[Podcast] YouTube Success: Grow Your Business with Video (Laurie Wang)

Our brilliant guest today is Laurie Wang, a business strategist, keynote speaker, and consultant who helps businesses harness the power of social media to grow their bottom lines.

In this episode, you'll hear some of Laurie's best advice for growing your YouTube channel, leveraging the power of various social media platforms, taking social media followers and turning them into email subscribers, and becoming a known expert in your field.

Key Takeaways

• Test everything (including your assumptions). Approach marketing as a constant experiment so you can improve your results at every turn.
• Create with a bias towards evergreen content. Particularly on YouTube, your videos could be seen for five or more years to attract new business.
• Include content details in the first comment. Get more engagement among your YouTube viewers by posting the first comment with video time stamps and a question.
• Buy better audio equipment first. A great camera is a nice to have, but an excellent mic is a must-have for creating videos online.
• Repurpose content everywhere. Focus on creating excellent content that can be split up into various formats for different social media channels.
• Efficiency matters, particularly if you’re a parent. Use tools like Notion and be more intentional about what you focus on so you can maintain momentum in your business without burning out.
• Add meaningful b-roll to your videos. Use visuals that cement your authority and what you’re teaching into the minds of the viewers.
• Your next product could be under your nose. Turn an effective free lead magnet into a low-cost income generator.
• Love the process, not just the results. The achievement gets the attention but when you love the process you’ll be more likely to get there.

Resources Mentioned

• LaurieWang.com
• Laurie on YouTube
• Laurie’s Online Business Tools Starter Kit
• Laurie’s Social Media Content Planner
• Notion
• YouTube Beginner’s Kit (on kit.co)
• Sony Alpha 6600 camera
• Shure MV7 microphone
• Canva
• Pexels
• Amy Porterfield (Two Weeks Notice)
• Marie Forleo (Everything’s Figureoutable)
• Justin Odisho

Don't Want to Miss an Episode?

Subscribe to The Lead Generation Podcast and get notified as soon as a new episode is released.

Transcript

Who is Laurie Wang

Bob Sparkins: Laurie, it's so great to have you on this episode of the Lead Generation podcast. Thanks for joining.

Laurie Wang: Thank you for having me, Bob.

Bob: Now we're going to dive into a lot of different topics because you've been at this for over a decade now really. And the first thing I like to ask our guest, though, is what is the impact that you love to have with the people that you work with that transforms their lives.

Laurie: Yeah, Bob, so what really lights me up is going to an audience, for example, during my speaking events or workshops and seeing them taking away something really valuable from that session because I've simplified the concept to be as easy as possible to understand. And the reason why I believe in this is because I think in the marketing industry, especially in digital marketing, a lot of times there's this complexity in jargon that unfortunately shouldn't be there, and it makes things a lot more hard to understand and actually puts people off who are maybe solo entrepreneurs, small businesses, to actually use some of these concepts to help them grow their businesses.

So for me to hear feedback from people, let's say in a few months time after they've attended my event or gone to my coaching sessions and told me all the transformations that they had in their business, that's what really lights me up in what I do and to create more impact like that going forward.

Adopt a Testing Mindset

Bob: That's awesome. As a professionally trained teacher and now obviously a marketing teacher for Leadpages, I can really feel how big of a thing it is, especially now that we can get back out into the public, be on stages again and see the faces light up again and we're going to cover a lot of things. We've got a great case study that we've already done with you. So I'm not going to go too much into your bio for this episode, but is there one lesson that you learned back at your time at Ogilvy & Mather that you still carry forward today when you were kind of just getting your teeth cut, as they say, in the marketing world?

Laurie: So the one thing I really took away, and I mention this all the time in all my workshops and presentations, keynotes, is that we want to embrace a testing first mentality and that really applies to every single person. Whether you're a freelancer currently just getting your feet wet in marketing or maybe you're a business owner looking to try new things, try new strategies in your marketing strategy, is that you want to think about how do I make sure I test everything that I have a potential theory behind.

So let's say you currently have two different kind of landing pages that you want to test in your business, without really testing it in the real world, you won't really know exactly what might drive results to it. And we all think that maybe our competitor is doing something that looks really shiny and beautiful, and that probably will work for our businesses. But every single person's audiences are different. Every single person's business is different, and the way that your audiences perceive your content will be very different to what others are doing at the same time. So without testing, you will never really know the true result behind that and data never really lies.

