THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Today’s episode is sponsored by my Free Passion Portrait Workshop. If you’ve ever wanted to paint portraits but been intimidated to draw or paint people, then I want to invite you to my free passion portrait workshop. Now, if you’re listening to this episode in April or May, 2020 you won’t want to miss the free video series to gain instant access to the video number one, just go to schulmanart.com/videos.
It’s the Inspiration Place Podcast with artists, Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast an art world inside a podcast for artists by an artist where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hello, this is your host artist, Miriam Schulman, and you’re listening to episode number 87 of the Inspiration Place podcast. I am so thrilled that you’re here. Today I’ve invited a guest expert in copywriting because emails are your most powerful tool for getting collectors to whip out their credit card for everything you create. Now, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that I preach that the best ways to sell your art is either in person or through email. And with the current social distancing measures in place and many art shows getting canceled through the fall, sending out emails has become more critical than ever.
So in this episode, you’ll discover why your story sells your art, how to stop making writing an email a chore that you dread, and how to inject your personality into everything you write, so that your writing goes from meh to money, bye bye to must buy, and from so-so to sold. And I’ve totally ripped off today’s guest to come up with that last bullet point.
But before we get there, I wanted to make sure you knew about my portrait workshop. If you’re interested in painting your loved ones, whether your family or for babies, and you’ve always wanted to transform your passion for painting into profits, there’s never been a better time to learn some new skills while you’re stuck at home and preserve those special memories. To join the video series, just go to schulmanart.com/videos and by the way, it’s 100% free. Now, back to the show.
Today’s guest is the founder of Talking Shrimp and the co-creator of the Copy Cure. She’s a copywriting expert who helps entrepreneurs find the perfect words to express and sell what they do in a way that gets them paid to be themselves. Through her work with hundreds of clients, including online biggies like Marie Forleo and Amy Porterfield, she’s seen firsthand that putting you into your copy and all through your business is pure magic for getting people to love you up, share your ideas, and happily click that buy button. In addition to online types, her list of clients and credits include NBC, Bravo, HBO, TBS, Fandango, and many, many more. So if you watch TV and don’t skip the commercials, you’ve probably seen her work. Please welcome to the inspiration place, Laura Belgray. Well, Hey there, Laura, welcome to the show.
Laura Belgray:
Hey Miriam, thank you so much for having me here.
Miriam Schulman:
All right, so the reason I invited you, besides the fact that you’re absolutely awesome, is because my audience is always complaining how they don’t like talking to… When they write emails, they feel like they’re talking to their computers. So we have a lot to talk about because I know writing emails is absolutely, I mean, you’re just the bomb. I’ve opened up every single one that you write to find out what crazy things you have to talk about.
Laura Belgray:
Thank you.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, but before we get there, I know you’re in Sag Harbor.
Laura Belgray:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
How far are you from Louann’s house?
Laura Belgray:
I don’t know. I think I have to track her down. Thank you for… I feel ashamed of myself.
Miriam Schulman:
What kind of Bravo housewife fan are you?
Laura Belgray:
I’m a loser, L-D-U, loser. But I don’t know if Lou… You mean Louann’s former house because she had to give it up and she moved to Kings-
Miriam Schulman:
No, I thought that too. But I’m watching the season and they’re shots of her in front of Sag Harbor. I was like, “Wait, I thought she sold that thing.”
Laura Belgray:
Interesting.
Miriam Schulman:
I think because it’s still… maybe it belongs to her children.
Laura Belgray:
Yes, probably they took it from her and maybe by their grace and mercy she’s allowed to visit.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, yeah.
Laura Belgray:
Well then we’re close by for sure because it’s a small place that she’s in, Sag Harbor [inaudible 00:04:55].
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, and have you been watching the new season?
Laura Belgray:
Well I started to and then I was like, “No, I want to rack up a few and then get to binge them.” That’s what I’m planning to do possibly tonight. I’m also catching up on Vanderpump Rules, which is also an American masterpiece and very important.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, it’s very important, definitely. All right, well I’m ahead of you so I can’t ask you the other questions. Like do you miss Bethany and what do you think of the new girl?
