet paper was really hard to find, especially in Mega rolls. So we all have to make sacrifices. Yeah. We do so I will compromise my principles for my butt paper.

Kate Kordsmeier 10:09

Hilarious. Okay, so now let's back up. Tell everybody who is Laura bell.

Laura Belgray 10:15

Oh gosh, I've never been asked it that way. Let's celebrate and in third person, I'll speak in the first person. I I am a proud born and bred New Yorker and a writer I can I am a copywriting expert. I consider that my background but not the only kind of writing that I do. I'm also I've got a book coming out my first book. Yes, tough titties, which is due out summer 2022 with Hachette. And so I am a copywriter, but also an author and blogger. And so I like doing lots of different kinds of writing. And I've been in copywriting since the mid 90s. When I was in my mid 20s or early 20s. That's when I that's when I started and I got my feet wet in magazines. I didn't know what I was going to do. I wanted to do some kind of writing but I didn't know what and I didn't think I would hit was cut out to be an author or screenwriter. I didn't want that lonely life of hating myself in my pajamas. Now I love wearing pajamas, but it just sounded it just seemed very lonely. And I didn't want to be a journalist but I wanted to be in magazines because it seemed entertainment II and I liked to read magazines and I got an internship but spy magazine and was terrible. I was the worst intern. I had no ideas. You did have to be a journalist there to to make it like come up with story ideas, go out there with a reporter's notebook and actually come back with something and I failed to do that. But I got hired on the ad side. We were all on one floor. It was a small magazine. And they knew me over there. We were all friends. They hired me on the ad side and gave me my first assignment in copywriting which was an advertorial and advertorials for people listening who don't know are those pages in the magazine that looked like part of the magazine, but are actually in tiny letters. It says at the top advertisement, you're like, Oh, I thought I was reading something real. So the assignment was to write an advertorial for Dewar's, a page of the magazine that would feel like a page of spy magazine put about Dewar's? So I wrote a quiz that was called Do you party like your uncle Marty? And it was a quiz to determine whether you were an old fart loser. And if so you could remedy that by tricking doers. And there was a cocktail recipe and a little essay that I wrote on adulthood. adulthood, which is hilarious coming from someone who was still living at home. And making like a $50 a week stipend that I spent entirely on lunch. So indoors, right. That was free. We got to buy a toy.

Kate Kordsmeier 13:02

Yeah, that's right.

Laura Belgray 13:04

Yes, I was never much of a big drinker so that all those freebies were wasted on me. Although we did get to get sent a lot of promo CDs from music companies. So I, you know, had a lot of CDs, like, Blind Melon, and crash the crash test dummies, that's money. And yes, the miracle I all that kind of a miracle, why? And it and if the CD cover didn't have a hole punched in the plastic, that I would take them back to Tower Records for a credit and exchange them for hip hop. So that was my. So that's me in a nutshell. That's where I started. And then I got into TV promos, and TV promos being those ads that the TV networks run for their own shows for the network getting you to tune in. And that was my dream job because I wanted to do something with TV or in TV, but I didn't know what and again, I didn't think I had it in me to like write a teleplay to write for TV. But I found a way to write little things for TV. And I did that for years and years and years until I ended up segwaying into this weird, wonderful world of the online space. online entrepreneurs, marketers, course creators, what I generally call the space and started taking private clients and ended up serving that community entirely and segwaying out of TV in the last couple years, and out of one on one copywriting services also in the last couple years. And now, I guess you call me a course creator, educator. So now I teach copywriting and teach people how to make their businesses a 100% expression of their personality, so that you're basically getting paid to be you. To me, that is the holy grail of work. It's what I always wanted. And that's just the best way to live. Doing Work that expresses who you are. And that feels like an extension of yourself and getting paid for it.

Kate Kordsmeier 15:06

I love it so much. What a great story. And I'm curious when you first made your foray into this online marketing space, did you know that that was going to be kind of like your your niche was the getting paid to be you or did that come later, after you kind of started trying some different things.

Laura Belgray 15:23

It came way later, I knew that I wanted to help people put more personality into their coffee. Most people have a really hard time sounding like themselves, and creating copyrighting copy, that sounds like a person and that feels like an expression of them. So there would be this disconnect, like, Oh, don't look at my website. It's not it's so not me. Don't look at my website, it's really cheesy. You know, and, and that creates that creates a disconnect in your business and stops you from going as far as you could, when you don't want to show what you do and direct people to the place where they can find out about you. So, for sure, I was doing that I just hadn't expressed it that way. I did express it that way about myself. I always said I want to get paid to be me. It was always kind of my dream. And then I realized, well, that's, that's what that is. It's done. It's not the same as getting paid to exist, unfortunately, like getting paid to exist would be this truly a dream while watching Real Housewives and eating, you know, eating ice cream mushed up with milk, which is how I like my husband kind of like milkshake. And get and then someone sends me a check for that.

Kate Kordsmeier 16:39

Yeah, that sounds great.

Laura Belgray 16:41

Yeah, that sounds great. That has not happened thus far. I have had, I have had gigs where like one in particular where I was paid to go to Vegas, and have dinner with people and just hang out and brainstorm a little bit. But I wasn't charged with with any deliverables, like I didn't have to hand in anything. That day. That's Yeah, that's as close as I've come to getting paid to exist. But getting paid to be you is where you are doing something that you love and expressing yourself in that way. And you're doing something with that, that people are willing to pay for. you're providing them with a big v value. paying for it something that helps somebody or serves a need. So that's, that's where getting paid to be you comes in.

Kate Kordsmeier 17:29

Okay, great. So now, some people might know you from the copy here with Marie Forleo. Some people might know you from your own business, which is called talking shrimp and we'll get to that because what a name and which came first.