Bob: That's true. "Numbers don't lie. People do." That's something my brother used to say all the time, and I don't know if he got it from somewhere else, but it's certainly stuck with me.

When you look at testing your offers and things like that, you have a range of services and products that you offer. How do you test what your next thing is going to be?

Laurie: That's a great question. So, for me, really it comes from audience feedback and I think everything really comes from the audiences that you're currently serving. And on my side, a lot of that comes from either YouTube or the different social media platforms I'm actually on. I think at the end of the day, if they're the one that's following me on my journey, I want to make them as involved in the process as possible. So whenever I have a new idea on a project or maybe on a new planner or new kind of digital product that I want to actually sell to my audiences, before I even create it, I want to make sure it's actually useful to them, they actually want to buy it. So I usually would do kind of polls or questions in my newsletters to ask them their opinions, and they actually become part of the process to create that product, and ultimately that product becomes something that everyone will actually want to buy.

How to Grow a New YouTube Channel

Bob: That's great advice. You mention YouTube. We're going to talk a little bit about that in a moment. First of all, congrats on the growth of that channel. I know you started it up a few years ago. You really started hitting it hard the last year and a half. Is there something around the comments that you really seem to be doing more strategically? Because what I noticed, I have a suspicion on what your answer is going to be, but you seem to be taking your commentary very seriously and I want to know what kind of advice you might have for people who are just getting started in their first year of their YouTube channel.

Laurie: So I started YouTube actually a few years ago, about four or five or so. And at the time, YouTube was actually a very different type of platform to where it is now. And the reason why I say this is because at the time it was really around the subscriber numbers where the more subscribers you have, the more exposure you have in the algorithm, people go ahead and watch your videos, and then that really drives more exposure to your channel as a result of that.

Now fast forward a few years now, what I've noticed is that for smaller channels and smaller creators who are starting at the beginning, they actually have a really great potential to be exposed to a lot more individuals on YouTube than when it was previously. So, for example, if I was to publish a piece of content that has the audio and the visual quality that audiences on YouTube expect, plus the fact that it's actually a very relevant piece of content that's well researched, that's created really well, well-structured, then YouTube will actually take all these as positive signals and show that to the right audiences on YouTube to give you a lot more exposure than you wouldn't have as a small YouTuber.

And I think that's something that's really helped my channel grow over time is that, as someone I really follow online quite closely, Gary Vaynerchuk has said, "The cream always rises to the top." So if you're creating quality content and relevant content for your audiences that you know they'll find useful, then that will drive more and more individuals on this channel which has a lot more discoverability on YouTube versus any other social media platforms. And it's actually evergreen because when you create a piece of content, that lasts years and years into the future. I still have videos from five years ago where people are still researching on that topic and actually discovering my channel because of that.

So I think it's a great place to invest your time as a first-time YouTuber or beginner and also you'll learn along the process, along the way of how to actually improve your videos, improve the quality of them by learning from your audiences and what they're feeding back to your channel from that point.

First Comment Strategy on YouTube

Bob: That's really cool. And after you publish your video, you seem to have a specific type of tactic that you take with that first comment as it's released. Can you talk a little bit about what you're doing there intentionally?

Laurie: Yeah, great question. So on that first comment, usually what I do is I usually post a comment from myself and what that is is actually describing what the video is all about, maybe with some timestamps from the video to tell people where to go to for specific moments in the video. That's really useful for them to actually watch from there. And I think people appreciate that because nowadays we have a very short attention span as individuals.

On average, I think our attention span is actually shorter than a goldfish, right? Less than eight or nine seconds. So, from that perspective, you want to make it as easy as possible for others to consume your long-form content on YouTube. And having a place where people can actually go into specifically to find that key moment they can learn from can be a really great way to win that fan and win that raving fan in the long term.

So I think having those kind of things where you essentially put as the first comment has two purposes. One is that it allow you to create that connection with your audiences to make it easier for them to actually digest your content.

But secondly, it also gives YouTube a positive factor in terms of the fact that you now have an additional comment just after you actually publish your videos. And then that encourages other comments to come in as well because you're asking a question perhaps in the comment as a call to action to others to contribute their opinions. And I find that's actually helped a lot in my opinion on my videos so far.