Laura Belgray:
I already miss Bethany and that’s kind of why I have a little less urgency about watching them and it just goes to show that when people… We get to know people through, not necessarily through real life, but through other mediums and we really feel like we know them. And it’s like, “Oh yeah, I miss Bethany. I miss spending time with her.” Because I feel like I know her. I’m sure people come up to them all the time and are just like, “Hey, how’s skinny girl, what’s going on? How’s the new boyfriend?” And they think that they’re friends and she doesn’t know them from boo. And that’s just like when you put your personality out there, people develop the loyalty and they think that they know you and that’s just what you were talking about. That’s the reason they buy from you or follow you to the ends of the earth and…
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, 100% and with art it couldn’t be even more true. The reason people buy art is because it’s not how great an artist you are, it’s how much they feel connected to the artist and the best way to connect people is through the stories. I even have collectors who will say to me, “I like that, but where’s the story?” They won’t buy it until they find out what the story is about it. Like, “How come you didn’t put anything on your website?” They just won’t. It’s important to them, that’s part of what they’re buying from you.
Laura Belgray:
My husband and I collect art a bit. When we go into a gallery, a show, he can look at things and know right away, that’s great, that’s derivative. This person learned from this artist, this person is exploring these ideas, whatever. I can’t see any of that and so I always pick up the press release and look for like, “Oh, what are the references? What’s the story behind this?” Usually the press releases are overwritten and they’re written by the gallery, but that’s how I decide whether or not I liked the piece. Whether it’s important to me and whether I want it.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s good. If I know the artist it means something more to me, know them personally. So I’ll have a lot of artists say, “Only my friends buy my art.” And the first thing I’ll say to them is, “That’s probably because those are the only people who know about it.” Because they’re not emailing or putting themselves out there or not. But the whole point is when you’re writing these emails and that’s what we’re going to dig into today, is you want your collectors to feel as if you are writing to them as a friend. And that’s always how I feel when I open your emails, and you talk about them as ludicrous things too. It’s just like, “Oh my gosh, what is she going to come up with next?” It’s everything from the mean girl from boarding school who charged you a quarter for every day, I don’t remember why, your fear of going to the bathroom in public. So it’s all out there, it’s unbelievable.
Laura Belgray:
It is, you know me. Well so, that’s what you’re saying. Like if they say, “Oh, only my friends collect my art.” You could solve that easily by making thousands of friends with your email. You make those people your friends, they become your friends and then they will buy your art.
Miriam Schulman:
And I actually go through my town, she’s an art collector, she isn’t an art collector and I consider anyone who’s bought my art, therefore they have status in my mind as they have friend points with me, whether I would have liked them or not, it doesn’t matter anymore. I made a list of questions here because what people are getting their panties in a bunch about. So first thing I wrote down is, do we have to talk about COVID when we send emails now? I mean, right now we’re in… Oh my gosh, that noise you just made.
Laura Belgray:
That’s my COVID fatigue sigh. I’m so tired of COVID. Listen, I mean I think that you always want to have context when you’re writing an email or when you’re posting anything. You want to have context and you can’t necessarily ignore it because it is all around us, it’s a fact of life right now. So you don’t have to mention COVID, you might mention being at home, being cooped up with people, you might mention… Anything that shows what life is now and touches on it in some way I think makes it absolutely relevant. Anything that doesn’t make your email feel like it was written in December, 2019 because it is such a overwhelming experience for… everybody is having this experience.
Laura Belgray:
Not everyone is having the same experience of it, but everyone is experiencing this pandemic in some way. So it’s hard not to touch on it in some way, but you don’t have to, if you’re writing about why you painted a piece or something, if you’re talking about a piece that you made in 2019 and why you painted it and what you were thinking, maybe there’s no reason to mention what life is now. And so no, I don’t think you have to mention it that constantly, only if the context is appropriate, if it belongs there.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, the one thing though, and I’ve told my assistant who helps me out sometimes with copy, I said you’re no longer allowed to say uncertain times.