Laura Belgray 17:45

Talking shrimp came first. Okay, um, although talking shrimp came when I knew Marie Forleo we were friends from Hip Hop, classic crunch. And, and then Marie's hip hop classic crunch. I became, like, I knew her from from the class that I went to she was this annoying chick in the front, who hit all the meals perfectly and have this Korean body and bouncy hair. Yes, so annoying. And then she turned out to be nice. And I decided to shoot, I can't hate her. And I maybe I'll be friends with her. So we ended up being friends. And while I knew her like back in 2009, she certainly encouraged me to have a business. But really the reason I created talking shrimp was because my accountant, my husband and I had gotten married in 2007 and gotten reamed with taxes. Our first year married and our accountant said, Well, yeah, of course you did. What did you expect? Like we thought taxes would be better when you were married? Like, I don't know who told you that. But what you should do is incorporate so just pick a name, doesn't matter what it is just preferably something with an available URL will incorporate you. And so I looked up a bunch of names and couldn't believe it talking shrimp was not taken. I'm shocked, like Hallelujah, I can't believe I lucked into this. I created a talking shrimp aren't really something that could apply to what I did writing or what my husband did us in restaurants, or it could mean anything or nothing. And so we incorporated and Marie, who was my friend then said to me, so what is so you're gonna make a website for it. And I was like, Well, yeah, I guess I guess it might as well be the name of my website, since I am making a website to host my TV real, like I wanted more TV clients. So I was just going to put my reel on there to make it easy. And she said, What's going to be your OPT in? And it's like, my what, in your What? Yeah. And so she explained, she was like, you have to have an email list. Your list is gold. Here's how you have an opt in and she took out a yellow pad and she diagrams on it. She's like, you're gonna sign up for this thing called AWeber, which is what you use back then. And you You're going to offer a freebie, and here's how you're going to deliver it. And here's the confirmation email. And then they click this thing and they get it. It was really confusing, but the way she laid it out on that yellow pad made sense. And I was able to do it myself on my new website. And so I had an opt in, and she's like, and you're gonna have a blog right now. It's like, Oh, it's 2009. Isn't it too late to start a blog, you moron, to have a blog. So I started the blog. So talking shrimp was my TV spots. It was kind of for TV people. And then, but also a blog that had nothing to do with anything. And a freebie that was for entrepreneurs, new TV producers signed up for it, it was 565 secrets to non Saudi copy. So I was very confused. I didn't know what I was doing and who I was aiming for. But Marie invited me to speak at her first live event, which was called rich, happy and hot live. Because we were friends, she knew me. She knew me somewhat professionally, because she knew what I did for TV. And I also had signed up for her kind of vague online program, which was called Virtual mastery. And, again, those 2009 virtual mastery, what, who cares? program, you sign up for it? It's Marie, she seems really cool. So I signed up for it, just hoping it would get me like, in a groove out of my creative rut at work, I needed something new, I just wanted to be more successful. So I signed up for it. And she saw what I did in her like, there was a forum. This is before Facebook group. So there was a forum, it was on a platform called Ning, and I helped people in the group with their coffee. They'd be like, Hey, what do you think of this from my homepage, and I look at it and be like, Oh, I think you could, you know, say this and this, and it would be a lot more personable if you did this. And it would sound like a person. And so Marie knew me, in that sense, professionally, she saw what I can do and invited me to speak. So I spoke at her first live event. I did my presentation was called Five secrets to non sucky copy. And people came up to me afterwards and said, You know, I'm a realtor, I'm this, I'm of that, can you help me with my topic? So I started taking these personal private clients who were entrepreneurs, solopreneurs. And that started to diversify what I did.

Kate Kordsmeier 22:26

When were they asking you to write their copy for them, or help them write better copy for themselves?

Laura Belgray 22:32

Mostly write their copy for them. It didn't occur to me, like, Oh, I don't want to do that for you. It was just Okay. Give me what you have. And I'll make it better. Yeah, so that's, that is how I ended up segwaying into this weird world that we're in and Maria and I stayed friends I did her, I joined her mastermind in 2010, add her lot for live event that I spoke at was also, you know, the one of the points of it was to sell people to her high ticket mastermind. And so she had a panel of like the nine people who were in her first round, and they seem so accomplished and self possessed. And they just had some magic about them that I wanted. And one of them had written a book, like a children's book, and she had had it produced. And it was a hardcover, like, beautiful picture book. And she had it in her hands. And I said, I want that. I want to be that, like, I don't know what I want to do still. But I knew I'm capable of something more than I'm doing in TV, like the, you know, the new year had worn off after like, 15 years. I wasn't necessarily doing my best work all the time. And I felt like, I know, I have more to say. So I joined her program. That was 2010. And that brought me a little more into that world, even though I was still outside. And I was like, Oh, no, I don't want to create products and programs for entrepreneurs. And someone actually in it, friend of mine told me don't work with entrepreneurs, they're so cheap, they don't they don't have any money. Stick with TV, like you've got TV clients stick with that. And I listened to that for a while and then found the opposite to be true. There is so much money in the in the online space, people will pay a lot of money because they are capable of making a lot of money and with better, you know, with better copy with copy that reflects their personalities. And they are willing to spend way more than a production company or TV network is willing to spend. And so I ended up transitioning into that and taking less and less TV work, because I was busy making a lot more money from my entrepreneur clients. And it was very, it became very gratifying to work with them.

Kate Kordsmeier 24:50

Yeah. Hey, y'all, we're interrupting this programming to give you a quick reminder of About Selena Sue's impacting millions, which I am a proud affiliate for. And we have Selena in the house right now to tell us a little bit more about it.

