TCC Podcast #251: Stepping into Your Own Voice with Laura Belgray

On the 251st episode of The Copywriter Club podcast, we’re joined by none other than  Laura Belgray. Laura is the founder of Talking Shrimp and co-creator of The Copy Cure with Marie Forleo. It’s been a few years since she’s been on the show, and in which time she’s done everything she said she wasn’t going to do in her business. No matter where you are in your copywriting, you’ll hear countless insights you can apply to your own business. Ready to take notes? How to go from copywriter for clients to being a copywriter for yourself. What hiring team members can do for you and your business growth. (Hint: explode) The shift from being someone’s copywriter to stepping into your own voice and brand. Becoming the course creator and getting paid to write emails to your list. Igniting your brand so people know you exist. Why you need to start pitching yourself (yesterday). Envisioning what you truly want in your business and what it will take to get there. Laura’s website transformation and creating her own museum for people to take pictures with. (It’s the end of an era!) Hiring a coach to help with pivots and rebrands. Emailing your list 3x a week. Should you do it? How sharing your content and articles can prove to build your authority. — As long as it’s shareable. The fastest way to learn new information or processes. What you should be telling your list to create meaningful connections and to dig deeper into their wants and needs. The myths of managing a team. Why you need to be super clear and honest with your list about what your purpose is. How to boost your creativity when the wheels aren’t turning. The raw and real truth of writing a book. — You may need to quiet your ego. How many copywriters of today are becoming shadows and what you can do to ensure it doesn’t happen to you. The future of copywriting and what absolutely has got to go. What Laura does to make money by being herself (and while sitting on her couch.) There are many ways to create a successful copywriting business, and Laura’s method is one worth listening to. Press play or check out the transcript below.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Laura’s first episode Laura’s website Laura’s subject line resource Full Transcript: Rob:  A lot can change in three years. Heck, if the last year has taught us anything, it's that things can change quickly, and they change faster than we think. Our guest for this episode is Laura Belgray, and Laura was on our podcast a little over three years ago. That was episode 15, where she talked about the kind of business that she had, and she talked about a lot of things that she wasn't even interested in doing. Now, three years later, that's all changed. She's built the business that she said she didn't want, and she loves it. So we're going to get into the details of that change, and what Laura has done with her business. But first, let me introduce my co-host for today, copywriter and launch strategist, Brittany McBean. Welcome, Brittany. Brittany:  Thanks, thanks for having me. I've told you that my life goal is to be Kira when I grow up, so now I'm just one step closer. Rob:  Yeah, right, if Kira decides not to come back, you can just stay. Brittany:  I'm taking her spot, watch out. Rob:  Exactly. You've been warned Kira. I'm excited to have Brittany here to share her thoughts about what we chatted with Laura today. But before we get to that interview and to the things that we want to share, this is your weekly reminder that this episode of The Copywriter Club podcast is brought to you by The Copywriter Think Tank. That's our mastermind for copywriters and marketers who are doing some pretty big things in their business, becoming better copywriters, creating products, maybe creating things like video shows, like what Brittany has on YouTube, podcasts, even building agencies, product companies. If you want to do something interesting like that in your business, and become the person that high-paying clients call because you're the person that they know, that's what we help copywriters do in the think tank. To learn more, visit copywriterthinktank.com so that we can chat about whether it's a fit for you. Okay. So let's jump into our interview with Laura Belgray, and find out more about her business and what's changed. Brittany:  What have you been doing since we spoke to you on episode 15? Four and a half years ago. Laura:  Four and a half years ago, right. We just established that was 2017. And I mean so much, like my business was totally different then, which I guess we'll get into, we can get into it right now, so back then we talked about copywriting for clients and that's what I was doing and that's all that I was doing. Now I don't do that anymore, so my business looks totally different. I have a group program called Shrimp Club which runs for nine months of the year, we just wrapped round three, and it was amazing. I have a couple of courses, one of which I'm launching right now, it's called Inbox Hero and one called Launch Hero. I love selling those. So, my business is all the kind of business that I said didn't want to have, but now I have it and I'm so happy about it. So that's pretty much what I've been doing. Rob:  Let's talk about that, because like you said, that's not what you had planned on four years ago, but it is what you are today. So like why the change, what made you evolve to what you've got today? Laura:  Yeah, it's funny, I was just looking at the transcript for our first episode, episode 15, and it's so funny. I see a lot of myself saying, well, I never want to have a team. Brittany:  Did you say that? Laura:  I did. I said, I don't want a team. I know everybody says that that's what it takes to get to the magical seven figure mark, which I would love to do. That's what I was saying to you then, but I just don't want a team and I don't want that kind of business. Then I hired somebody in 2018, her name is Sandra, I don't know if you know her, but Sandra Booker, she's amazing and not available. I found her through Tarzan Kay. Rob:  Yeah, a lot of people like Sandra, I've heard her name passed around quite a bit. Laura:  She's very popular, very popular. Everybody tries to hire her and I think you can, for a little bit of consulting, possibly, and she has a mastermind that helps you with your tech stack and stuff like that, or that you can send your VA to. So, hiring Sandra, at first I didn't really know what I wanted to do with her, but you know what, Tarzan wrote a Facebook post about her back in, I guess it was 2018 and said the magic words. She said, since I hired Sandra, I've been making so much more money. For me, that's always a go that's a yes. So I was like, tell me about this Sandra. I just jumped on the chance to hire her and did, and didn't really know what we did. It took us a little while to find our groove, cause I didn't really know what kind of work to give her. I was a little confused about it. She took on the scheduling of my clients, and in fact that summer my dad died that summer and she was just absolutely crucial, helping me reschedule things like taking things off my plate that I just did not have the wherewithal to handle. I was like, I need to be off the grid and not dealing with client stuff and I don't want to explain to everybody what I'm going through right now, and have to deal with everyone's kindnesses, and all of that. She did it for me, and I think that was the first time I was like, oh, thank God I have an assistant. She turned out to be my way more than an assistant and I refer to her as my manager, she's an online business manager. She started clearing the way for me to create a lot more, to take on more, to take on projects, to actually build things, create things, rebrand and create mini-courses and sell mini-courses, and set them up with links. Then, all the integrations and things that I would have sat there researching all day and probably didn't do it because of that. Also, client work got in the way. So, I think most copywriters go through this. They would like to scale or take on, at a certain point they say, you know what? I want to run. I want to have something on my own to sell. I sell for everybody else. I have the skills to use words that sell, and I'm doing it for everybody, but me, I want to create something. But then they have so much client work that they can't get to their own work, which I'm sure is something that you can both relate to from when that was your whole world. So, I think taking on hiring Sandra and saying, okay, I can at least have some support, even if I don't want a team, that changed everything. That set things in motion. Then a couple of, I'd say, mindset shifts that came to me, like visions, in that same year, 2017 when I talked to you, I think I had just realized that I was tired of being referred to as so-and-so's copywriter, like people would call me Marie Forleo's copywriter and that wasn't even true. I was her writing partner and helped her with some copywriting, like scripting episodes, but I wasn't her copywriter, she did her own copywriting. That made me uncomfortable, and always being called somebody's secret weapon or, oh, you write copy for so-and-so, you're the real deal. I'm like, no, I want to be defined as the real deal in my own right. I decided I wanted to be Laura (beep) Belgray. I didn't want to be anybody's anything. I didn't want to be, Laura Marie's copywriter, or Laura so-and-so's copywriter. I wanted to be Laura (beep) Belgray, and I wanted to be a brand and a name in my own right, and I realized that that would require certain things. Like that would require making more of a mark with my output, with my content,