Laura Belgray:
Oh, thank you. Wait, did you see my email today?
Miriam Schulman:
I did, but I thought maybe you heard what I said in Ron’s group. I didn’t see your email, I saw a post that you did because I mean it’s never certain. It’s an illusion if we think things are certain. If you think about what life was March 1st here in the United States, in New York, we thought life was certain, but we didn’t know the world was about to change. And that’s always true, that the world can change back in the day too. Or you can always get the phone call, the God forbid, something tragic happens in your life and your spouse dies, suddenly your whole world changes. So it’s always that way, not always with bad things, but sometimes with good things too.
Laura Belgray:
Right [crosstalk 00:10:44] certain times. But that’s so funny because yeah, I was ranting about that but also about the clicheness of it, how everybody tries to wedge it in, in order to make their copy sound relevant. So it’s like, “In these uncertain times, this exfoliating facewash will make your pores tight and invisible, just like Selena Gomez. Use uncertain times at checkout for 20% off.” And it’s just so cliche and wedged in and then also, to me, of all of them, because there’s challenging times, disturbing times, overwhelming times, there’s all kinds of times that you can use and have all of them, which are all cliche, that one strikes me as the most bland and insincere.
Miriam Schulman:
Totally agree, so I will allow myself to use the word turbulent time, somehow I like that better, but uncertain…
Laura Belgray:
Right, right, it’s bull, the idea that there were certain times.
Miriam Schulman:
Right, I’ve had enough COVID talk so we will move on, right?
Laura Belgray:
Right, we’ve detoned, deafed it.
Miriam Schulman:
Right, exactly. I love that, detoned, deafed it. Here’s what I hear from people and I have my ideas and I’m talking about my art, the client who I coach who want to sell their art. They say they hate writing emails because they feel like they’re talking to their computers. So what advice do you have specifically for those artists?
Laura Belgray:
Yeah, I think that you want to picture a person who is your ideal collector. It’s probably a friend, especially if you’ve claimed that only your friends collect your art. And a friend who maybe is such a fan of yours, such a fan of the art that they always want first dibs, anything that you put out there and are furious if you’ve sold it to somebody else without telling them about it. Think that person that you love so much, that you feel comfortable around who just loves everything that you do. If you need to, you can open an email from your regular email client on your desktop or wherever you compose an email, right?
So I use Mac Mail, so I open up a Mac email, if I’m having trouble, if I’m having trouble picturing that one person and I start an email to them, but truly to them, what would I write to this person, in what language? So I don’t start to make it newslettery, I don’t have a big intro, if it were you, Miriam, I would just say, “What’s shaking?” If I’m writing about art, “Just finished this piece, I know you’re going to want to see it because you were so mad at me last time when I didn’t tell you about it. It is, if I do say so, pretty spectacular. Do you want to come see it?” I just put it in the words that I would use with a person that I like and know. And then maybe you dress it up, then maybe you put more into it. But when you start it off in the right tone with the right person in your mind’s eye it’s going to be a lot easier.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that. Now, I’m going to ask you some leading questions. These are all things that I’ve learned from Laura, they will be either rhetorical or leading questions.
Laura Belgray:
I love leading questions, softballs, yes.
Miriam Schulman:
All right, why should we use contractions in our writing?
Laura Belgray:
Uh-huh (affirmative), contractions. Well first of all, they’re so easy. All they take is one finger, it’s the little right pinky finger because that is the one, if you touch type, that hits the apostrophe on your keyboard. Contractions, for those who are in need of a little grammar refresher, are those-
Miriam Schulman:
Hey, hasn’t everybody watched-
Laura Belgray:
[crosstalk 00:14:06] Schoolhouse Rock?
Miriam Schulman:
That’s it Schoolhouse Rock.