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Kate Kordsmeier 25:27

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Laura Belgray 25:53

Right? Okay, so the copy cure in 2012, Marie was still doing her live event or hh alive, which had grown. And she did it in a big space, urban San Donna character, urban Zen. And she asked me if I wanted to speak again, to this huge crowd, and she said, like, you could do like a copy clinic. And we can record it and then sell that as a program. We'll call it the copy clinic. And I was like, okay, that's perfect, amazing. I'm gonna have a program with Marie. And she already had B school. And it was a juggernaut, from the get go. And so I did this keynote, this presentation at in 2012. At her live event, the copy clinic, she was on stage with me as just kind of like the nurse, we had a medical theme. And it was great. And people said it was like worth the price of the event. All together. People were crying, laughing. It really went well. And I felt like oh, I want to be on stage more. It was awesome. And we had this great footage to turn into a program. A couple of months later, she was like, by the way, she's like, I haven't had the heart to tell you. But all the footage from the event was in a car that my team was driving, my team still had it in the camera that they were using to shoot this live your dream campaign for the school, and in Italy and around Europe. And when it was in Italy, all the equipment was stolen from the car. And so our footage is gone. We no longer have it. I was like, Oh my god, she was like, but it's okay, we are going to reshoot. Well, we will write this will make it an even better thing. We'll make it a real program, kind of like the school but a mini version of that. Then we started doing some digging around and saw that the copy clinic was taken as a name. And we had to come up with with a new name, which was for the best the copy clinic sounds well clinical. So I brainstormed a whole bunch of names and came up with the copy cure. We all agreed that that was even better. And so we wrote it took at least a year to write to create between me working on it and always trying to move it forward and then getting together with her to shape it into something that was easily digested because she's a master of teaching and presenting information. And it took a while. But we finally got it together and had a whole shoot and recorded it and sold it as the copy care. And we launched that in 2015. So that was you know, a good three years in the making.

Kate Kordsmeier 28:33

Yeah. Wow. I mean, I love hearing that story just because I do think people can they look at like the finished product. And they think like, oh, it just came together in a couple of months or, you know, like, Oh, this was easy. And there's so much that goes into it. And yeah, look here years of work and tweaking and losing things and having to start over and, but all worth it in the end.

Laura Belgray 28:57

Totally worth it in the end. And we re recorded it again in 2018 and made it even more robust and better. And we took out jokes that were no longer appropriate, like a Trump reference that no longer felt so funny. And other and other things that were that felt a little dated and clueless, you know how language goes or like, Oh, I can't do that anymore. And so we re recorded it and was even better. And then we did it as an actual launch. It had been on evergreen, okay, nice, but not super effective for getting people to buy. And then we launched it with an open and closed cart. And that was mega. And that's what we continue to do. And you're right. It's a lot of work. It is intimidating. And it's actually not the kind of product that I would ever want to create on my own. At least at this point. I don't feel that ambitious.

Kate Kordsmeier 29:53

I was gonna say I mean Maria is known for her very like high production value on everything she does. How does it compare? Now you have a few courses of your own that you that you did do on your own right. So how does it compare?

Laura Belgray 30:06

Yeah, there are a lot scrappier. Well, first of all, I mean, they're, they are beautiful. I have an incredible designer who makes them very like palatable, fun to engage with. But my courses like the inbox here, oh, being the first wheel course that I put out, other than, like many products, was a PDF, pretty much. There's like, over 100 pages of email makeover side by side. And that was fun for me to work on and easy for me to, you know, just take out my laptop and be like, I'm going to do some inbox here, oh, now, and go through a few emails and make them over to them one by one or three by three. And it came together eventually. And then I got to hand it over to my designer. So it was no big fancy shoot, no modules. And so I was creating something that was both doable for me to create, and also doable for someone like me to consume. And so as the coffee here, it's short, it's binge worthy, it's bingeable. And you get it all at once. So that's what I wanted also with inbox hero, but even more so you can just dip into it both for I like things that you can do kind of buffet style, like diggin where, where it appeals to you skipping over the butterhead lettuce, and I'm going right for the cherry tomatoes. So that's what that is. And I've added sitio and I add video components as sometimes as bonuses and stuff like that. But those are done live. And I feel really comfortable doing that, because it's so much more forgiving. So I'll teach something live. And then you consume the recording whether you were there or not like when you get the recording, right? It doesn't the flubs don't matter. Because it's done in a vacuum to the camera. On a sketch true. I

Kate Kordsmeier 31:50

had never even really thought about the benefit of being live for that reason.

Laura Belgray 31:55

It's so much easier. There's no take after take.

Kate Kordsmeier 31:58

I mean, you're also able to like answer people's questions as they're coming up. So you're not like trying to guess what people might be getting stuck on are where they need more clarity. They're right there to tell you. And then it's helpful in the replay.

Laura Belgray 32:11

Yes, you can see how people are engaging with you with your pacing. I like having like I just taught something yesterday, it was my 13 behind the scenes secrets to a six figure lazy launch for this bonus launch hero. And I asked people I was like No pressure. But I would love for you to be on camera if you possibly can. It's up to you, however you feel more comfortable. But it really helps me to see your faces as I'm teaching and a lot of people obliged me, and which was really nice. And it so it makes it I don't like talking into a vacuum. I really like to engage with the audience and see how they are picking it up and see their heads nodding to their thumbs up and know that I can move on to the next one. Right, right. I think is a great way to create assets is by teaching live and then you know, sometimes you might do that for free or as a bonus. And then you package it being can package it and sell it or it becomes one of your assets. Or maybe you use it as a bonus. But it said like anytime I try to do a video to camera without an audience I do take after take after take even a one minute video. And a little flub I'm like no starting over note cut editor forget that. It's so frustrating. I get so mad at myself like this was gonna take me two minutes. And here it is taking it out.

Kate Kordsmeier 33:35

Oh yeah, when I do sometimes like little 15 second videos for Facebook ads. And I mean, like you look at my camera roll after I've recorded the second thing and it's 4515 second clips where I just didn't like what I just said the one or it cut me off at just the wrong second or Oh my god, it's embarrassing. Exactly. I

Laura Belgray 33:55

have actually stored a screenshot of my camera roll with like my face, you know, 100 100 in the same outfit with the same expression, like me trying to take

Kate Kordsmeier 34:10

totally well I love that idea of doing it live. I'm actually launching a program of myself soon and I want to launch it live. Or I want to like teach it live as we're going through and kind of I mean, I guess it would be dripping out the content because it doesn't exist until then. And somebody told me like, well, you should probably get like 80% of it done and then just teach a couple of the things live. But now I'm like, I never really felt right to me. And now I'm thinking No, let's do it live. It'll be so much better for everybody. Yeah, I

Laura Belgray 34:39

think so. I mean, that's a that is a style of launch. I think that's called the seed launch, right where you teach it as they go along. You ask them you teach one thing and then you ask their burning questions and then you dress those the next week. And that's how the course comes together. It's all done live with that first group. And then you can and then It's done, man. It's in the can, right? deliver it that way later if you want to. So I think it's great.