Bob: I really love it because a lot of people only put that kind of information in the description, and I don't know what the stats are. I'll make a number up, 85% of people don't click Read More from that description, so they never see all the great stuff that's there, but if they are on their phone or they're on their computer, they are likely to see the comments and you've got that information there.

And also nobody really wants to be the first comment unless you're somebody who's just one of those people that always wants to be the first comment.

Laurie: Yes, exactly.

Bob: So starting the ball rolling I think really helps out.

What is in Your YouTuber’s Toolkit?

Bob: Before we move over to the other parts of social media, sticking with YouTube for a moment, one of the things that you mentioned is the quality of the videos that you create and that's something that obviously caught our attention. We've worked collaboratively with you with a couple of videos. Give us some tools. What are using for a camera and what tool can you not live without software-wise that plays a major role within your video creation process?

Laurie: Yeah, definitely. So there's actually a whole entire list on my channel I can share with everyone after as well if you want to check it out. It's called the Beginner YouTube Kit. Essentially, it's kit.co where you can link to all the different cameras and lenses that you're currently using as a YouTuber. And you can feel free to check on my one as well.

So the camera I'm using at the moment that you're seeing on the most latest videos is the Sony Alpha 6600. And that is essentially just, what do you call it, like a crop frame camera where it's very portable, it's very easy to take around with you. If you're doing vlogs, for example, showcasing your business journey, you can take it to your meetings and put it in between yourself and someone that you're meeting to get that footage recorded. Also, I use this lens called the Sigma, which is the frame, I believe it's the 1.4 millimeter one where essentially it gives a very nice bokeh background to your camera, but at the same time has this very intimate feel because it's a very wide angle lens. So you have this much wider depth of field that you're actually seeing. So it kind of feels you're speaking to that individual that's your audience right in front of the camera, having a tea, having coffee with you. It's that kind of intimate relationship.

And also for the audio side, which I think is so important ... So sometimes people might have perhaps a very great tolerance for a low-quality video, but when it comes to audio, you want to make sure you have the best quality possible because people tend to, I guess, get more sensitive around how they're actually hearing your voices.

I remember having this kind of comment early days of my videos where people were saying, "Laurie, you sound like you're in an echo chamber right now or something, but your voice is not very clear and I can't hear you." And I think that really puts people off.

So if you can, I would say invest more in great audio equipment rather than starting off with a really high-end camera. And the one that I'm using now, to be honest, is not the highest in terms of price ranges in the market, but I think you still get a really great video quality from it. And the audio one I'm using is the Shure MV7 at the moment, and you probably see this all over social media. Like every single YouTuber or podcaster has this going on right now because it's a USB mic and what it is is that it plugs into your laptop seamlessly, but it's also an XLR mic, which means that if you do have those fancy sound equipments that you want to plug it into, you can also use the other interface as well. So it has this flexibility that I like plus the fact that it's actually a lot more affordable than the fancier Shure mics that you see later on in the range.

And again, all this together really kind of gives a very affordable package for someone to get started off with but really high-quality equipment that gives them that audio and visual effect that they want on YouTube as well.

Bob: Very good. Like you mentioned, you have a resource to let people know all the different tools and such that you're using. We'll go ahead and link to that in the show notes over at leadpages.com/podcast. So make sure that you're tuning in over there to get all of those juicy goodies. We got some more to share with you as well.

Becoming a T-Shaped Social Marketer

Bob: Now, let's change direction a little bit into the other areas of social media and you obviously have a channel on all the major ones. You mention in a video that's released not too long ago about being a T-shaped marketer. And I'm wondering if the same applies in social media of having a place and a presence on all the channels, but you go in-depth into one. Do you do that for yourself or do you try to be as much on all of the platforms as possible?

Laurie: Absolutely. So there's two factors to this, two sides of it.

Now, one side of it is that I do believe we should have that T-shaped marketing expertise in one social media channel because usually there's one that you feel individually, as either a freelancer, a marketer, or even a business owner, that you're gravitating towards, that you're liking more.

So for example, on my side in the early days in my career, I really liked Instagram. And I think Instagram for me still to this day is a place where it's fun to hang out with others in my space, to have discussions with them, either sharing my stories, sharing my infeed content. At the same time, also building that presence right on this platform by being prolific on it as much as possible because you're focusing on one place rather than splitting your attention in too many places at once.