Laura Belgray:
Schoolhouse Rock. Yes, I actually forget that one. I remember, conjunction junction, what’s your function? But I forget [crosstalk 00:14:14].
Miriam Schulman:
No wait, that’s the one I was thinking of but isn’t there a contraction one too, then?
Laura Belgray:
Probably, probably, but [crosstalk 00:14:19] contractions are those… Yeah, in case someone hasn’t watched Schoolhouse Rock lately, they’re those combo words like instead of you are, it’s you’re. Instead of I will, it’s I’ll, the reason I think most people don’t use those when they write is because it’s been drilled out of them all through middle school and high school, your teacher probably said don’t use contractions. You’re writing, you have to write it full out and they probably put a big red X through it. Or if you are an escapee from the legal or corporate world, you definitely wrote in business speak, which was not using contractions.
But when we speak, listen to the way we speak, it’s I’ll, we’ll, I’m not, don’t, won’t, I’m going to. So you want to write the way you talk because when you read the words full out on the page, when there are no contractions, it looks stiff and formal. You might not even know why you’re turned off by it. You might not even know why it’s coming across as cold, but it’s usually because the writer didn’t use contractions.
So not everything has to be contraction, you don’t always have to do it. But read your stuff out loud, where you’re changing it as it’s coming out of your mouth, change it on the page too to mirror that and mirror the way you actually speak. So I like to think of it as, not as copywriting, but as copy talking because you want to write the way you talk.
Miriam Schulman:
When I get emails now from whatever marketers I will silently in my mind go through, “That should have been a contraction, I don’t like her subject line.” Right?
Laura Belgray:
[crosstalk 00:15:49] now you’re getting harsh. Yeah but now you know why you don’t like it. You probably did before but you didn’t know it.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, interesting. I know you have some tips about subject lines. So what is something that will make any email scream, “It’s a newsletter.”
Laura Belgray:
Ah ha. Oh I love that question. If you use title case in your subject line, meaning the first letter of each word is capitalized, as it is in a title, that screams newsletter. It’s businessy. You would never capitalize the first letter of each word if you wrote an email to a friend, you’d capitalize the first word if any of them. Sometimes we’re sloppy when we write to our friends and especially now that we communicate with the people who were close to so much in text, text is a place where even our punctuation drops off. We get almost intentionally sloppy because it now looks rude and curt to use punctuation and to be formal there.
So you kind of want your subject lines to mirror that in formality. Yeah, you want to make sure that you’re not using title case and you will see marketers, if you’re subscribed to a lot of things, you will see marketers using title case. You might find yourself turned off by it now that you heard this. Some of them get away with it because they have loyal followings and they’ve been doing it for years and people love their emails so much. But I know most of them, like when I see those, I’m just like, “I don’t need to open that today.” It’s not to me, it doesn’t feel like it’s to me, it’s a from a business to a business and I don’t need to read it.
Miriam Schulman:
Perfect, we’re going to talk a lot about injecting personality into everything you write and you do it so beautifully, but it’s so hard to teach that. What is your advice you have for putting in more personality into emails?
Laura Belgray:
The first tip for personality is one that I just gave you, which is sounding like a person. The root word of personality, person, right? So you want to sound conversational, you want to mirror the way you talk, you want to read your stuff out loud and say, “Does this sound like a person talking? Does this sound like me talking? Is this the way I would actually say it? Is this the slang that I would use?” So you want that same tone, that same conversational feel in your writing, make it sound like a person.
And then my favorite little trick for adding personality, for injecting some flavor is something that you’re artists are familiar with, painting a picture. So I like to use concrete details. Not to say that Jackson Pollock was not a great artist, but if Jackson Pollock were writing, his writing would not be as good. If his paintings were writing, it wouldn’t be as good because they are abstract, they are general, it’s a mass, it’s a blog. Whereas you want to be very figurative and clear in your writing. You want to use concrete details that paint a picture when we’re reading.
So for instance, instead of saying, “We met up and had a conversation.” That’s way more interesting if you say, “We met on a bench and talked over tuna sandwiches.” It shows setting, it shows, what was the tone, what was the feeling of this meeting? We met and had a conversation, we don’t know, we met on a bench and talked over tuna sandwiches, says it was maybe really informal and intimate. It was somewhere outside maybe where you didn’t want the other person to make a scene. There’s so much built into those concrete details and we can picture it.
For instance, you see a lot of people talking in big generalities, especially when they’re telling their life story. They’ll say something like, “For a long time I was in a very dark place. It was the lowest low of my life. But I came out of it and I found myself on the other side with a whole new attitude.” And that tells us nothing, it’s general, it’s blah. We don’t know what they went through. Whereas if they said, “For three months of my life I lived in unwashed sweats, eating nothing but Doritos from the bag and stalking my ex on Facebook.” We know what kind of low they went through. I mean that that is the essence of low [crosstalk 00:19:49].
Miriam Schulman:
That’s exactly why I read your emails, even though I care nothing about whatever affiliate promotion you happen to be pitching that month, but I just have to find out all these juicy details. Laura, what I want to make sure my artists hear, especially those who are interested in painting portraits, what you’re saying is actually what I teach my artists to do. Now you can take a photograph of a person and you can copy it exactly, but people are not going to connect to that painting or not be interested if there’s no story being told in that painting. So you brought up other artists, if you think about Norman Rockwell who did beautiful illustrations of portraits, every single one of his paintings tell a story. You know exactly who that kid is or who that dentist is or who that couple is and all those little juicy details that he includes is what makes his art so compelling. And that does not mean that art has to be representational to be compelling. But if you are making representational art, you should be telling a story with it.
Laura Belgray:
Right, and your writing I think should always be representational. That’s how you make it compelling. You don’t have to tell every detail but one perfect detail can make something pop and make it come alive for us and tell the whole story.
Miriam Schulman:
Like how you said about how, if somebody is sleeping in their car at the Kmart parking lot, that’s a very different image that you’re painting than, was going through tough times, who cares?
Laura Belgray:
Right, exactly, what was tough to you? Who cares and what does that even mean? I don’t know what your tough times look like unless you tell me with real concrete details.
Miriam Schulman:
I think that’s why we both bristle with the uncertain times, what does that even mean?
Laura Belgray:
Right, right, it is so anidine, it’s so meaningless and washed, it’s just that it’s watered down emotion.
Miriam Schulman:
I think I saw that to sell somebody’s book and I don’t want to say which one, who it is because I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. But it was about change… Well I’ll give you a hint, it was about changing habits like, “Oh, in your uncertain times you can be certain if you have a habit…” I was like, “Oh really? Ew.” I mean, I already read your book but ew now.
Laura Belgray:
Right, now ew.
Miriam Schulman:
Now ew.
Laura Belgray:
Stop trying to leverage that because it was not… Maybe it works for some people but not on us smarties.
Miriam Schulman:
What else can artists do in terms of talking about their life? Now, because I know you hear from people, “Oh, your life is so interesting, Laura because you live in New York.” I love that you’re laughing.
Laura Belgray:
Well, yes. I’m laughing because I have this shame of having fled New York for the… I consider myself a die hard, ride or die New Yorker and I’ve been there through the gritty crime and dirt filled ’70s, and I was there through 9/11, and I’ve been there through the douchest of times for the horrors visited upon the city by hedge funders and PR girls and their lines for cupcakes, and I’ve never left. And now this happened and it turns out I’m not so tough after all.
Miriam Schulman:
No, come on-
Laura Belgray:
I’m doing what-
Miriam Schulman:
Before we hit record, you fled Egypt [crosstalk 00:00:23:03].
Laura Belgray:
Right, exactly, exactly. I’m surviving and I’m really happy to be in a place that’s I think safer, [inaudible 00:23:08] is no safer. But people do say, “Oh, it’s easy for you to tell stories, to find stories to tell because you live in New York and interesting things always happen to you walking down the street.” First of all, I’m looking for interesting things to happen and it’s the little details that I pick up on, but you can find those, you can find stories, you can find conflict, you can find interesting things anywhere.
And the email that you’re referring to, I talked about how many seasons there are of the show, The Office. It’s one of the longest running sitcoms of all time and they are at least two stories in every episode, the A plot, and the B plot. And where does that take place? In an office park in Scranton, Pennsylvania. You can find stories anywhere. A story comes from conflict, generally. It comes from intrigue, it comes from mystery, but most of all conflict and it can be a little conflicts. So the conflict between what you want and what you have, just wanting something is a conflict and is a story.
Miriam Schulman:
Your inner dialogue that’s happening, the crazy things you think about.
Laura Belgray:
Right, exactly. There’s a tension and a conflict between the way you look on the outside and what’s actually going on in your head. If you smile while thinking, “I don’t want to come anywhere near this person who’s handing me my ice coffee.” And they’re not wearing a mask, there’s a conflict right there. So there’s something to write about every day.
Miriam Schulman:
Are you able to get that?
Laura Belgray:
There actually is an ice coffee place. I think they’re able to stay open because they also have chia bowls.
Miriam Schulman:
Why did I suddenly feel jealous? I don’t know why, I wasn’t jealous up until this point. You have this, sounds glamorous, this Sag Harbor home. And I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.” Until she said, “Yeah, I can still get ice coffee.”
Laura Belgray:
Yeah, I can still get ice coffee but you know what? I don’t. I see people lined up for it, most of them six feet apart, at this sad coffee place. But I always think about like, “Wait a minute, the person is handing you… Are you going to pour your ice coffee into a different cup now?” That person has just touched your… You don’t know, I don’t care if they’re wearing gloves, they might’ve touched their nose or touch their face with the gloves…
Miriam Schulman:
Right because maybe they touched their face with the gloves.
Laura Belgray:
… the gloves don’t do anything. So you’re now getting an ice coffee in a plastic container with a straw, that’s all been probably touched. And so, I’m not really interested in that. I miss my ice coffee, but I’ll make my own at home.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, that makes me feel so much better.
Laura Belgray:
So there’s a story in that, in just being tempted by an ice coffee, there’s a story in seeing a leaf fall and it making you think of some time in the past.
Miriam Schulman:
But this is where people get stuck, is how did they go from this very cute ice coffee story to now they want to sell their painting of a giraffe, just making it up because there’s a painting of a giraffe behind me. So this is like improv class, let’s see… Poor Laura, just put her on the spot.
Laura Belgray:
Well I would probably start with, if you’re thinking of your painting of a giraffe, I would probably start with, what is the story behind that? Why did you paint the giraffe? Did you paint that giraffe in person when you were on Safari? A story like that today might be, here I am, the most dangerous thing that I could do today is actually risk my life for an ice coffee. And meanwhile, just a year ago I was sitting in the Plains of Africa with a giraffe in my face and a lion a few feet away.
Miriam Schulman:
See I love the way you did that. And the thing that’s so important, which I think everybody needs to know, is how you really couldn’t do that for me because you don’t know why I painted that, only you know your story and that is what connects people. So if I were to take that same, Laura, same made up story and send it out to my collectors, that would fall completely flat because they would see through it, that it wouldn’t ring true like, “Miriam didn’t go on a safari…”
Now if I were to send the actual thing, “Okay, well, it’s about sticking your neck out and being vulnerable because that’s how I feel about this giraffe. And now relate that to how we’re all afraid to get the iced coffee, I’ve never felt more vulnerable before except maybe the time where… I don’t know, I can’t make up things on the spot either. I don’t know when I had braces in the 10th grade, who knows? When everybody else had grown out of braces, but suddenly I was getting them on and [crosstalk 00:27:35].
Laura Belgray:
Yeah, no, but that’s great. Right, exactly. And you don’t even have to start… the coffee might be a jumping off point for you that you don’t even end up putting in there. It might be like, “Oh, you know what? I actually want to tell the story about the time I felt most vulnerable.” If you’re a jumping off from, in the story, from the idea of right now, who’s vulnerable and vulnerable is being used in a new way about in terms of health. But when we think of it normally, we think of it in terms of emotional vulnerability. And probably the most vulnerable moment in my life was when I got braces. I’ve never gotten over that feeling of being teased for having braces and being called metal mouth or thinking people would, and that’s why this giraffe is so powerful to me.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that, but what about people who say, “Oh, I still find writing an email a chore that I dread.”
Laura Belgray:
I think a lot of people start off that way, thinking any email is a chore that they dread and then when they see what’s possible, like, “Oh wait, I can be myself. I can write an email to my subscribers the same way I would write an email to a friend. I actually like writing an email to my friends, telling a funny story to my friends saying like, “You’re not going to believe who I bumped into today.”” And putting that same feeling, that same intimacy into your email, it’s the idea that that’s allowed usually makes people love writing emails.
And then once they start doing that and they get engagement, and they get responses back and people saying, “Oh my gosh, this email made my day and please keep me up on your new paintings as you complete them.” That’s so gratifying to get replies to your emails and know that they’re landing and that they might be making a difference. They might be entertaining people, making somebody smile and also giving permission to somebody else to be more of themselves in their communications for their own business.
Miriam Schulman:
We were talking a little bit about portraits, but portraits are also stories, and I feel like all these things that we’re doing, whether you’re painting and even if you’re a sculptor, you’re creating this legacy of your stories and putting it into writing is one more way to create this lasting legacy of all your ideas and your stories. And it’s important to put it out there and not to take them, the way that my grandmother used to say, not to take it with you. “I can’t take it with me.” She used to say.
Laura Belgray:
Yeah, right, no, and she’s right. You don’t want to die… We’re all facing our mortality now, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Right, I didn’t want to go there but thank you for going.
Laura Belgray:
No, who wants to die untapped? We have so much to say in our lives and I don’t know anyone who has said everything that they have to say. And I think it is also kind of crazy to draw a line between forms of expression, say if you’re a painter, that’s the way you express yourself. We all have things to say and we say it in different ways and words are our first form of communication, our first form of self expression from the time that we’re born, we learn our first words, we learn our first word long before we learned to draw something, to draw shape, right? If you want to be a self expressed person, I think you should express yourself in all the ways that you know how.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, and just try to see it as one more creative outlet for yourself. All right, thanks so much for joining us today, Laura. Now Laura has a ridiculous amount of freebies. Make sure you get your hands on her subject line freebie, how to write non sucky subject lines. That’s a good one. Okay, that will go over a few of the things we talked about today and that definitely will make a big difference in your open rates for starters. So you’re going to find a link to Laura’s website in the show notes, which are schulmanart.com/87 and also her website talkingshrimp.com, in case you want to find out more. All right, Laura, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Laura Belgray:
Express yourself, don’t hold back just because it’s now writing and it’s business. Why don’t you take that layer off of it and think of it as expressing yourself to the people who are interested in the way that you express yourself and go for it and have fun with it.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that. Thanks so much for being with me here today, Laura. Next week we have the one and only Amy Porterfield and trust me, you are not going to want to miss that, so make sure you hit the subscribe button or follow whatever it is in your podcast app. And if you’re feeling extra generous, leave me a review on Apple podcast and tell us what you most loved about the show. So in case you don’t know how, because it could be a little tricky, search for the Inspiration Place, scroll down until you get to ratings and reviews. Hit five stars, write a review. But most importantly, don’t forget to hit the send button. And by the way, if you put your Instagram handle, that’s the thing that starts with the @, at the end of the review, I’ll even give you a shout out over on my IG Stories. All right, that’s all for now. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week, make it a great one.
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart, and of course on schulmanart.com
Subscribe & Review in iTunes
Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I’m adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the mix and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!
Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!