Kate Kordsmeier 35:06

As a consumer to I've, I've joined courses or programs where you're getting the replay of what was taught live, and I still appreciate it. Even just being somebody who, you know, is only watching the replay because people ask questions that I'm like, Oh, yes, I'm so glad you asked that, because I was wondering the same thing. And yeah, it just feels more casual and like, easier to consume.

Laura Belgray 35:30

Yes. And it feels more immediate. And the person feels more natural. Yeah, like the rehearsed style. You bring something to camera. And it's the way that I've done it for, say, copy cure, and I think it's fine. People say the videos are great, but I way prefer myself in the videos that are done live, right. And we do a lot of those in the coffee chair, too. I do like live with Laura sessions. And I do live this not live before an audience but I have an audience of one like one person from her team. Okay, with me while I'm doing these website makeovers and coffeemaker overs, and they are done in real time, without me being like, oh, okay, that wasn't good. Let

Kate Kordsmeier 36:12

me start over. Right. Well, speaking of keeping things real, I don't know if you can hear my dog barking, but she's been barking like crazy in the background. Okay, good. Thank God. I'm thinking, well, they can surely edit it out if they need to. But I don't know if it's distracting to you. She's

Laura Belgray 36:29

only heard of bark. Well, I'm just speaking of noises. I'm going to open my Pellegrino camp.

Kate Kordsmeier 36:36

So refreshing. Okay, gosh, where to go from here. One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is this lazy launch style. So I love this because I'm all about like, how can I work less and get more done? Even though I'm working less and tell us what does lazy launching look like for you? What does this mean?

Laura Belgray 36:57

Yeah, so to me a lazy launch means and it may sound like a lot of work to it's not no work. But it means none of the things that you're supposed to do in a big launch, like webinars, you know, a live webinar with that you pitch from Facebook ads, all the ads, all the like, what are all the different things that you're supposed to do during launch, a chat, a live challenge, a Facebook group, all that stuff that can go into a big launch. I don't do those, my launch is all email. And to me that feels lazy. To me, it feels like and especially because my first one for inbox hero that was my first phone open and closed cart launch ever. And that was really kind of thrown together or done on the fly. I decided I wanted to launch on my birthday. And I didn't really prepare, you know, it was like, oh, Sandra, who's my manager, I was like, Sandra, by the way, I wanted to launch this on my birthday. And she's like, Oh, God, thanks for telling me like two weeks before your birthday. So I just started writing emails for it. And, and I wrote a sales page from the back of a big event room, you know, from the back of the back table of copy chief live, where I was speaking. And then while I was listening to other speakers, sorry to say I was writing my sales page, trying to trying to listen give them the courtesy they given me also putting together a sales page. And I wrote it totally on the fly and then continue to write some emails, like took off the next day, it was my 50th birthday, took off the next day for Mexico City, and decided to throw in a couple of emails from there. Because I like doing that. Like I love sitting. I especially love sitting in a hotel, like breakfast room with my laptop and writing an email firing off emails. So it was all emails, none of the other stuff. No affiliates, either that's also in the list, some things that are not in a lazy launch brand. And why email?

Kate Kordsmeier 39:01

I mean, both in terms of for the lazy launch, but also I mean, email is like that's your thing, right? So correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, I know we're all kind of like dabbling on social media. But it seems like you really have gone all in on the email is your method of communicating with

Laura Belgray 39:15

people. Yes. And I do write I also do engage on social media. Like I like Instagram for getting people to my email. But remember, I said before that Marie told me when I was putting together my site, she's like, what's your OPT in your list is your gold. And I didn't really understand that I didn't understand why or what to do with them. But she was absolutely right. And this is stuff that she still teaches in B school. And she also tells you like not to put those social icons on your homepage or anywhere on your website, their Instagram where people are going to click away from your website. You want them to stay on your website and get on your email list. And the reason for that is your connection with your email list is so much stronger and more immediate than your current With anywhere on social media, you put out a post on Instagram or Facebook or whatever. And this is like going to a giant party, say a rave and shouting over the music. Like it's like, Hey, everyone, I'm having a webinar, find ways to step into your greatness. And then the next day be like, Well, you didn't show up when you signed up. No one signed up. I told you about it at the party. At the party, I didn't even see you at the party. I definitely didn't hear you. It's party. That's social media. Like, if you were very lucky, if you know, I don't know what 2% of people who follow you actually see and engage with your posts. Most of us were scrolls girls girl sentence, maybe something catches our eye. We like it, maybe we'll come back to it later. Usually, it's just like, Oh, I have to read this right now. But I felt like yeah, as a friend, I like it. And whereas email, first of all, in your emails are not subject to this algorithm that is designed to make you pony up money to be seen, the more your emails land in someone's inbox in the order in which they were sent. Right. So you like, it's going to hit there that hit their inbox, unless it hits their spam, that's a whole other can of worms, but it's going to go to their inbox, and they will see it. And whether they open it is a whole other thing. That's an art in itself. But you have the power there, right? By getting them to open it and, and being seen by them and getting them to engage with it. So I can put you know, whether it's a blog post or something I'm selling, I can post about it on Facebook, on LinkedIn on Instagram, and get, you know, decent response, maybe a few people clicking over, but then I send it out an email. And it's hundreds of clicks, maybe 1000s. And people can get people to share it or buy it or engage. It's so much. It's such a much more intense relationship between you and the person on the other side person whose inbox it is than it is between you and the person scrolling through social media.

Kate Kordsmeier 42:16

Totally. Okay, I love that so much. So how do you be more of yourself in your emails? If people are like, Okay, I'm fine with that. But I'm kind of boring, or I don't really have I don't know how to put myself into my emails. What's kind of a good starting point?