But at the same time, I think you can also now afford to be prolific on other platforms at the same time if you have a pillar content in place, pillar content meaning that if you have currently, let's say, a weekly podcast episode or a weekly YouTube content coming out, that's a long-form content that you can use as your pillar content. And what that means is now that big piece of content now, which is about usually let's say 20 minutes long on YouTube or seven minutes, it could be up to an hour long on podcast, you can then split that up into different smaller pieces of content that you can repurpose across all your other social media channels.

And in one of the videos I released, which is the social media planner one, I talk about how I extensively use this in my business to save myself time and effort because now I'm a parent with a daughter who's three years old. She definitely keeps me busy, and I think a lot of times I have to think creatively about how to actually create more time with the ones I currently have and how do I make more content that's actually reusing what I currently have already.

So let's say on my weekly basis, I have this big piece of YouTube video that I created, lots of research into it, lots of planning, then what I do is I split it into smaller pieces of vertical video content that I can now reuse on all of my social media channels, so Instagram Reels, TikTok, on YouTube shorts, even on LinkedIn. So I tested on LinkedIn where if you're using a vertical video that's now actually performing much better than horizontal video sizes. So again, another great way to really kind of use that one piece of content and being everywhere at the same time, also actually now having unlimited amount of content ideas to reuse over and over again.

Bob: That's cool. I like this little tip that you just gave for testing on LinkedIn because, as some people may have been introduced to this episode, you'll have seen Laurie and I on LinkedIn with a social clip because we're doing exactly what you're talking about, but we have mostly been using either the square or the horizontal version, and then we've been doing the vertical over on Instagram and in other places. YouTube Shorts are coming soon. This is cool to know that you're testing this out and seeing that basically it's eye space, so whatever allows you vertical space, try to take it as much as possible. I think that's really clever.

Juggling Multiple Hats as an Entrepreneurial Parent

Bob: You also mentioned something here that I want to call attention to which is making sure that you're repurposing things. You are a parent. I'm a dad of two young kids. We're both married to coaches which is funny. We could probably talk about that separately another time. How are you juggling the family kind of stuff that happens with that age and doing all this great work with your content? How are you doing it? Are you outsourcing some of it? What kind of discipline do you have to make this a routine of your business?

Laurie: So by being a parent, a lot of times I have to really be creative on what I choose to do my business and what I say no to. And really a lot of it comes down to why am I doing it for? So there are lots of things in my business right now that look really shiny that I want to be doing. For example, I could be starting a podcast, I could be starting a whole new other channel somewhere else. But the thing is, at the end of the day, I'm thinking about does that actually tie back into my business objectives? I think that's a question a lot of entrepreneurs on this podcast when they're listening to this probably identify with is the fact we all want to do so many things in our business but how do we actually make sure we are using the time that we have left, either as parents or really busy professionals, to make sure we are using the time where it matters the most.

So for me, really thinking about if YouTube in this case is very much vital in my business because it brings in the evergreen leads that's either in my Leadpages I'm using right now, driving those leads towards my email subscribers, or it's becoming evergreen content in marketing my brands and businesses in terms of what it offers as a trainer, as a consultant, then YouTube itself is a vital part of that business. So I need to make sure that it is consistently being published out on a regular basis.

And what I do is I use this database called Notion where some individuals on this podcast might know about it as well. I'm sure there's some Notion fans listening to this, but essentially what it is it's like a Trello board that you could create within the database itself and I use it as a way to really track what I have as an ideas segment. And next after that would be where I am currently into scripting that video. There's a script element to it. After that will be the actual shooting of the video so another element of that. And then lastly is the editing and also publishing.

So by having this kanban board really of seeing that visually across the board allows me to see where I am in the process, what's currently in the queue to get produced, and then ultimately what's currently in the queue to get published and how do I then repurpose those content in different ways so to be really super organized in that process. And I do outsource part of the editing sometimes to individuals because I find that, as a creator, a lot of times I need to make sure I am actually creating the content more than editing the content all the time, which is actually one of the highest in terms of, I would say, time sucks in my business at the moment because editing just takes so much time.

And on the other side is that I want to make sure if I do have this process in place, I need to know exactly where my schedule lands within that process. So maybe within a weekly basis I have one or two days where it just is a content batching day. So for every two weeks or so, I might do that where for those two days I just produce content literally from creating, scripting, shooting it and editing it, and then having that ready for the next two weeks. And that buys me two weeks of essentially mindful time to work on my business without having to think about content all the time. And I think that really helps as well.

