Episode #13: Ghosting My Email List
Laura Belgray has made millions by being herself and writing some of the best story-based marketing emails.
She’s the founder of Talking Shrimp, a copywriting service, and is known for helping people find the words and courage to make their business an expression of their personality. And I’m a HUGE fangirl (There – I said it! Ha!)
In this episode, we talk about how Laura made the mistake of ghosting her email subscribers for months — only to return to them pushing a pricey offer, hoping to cash in on affiliate commissions.
That didn’t go well.
We chat about her approach to writing marketing emails now, the importance of building trust, why laziness is a part of her brand, how being decidedly different has helped her attract a huge following, AND her new book: Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You’re the F-ing Worst’.
Listen to the Episode
Show notes
Links from this episode:
Pre-order Laura’s book, “Tough Titties”: https://www.talkingshrimp.com/book
Sign up for Laura’s newsletter on her website, Talking Shrimp: https://www.talkingshrimp.com/
Laura Belgray on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurabelgray/
(And if you haven’t already, sign up for my newsletter here: https://emancopyco.com/emailrules)
If you loved this episode, take a screenshot, post it on Instagram and tell everyone you know that this is the podcast to listen to. Don’t forget to tag me! @emancopyco.
And if you’re interested in working with me, visit emancopyco.com/contact.
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Eman Ismail: One of my earliest childhood memories is of me sobbing into my hands. I couldn't have been older than five. I'm sitting at a plastic child-sized table, trying to eat my cereal at breakfast club. I'm waiting for my childminder to take me to school. The bowl in front of me remains untouched. I'm too nauseous to eat any of it.
Instead, I cry. I cry, and I cry, but my childminder can't hear me over the sound of the vacuum. They're busy cleaning the crumb-filled carpet before we have to jump into the van and start the rush of our daily school drop-off. Someone finally notices five-year-old me sobbing. And a tall figure bends down to my level and looks me in the eyes.
I don't remember their face, and I don't remember their name. I don't remember them asking me what was wrong, but they must have. Because I do remember whispering, with a shaky voice, I don't want to go to school. Please, don't make me go to school. And that's how it all came out.
Being bullied as a child is one of the things Laura Belgray and I have in common. Laura's bullies were called Beth Y and Beth F, and they made 6th grade awful for her. One time, they sent Laura a little note pretending to be her crush. They kicked her out of pizza Wednesdays and they rolled their eyes and elbowed each other every time she spoke in class.
But today, Laura has built herself a million-dollar business and made her fortune from the very same thing she was bullied for, being herself.
In case you don't know her, Laura Belgray is a copywriting expert, email storytelling master, co-creator of The Copy Cure with Marie Forleo, and author of Tough Titties.
Every year, she makes a lot of money from her digital products and courses by selling them through the smartest, funniest, almost hypnotic story-based sales emails. Laura literally gets paid to be herself. She's used all the things Beth Y and Beth F decided were weaknesses and turned them into her biggest strength.
She connects with her subscribers by being herself. She sells her offers by being unapologetically lazy, her words. Proudly child-free and an unashamed lover of money. Laura Belgray is known for her ability to write great emails that sell her products. It's funny then, that Laura's biggest business mistake is about the time she stopped writing emails.
As soon as she stopped writing emails, her sales tanked, she had a failed affiliate launch, and she found herself crying to her friend, Marie Forleo, about what a terrible marketer she must be.
Laura Belgray: I was getting no sales, no sales, no sales.
Then towards the end, I got one sale and then I got another sale and I had, I think by cart closed day, I had two sales. Meanwhile, This was the biggest year that B School had ever seen. And everywhere around me, it seemed like, on Facebook at the time, people were posting, Oh my gosh, I got so many sales for B School.
One guy who was selling it for the first time posted, and I had been very aware of him promoting it, posted, uh, on that last day, today has been a good day. A very good day indeed. And I was like, oh, you mofo. Like, did he have to say indeed? I was so upset. And I kept, I actually kept restarting my router thinking something was wrong.
I'm like, I have to have more sales than this. There's no way. And
Eman Ismail: there's a tech issue something's gone
Laura Belgray: No, it wasn't my internet, believe it or not with my sales. So I had two sales. And then one of them disappeared and they switched to another affiliate. Yeah.
Eman Ismail: Oh no!
On today's show, I'm speaking to Laura Belgray about the time she ghosted her email list for months and months, and only started writing to them again when it was time to sell them. Marie Folio's Course B.
Laura Belgray: I discovered from this mistake that Being consistent and regular in someone's inbox or wherever you're publishing your content, if that's what you're doing, it is, that is what builds trust.
Well, if you go away, you lose that trust, especially if you come back when it's time, right when it's time to sell something.
Eman Ismail: Welcome to Mistakes That Made Me, a podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistakes so you know what not to do on your road to success. My name's Eman Ismail, and I'm an email strategist and copywriter for online business owners and e-commerce brands. I'm a podcast lover, a pizza binger, a proud mama of two, and I have this radical idea that if maybe us business owners were a little less guarded and a lot more open about the mistakes we've made, we could help each other grow a business that brings us more joy and less regret.
Eman Ismail: Laura, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to have you.
Laura Belgray: Eman. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Eman Ismail: Yeah, I just like full out admitting that I'm a fangirl, because I was like, I'm not even going to pretend. I'm not going to pretend I'm not. I just sent an email to my entire email list, telling them I'm about to interview you and admit I'm a fangirl. So I was like, whatever. I'm just gonna admit it.
Laura Belgray: You know what? Why pretend? Why front? I love it. So, I am very susceptible to, uh, flattery. It will get you everywhere with me. So,
Eman Ismail: Good. That is very good to know.
Laura Belgray: And, I'm an admirer. I'm a fan of yours. I think what you're doing is great. I love the premise of this podcast. I like your tweets. I, like, I dabble on Twitter. I'm not there very much, but you're one of the people who I follow and pay attention to.
So, I'm very excited to
Eman Ismail: Oh my god. You just made my day. Thank you so much.
So tell, for anyone who's listening who doesn't know who you are, tell us who you are and what you do.
Laura Belgray: Okay. Well, I'm Laura Belgray and I'm the founder of Talking Shrimp, which is known for copywriting, or I should say I'm known for copywriting. But my main umbrella mission with my business is to help entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, all the people ending in preneur, find the words and the chutzpah to make their business a 100% expression of their personality, because that is how you get paid to be you, which to me is the holy grail of work. Something I've always wanted for myself and enjoy helping others achieve.
Eman Ismail: Yes, I love that idea of getting paid to be you. how did you get into this work?
Laura Belgray: Well, it's a pretty long winding road, which I didn't mention. I'm also the author of a new book called Tough Titties and I bring that up because I lay it out in Tough Titties. I mean it's a 30 year, a 30 year journey if you will, but I, I started off in magazines. And I was terrible in my internship. I had an internship in a magazine and was terrible at that internship because we were supposed to pitch stories, dig up stories for the magazine.
And I decided, I realized, okay, I'm not a journalist. not that I thought I was, but I wanted to do something with writing. And then I ended up, when my internship ran out. The ad side took pity on me and was like, all right, we'll take her and give me a job and they gave me an assignment that nobody wanted on the editorial side, which was to write an advertorial.