Laura Belgray 42:34

Yeah, well, first of all, you want to sound like you, you want your words to sound like talking nothing a bit of copywriting thing of it is copy talking. And so this is a very like basic element of it. But something that people are not trained to do, which is use contractions. Your right, if you touch type, your right Pinky, it's your friend, Mr apostrophe. And you should work that key in into putting in those combo words, instead of you know, I am going to teach you, I'm going to teach you, and I'm so glad you I am so glad that you are here. I'm so glad you're here, right. So in what you want to do is read your writing out loud, and anywhere that it doesn't sound like you or it doesn't sound like talking. And you find yourself changing it in your mouth as it comes out of your mouth, change it on the page accordingly. make it sound like a person. And

Kate Kordsmeier 43:34

that idea.

Laura Belgray 43:35

Yeah, and I like to make every email, what I call an E fab, an email from a bestie. So I picture an actual friend on the other side of the email, I picture a friend opening the email. And if you have trouble doing that, you can even you don't have to compose the email in your you know ESP platform. You could compose it in actual email, just bring up an email and say like, Okay, I'm gonna practice dashing this off to a friend and you could even put their name and in the field and just say like, hey, and what would you tell that friend? How would you say it to that friend, so that that makes a big difference in how your voice comes across. Instead of thinking I'm writing to 1000s of people, or I'm writing to hundreds of people write to one person and you want to you want to do that both mentally, like picturing one person and also verbally on the page. You don't want to say some of you might know this about me. Some of you might not know, you don't want to address an audience of multiples are now gathered around our laptops being like, Hey, you know, Hey, everybody, it's an email from Kate, let's all read it together. It's one person reading it, and they want to feel like it's from you to them. So so make it personable and make it in, you know, in that format like it's from one person to one person. Yeah. And be conversational and chatty. And you also want to you want to use stories from your life. little details from your life, these become kind of recurring themes that they create. So just for instance, I always mentioned not never email but often mentioned Real Housewives, especially when Real Housewives of New York is in season. I mentioned them a lot. Almost everybody in my audience knows that I'm a real housewives freak. And so it becomes Do you know this term an Easter egg? No. So like in TV for for like super fan, some shows will have what's called an Easter egg, a little recurring theme that super fans will always catch. So there was a show called psych on USA, and every episode, there was a pineapple. You never knew how they were going to work in the pineapple. But fans would be like, oh, there's the pineapple. non-fans might not notice a pineapple, or make anything of it. But it makes people feel included. It creates a culture in inside our culture around you. So that people who are fans feel included, they feel like they know you. They feel like they would be friends with you in real life or might feel like they're already friends with you. You just don't know it. So when you use those personal details from your life and tell those stories, and the stories might be about, you know, might might be about people in your family, or the stories might be about business like you mentioned the one where I talked about people flouncing. So often I'll write about, you know, about my shrimpers and about people, like often I will write about people who are annoying or obnoxious because I get people to rally around you. And they love it. People love to hear how you're handling that. And they love to see that you're human, that you're not immune to those things to nastiness, and to people not liking you. So those stories are great, but I'll also talk about, like, I wrote a story about my husband deciding that I had ruined the dinner he was making by forgetting to buy the basil. And it was a story about like the hunt for basil and him saying like, nevermind, don't worry about it, don't go to the store. I mean, the pasta is not going to taste like summer, but

Kate Kordsmeier 47:12

how do you end up like, I think you do such a good job of tying it into like a larger lesson or something like in the story is never just about what the story is.

Laura Belgray 47:22

Right? So you don't really have that privilege in emails that people have signed up for, unless they're just signing up for your stories. But usually, they're signing up for something else for information to inspiration to learn from you in some way. So they are if they're reading a story from you, they're wondering, okay, what's the point? What's going to be the tie in? How does this relate to me? Or life? Or where's the lesson here? So I do always bring it to some kind of a call to action or a point. So for instance, the basil story, you know, the, I think the main problem, the main obstacle there was that the store was closed, and we didn't have any nit. We didn't really know our neighbors. And I was like, What about people next door, it's like, we've never even talked to them, you can't just go knock on the door and ask for basil. And I was like, This is what happens when you don't have relationships with people when you want to when the email was called How to ask for things. And so it's like to add to be able to ask for things you have to build up relationships first.

Kate Kordsmeier 48:22

Yeah, that's what that's like prompts that you if you when you get writer's block, I mean, I'm, I don't know if now you're just in such a flow that it's like, No, I just saw something always comes to me, or just sometimes you have to like, go back and say, okay, what's a good prompt to get my wheels turning here?

Laura Belgray 48:37

I think prompts are really helpful. I don't actually tend to use them. Although I would as a last resort, like I might look up story prompts online, and then there will be tons or the ones that we have from the coffee cure, I might open that up and see like, what prompts are going to help me create an email. But usually when I have nothing to write about, and no story that's appealing to me from my like, I keep stories in Evernote so that I don't forget them, because otherwise I will forget them. So little snippets in there. If there's nothing in there that I'm feeling, then I will say like, what's one thing that I can say today? What like what's something that I've used lately, just a resource, maybe from my resources page that I should tell them about? Because people aren't like going there and digging into it every day. So they don't know what's there necessarily. So I if I come up dry tomorrow, I might write a an email about this thing that I use called clipboard history to it, which is a Chrome extension. I've actually been saving that one too, like for a day when I have nothing to say like, Okay, I'm going to write about clipboard history too. Because it's such a lifesaver and it's good for anyone who does any work or writing online. Or I might be like, Okay, what am I watching? You know, have I been enjoying anything on Netflix? I'll write about that and just say, Here's something I'm loving on that, you know, having a rough week. But this is saving my life. You should watch you know bridgerton so it can nobody ever unsubscribe because your email was too short. So that's never and never end up as short as I think they're going to like, Oh, this is gonna be the shortest one ever. I

Kate Kordsmeier 50:18

get really excited about it. And that ends up long anyway. Right? I know. So how many emails do you typically send out in a regular week? Like not during a launch?

Laura Belgray 50:27

Three, three, typically three, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Kate Kordsmeier 50:33

Okay. And do you? I mean, I'm sure you get people that are like, you're emailing me too much.