Adding B-Roll for More Engagement Within Your Videos

Bob: My next question about the YouTube portion of things is I love how you intersperse your camera with some B-roll. Do you have a favorite resource where you're tapping into some of these quick five-second visual clips that are really adding engagement to your videos?

Laurie: Actually, I do. Canva, by the way, if anyone's using Canva, they probably know this or not, Canva now actually have B-roll videos in their asset libraries. So where that lives is basically if you go type in in the element section of Canva on the left-hand side, if you type in a specific keyword you're looking for, so in this case it could be let's say big tall building that I'm looking for as a B-roll, then that will actually come up with lots of small short clip videos that Canva currently have that you can download as B-rolls, then insert into your video that way. So for $10 a month as a subscription, I think it's a great value resource for that. The other one is there's a few stock video websites that you can also use. I believe Pexels is one of them as well, but I think this one, Canva, just makes it a lot easier to research. Since I'm doing all my social media content in Canva anyway, it just makes it really easy to actually go in there and just download those B-rolls.

Turning Social Media Followers into Email Subscribers

Bob: Yeah, that's really cool. Good to know. I could talk about so many different things with you, Laurie. It's such a fascinating topic with all your expertise that you've developed. I want to convert now to when you get your social media activity growing, how are you getting them to your email list? You mentioned a couple of times a little bit about this already, but I want to make it very specific because you're not just trying to grow a social media following for itself. You are trying to grow your business. And, as we all know and people listening, that means you should be getting people off of social media and onto your email list. So how are you doing that?

Laurie: So social media, I say this in all of my social media videos and also in my blog post, is that at the end of the day, it's a rented real estate. And what I mean by that is at the end of the day, we don't own our social media audiences. What we do really own is our email newsletters and in terms of how people are actually signing up to them over time from these different distribution channels. So at the end of the day, you want to think about, as an overall strategy, how do you attract as many people as individuals that come to your website, come to your social media channels to be part of your email list because you actually own that asset and you can control how you communicate to your audiences there. You don't have to worry about algorithms or how you're going to be reaching them. It really comes down to how often you want to reach them and the messaging that you have behind that.

So what I do is in my business I use a mixture of content upgrades, which basically means that when you, let's say, go into one of my videos, I usually have a little piece of free content that I put behind an email signup list. So in this case, it could be through Leadpages where essentially I just say, "You can go there and download this guide that will help you from what I talked about in the video." And that usually drives individuals who are watching the video, which usually is evergreen anyway on YouTube coming through search and organically. Then they can go ahead and download that asset and then become one of my email subscribers as well.

The other thing I also do is that I do a lot of, in my Instagram stories, for example, I make sure to always mention the things I'm going to be talking about in my upcoming newsletters. So it really gives people a way to entice them to sign up to my email list. And now, because Instagram opened it up to everyone to have access to this linking feature in your Instagram stories, it allows you to be able to do that no matter how many followers you currently have on Instagram at the moment. So previously it was like 10,000 Instagram followers or more to get that feature but now, because they opened it up to everyone, I definitely recommend people using it going forward.

Elevating Free Lead Magnets into Paid Products

Bob: Yeah, that's really cool. And the lead magnets that you have, I'm privy to conversion rates for our users as you may know and one example is your social media content planner, 75.1% conversion rate on that page which is predominantly people coming from social media, which is a phenomenal conversion rate as many would expect. But you also have a premium version of that same work. So talk to us a little bit about how you're using the free versions of lead magnets and then having a premium version that you actually wind up selling.

Laurie: So the story's actually quite funny. I started doing that free version quite a few years ago when I first started my YouTube channel because at the time I realized that there's this pain point really of individuals who feel like social media is a huge time suck, but they don't know how to actually manage it appropriately to make it work for them while they're running their businesses, running their brands. And I thought why not share the processes I currently have and the template that I have, which was a free version at the time, that people can actually just download on the back of that video. And that video started doing really, really well. I believe to this point now today it's about, I think, 28,000 views at the moment, which for a small channel like mine is quite phenomenal which I'm really grateful about.

And because of that, that's grown my email list subscriber very quickly and people started downloading that free social media template. So I thought, going forward, why not do a new video ... I think it was last year that I did this ... a refreshed video on the new process that I currently now have in place and the new template I've been creating for clients. And I completely shared the template literally step by step on the video. But what I did say at the end is that if you're happy to do so, either save yourself time on creating everything from scratch because there's a lot of formulas involved in this new template. You can download a version here as well which is really affordable. It was like $12 or something like that. And individuals can then just go ahead and download that.