Advertorial being those pages in the magazine that look like they're part of the magazine, but they say like promotion at the top or advertisement at the top in tiny letters, and it was for Dewar Scotch, and I wrote this whole piece. I had a full page to write, and I wrote all these little things like an essay on adulthood, which is ironic because I was still living in my childhood bedroom.
and then, uh, a quiz called, do you party like your Uncle Marty? Which was to determine whether you are a, like a hip swinger or an old fart loser. And if you were an old fart loser, the remedy was to drink Dewars, of course. So anyway, that was my first taste of copywriting. I realized, oh, this is copywriting.
It's writing short, fun things. So. So that's when, that's what I put in my head. I'm a copywriter. This is something I can do with my writing skills. And from there I went on to work in TV promos, which was the dream job. So I was writing those commercials for TV, for the, for the network, that run during the commercials, but they're for the network show.
So it was a lot of watching TV and then writing short. little funny things. Also, just a dream. And then in around 2010, 2009 2010, I segued into this weird online world, the space, as I like to call it, that we're both a part of, and started taking private clients, and that's because I had a friend, Marie Forleo, who I had met in hip hop class at Crunch.
And we had met in like 2003 and by now she would, and at the time she was a bartender and a beginning life coach. And by now she was kind of big in the online space and had her own programs and was creating a thing called B School and had a live event called Rich, Happy, and Hot Live. And she invited me to speak at it and she said you're a copywriter. Can you give a talk on copywriting? And it's a whole different kind of copywriting like TV promos versus I guess direct response, you know, website copy, all that kind of stuff, online copy. And I was like, sure. I didn't even know there was any difference. And so I gave a talk and people came up to me afterwards and said, Oh, you know, I'm an, I'm a real estate agent.
Can you help me with my About page? Or I'm a coach. I don't know what to put on my website. Can you help me with it? And I said, sure. I can take on some clients. And I took them on, and those were my first online, like, private clients, my one on one people. And eventually, I segued over to that entirely, and gave up the TV stuff.
And it became a part of this world, entirely. And that, so that's how I am where I am today, and that's how Talking Shrimp was born, and the business that I have now.
Eman Ismail: Amazing. And you are known for calling yourself an unapologetic, lazy person. And I was doing some reading of some of the articles that you've written, and at one point you say that the brand pillar of laziness has been a key factor in your success. So tell us what that means for you as a business owner and what your particular brand of laziness looks like.
Laura Belgray: Yeah. Well, I think as a brand pillar, I think it's been important and attractive to so many who identify at or secretly identify as lazy because it pushes against this idea of doing the most of go, go, go off, you know, stop playing small, play a bigger game, step into your greatness. You know, get up at 5 a.m., have a morning routine. You should be gratituding until you sit down at your desk and then start working. It's just too much. And, uh, I think people are exhausted just by the thought of it all and overwhelmed. And so it's nice to, it's a, I guess I function as sort of a beacon to those people of success without doing everything.
And the reason I call myself a lazy person is because a lot of people push again, push back against that idea or like, but you, you know, you've done so much. You have a successful business. You wrote a book, et cetera. How can you do all that and be a lazy person? Surely you're not. And I also walk a lot like I walk 6 miles a day at least. And so I'm not physically lazy. I like to, I like, I like to walk. It's my lazy form of exercise. Really. It means I don't have to put on a sports bra.
But here's where I do consider myself lazy. Even if I'm doing a lot, I don't locate my self worth in working hard. And how much work I do while being busy. And I think a lot of people, especially women, do. They look at the calendar and if they don't have enough things crammed in all day long, they feel guilty. They feel antsy if they see a lot of blank space on their calendars, and I am absolutely the opposite.
I feel overwhelmed and almost ashamed if I'm working nonstop and super busy, and I feel good about myself if I have time to just relax and chill. And that is my happy place. So, yeah, that's why I consider myself lazy.
Eman Ismail: Like what I really got from it was that you don't make things unnecessarily hard for yourself. You're not looking to make things hard for yourself, just for the sake of saying, oh, that was, that was really hard. You know? And like I worked really hard for that.
So one of the things that was really interesting for me was, I worked with a mindset coach at one point, Linda Perry, if anyone knows her, and yeah, she's really, she's amazing and she. I mean, we were talking and she said something like, you know, I'm hearing you talk a lot about this idea of success requiring hard work. Who taught you that? And she was, she was asking me like, who taught you that? Why did you get this idea from that? You know, you can only be successful if it's really hard work that you've really got a graft for it. And if it, and actually it was so extreme for me that it was. I felt like if it didn't hurt getting to that place, I almost didn't deserve it. And so I really love this idea of laziness and the way that you talk about it in that it's really a case of you don't have to destroy yourself to do well.
Not everything has to be hard and you can make things easy for yourself. I love the idea of the lazy launch. I joined your, your programs, your courses. So I have gone through your lazy launch program and I loved it. Yeah. And I have a friend
Laura Belgray: launch hero, being
Eman Ismail: Launch Hero. Yes. Yes. Okay, Launch Hero. And I actually have a friend who was deeply inspired by you. She used to complain every morning of like, oh my God, I woke up late again. I keep waking up late. It's awful. I need to wake up early. And she's setting her alarm and missing all her alarms. And she used to really, you know, really get frustrated at herself for that. Until she kind of started listening to you and the things that you spoke about.
And I literally saw her start forgiving herself for not being an early morning person and actually genuinely started changing her routine and decided that it was okay for her to wake up later. It was okay for her to start work at like midday and finish work at six or seven, whatever. And maybe work a little bit later into the evening, just because that's what works for her.
She didn't have to do what everyone else was telling her to do. So I have literally seen the effect of, of your philosophy, working on people and allowing people to just... Be okay with the way that they are and the way that they work.
Laura Belgray: I love that. That makes me feel great, especially about my late wake up time because I, yes, I am openly a non morning person. I enjoy the morning very much once I'm up, as long as I'm not talking to anybody and don't have anything scheduled. So, I'm, I'm just a morning person in the sense that I refuse to wake up with an alarm.
I find it traumatic.
Eman Ismail: love
Laura Belgray: I, like, I think I'm still traumatized by school. By having to wake up at six or seven and having my dad come in and stay up and at 'em, and opening my blinds and, you know, sleeping through the alarm and then him coming to wake me up and just then, the trauma of that is really stuck with me. And I only lasted six months in the one job of my life, that was a nine to five and I got fired. I couldn't, I could not make it by nine. I couldn't make it by 10 for a while. It was 10 to six. Couldn't do that. Certainly couldn't do the nine. I think that waking up like the greatest joy in my life is being able to wake up naturally without an alarm and whenever I do.
I mean, if I sleep till 8: 30, it's great. If I sleep till nine, fine. Sometimes I wake up at seven and I'm a little grumpy about it because I would rather be sleeping till eight. I want my eight hours, but, uh, no way am I setting an alarm unless I have an early morning flight. That's it.
Eman Ismail: Mm hmm. I love that. And I feel like this is why we created these businesses so that we can create whatever routines or lifestyles or habits work for us.
Laura Belgray: Yes.
Eman Ismail: have to subscribe to things like setting an alarm in the morning if you don't want to. I love it.
Well, let's talk about your new book.
Okay, so the first thing I need to... Well, first of all, let me just say that I preordered my two copies and I've just finished reading the first intro chapter and it was amazing and it was so funny and. I've like, I've seen, I've been reading your emails, and I have seen a lot of people's like reviews talking about how amazing it is. So I had high expectations. And I went into it and you really exceeded those expectations. I'm excited to read the rest of the book. So tell us what it's called, what it's about, and why the name. Ha. It is
Laura Belgray: called, "Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You're The F-ing Worst." And the title comes from something that I say all the time, which I realized while I was writing the book that I say it all the time, which is tough titties if a, because I'm 12 and B because it's usually in response to somebody telling me what I am supposed to do and my reaction to that is generally tough titties.
It's a sorry not sorry and non apology for not being the way I'm supposed to not following the timeline I'm quote unquote supposed to. It is just something that I say to the shoulds and supposed tos in life because I'm not a compliant person, I guess, which can make me a pain in the ass, but also, I live the way I want to live.
So, I mean, I like big adulting things, like driving a car, I don't do it, cooking, learning to roast a perfect chicken, and having kids. You know, you're supposed to have kids, and I said tough titties to that. And, uh, so the book is, it's both about me rejecting those supposed to's and the timeline that we are expected to stick to as women or as adults, which I have never been able to comply with either.
I'm a late bloomer who came in, I feel like I came into the success that I was looking for at age 50, so it took a while. And I spent a long time trying to find my thing and trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do and who I should be with. So both, you know, finding my career, finding love, and I think coming into my own took a long time.
Eman Ismail: I've heard you talk about that and your kind of acceptance of the fact that that's how it needed to be. Like, you are happy that it turned out that way and that. Sometimes you just have to take your time. And I love that. Yeah, I love that notion. I love that idea. In your book you say, I tried and dropped yoga in 2017, found my career groove at around 48, and at 50 earned my first million dollars within a year. A mark I know most people never hit, but one I'd always drooled over and had seen many colleagues in the online space sail past by their 30s. And that really spoke to me, because of the different situation, but I have two kids. One is the youngest and one and a half. And so the reality is that I had to slow down, and it was really hard for me to slow down. And then you kind of watch other people go past you as you slow down. And it's really hard to kind of swallow it sometimes.
And I feel like it's something we don't talk about a lot as women who have kids because you're not supposed to say things like that. You're not supposed to talk about it. You're just supposed to be happy and grateful all the time. And even just saying that I felt I almost, I almost added the caveat. I am happy and grateful
Laura Belgray: Uh huh.
Eman Ismail: Because we're just not supposed to say that. and so it really spoke to me you talking about this idea of just, you know, meeting your own or having your own successors in your own time at your own pace.
Laura Belgray: Yeah. And, and it's true. You are expected as a mom to say, but I'm so happy and grateful, but I wouldn't give up my kids for anything. And it is tough. Whether you have kids or not, there are always going to be people with your same obstacles who are going faster and saying, well, look at me, you know, or someone will say, well, look at them, you know, they have kids and they're, they're making 4 million a launch every quarter or, you know, for me, uh, I don't know what my excuse might be.
I don't, I don't have the same one. I have, sometimes I have, but I'm, you know, I'm older, so I can't just like, uh, it's not as easy for me to hop on, a live with no makeup and just, you know, just turn on the camera every time that I need to and create tons of content. And, but there's always somebody who's, you know, who's older than me and still doing it.
And we all have, we all have reasons why we could feel behind. So it's nice to know that really there is no behind, as long as we don't look at what everybody else is doing. Mm
Eman Ismail: Exactly. It's so true. Just focus on you, focus on what you're up to and you're so right, there is no such thing as being behind. Going back to your book for a second, I was fascinated to hear that you were advised not to write a memoir, or a memoir type, like a story kind of type based book. And we're told that only super famous celebrities should write those, that if you do write that style of book, it might not sell and that you should write kind of what's expected of you, a marketing slash how to book slash copywriting book instead. I want to know what made you ignore that advice and also give you the just the confidence and the self belief to totally ignore that advice and go ahead and write your story based book anyway.
Laura Belgray: Yeah, well, what made me ignore the advice was just this drumbeat of this is the book I want to write in my head, like I did not, if they, people would encourage me to write a marketing book or a copywriting book or a personal development book saying that's what your audience wants, you have the kind of audience who follows, who, By prescriptive books who want to learn something who want spoon fed takeaways and to be able to underline it and say, like, I'm following this.
I'm following the steps and I would rather eat a bag of hair then write that book right now. Who knows, maybe one day, but that's not, I've always wanted to write a book of my own stories or write my story and not with bullet points at the end of each chapter or not on the back of the book. Here's what you'll learn inside.
No. That is the last thing that I wanted to write, and I know it would have made the book sell better. It would have been easier to get an agent and then easier to sell the book. And maybe there would have been an auction, a bidding war, maybe a big six figure deal. I mean, I came close to that, but not, I did not get the six figure deal that a lot of people in this space talk about getting, and I got a good advance, but it wasn't like that.
You know, it wasn't a bidding war. And I was willing to sacrifice that possibility for writing the kind of book that I wanted to write. And you know as far as confidence goes that you asked about I think I think I had the confidence from my readership from writing emails and blog posts to them all these years and hearing I love your stories.
You know, why don't you have a book? I would read a book of these. I want to read these all day long. I like reading anything that you write about. And so, obviously we all know that people saying they want a book and actually buying the book are two different things. Uh, there's a lot in between those, but I did have the confidence that people, that my audience would want it, that I'd be able to sell it to them and that I, Write in a way that people enjoy reading and would make for a fun read.
So, and also one that is, my copy editor used the word edifying. So it's, you know, it's not prescriptive. It is not how to. It's more of a how not to, but it still delivers some wisdom, some takeaways, builds you up in a way and inspires you. That is the hope with it. And that's what I've heard a lot from early readers, like, oh, this inspired me to feel this way.
I feel better about my life. I feel more empowered to be myself. So that is, it does deliver all that, even though it's not a prescriptive book.
Eman Ismail: Yeah, I mean, from everything that I already know anyway about you, your brand, what you write about, what you talk about, again, you give people permission to just be themselves. like, even at the beginning of this, when I said I'm a fangirl and you were like, you know, go for it, fangirl, go fangirl away.
Be honest, just be yourself, be honest. I think that's what you're great at, giving, making people feel good about.
Laura Belgray: Thank you. I think that is my thing. If you were to ask me like, what is your calling in life, besides writing, it is giving permission. That's what I enjoy doing I think that that's what my effect on people is just because it's what I've heard from them you give me permission to be more of myself and I've always loved that when I spot it in other people when I when they give it to me and I feel like it's It's sort of like when you wear, or when you go to a party and you feel underdressed and then you see someone, maybe it's the host wearing jeans and you're like, oh, thank God somebody else here is wearing jeans.
And then you feel permission to wear jeans and be, you know, be at ease. And so on and so on. I think when you're someone who's comfortable being themselves, uh, being yourself, you give other people permission to be themselves and they pass it on to other people. And so it creates a riff, a nice ripple effect.
Eman Ismail: I totally agree and I am really excited to have you kind of share what your biggest mistake is. So I'm going to go ahead and dive straight into that part of this interview. Are you ready?
Laura Belgray: Yes, I am ready.
Eman Ismail: Okay, let's do it. Laura, what is the mistake that made you?
Laura Belgray: Okay. The mistake that I made is the time I ghosted my email list for months and months, and then tried to come right back into their inboxes when it was time to sell B School and it did not go well.
Eman Ismail: Okay, so let's start at the beginning because I'm finding it really hard to imagine a time when Laura Belgray is not emailing her list. So, paint the scene for me, paint this picture, what was going on at the time that kind of led up to this? Mm
Laura Belgray: Okay, so for a while, so this is back in 2014. I had started my blog and email list in 2009 and been on and off good about blogging and, sending it. And originally my emails were just a teaser for the blog post. And so I was good for a long time. No, I would say on and off about blogging. Like sometimes it would be, you know.
10, 10 days in a row. I even did 30 days in a row at one point. I think that was after the mistake actually. But at this time, I think I had just gotten into a rut. I Feel like I don't have anything to write about. I don't feel like writing any blog posts, so I didn't write any emails. And every day I was like, I gotta, I gotta think of something to write today.
And I just didn't. And you know how those things happen. You just, the The more you write, the more you write. And then the less you write, the less you write when you're waiting for inspiration. And so I stopped writing to my list, for a few months and I felt a lot of shame around it. I was like, no, I have to get back to them.
And then B school came, you know, rolled around. I couldn't believe it was, it was every February and still is. And I was like, I can't believe it's February already. I wasn't like, I'm not prepared for this. I should have been emailing my list for a while, but I started with. As soon as, you know, as soon as it was on offer, I didn't even do any pre launch emails or anything like that.
As soon as the cart opened for B School, I wrote an email that I thought was kind of funny. About, like, don't you hate it when a friend disappears on you and you haven't seen them for a long time and they come back into your life asking you for money? Well, how would you like to buy a B School? Aw. I thought, like, being self deprecating would get people to buy B School, a $2,000 program at the time, and lo and behold, it did not work.
And so, this is at the beginning of CART Open, I kept writing, I started writing my regular, my usual emails for B School, and I thought they were really good. But it was a little too little too late. So as you know, as the week wore on or the 10 days, whatever cart open was, I was getting no sales, no sales, no sales.
Then towards the end, I got one sale and then I got another sale and I had, I think by cart closed day, I had two sales. Meanwhile, this was the biggest year that B School had ever seen. And everywhere around me, it seemed like, on Facebook at the time, people were posting, oh my gosh, I got so many sales for B School.
One guy who was selling it for the first time posted, and I had been very aware of him promoting it, posted, uh, on that last day, Today has been a good day. A very good day indeed. And I was like, Oh, you mofo. Like, did he have to say indeed? I was so upset. And I kept, I actually kept restarting my router thinking something was wrong.
I'm like, I have to have more sales than this. There's no way. And
Eman Ismail: there's a tech issue something's gone
Laura Belgray: No, it wasn't my internet, believe it or not with my sales. So I had two sales. And then one of them disappeared and they switched to another affiliate. Yeah.
Eman Ismail: no
Laura Belgray: And I was so upset and I was crying and I talked to Marie, who's all, you know, not just the creator of B School, but also my good friend.
And I was like, I feel like such a bad marketer. And she was like, If you were a bad marketer, would I be creating a course called CopyCure with you? you are not a bad marketer, you just need to, like, you need to build trust and keep trust of your list. You can't go away like that. And she was absolutely right.
And so, I vowed never to make that mistake again and to be consistent and regular in people's inboxes and never again wait for inspiration to strike in order to write something. Like I knew that the more you write the more you write and that writing creates inspiration not the other way around. But I think I had to really put it into practice as a solid practice like a religion in order to Keep it up the way I have.
Did you get any angry replies from people, did anyone actually respond to the emails or did they just ignore them? Just ghost them?
I think they ignored them. I don't think anybody, I don't think anyone sent me any nasty replies. I'll have to go back and look. I think that if they had, it would have stuck with me. So probably
Eman Ismail: Yeah.
Laura Belgray: like
Eman Ismail: I think so. Well, that's good.
Laura Belgray: Okay.
Eman Ismail: Yeah, no. Yeah, they, they do. If they do, I've had my experiences of those. They really do. So first of all, I just want to just pause and point out that, you have also had launches that didn't work out. I think some people might be surprised to hear that and need to hear that.
That it's possible for you to have all the success and, and start off with launches that just aren't working. So if you're in a space where that is the case. There is hope. There's still hope. Mm hmm.
Laura Belgray: Yeah, there is. And there's always more that you can do. I mean, there's so many reasons for a launch not to work out. Uh, and, and all of them are okay. It just means you need to fix something. And in this case, it was. Me not writing enough to my not not have the trust of my list and coming back with my handout for them to like You know fill it with commissions, which it's just not a good look.
There are other reasons, too, like maybe the offer isn't good. In this case, the offer was great. It was proven, tested, you know. It made that offer more than that year when I made the one sale than it had ever before. And, it was a record setting year, so it wasn't the offer.
Eman Ismail: Had you, had you been an affiliate for B School before this or was that your first time? Mm
Laura Belgray: No, it was at least my second time. It might've been my third time, 2014. I think I started promoting it in maybe 2012, if not 2011. So the first time I was an affiliate for it, I couldn't believe what I had been missing out on. I was like, why did I wait so long to do this? I had seen other people doing it the year before and I was like. You know what? I want to sell B school. Why am I doing that? And, uh, so I became an affiliate and like, I think I'm, I might've sold like 10 or 15 that first year. And I told a friend, my best friend, Victoria, I said. I can't believe this is happening. I am selling my friend Marie's program, which is 2, 000 to my list.
And my list was not big. It was a couple of hundred people, I think at the time. And I said, it's $2,000 and I get a 50% commission and I've sold like 10 or so. And she, with my emails, like I'm just sending emails and people are buying from them. Every time I write an email, they buy it. And she said, that's amazing.
Can you write more emails? I'm like, oh, I think I've written a lot already. She's like, why wouldn't you write another? And she's not in this business. She's a lawyer. No idea about email marketing or anything, but she knew that. She's like, if they're working, why wouldn't you write another? And so I did. She was right.
I wrote another. And it got more sales. And so I knew this thing worked. I thought, this is magic. So this is what all the fuss is about. About selling online. Because I hadn't sold any of my own products yet. I had sold my services. This was, this is what everyone was talking about. So I knew this worked and I knew that the only variable, the only thing that changed was that I had ghosted my list.
Eman Ismail: That moment that you talk about it just being like a, a mind blowing moment, like this is amazing. I can't believe this is actually working. That's really interesting for me because it happened, I had that moment, but it was before I started my own business. So I was, I was working for a charity and I was managing their comms and communications, marketing, that kind of thing.
And I would, well, I started sending emails out to get donations and I would send emails out asking for donations. And then watching the donations come in and that to me, it was mind blowing. It was amazing. And I was like, Oh my gosh, people are actually doing what I'm asking them to. Like first, like, why, why are they actually doing?
It's amazing. But that was the moment for me that I fell in love with email and really understood the power of email. so this was, this was a year before I even started my own business. And, two years before I decided to specialize in email as an email copywriter. But that always stuck with me, and it was that moment of watching the donations come in and just that response to my email that I realized, wow, this is powerful.
Laura Belgray: Yes. And I'm so excited to hear from you about that, that your emails were for a charity asking for donations because the question I get asked most when I'm teaching email marketing through my course, Inbox Hero and Launch Hero, my style is very conversational and breezy. And I teach people to be themselves in their emails. And the question is always, well, how far is too far? How much personality can I really put into it if I am writing for a nonprofit and trying to get donations, I'm writing to donors. So I can't really be myself in these, can I, can I actually be conversational and fun?
Can I make it funny? Can I tell stories and. Uh, I mean, my answer is always people respond to a person, they don't respond to a business, so you should at least put your personality into it and make it personable. Do you agree with that?
Eman Ismail: Oh my gosh, I totally agree. And I don't know, I don't know how you'll feel about this. But when I was at the charity, we had that issue of the emails being very kind of stuffy before I came along and just very like non profit y, almost corporate y like, just very boring. And so I actually created a persona, for, for the emails.
So this, this person who was writing the emails and I gave her a name and everything. So these emails were coming from a charity. And the reason I did that was because I didn't want to put my own name because, you know, I didn't know how long I would be there. I wanted there to be some continuity.
And to this day, I mean, I stopped working at charity yet. In 2018 to this day, they're still using that same persona for that email. And, you know, we get people, even when I was there, we used to have people replying to the email saying, Hey, Yasmin, thanks so much for the email. Did it, I've donated X amount, you know, really talking to this person.
And so just, uh, I think the charity initially struggled with that idea of being more personable and creating that persona allowed me to, like you said, to create more connection in the email. Be more personable. Move it from being just an organization talking to people to a person talking to people.
Laura Belgray: That's genius and I love that you gave it a name that could, you left a legacy, basically someone that, someone that could outlive your tenure there and yeah, Yasmin like Eman has left the building, but Yasmin remains
Eman Ismail: I love it.
So going back to the affiliate launch, people have a lot of feelings about doing affiliate launches. You said initially that you felt like, oh, well, why have I never done this before?
This is a really great way to make money. I know when someone recently asked me to be an affiliate for that course, I had a couple of feelings. Actually, at first I was really excited that they asked me that they felt like I had an engaging audience, which I do to respond to, you know, my call to go buy this course.
That's great. But the other thing, actually, the other feeling was, wait, I want to sell my own course to my audience. I don't know if I want to give, you know, this other course attention. That was another thought. Then the third thought was, won't people be mad at me for encouraging them to go buy another thing?
Will people get angry at me? Will I lose some of my audience? Will I get angry subscribers? Did you ever have that feeling or thought going into the affiliate marketing route?
Laura Belgray: I didn't go into it, but I have become aware that that's a fear. A really common fear. Like, will people think I'm, will they lose respect for me? Well, they think it's gross that I am quite unquote pushing someone else's product for a commission. Like that's a dirty thing. And like, what do you think a store is?
And most stores are full of different people's products, different companies, products that the store is selling for a commission, right? I mean, you know, sure that your local pottery store might be the artist's own work and only their work, or a bakery might all come from that bakery, but anywhere else you go, it's like a mix of products and offers from all different makers.
And why is that not okay in your business online? It's also the case that I get thanked all the time for sending people to introduce people to this course creator, that course creator, whatever I'm selling them, you know, to that person. So for B school, so many people would thank me like, thank you so much for introducing me to Marie Forleo.
Then when I took on other courses, as an affiliate, I would hear the same thing. Oh, I'm so glad you introduced me to Selena. It has changed my world, et cetera, et cetera. Amy Porterfield. Like, they didn't know how to create a course and then they found Amy through me and were delighted and love following her.
And so, you are, you're making a connection for somebody. You're introducing them to someone they might not have heard of otherwise. Or maybe they have and they're getting affiliate offers from everywhere and they choose you because of your bonuses and that's just a testament to how much they love you and want to.
Work with you or learn from you or get something from you.
Eman Ismail: Yeah, I totally agree. And I often say to people who struggle to sell in emails and say things like, you know, I'm really worried about. I'm really worried about selling. I'm going to annoy people. They're going to get frustrated with me when they talk about their own products and their own courses and that kind of thing and their own services.
It's. I think, I feel like you have to stop thinking of it as, uh, this kind of dirty sale. It's really you giving people the opportunity for you to help them. You're giving them the information that they need to then make a decision. And then it's up to them whether they say yes or no. But you're creating the opportunity. It's not this dirty, horrible, you know, sleazy sale kind of thing. And that kind of mindset shift I think has been really helpful. It was helpful for me when I kind of changed the way I thought about it. And I feel like some people I've spoken to that's really helped them as well. So I definitely agree and relate to that.
Laura Belgray: Yeah, I mean you're selling something that you like and believe in right? Why not? Why would you withhold it from people if you were a hairdresser and be like well I don't want to offer to cut anyone's hair like I know that's gross. No.
Eman Ismail: Exactly.
Laura Belgray: And you're really good. I didn't want to push any of my openings on them Like, they need their haircut and people need what you have too.
Eman Ismail: I agree. I totally agree. Okay. So you did your affiliate launch. You got two sales and then one backed out. So the one sale.
Laura Belgray: Yes.
Eman Ismail: And you, you felt awful. You called Marie Forleo crying, and you realize that this, the only variable was that you had, you had changed what you were doing in terms of the connection that you had built with your audience.
So tell me. How did this mistake make you? How was this mistake instrumental in how you do business today and helping you get to where you are today?
Laura Belgray: Yeah. I discovered from this mistake that being consistent and regular in someone's inbox or wherever you're publishing your content, if that's what you're doing, it is, that is what builds trust. And without that trust, people don't want to buy from you. We, I had heard over and over, buy from people we know, like, and trust.
Well, if you go away, you lose that trust, especially if you come back when it's time, right when it's time to sell something. And I vowed that I would never do that again, never again. Was I going to wait for inspiration before I wrote to my audience? I had done that for a long time and I knew already, I had learned this lesson before that inspiration doesn't create writing. It's the other way around. Writing creates inspiration. When you write something, it gives you ideas for the next thing that you're going to write and the synapses start firing and you get used to sitting down sometimes with no idea at all and you don't have to have a big idea to write something and people appreciate it when you are just in touch regularly.
And I think a lot of people who email think, oh, I don't want to email my list unnecessarily. I don't want to bother them with something that's not truly important and inspiring. But I don't think that that's true. I think you can create things that are important and inspired even when you feel like you're writing a nothing piece.
Even when you think your email is about nothing or unimportant or that you dashed it off. Sometimes those end up being the most resonant and life changing for people. You have no idea how much I needed to read this today. It's usually the thing that you just dashed off thinking I have not, I've got nothing. Right?
Eman Ismail: It's, it's always, that is always the way. And it's, as you were saying, that I thought of an email that I wrote, and actually it was an email that I was really unsure about writing. I didn't think of it too, uh, for too long. It kind of just came to me and I was like, I think I want to write it. Let's do it.
I wrote it. Then I was really worried about sending it because it was about Ramadan. So, uh, Muslims were, most Muslims are fasting and it's the holy month, very holy month for Muslims, for anyone who doesn't know. And I wanted to just give people an insight into what that mouth looked like for a business owner like me and how I kind of incorporated it into my life as a business owner.
I was kind of worried people would get annoyed with me talking about religion for starters.
Laura Belgray: hmm. Mm hmm.
Eman Ismail: Or my beliefs, that kind of thing. So I was worried I might ruffle a few feathers, but I also thought like I'm visibly Muslim. So anyway, I don't think anyone who has an issue will have joined my list in the first place.
So I think I might be okay. Sent off this email, wrote it really quickly. I have never had so many replies to an email. It's one of my most replied to emails, so much so in fact that I, I kind of just reworked it a little and sent it again this year and I will probably send it again next year as well because I got the same response.
People flooded my inbox thanking me for just sharing this little insight into my life that I'd never really shared before. And it was an email that I didn't think about for, didn't think about writing for very long. I just kind of just, just wrote it, was a little bit worried before I pressed send and then just hit send and was like, yeah.
and it was also one of those emails where I was like, I can't think of anything to write today. Oh yeah, I'll just write this. It's always the way, it's always those emails.
Laura Belgray: Always. Always. And the one that you sit there and polish for weeks and you're like, this is the one. This is the thing that's going to get, that's going to flood my inbox with replies and maybe go viral. Maybe I'll turn it in, and maybe I'll publish it somewhere. That's the one that's usually like, is this thing on? Do I have to, you know, reboot my router? Yeah.
It's, you can't predict what's going to hit big. And it is usually that one that you don't expect anything from. And that didn't take that much work, that you thought wasn't good enough or you were a little nervous about because you thought it might ruffle some feathers.
It's usually that one that you're the most glad that you wrote. I remember once, I was writing an assignment for, this is when I was in TV promos, it was, I had to come up with a whole bunch of ideas, like a day's worth of ideas for Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. And so I wrote a bunch of scripts, and the pressure was on because I love Real Housewives.
And I was like, this is, you know, this is my golden opportunity to write a Real Housewives spot. And I wrote a whole bunch of them and I just like felt like meh about them all and thought of something at the last minute like I was about to hit send and then I thought of one more and it just felt stupid but I was like I'll just include one more like why might as well give them as much as I can.
And so that was the last script I sent to dash entirely dashed off off the top of my head and that one got made. And rarely do like in that business, especially if they're pooling scripts from different writers, rarely does yours get made, it's not, you know, it is not a sure thing at all. It was a long shot.
And that was the one that got made and kind of made my name for in promos. I mean, my name had been made a couple of times, but this one, like this was one that was more recent and that everyone kept asking for, oh, we want something like that. And it was just that dashed off idea. Yes.
Eman Ismail: Mm-hmm. . It's amazing, isn't it? And so here, what I feel like you're really saying is don't wait for inspiration. You can't sit around and just hope that inspiration is gonna strike you. You almost have to train yourself to, to, to write. And from that kind of training yourself to just sit down and write kind of good things. Good things will come.
Laura Belgray: Yes
Well, so I, I like to quote the stat. I, there's a, no, a quote that I, mention all the time. It's Seth Godin, who says that, you know, Seth Godin. He has been blogging since the beginning of time, really the beginning of blogs. I don't know what year. And has written tens of thousands of blog posts over the years.
And he is consistent, he writes one every single day of the week. And, you know, it hits my inbox every single morning. And he has said that 50% of his blog posts are below average. He's not saying that he's a below average writer, that he's a less than great writer. He's saying that's what average means.
That is the nature of average. 50% are below average, 50% are above average. And so I take from that, if you want to create more that is above average, you have to create more. You have to create like mountains of... poop to get that one nugget of gold. And so I have made that a practice over the years of, you know, ever since that mistake that made me create a lot. Of being prolific, abundant and hitting people's inboxes. At first it was once a week. I was really fairly religious about that. And then I stepped it up to three days a week in around 2019. So I worked with a coach, Ron Reich, who said, okay, what we had a discovery call and he said, wave a magic wand. What would happen? What would change in your business? And I said, well, if everyone who came through my virtual door signed up for my list, bought one of my mini courses.
I would be rich and he's like, so you sell those mini courses on your website and then also in your emails. Is that right? And I said, yeah, usually at the bottom in a banner, like sometimes I mentioned them. Sometimes I don't. He said, well, I recommend that you step it up from mailing every Wednesday to mailing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And Mondays and Wednesdays will be the quote unquote pure value emails, your story, whatever it is you're talking about. And then Friday will be the quote pure sell.
And so I did. I attempted a version of that, my own modified version because I can't do a pure sell. Like I have to put in at least some story. But I tried it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Friday's being a blatant promotion for my mini courses. And in a month, I doubled the revenue, more than doubled it from those courses. And that was a big aha for me. It's like, as he had told me, he said, the more you email, the more emails you send, the more sales you'll make. And at first I thought, like, hmm, am I going to bug people sending that many emails? Also, can I keep it up? Can I keep up that pace?
And then when I saw the result, like, you know what, I don't care if I bug some people. And I'm also getting thanked for my emails. People say, "I love you, " even though they were daily emails and they'll say, "I love your daily emails. I love hearing from you every day. And would miss me if I missed a day.
And then just the, yeah, the results were so motivating to me as for keeping it up, I was like, hell yeah, I'm going to keep this up. I'm going to keep going. And I have.
Eman Ismail: I learned this from you and this is something I actually want to talk to you about because I've heard you say over and over again, the more emails you send, the more you sell. And as someone who works with, I still work with clients and literally today I was having a conversation with a client with someone who is emailing their subscribers once a month.
And I'm saying once a month is not enough. Like once a week I'll be okay with, but you could, you could even manage more. And after listening to you say this so much, I decided to start emailing my own list twice a week.
Laura Belgray: Mm hmm.
Eman Ismail: I haven't quite gone the whole three times a week because I'm still a little scared.
I have to say, I thought, let me try twice a week. So at the moment, I'm sending emails on a Monday and a Thursday, and I've been doing that for a month and a half now. And I have sold more passively than I ever have on my, on my email list ever. And Like I had a moment the other day where I was making dinner for the kids and Stripe went ping I was just like oh my god and an email had just gone out a couple of hours before so I knew It was from the email and I was like, this is amazing.
But what I've kind of been doing is I've been doing a mixture of stories and kind of linking into products as I'm kind Of talking about the stories. What I'm missing is the pure email sales that I have been a little bit too chicken to actually put into practice.
But that's what I need to do next because I feel like if, if I get to that stage, you know, I'll, I'll see even more sales, hopefully.
Laura Belgray: Oh, for sure you will. And also remember we were talking about permission before and people are looking to you for permission, the people on your list. I would bet that they like, who do you get on your list? Aspiring copywriters or entrepreneurs who want to learn from you, right? Yeah,
Eman Ismail: Yeah. So two different segments. Copywriters, entrepreneurs. Yeah.
Laura Belgray: Right. Same here. And so all of those people are looking for permission to sell. They all, everybody, no matter how cocky they are, or they come across about selling, like I have no problem selling. They still, I'm sure of it, cringe a little bit at the thought of somebody saying. Ugh, blatant promotion. Like, I don't like your, you know, stop selling to me.
I think most people are afraid of that. So if you kind of proudly and confidently sell to your list, to your audience and make it about the thing, they will not only buy more from you, but they will also take heart, feel more confident about doing it themselves and want to learn your ways.
Eman Ismail: I never thought of it like that. It's so true. And I think that the other fear that I had was, of course, unsubscribing. And I tell everyone, don't be afraid of unsubscribing. And I don't think I have been until I kind of stepped it up and saw the number of unsubscribes I was getting. It was more than I've had because I was sending more emails.
So I knew that was. I think seeing it was like, Oh wow. Okay. It was a bit of a shock. but I've also grown my list more. I have more replies again. The most important thing is that I have more sales. So I'm just trying to remind myself of what I always say to clients. So I'm always, you know, telling anyone who listens that the people who want to hear from you will stay on your list and will enjoy your emails and you'll know they're enjoying them because they'll engage with you and respond with you, whether it's replying or buying. And the people who don't want to be there, who were never going to buy anything or were never even really interested, you're just not that person and that's okay.
They will leave and that's okay too.
Laura Belgray: Yes. I only unsubscribe from people when I know I'm not going to buy anything from them. And so they should be happy to see me go. Like their email. I've stopped opening their emails. I'm not interested. I'm like, I'm not going to buy anything from this person. So great. Like good riddance to me.
Eman Ismail: Mhm. Yeah, I totally agree. And so going back to your mistake, I feel like we've picked up on two lessons so far, or two, two ways that this mistake has made you. Number one, it was don't sit around and wait for inspiration. You kind of create your own inspiration. You've got to sit down and do the work for inspiration to strike.
And number two, the more you email, the more you'll sell. Which of course, I mean, we see if you're not part of a part of Laura's email community, go join the newsletter and I'll put the link in the show notes. You tell the most incredible stories and, I think it's just, it's a lesson in how to do email full stop and how a business can do email. It kind of opens up those possibilities, right?
And I think the third thing, and tell me if I'm wrong, is the lesson of just consistency. Of continuing to do a thing and to do it over and over again. Mm hmm.
Laura Belgray: Yeah, consistency, both on your own, for your own creative practice, but also for if you have an audience and you have an audience, you want to stay front and center, you want to stay top of mind and not let them forget who you are. And because if you go away and then come back a month later, even just one month later, I think, I think emailing once a month is not a good idea because we forget, we will forget who you are.
Very likely, unless we knew you to start with, and that's why we signed up, otherwise we'll forget, and unsubscribe just because of that. Like, I don't remember being on this list. Goodbye. So, trust is super important and you don't want to violate it. And you know, I think I always I can always I can hear people out there asking like what if I ghost my list?
How do I come back? And I would say don't wait until it's time to sell something you can come back to. You don't have to do the whole mea culpa, you know, I'm so sorry. I've been gone. I haven't betrayed your trust like don't be like that or don't you don't have to say, you know, I know I haven't been here for a while, but I'm really excited about what I've been doing.
Here's why I've been gone, because I've been creating things for you. We don't need to hear it. You can just slide back in there as if you were never gone. Or if you've been gone for that long a time, slide back in there, not with an apology, but saying if you forget why you signed up, you know, here's the thing. It was probably for this freebie or whatever. Here it is again, in case you can't find it. Or I've created something, you know, I'm, like, hit in your inbox today because I have something new for you and maybe deliver some new freebie or something you have to recommend. Something you make it important. Make it worth their while that they opened the email. And then you can be back in their lives.
Eman Ismail: Hmm. That's the exact advice that I give as well. So it's great to know we're on the same page. You know, when you were saying, you know, people might forget who well, if you email you if you email us monthly, people are going to forget who you are. And they're going to forget when they signed up, why they signed up, all that kind of stuff.
it reminded me of when I forgot. So I always sign up for the newsletters of people who I'm working with. So as soon as the inquiry comes through, before they're even a client, I sign up to their newsletter and this particular client sends emails monthly and their email is dropped in my inbox. I'd been working with them for a couple of months at this point and the first thing I thought was who is this person and why are they emailing me?
So I open it up with just pure suspicion thinking this is spam. Why is this person emailing me and then realize that it's my client and I just completely forgot about their newsletter, because they send it so infrequently. So even me as someone who was looking out for this email. I was like, who the hell are you?
Oh wait that's, that's who you are. So it's so important what you said about not giving your audience a chance to forget who you are. And what I've found is the more that I've emailed my list, I generally just have so many content ideas, I can finally get through my list of this huge list of content ideas that I have.
But what that means is that I'm creating more and more connection points for my audience. They get to know more about me and more about my business as opposed to me really having to hold back because I'm only allowing myself to send one email a week And so I've created more opportunities for them to get to know me and my business and to share more with them to share more value with them.
So that was something that was really surprising for me that I was like, yeah, this is great.
Laura Belgray: Right. It's, so that's the other part of know, like, and trust is the, you know, the, the other two thirds of it is know and like. So being that frequent in their inbox allows them to know and like you also, and that's, so you are top of mind if somebody says like, does that, you know, do you know anyone who can help me with my email copy?
Oh yeah, Eman. Because you are front and center in their mind the moment somebody asks, and they like you.
Eman Ismail: So one thing I do want to ask before I go into some of my final questions is you know, your brand is so memorable and you do that so well. Obviously through email, but also through your website your social media, like, just everything, and in, well, in an article that I was reading, you said fitting in as a brand is the kiss of death.
And in your book, you say, if you don't know me, and however you found yourself with this book in your hands, I know I'm supposed to inspire you with how far I've come from my disadvantaged or troubled beginnings, how I've turned lemons into lemonade or some boozy sassy version of that. I love this recognition of the fact that not everyone has a rags to riches story or an inspirational story.
But what would you say to those people who really feel like there's nothing remarkable about them? How do they create a brand that is memorable if they don't have that, again, that kind of rags to riches influencer kind of story that we're seeing that is so popular. You, you do this so well.
It's so easy to remember you, your brand. What about people who are struggling to be memorable?
Laura Belgray: Thank you. Well, as you're saying, I don't have that story. I don't have a story to like that to build my brand around. This moment, this aha moment or something that saved my life or, uh, transformation that, you know, that made me a fortune, any of those things, anything that happened overnight or that will inspire people to say, like, well, if she can do it, I can do it.
I don't really have that. And I have managed to create a brand around my personality, and I think that you can, too. I haven't created the brand around my unique story so much. My unique life story. There are things about it that are unique, uh, especially growing up in New York. I mean, millions of people have grown up in New York, but still, people find that unusual and love to hear stories.
And a lot of them are in my book about growing up in New York. So that's something that's sort of part of my brand. And so is being lazy. I think focusing on the things about you that make you super you that people think of when they think of you, are a way to build a brand around yourself.
Eman Ismail: Thank you. I love that. And I loved, again, just this idea of, of, you don't need to have a story of turning lemons into lemonade.
I also think people are getting a bit tired of it as well as audiences. Like, we're all a bit tired of hearing about these rags to riches stories.
And so, I feel like we are in need of just something else, something new, you know?
Laura Belgray: Yeah. Well, especially those of us who don't have that story. Because I, I was going to say, I also have felt self conscious about that or just lacking when, especially when Clubhouse was around. Remember that? and everybody would get on Clubhouse and introduce themselves and say, you know, I'm in the army and I was, you know, trapped in a hole. I was held for, four months in a hole and then when I came out, I knew I had to seize every moment and that's when I decided to help people and created my brand, you know, created this toilet, a washlet that cleans your butt and, and it would be like, I have to work with you. I have to learn from you.
I have to, uh, what's your Instagram handle? And they would go look them up and I would feel like, oh, I don't have any story like that. I don't have a story where I slept in. You know, where I was sleeping in my car or on my sister's couch trying to figure out my life. I have always had jobs, even except for that year after college when I really didn't have jobs.
And so I did, I felt like I was lacking in that kind of story and was always looking for what is my story? What is my one nugget that I tell people over and over? And I never really found one. Instead I wrote 300 odd pages called Tough Titties. That's my story. And it doesn't really work well in a podcast intro.
You know, you tell me, how did you get started expecting maybe one sentence and I give you 10 minutes.
Eman Ismail: Mhm.
Laura Belgray: But, but it's working, it's working out.
Eman Ismail: It is! And you know what's funny is, I feel like I do have one of those stories, like I do have a memorable story, but the thing that's always tripped me up and made me feel really kind of, I guess not worthy, is this idea of needing to have a reason. Like I don't I don't have a why for my business I just like I just want to make money and be free and not have a boss Telling me what to do and you know be able to create a flexible life for me and my family and that's it I don't have this like special why. In all honesty, if I didn't have to work, I probably wouldn't be. I would probably be traveling the world, doing something else, you know.
Laura Belgray: We are on the same page, my friend. I don't, I have never had a why and have bucked against that idea for a long time, ever since I heard. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And I think that is bull. They buy what you do. You know, nobody cares about why this toothpaste was made. I think snack chips go way overboard talking about how their snack chip was born from this desire to feed their kids something healthy and nutritious while still being addictive and delicious.
I'm like, I don't care. If it's good, it's good. I'm gonna eat it. I don't need to read the copy on the Popcorners bag. And so I've never felt the pressure to find a reason that is bigger than me. And that's all my why matches yours. I'm on mine to get paid for doing something that I love doing and would probably do even if I weren't paid for it, but I wouldn't do it nearly as much, I would, you know, I love not working.
I love working when I'm enjoying the work, and I love not working, and I love money, and I love making money, and I am never going to apologize for that. I think it's silly to pretend, oh, I don't do this for the money. I do it to be of service, because that is my reason. I call bullshit.
Eman Ismail: Yeah, speechless. Because, specifically because I came out of the charity sector. So, there was, I feel like, there was a lot of judgment around me leaving the charity sector and doing, you know, good for the world in order to make more money, uh, essentially, and to build a business of my own. Like, why are you leaving the charity sector?
Why are you leaving, you know, the good work? And it was also, a religious charity as well. So now, now we're talking about God. Why are you leaving God's work, you know, to make more money? Really? Are you, are you, you know, devilish? What's wrong with you? And so this idea of, well, it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that it's okay for me to love making money and it's okay for me to, to love money and talk about making money as well.
It took me a very long time. So to hear you say that is. Is brilliant and I hope that people listening who feel how I felt that shame around wanting to make more money or liking having money I hope they hear you say that and again feel that permission to just to just be like it's okay It's okay.
Laura Belgray: It is. Money makes things much easier. And more fun. It is nice to have choices. It's nice to have freedom. It's nice to order the appetizer. And
Eman Ismail: Mm hmm.
Laura Belgray: oh, you know, I'll just have the salad that the burger comes with.
Eman Ismail: Exactly.
Laura Belgray: Yeah.
Eman Ismail: Okay, so, second to last question, what do you want others to learn from your experience and, and the mistake of, of not emailing your list for months and months and then only emailing them when you wanted money from them?
Laura Belgray: Yeah, I want them to learn that waiting for inspiration to strike is a mistake that you want to create consistently and creating consistently will allow you to keep creating consistently. You will never, the well will never be dry, even on days when it feels like it is and you've got nothing. Even that is something to talk about or write about.
And so just keep it up, even on days when you think you've got nothing. And even if you're not emailing your list every day, which I don't, I tend not to do that, write something every day, publish something every day. I think it's a good habit to be in and will make you feel more fulfilled, will also take the pressure off of each thing that you create and produce, so that you're free to say, well, this one's so so, but here, here it is anyway, and that's where the greatness comes from.
So. keep it up and keep their trust and you will make more money from it, too.
Eman Ismail: Amazing.
Thank you so much for being here and for saying yes, this has been the most amazing conversation. I just want to remind everyone to pre-order your book Tough Titties, that you can still pre order it now if you're listening to the, to this interview as it's kind of come out. and the publication date is, is it 13th of June?
Laura Belgray: It is June 13th
Eman Ismail: June 13th. So if you're listening on June 13th or beyond that, go buy the book. It's great from the first chapter that I read. And where can people find you if they want to connect with you?
Laura Belgray: Yeah, they can find me at TalkingShrimp. com and they can find the book. By the way, if you're listening, if you were listening to this before June 13th, please pre order it. Pre orders are everything and you will get bonuses. You'll get the intro chapter free. There might already be a cut chapter I'm going to include as a bonus.
And if it's not there yet, you will get it in your inbox. If you've pre ordered a copy and filled out the form, that all happens at ToughTittiesBook. com. And then back to TalkingShrimp. com, you'll find freebies there. Get on my list, you'll see how it's done. If you're, if you're on Eman's list, you can also see how it's done through her.
But through both of us, we're a good combo, we're a winning combo. You should be subscribed to both of us. So come over there, and I am mostly on Instagram, as far as social goes. And I'm @laurabelgray over there.
Eman Ismail: Amazing. Okay, I'll put all those links in the show notes. The link to pre order the book and get your bonuses. Uh, the link to your website and to sign up to your newsletter. And also the link to sign up to my newsletter because we are a winning combo.
Laura Belgray: Damn right we are.
Eman Ismail: Thank you so much, Laura. It's been amazing chatting to you.
And just honestly, I feel like this has been a bit of a personal coaching session for me, which is fantastic.
Laura Belgray: You taught me a lot too. I loved hearing your story about Yasmin. So I'm going to be using that. Thank you.
Eman Ismail: Oh, I'm excited to see that. Thank you.
Laura said the word inspiration 13 times. I don't know if every time made it into the final cut, but in our raw unedited conversation, 13 times. Inspiration doesn't create writing, writing creates inspiration. She told us. That is game changing. So often, we wait for inspiration to strike before we write that email or that sales page.
We wait to feel confident about starting that business or launching that course before we actually do it. The reality is, inspiration comes after you start the thing. Confidence comes after you do the thing. It comes from doing the thing. So if you delay starting until you feel 100% ready, 100% inspired, 100% confident, you'll never start.
That's the first thing I want you to remember from this conversation. The second thing is that being you is always going to be the easiest way to build a successful business or to make your fortune. Laura isn't afraid to be herself. That's what makes her so unforgettable. There are a lot of people who do what you do, let's be honest, but there's only one of you.
And only you do it the way you do it. You are your best asset. So think about how you can incorporate more you into your business. How can you build a business where you're getting paid to be you? That's the question I'll be asking myself from now on.
And here's the other question Laura's taught me to ask myself. How can I make building a business, making money, easier? Because we don't have to choose the hard path for the sake of choosing the hard path. Working ourselves into the ground doesn't make us heroes. Building a business doesn't have to be so damn hard.
All the damn time.
You are listening to Mistakes That Made Me. I'm Eman Ismail, and if you loved this episode, take a screenshot, post it on Instagram and tell everyone you know that this is the podcast to listen to. And tag me @EmanCopyCo so we can say hi. And so I can share your post. You can find the links to everything I've mentioned today in the show notes.