Laura Belgray 50:38

Yeah, most of them quietly unsubscribe, I get a lot of unsubscribes. But I find it worth it. Because I make a lot more sales. I make a lot more money over the course of the year, when I email a lot and email less, and I become more Top of Mind the people who do open the emails. That is too many emails for some people. But a lot of other people will say I love your daily emails. And they think that they're every day they're really three days a week. They think they are every day and they love that sunset. Like if I miss one people will be like, I think something's wrong with the tagging because I didn't get my email today. I really miss them. Yeah, if I don't know

Kate Kordsmeier 51:20

as much. Well, it reminds me of a story you told in an email recently about I think it's your brother in law, who sends back every fish dish she's ever ordered.

Laura Belgray 51:30

dish, but this one was about?

Kate Kordsmeier 51:32

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, the lesson in that story, which was hilarious was just like, some people are just not going to like you or they're not going to like what you're doing and like, they're just people out there that are just negative or not for you and like, you just have to be okay with it. Right? Calling all imposters, okay, that was a joke. But I know so many of us, myself included struggle with imposter syndrome. So if you can relate this one's for you. So maybe you keep hearing about how you need publicity in your business, but you feel like you're not at the level you should be air quotes around that in order to be featured in a magazine or a podcast. Or maybe you think I'm just a blogger, fancy media features aren't part of my business model. Now, you are not alone. So many bloggers and online entrepreneurs tell me that they don't need or want publicity or they're not ready for it. But guess what? They're wrong. Getting your name and your work in front of new audiences is one of the best ways to increase your impact and income organically as in no paid ad spend required. So if you're ready to make your publicity dreams come true in 2021 check out my friend Selena Sue's publicity calendar. Selena is a publicity strategist and the most connected person I have ever met. This calendar has everything you need to get started like 40 plus pages of story ideas, you can pitch to the media and exactly when to pitch them. Strategies for tackling sensitive and timely issues everything from COVID-19 to Black Lives Matter. And Selena's top three insider secrets for scoring major media coverage and building an audience of raving fans along the way. So Selena and her team spent more than 40 hours putting this together for you. So you can put yourself out there with confidence and meet the media's needs like a mind reader. Plus, you can use it to map out your social media and newsletter content for the rest of the year. So to get your hands on the Ultimate Guide to publicity in 2021, head to Katekordsmeier.com/publicity and grab your copy. Now it's free. the right kind of media attention can skyrocket your brand and your earning potential fast. So head on over to Katekordsmeier.com/publicity to get your calendar now.

It was reminding me to and I was asking about prompts that my friend Tarzan, Kay, who I think you know, is?

Laura Belgray 54:09

Yeah, I know Tarzan. Well,

Kate Kordsmeier 54:11

I've asked I was in a mastermind with her last year, and I kept being like, but how do you come up with these ideas? And she's like, you just have to kind of start training your brain to just like, notice when Oh, that could be an email, that could be an email. And I you know, and she said, what a bullshit answer. And then now I've started doing it. And it's like, oh, now I have like, no shortage of ideas. Because now I'm really starting to get into that habit of being like, Oh, this is gonna make a great email.

Laura Belgray 54:37

Exactly. I mean, when I used to, it used to be blogging that I would do that like that was the form of my blogs. They were just these random stories, sometimes a little lesson. And anytime something happened where I was ranting about something, people every my friends would be like, I smell a blog post. And now instead, they're like, I smell an email. I can't wait to email and it's true. to train your brain to recognize things that could be a theme something for an email, you don't have to know what it's going to connect to. When it happens you don't have to know how you're going to tie it in. Just write it down. You know, overheard on the street or down a no, I really I love Evernote Lord your Notes app or whatever, but keep moving along of those things. And then you can dip into it and turn those into emails.

Kate Kordsmeier 55:25

Yeah. You and Tarzan are some of the only emails that I open every week. Do you have anybody that you subscribe to that? You're like, Oh, I love their emails. I always open them.

Laura Belgray 55:35

I mean, I always open emails from my friend ash amber J. The middle finger project, you may always open Alexandra Franzen's, she doesn't email all that frequently. But she's established herself as kind of a dependable eye she used to email more but still, like she has not lost trust. I don't think with her audience. So hers. Always I usually open coals, Cole Shaffer of honey copy. His or his are great. And I think that there's anyone who's like, always whose emails I always open. Not so much anymore. Just because I'm so busy and handling and handling. These are fabulous. And she's one of the few people who to me like, get away with the bye week. Not it's not bi weekly. It's I can't what is every other week, like every two weeks? No, no, it is. fortnightly is what she calls that as fortnight and it's not a very sexy, modern word. But like hers, are she her emails are legendary. And if you sign up for them, they're called Total anarchy. You will see why they're really good. Yeah, really well curated and excellent. Always a great always a great story. Always something always great resources. So those are amazing.

Kate Kordsmeier 56:59

Yeah, well, I think anybody listening who is just struggling to write good emails and coming up with ideas, and I've been a journalist, I was a journalist before I also crossed over to the dark side of online marketing. And, you know, whenever I had writer's block, like the best thing to do is just go read good writing. So I feel like there's so many people who I just subscribe to their emails, like, I'm never gonna buy from them necessarily, but I just want to see what they're doing and get inspiration and read good writing.

Laura Belgray 57:29

Oh, totally. It's worth it for that. And I also recommend reading like actual books, but not business books, and I need business books, those are fine. But you know, as a, as a former journalist, you know, the importance of like great writing, and how inspiring it can be and how it kind of seeps into you. So I recommend reading great authors. Yes. Rather than looking for like, Oh, you know, if the big leap was really good taught me about my upper limit, I mean, that's fine. If those are not, that's not necessarily writing that's going to make you a better writer. Right? For sure. For sure.