And that's done really well for me as well from a paid perspective because really, without expecting it, that became more of a passive income stream in my business as well. So individuals watch the video, they like the template so much, they thought to themselves, "I don't want to waste any time building this from scratch. I'm just going to go ahead and go download that from Laurie." So I really appreciate that too. I'm very grateful to all the customers that came through that way.

And I think these two, they work really well complimentary to each other because I actually just got off a call earlier today with one of the individuals that purchased the paid version, and she actually told me the reason why she purchased the paid version is because she loved the free one so much. She thought that if this is free, I can only imagine how good Laurie's paid one is.

That's really where I think that authenticity, the way that you want to contribute impact to individuals, that comes through because when you're just giving away value for free that's so valuable that you actually are able to charge for and they appreciate that in the sense that they sense the authenticity and the way you're looking to help them. They want to naturally buy from you eventually anyway. And it's that long-term, I think, customer satisfaction and customer trust you're building over time with your content as well which is really crucial.

Bob: That's amazing. I love that storyline and I think anybody listening who's been really struggling with what should I create next as a paid product, consider looking at the free ones you have and making a souped-up version of it. I think that's a really, really brilliant move.

Connecting with New Audiences in Person Again

Bob: Let's talk now about going from social online to being in person. You're a keynote speaker, you love to be in workshops in front of people as do I. What are you finding here as we're recording at the beginning of 2023 is both old and new as you're getting back out on the scene again?

Laurie: So one thing that really lights me up is seeing the interactions with audiences throughout the entire, let's say, keynote or workshops and also hearing their questions at the end and seeing their reactions and also hearing their feedback afterwards. So usually I get such a buzz coming out of events that really drives me forward to continue creating more useful content either through my online channels or in-person events going forward.

And also what I love about it is that a lot of it's very tangible because individuals might reach out to me a few months later and say, "Laurie, that thing that you taught me in your last workshop really helped to transform my business and this is exactly what happened." And things like that, that really lights me up and makes me feel like what I'm doing is making a truly an impact in people's businesses going forward.

Bob: That's cool. Now, I just want to share one ninja thing that you've done. I don't know how intentionally you did it. I'm assuming it was very because you're a very strategic person, but almost every video that I see of yours, you have a B-roll of you on stage and it's you speaking at some workshop where you've got a nice little slide behind you and it's like two seconds. It's not very prominent but it's like, "I'm a speaker, I'm a speaker, I'm a speaker." Every video shows, "I'm a speaker." And I have to imagine, A, that you're doing it on purpose and, B, it's helping you get booked both on virtual stages and in person.

Laurie: Definitely. So one of the biggest things that I recommend to other speakers out there or who are looking to become speakers is make sure to capture as much content of you speaking as possible.

It's something that I learned throughout my career so far is that if you don't capture on content, how do you then actually showcase what you've done in those events, especially if you yourself won't be able to capture that anyway. And I think a lot of times having that social proof is really important because now, for example, if I was to pitch myself to be a speaker at an event going forward, I have a range of different B-rolls of myself speaking on stage and also live trainings that I recorded over time. And really a mixture of these things showcases the experience that you have as a speaker and demonstrates that you have what it takes to make that future conference or future speaking event a success. I think that's a lot of times what the conference bookers are actually looking for. So I really recommend doing that as much as you can. It's a worthwhile investment.

Bob: Yeah, for sure. Are you doing anything else these days to get back on stages? Are you going outbound to some event organizers or is most of your requests coming inbound?

Laurie: I would say it's a mixture of those. So a lot of them are actually either coming through the content I'm sharing on social, so people are seeing that I am a speaker and the fact that I am delivering great experiences for the audiences, and that helps a lot to have those kind of B-rolls and the content going out there.

The other side is also me reaching out organically through conferences that I really want to speak at and I'm actually quite passionate to be at. So obviously there's a few big ones coming up this year that I'm quite excited about and hopefully I do hear back from some of the conferences on those in due course. But I'm just really excited that things are opening up in the world now were previously just being on virtual events. Unfortunately, even though as much as I love delivering those anyway, it just doesn't have the same impact as it would be in person.

Bob: And I understand you have one travel event coming up in the near future that you'd like to share about.

Laurie: Yeah. So potentially a few in Seoul in Korea, and also looking at Dubai as well in the next few months.

Learning from Mentors

Bob: That would be awesome. So as we start to wrap up this conversation, Laurie, I'd love to know are there people that you're still learning from today that are inspiring you to create either great content or just run your business at a higher level?

Laurie: Absolutely. There's a few names I want to mention. I'm sure it's definitely not foreign to those who are listening to the podcast, but I learned from Amy Porterfield ever since the very early days of her career and seeing her entire growth. And actually that's how I found out about Leadpages, through her. And I started using the product in my own business because of the fact that it's become such a powerful tool to help me build my email list over time. And from there, I discovered all kinds of other individuals in the space. So Marie Forleo really taught me about how “everything is figureoutable,” and that's a book that's really close to my heart where I really embrace that concept in everything I do in business, in especially video editing, which didn't actually come naturally to me. I'm not a video person. I came in from an economics background, nothing to do with editing of media, but what I did learn is there are lots of resources online that you can take away from.

And that actually brings me to the next individual, which is Justin Odisho. He's a really great YouTuber where he shares all kinds of useful tips and tricks on how you can edit in Adobe Premiere, which is a software that I'm using now. And again, I learned everything from scratch because, as I was moving along the journey of creating my videos, I was learning every little bit of new things like how to cut clips, how to put clips together, how to actually do transitions, how to essentially make really great intro videos. Whatever it might be, I'm learning a step by step along the way. And I think that's really crucial in the sense of embracing that concept of testing first, embracing the concept of learning from everyone around you, and also everything's figureoutable. So you can just go ahead. Everything is Googleable as well. You can just Google it and find your answers on the internet which is really useful.

Bob: Yeah, that's really cool. And got to give a shout-out to Amy for the recent release of Two Weeks Notice out in the world. Congratulations to her about that.

Fall in Love with the Process

Bob: So my final kind of content question here is when you look at any time you've run into an obstacle, a challenge or an opportunity, is there a quote or a mantra or something of that nature that you like to turn to that helps you get to the other side of it?

Laurie: That's a great question. I think for me, the really one mantra that's kept me going is called Loving the Process. And I think that a lot of us, we being very ambitious individuals or entrepreneurs, we really want to be at the end of that finish line always because we want to see the results.

But I think from here to where we want to go, that's where really the fun begins and that's where along the way you're learning new things, you're getting through new challenges, you're becoming a better person. And I think that whole entire process is where we should really embrace, to love more going forward and really enjoying every step of the way, having fun along the way. That's really what's going to keep us to be consistent, to be there for our audiences, to enjoy our work, to find joy in our work, not to burn out along the way as well, because we're giving yourself that sustainable way of working on things. I think that's where it eventually makes us become who we become. But it's not so much about just going to the end result, but rather it's about how do you actually embrace every step of that process to eventually become the person that you're working towards.

And I think, for me, that's been a really, really key part of the journey.

Bob: I love that and I love it because not only does it help you enjoy the process along the way, but it helps you become obsessed with fine-tuning that process along the way, right? So you're always trying to make a better mousetrap for the things that you're creating, which I think is really important to do.

Laurie: Exactly. And you find that you evolve over time as an individual as well. I think that's also what's quite exciting for me in the sense that the Laurie now versus the Laurie five years ago is so different, but in a way I think that's made me a more interesting person. It's made me learn a lot more new lessons along the way, and that evolution, I think, is so crucial to every entrepreneur, and you find that the end result when you actually get to the finish line, it's not so much about the result that you actually achieve but rather about who you become along the process.

Bob: That's awesome. Well, Laurie, thanks so much for joining us for this episode. What's the next first step that you'd recommend that people take so they can learn more from you?

Laurie: Yeah, sure. They can go over to YouTube and just type in Laurie Wang and they'll find all of my free content there as a first starting point. And if you like what you see, of course, you can also sign up to my newsletter on my website which is lauriewang.com.

Bob: Awesome. Don't forget to smash that subscribe button as the young folks like to say.

Laurie: Thanks, Bob.

Bob: Thanks, Laurie. Thanks for joining us.

Laurie: Thanks for having me.

Don't Want to Miss an Episode?

Subscribe to The Lead Generation Podcast and get notified as soon as a new episode is released.