Kate Kordsmeier 58:03

I feel like there's so much more to talk about. But I know we're coming up on the end here. Oh, one thing I know that people always ask is, I think people are always afraid to send too many emails, but during a lunch, I know and you just send it to that, well, the more emails I send, the more money I make. So how many emails do you send during a typical launch,

Laura Belgray 58:23

I mean, I have I send usually, once the cart is open one a day, Mm hmm. up to the end. And then at the end, like the day before it like two, and the last day might be up to six, I have a sent up to six emails on a cart close day, probably too much. I mean, it gets a lot of unsubscribes, I always have a soft opt out that link at the top or at the bottom that says don't want to hear about this promotion, but we'd rather stay on my list. You know, click here and you'll get you'll be authorized. So I always have that for a lot of tons of unsubscribes. Anyway, people just see a whole bunch of emails in their inbox at once. If they're not following along, and they're not interested and they will just be like, delete, delete, delete, unsubscribe, it's okay. It's worth it to me. Because you never know which one of those emails is going to get that person who was there with their arms folded, saying I'm not going to buy I want it but I'm not going to buy I don't even want it but I'm reading these but I'm not going to buy you never know which one of those get and get that person say okay, you got me. Oh, I've

Kate Kordsmeier 59:27

done that so many times myself. It's just like, I keep reading these emails because they're interesting. Maybe I'm learning something about it. I have no interest in what you're selling no interest at all. And then by the end, you know, just something hits and I go like

Laura Belgray 59:40

Alright, fine. Take my money. Yes, exactly. So you don't know which one it is. Email gives you the opportunity to hit different people in different ways. And from different angles. There are so many different drivers that drive us to buy you know, one person might be more susceptible to FOMO like Oh, everyone's doing it, I gotta do it. Another might be driven by desire, like, Oh my gosh, that's the picture of a life I want. That's what this does. Okay, you got me. Another might be driven by pain like, Ah, okay, you're going to solve that problem. Right? That's, that is my big problem. I didn't realize that I'm glad I opened this email. And you know, so they're all different components that you can address one by one in your emails, rather than trying to lump them all into one

Kate Kordsmeier 1:00:32

into one. Right, exactly. Now, when do you have any automation setup, it went with your emails that are like, somebody first subscribes to your list, they go through a welcome series or something like that? I do

Laura Belgray 1:00:43

I do, I have to switch mine up, because it really wasn't designed to sell like, in the beginning, it was designed to get somebody engaged. And it works for that. To get someone engaged to get them to know me, and feel connected with me, and then kind of give them some tips and prepare them for what's coming up. And like my first welcome sequence, had one that said, here's where it gets weird. That was the subject line. And I was like, I've been giving you tips about coffee. From this point on, you're going to get a lot of random stories that have nothing to do with anything. Yeah. And that has changed, I now actually deliver, you know what people expect in terms of quote unquote, value, in that I give them some kind of a point. Most of my emails give something in the way of whether it's an actionable takeaway, or just something to think about, or some tool or thing like recommendation book, Netflix show, most of them get deliver something along those lines. So I don't have to say, here's where it gets weird. Like you already know that my writing might be weird, or it might be a certain style, but it's not going to be like a turn,

Kate Kordsmeier 1:01:53

right? And then when you're in a launch, are you sending it to people who are like new on your new tier list or in a welcome series? you pause it? Are you leaving those people out?

Laura Belgray 1:02:04

I think I know that there is a pause there is a like a slight delay, so that the people and this is something I'd like to finance, it's tough. Because I don't want to hit people with a middle of a launch sequence when they just joined my list. Right? I would love for them to get it from the very beginning. But if they're in the at the end of the cart, they can't. So it's not something that I have perfected or figured out completely. I know people who are brand brand new to my list might not get those launch emails, they might be left out of this launch. And I have to content myself with like, it's okay. They'll be here for the next launch. They're not they're probably not ready yet. Oh, no, they're missing out on it's I'm selling. And I don't want them to miss out like it's okay. They'll be on next one.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:02:49

Right, exactly.

So,

two more questions for you who replies you can use when you send out emails with a lot of yourself? And then you get a lot more replies. And when you just send out generic emails. So are you replying to all of these people that responding have somebody on your team? Do you just reply to any of them?

Laura Belgray 1:03:09

No, it's a mix. I now have someone on my team, who's really on Sandra, Sandra, my manager has her own team. And so Laura beat another Laura Bay answers the replies to the welcome sequence. And it's hard for me to give that up. Because I really like getting those replies and I like replying to them, but I don't have time and it can be many a day. And then to the emails that I send out during throughout the week, I receive all those they go to my inbox and I write back to all the ones that I have time to. It's part of the joy of it. Like it's you know, it's like applause if you're doing theater or something. So it's hard for me to resist that. And then at some point, you know, if it's tons of replies to one email, I might stop and just leave them unread. And Laura B will take care of them.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:04:05

Okay. And then is Laura be replying as you or ish? No, she's saying this. I'm on Laura's team. I'm a different Larbi.

Laura Belgray 1:04:13

Yeah, initially, we had someone replying as me and it was just weird. I was like, no one can. No one can do my voice. Sorry. Like, I know that their voice guides and you can train people to write in your voice. But for me, I don't believe that. It's an ego thing. I'm sure I think I'm a special snowflake is so unique that nobody could capture it. I really feel that way. Like Yeah,

Kate Kordsmeier 1:04:34

we're in the enneagram sorry, are you for enneagram

Laura Belgray 1:04:38

i don't know i i take those tests and I'm never satisfied with the answer. So I don't remember what I am.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:04:47

Okay, well, type four is the ones that think they're special snowflakes and yeah, I love it. Okay, now, you mentioned Sandra and her team, but I again maybe correct me if I'm wrong here. I feel like I I've known and heard about you that you have this seven figure business, but you don't have a big team. It's mostly you doing a lot of the work. Is that correct? Yes, I

Laura Belgray 1:05:10

have one. I mean, my one person is Sam, but I don't have anyone on payroll. So she's an independent contractor. So I can, you know, legitimately, technically say I am a team of one. That's not really true. I mean, I don't think I could never do this. I don't think I know that I could not do this. Without Sandra she like bringing her on is what has allowed me to grow my business. It was just entirely a client based business where I was serving one on one clients, and that was the extent of it. And then and then there was copy cure. But that wasn't, you know, that's something I'm a partner and don't have to write. Without Sandra, I never would have had the bandwidth, or the guts or any of that to or the know how to, like, start creating courses and delivering courses and have a group program shrimp club.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:06:02

I mean, it's because of her support that I'm able to do all those things. And then I was able to quit client work, which was easy. That was that I had automated people would book it. They get the Google Doc, you know, I used acuity. It was all pretty seamless. So even having just one person on your team is pretty rare to grow to a seven figure business and just have it be you and Sandra, do you have lots of contractors? Or do you have you just decided like, I'm just not going to do all the things and just really focus?

Laura Belgray 1:06:33

Yeah, I mean, I do have some contractors like Michelle Martello I think I mentioned before, maybe not by name, so she's the designer I mentioned. She's a designer developer, really, strat online strategist. So she has helped me with when it comes to design, not only does she help me, like does she package things for me and help me with my, like, she designed my website and developed it and customizes things for me and makes things look nice. But she's also taught me things like she'll do tutorials with me and show me how to do Photoshop and I so I can I make my own quote cards? No, you can use Canva. But she's like, Canva won't do what you want it to. Not with your font. She likes things really custom. So she teaches me She helps me. So she's been wonderful. Again, she's a contractor. So she's not technically on my team, but she is sure my go to. And then that's pretty much it like I have, you know, I have a lawyer is smallness intentional. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want a team. I never want it to be a boss. I never want when people talk about their team, like, our team is growing. I'm like, Oh, poor, you. Terrible to me. We are hiring. I'm like, oh, God for you. Yeah, none of that sounds appealing to me having a team meeting, okay, I've got a team meeting every day at one. No, I don't want that at all. I voxer with Sandra all day long, but back and forth when I think of something that I need. And we talk about things. But we rarely have meetings, actual meetings, and I just don't want to run a team. And I don't want people on the payroll. And especially during the pandemic, when people are like I had to let go people on my team or I'm responsible for all these people feeding their families. That sounds like hell, I want none of that. I don't I just don't, that's not something I want in my business life. I might change my mind at some point. Like, it's probably what it takes to make multiple, seven figures on your own. But for now, I'm really happy with the one person

Kate Kordsmeier 1:08:36

Yeah, well, and I think not to put words in your mouth, but it's also about deciding like, Well, a lot of times you need to make more money in your business to pay for all the people that are on your team. And it's like, maybe this is just enough for me and I don't like I don't need more money than this. So I don't need to grow my business further. And I don't need to hire more people to do that.

Laura Belgray 1:08:58

Right. I I have seen myself like friends of mine whose businesses grew in size, their teams grew in size, and their gross revenue grew in size, but not their profits. Oh boy, where's the things in that sounds really unfun to, to like make more money, but you're not keeping more money. Now. You're responsible for all these people, and you must make more money in order to pay for them. Right. I know that's how businesses work. But it sounds unfun to me. It's not what I want.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:09:28

Well, it's just a perfect example of like just getting paid to be you and doing away is like you're bucking the system and who cares because this is what works for you.

Laura Belgray 1:09:38

Yeah, exactly. Now that's not to say that I'm not hungry for more money because I you know, I like we'd like a bigger apartment. You know, we want one on a higher floor with terrorists. We might want to like we want to put in a pool we can afford that. But what if we wanted to upgrade the house in you know, the house that we bought in Sag Harbor to something bigger There was the one that we bought. And then there's the ones that are $6 million. And I have friends who could easily buy that, like friends who could buy a $6 million house. And it would be like buying a jacket.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:10:13

I don't know what those people are. I can't relate to that. That's exactly

Laura Belgray 1:10:16

how a friend of mine described it. She bought a house and she was like, it was like buying a jacket. Like because her she's been doing these live challenge launches, and they've been making multiple millions of dollars she does a couple times a year. And that is amazing. She's like, you could do this too. You just hire all these mentors. And you Emily, stop right there.

I don't want to do that. They don't want to do that. So they go. Yeah,

Kate Kordsmeier 1:10:41

do what you want. I love it. Okay, Laura, we're coming up to the end here. So tell everybody where they can find you.

Laura Belgray 1:10:48

Oh, please come find me at talking shrimp calm spelled exactly the way it sounds no hyphen, spaces, talking shrimp.com. And then on Instagram comm find me at talking shrimp NYC. That's my handle there. But come sign up for if you were interested in all this stuff about email, definitely want my guide to non sucky subject lines. It's my 33 most open subject lines and for that tanked and templates to make your own. And so if you want to just go right for that directly, you'll find it on my homepage, but you can also go to talkingshrimp.com/subjectlines, all one word. Okay.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:11:31

I love it. And I'm so glad you mentioned that because I had a question on here to ask you about subject lines. And then we ran out of time. So there we go. There you go. Yeah, perfect. Well, thanks so much, Laura. It was so fun chatting with you.

Laura Belgray 1:11:43

Thank you likewise, love every minute of this conversation.

Kate Kordsmeier 1:11:52

Wait a minute,

I know I know. You're eager to get back to your life. But before you turn off this episode, I want to share something super quick with you. I know you're probably sick of hearing other podcasters ask you to leave reviews. But here's the deal. If you like a podcast, and you want them to be able to continue delivering you free episodes every week, we need your support. If you subscribe on the apple podcast, Google podcast, app, Spotify, or wherever you listen, it makes it possible for me to continue to provide free helpful content and bring you amazing guests. And if you take it one step further, by giving us a rating and review with your honest feedback, we can improve better serve you in the future. And you could even be featured on a future episode during our listener spotlights. Because if we don't get the reviews, we don't get the rankings. And it makes it a lot harder to continue justifying the cost and time expense of producing a podcast every week, and convincing amazing guests to come on the show. And of course your reviews are super helpful and motivating to me personally, and I love hearing from you. So on that note, we're going to end this episode with another listener spotlight. Here we go. This review comes from mdo NOXO. Not sure how to pronounce that but thank you for writing in regardless, the subject of her review is the perfect podcast which makes my heart flutter a little bit. She says I love how real Kate is. She shares everything from holistic living to blogging to living a passionate life. I'm truly inspired by Kate and all that she does to help others step into the lifestyle of their dreams. If you haven't been listened to every episode yet, what are you waiting for? Well, thank you. I wish I could call you by your name but regardless, I so appreciate the kind words and I hope that anyone listening will take your advice.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai