Laura: Oh my gosh. I am a giant charcoal briquette.

John: Yes! Laura –

Laura: I’m smoking.

John: Is also an award-winning copyrighter, and the founder of talkingshrimp.com. She writes TV spots for clients like NBC, Fandango, and Bravo, and she helps entrepreneurs find words that make buyers go bananas. Her course with Marie Forleo, the Copy Cure, helps you find your voice and sell your anything. Laura, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro, and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Laura: Okay. Well first thing you should know is that I am a New Yorker.

John: Boom.

Laura: And I’m very proud of it, boom. And that means not only did I grow up here, but I grew up here during the ‘70s, and that’s when it was gritty and dirty and beautiful.

John: That’s when it was real.

Laura: It was real. There were real pimps and prostitutes.

John: Like when Jay-Z said “concrete jungle, where dreams are made of,” that’s what he was talking about.

Laura: That is what he was talking about. He was talking about a place where you could find a Pac Man machine –

John: Yes!

Laura: in any record store. That was – this is where it was at. And kids roamed free. They didn’t have nannies until age 17 or 18. They walked down the street with mugging money in case they got jumped. So that’s my upbringing. And I still live here with my wonderful husband, who’s in the restaurant business, and has been my free pass to a lot of spaghetti.

John: Yummy.

Laura: Yummy, and career-wise, I cut my teeth writing promos for TV, specifically for Nick at Nite. That’s where I started, and at the time, that was the place to write promos. And if people don’t know what promos are, they’re the little commercials that the network runs for its own shows. For instance, it’s not TV, it’s HBO. Or tonight on Real Housewives of Atlanta, we’re pulling weaves, that kind of stuff. So writing at Nick at Nite was really formative for me as a copyrighter because it taught me all about brand voice, the importance of having a unique point of view. Because here was a network that had the same old shows as everyone else. You could watch Leave it to Beaver on TBS.

So they had a whole – a very curated voice and point of view that gave you a reason to come watch Leave it to Beaver on Nick at Nite and nowhere else. And that was a big lesson for me. If you’re selling the same thing as everyone else, give it your own spin. Give it your own personality, and people will come to you to get it. And so that’s really carried over into what I do now, which is a lot of private client writing for entrepreneurs, in this weird little online world that we’re a part of. And the way I got into that was through my friend Marie Forleo who people probably know. She’s the founder of B-School.

John: Oh, she’s a past guest of EO Fire, so of course you know here, Fire Nation.

Laura: That’s right. Of course everyone has heard that interview, and they should listen to it right after mine. And I met her in hip-hop class at Crunch.

John: Oh, wow, back in the day.

Laura: Back in the day, back in 2003 is when I met her, and we became friends. We walked home together, me all sweaty and her looking adorable.

John: Of course.

Laura: Of course. Let’s see. I was making a new website for TV promo writing. I was just gonna put my real on it. And she said to me, “You’re gonna have a blog and an opt-in, right?” And I was like, “Well, isn’t it too late to have a blog? And what’s an opt-in?” And she’s like, “Oh, honey.”

John: Oh, honey.

Laura: So this is before B-School, and she sat me down at her kitchen table, and showed me exactly how an opt-in works. She drew it for me, the whole diagram on a yellow pad, which is also how she created her own list. She used to bring her yellow pad to class, to hip-hop class, and have people sign up for her email list. And so this was old school. But that basically accidentally built my career in private client writing, writing for entrepreneurs and working in the online industry.

John: See, I love hearing about the roots, Fire Nation. It’s all about the roots. It’s like, where did you come from, and we all have that story. Not all of us were lucky to be in hip-hop Crunch class with Marie Forleo, of course, but we all have opportunities, we all have roots, and it all starts with what? Taking action, so make sure you do that. And quick little off-topic. Where abouts in New York City do you live, Laura?

Laura: I live in Greenwich Village.

John: Greenwich Village, alright, because I used to live in Tribeca, and I actually go back to New York City every year for the Big East basketball tournament in Madison Square Garden. It’s the best show on earth for college basketball before the NCAA tournament starts. And I was in the Upper West side for this past year, and just love the area. Just walk around, get into the park, check it out, Strawberry Fields is right there. Great stuff. Fire Nation, if you haven’t been to New York City, again, get up in there. It’s a great city, very walkable, fun stuff. Now let’s kind of get to the meat here, Laura, because we’re gonna get into your journey in a couple minutes here, but first, what are the ways today, right now, that you generate revenue in your business?

Laura: Okay, right now my revenue has four legs, like a cow. So my quote unquote passive income, because we know it’s not so passive ever, comes from the Copy Cure, which I’m happy to say has now helped thousands of people.

John: Wow.

Laura: I was really excited when we hit 2,000 members so I could actually say thousands, plural. That was very exciting. And so there’s that, and I have a handful of great TV clients, because I still love writing promos, and I love TV. I also speak and teach, and I’m planning to make that a bigger part of my business. I just taught for Mastin Kipp in Hawaii last week, a little jet lagged still, and that was wonderful. And I’m going to do a writing workshop in Italy next month. So I’m right in between teaching gigs. And so currently the biggest source of income for me is one-on-one clients, so entrepreneurs, just like your Fire Nation people –

John: Oh yeah.

Laura: Yep, you know them. You know these types, and I help them with all the words that they use in their business. Basically I help them find words that sound like they talk, and make people love and buy what they sell. Or I like to say words that grab people by the coconuts.

John: That sentence just grabbed me by the coconuts. So I love all of that, and Fire Nation, you can see how important copy is. I mean, that’s actually one thing I’ve worked incredibly hard in my business, because emails and email lists and writing and blog posts – I mean, these are all really important things, the way that you communicate to your audience when it’s not through the spoken word. By the way, if you become a better copyrighter, you also become a better speaker. It’s just kind of one of those things that happens. So a lot of important things here, and a lot of great things here.

And I’m glad that you used that reference of four legs in the cow, because now everybody’s picturing this cow with four legs, but it’s important because you need those multiple streams of revenue. It’s not just this one stream that could potentially dry up, and if it does dry up, guess what you still have three legs. It’s gonna be a wobbly cow, but it’ll still be able to stand a little bit. And then you’ll figure out that fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and potentially so on, depending on what kind of business you, Fire Nation, are looking to build.

But now back to you, Laura. We wanna talk about your journey as an entrepreneur, with all the ups, with all the downs. And what I wanna really focus in on now is your downs, and not just any downs, but your worst entrepreneurial moments. Take us to that story, girl. Tell us that moment.

Laura: Oh, wah wah. So sad. So my worst entrepreneurial moment I would say was really my first entrepreneurial moment – entrepreneurial moment. It’s so sad, I can’t say it.

John: I mess that up, and it is my show name.

Laura: I know. That’s why they call EO Fire.

John: Exactly.

Laura: So it was before I officially had my own business. I was working on an ongoing basis for Nick at Nite, and TV Land, which was a spinoff of Nick at Nite. And these two guys who’d produced an award-winning sales tape I’d written, it’s a little brag I’m putting in there to make –

John: Heck yeah. Humble brag, humble brag.

Laura: little humble brag, and this was a rap video called TV Land in demand, starring Mr. T and Tony Randall from the Odd Couple. It was amazing.

John: Love it, I love it.

Laura: I gotta say. So these guys who produced it got in touch with me and said, “Hey, would you be interested in doing a one-day job for us?” And they said, “If you do great, which I’m sure you will, there’s more where that came from,” and I was really excited about it. And I was like, “Yeah, I’m gonna hit it out of the park.” And so they gave me the assignment, and it was to write some scripts for this new network they were helping to launch. And they said, “This is your assignment. Just give us a day of your genius. Due at 5pm Eastern.” And so you know what happens when people ask me for a day of genius.

John: You freeze.

Laura: It does not inspire genius. Just say that. So I spent the entire day staring at a blank screen, waiting for genius to strike.

John: Right, hello.

Laura: I turned on the TV, I watched Bravo, I took a shower, I went for a walk, no genius. I ate many, many bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios. That didn’t bring the genius.

John: Just a lot of sugar.

Laura: Lotta sugar. And so I kept thinking, “Okay, I have five hours left, that’s plenty of time for something genius.” And then it’s four hours and then it’s one hour, and then it’s 30 minutes. And I’m like, “Yeah, I can still dash off something genius in 30 minutes. People dash off genius all the time.” And soon enough, of course, the sun was going down and it was 5:00 and my phone was ringing, and it was the guys, Mark and Brad are their names. And they were calling together on speaker phone, because they were so excited.

John: Like, “We can’t wait for this genius!”

Laura: We can’t wait to hear about your genius. And they were like, “So where’s your stuff? Tell us what genius you came up with!” And they were so excited. And I was like, “Oh man, you guys. I actually, I’m drawing a blank. I didn’t come up with anything.” And they were so disappointed. They both said in unison, “Oh, no, Laura.” Which was just crushing.

John: Yeah, I’m feeling pretty crushed right now.

Laura: I’m crushed. I’m so embarrassed telling this story, because I can’t believe this was me. So and luckily I think they forgot a couple of years later, because they came back to me and gave me work. I think that they hire so many people, they forgot that I was the one who choked and didn’t give them any genius.

John: Or, as we probably will talk about in a little bit in the lessons learned, it’s not as uncommon as we might think as individuals to choke.

Laura: No. It’s not. It’s human to choke.

John: Yes.

Laura: And these guys have been my biggest TV clients for years now.

John: Oh cool.

Laura: So they have short memories, I guess.

John: So I mean, I love that you said that you were embarrassed even telling this story now, because that’s the reality, Fire Nation. We all have these stories. We all have these moments where we just come up short, or we just fail and just flop on our face. I mean, it is a reality, being a human for sure, but specifically of being an entrepreneur. I mean, that is just the reality, my friends, and it’s this show, EO Fire, that’s really focused on now kind of breaking the lessons out of there. I mean, what do you wanna make sure, Laura, Fire Nation gets from your story?

Laura: Oh, gosh, that waiting for genius to strike does not make it strike. Thinking produces nothing. If you’re coming up with something to write, you have to start writing. You can write nonsense. You can write garbage. Nonsense and garbage are always better than saying, “I got nothing.” I mean, I’ve written plenty of things for these same guys where they said, “Hey Laura, were you by any chance on ‘shrooms when you wrote this? Because I don’t know what this is.” But that’s okay. They can’t all be winners. The point is there is no excuse for coming up with nothing. There’s always something, even if it is total dreck. So writer’s block – I would say writer’s block does exist, but it only happens when you don’t sit down and write.

John: Yeah, you know, this brings me back to my Army days. I was an officer in the U.S. Army, Laura. I’m not sure if you knew that. But I was deployed to Iraq and we were out and we were in the field, and the bullets were flying, and I’m in charge of 16 men and four tanks, and here I am, this 23 year old, trying to be General Patton. I’m gonna win the war right now, with this amazing decision. But what was a problem is that I was trying to make an amazing decision, and therefore I was not making any decision, so my platoon sergeant, this scruffy 47 year old man grabs me, pins me against the tank, and he goes, “Lieutenant, a good decision now is better than a great decision later, because we might be dead later.”

And I was like, “Woah, that’s pretty much gonna hammer it home for me right there.” So I kind of went on the rest of the deployment to make some really good decisions, Laura, but I don’t think I made any great decisions. And Fire Nation, the moral of the story, from Laura’s and mine is just make a good decision now, or the best you are capable of at this moment, and start taking action. Writers write, podcasters podcast. Neither Laura or myself were good at what we do now when we first started. We had to do our thing. Now let’s shift for you, Laura, into what you consider one of your greatest aha moments. Tell that story.

Laura: Well, first of all, I just had an aha right now, that there were no, zero stakes to my sad story when yours had lives in the balance. But no biggie.

John: It’s all about perception. We acclimate as humans.

Laura: Exactly. So here’s one. I love taking dance classes. In fact right now, in order to be not so nervous, I’m dancing while I talk to you.

John: Yay!

Laura: Yay! I’m doing a little two-step, and I take a lot of house and hip-hop classes, and there’s this dancing form that I love. I love watching it on YouTube, and sometimes I watch through the window at the dance studio. It’s called whacking. Have you heard of it?

John: Never.

Laura: I know, it sounds dirty. It’s not. But it does use hands and arms. It’s kind of – do you know the Rerun dance?

John: Oh yeah, I do know that.

Laura: Yeah. Like that’s locking.

John: Okay.

Laura: So it’s a cross between locking and vogueing. It’s really super cool. So I decided one day to just try it. I’m like, “I’m gonna do it. I’m not gonna be that good at it, but I’m pretty good at following steps.” I’m great at following footwork, so I was like, “I’ll be okay.” So I went in there and the class is full of professional dancers who’ve been doing this forever, and they’re amazing. The teacher’s going really fast. It’s all arms, and my arms spaz out. I’m like a drunk octopus. And that was just during the choreography. I was already – it was so hard for me, that I was already weeping, literally. I was crying, and just hoping that the tears would look like sweat.

And then the teacher says, “Okay, no more choreography. From this point on, you guys make up your own thing. Just do your thing.” I’m like, “What? I don’t know anything to do.” And she’s like, “Just express yourself to the music. Just listen to the music, and feel it, and see what comes out.” And that’s when I realized, maybe not that moment, but later, when I had a chance to think rationally and I wasn’t crying, that’s when I realized how most people feel when they’re told, “Just write naturally.”

John: Yeah.

Laura: “Just write like you talk. Just bring out your personality in your writing. Sound like you. And your ideal clients will come in droves.” Most people are like, “Okay, that sounds great,” but they still down and they don’t know how to write like they talk. And they don’t have the tools. They don’t have the tips. They haven’t been doing it all their lives, like I haven’t been whacking all my life. So it’s – I know, it still sounds dirty. And they don’t know why their copy sounds so robotic or over-written. They just know that it does, and they don’t know how to fix it. So that was my big aha, and it’s an understanding that really helped me create the Copy Cure, and made me wanna show people over and over these simple ways that you can write like you talk, and put your personality into your writing. And just really simple steps that I have to keep reminding myself they don’t know. They need to hear it.

John: I think a big theme here that’s already developing, Fire Nation, is you just gotta do it. You gotta action. No, your first copy is not gonna be great. No, your first blog post, your first podcast, your first video, it’s not. You need to, number one, stand upon the shoulders of giants, learn from those who have come before you. In the copy world, of course, Laura, in the video world, Marie Forleo crushes it. In the podcasting world, there’s a number of examples. I mean, find those people who have been there, who have done that, who are doing well. Learn from them, study from them, and then how do you adjust that into your own voice? Well, you do that by actually doing that thing. So that’s my big takeaway, Laura, but what do you wanna make sure Fire Nation gets from your story?

Laura: Well, one thing is not to feel bad if they don’t know how to do something that other people take for granted. It’s okay to say, “How do you do that?” And then on the other side of it, to remember the virgins out there. Even when you think that something that you know is so basic, that nobody needs to hear it, they do need to hear it, and it’s worth repeating.

John: I love that, because I’m a huge believer and fan of the curse of knowledge. It’s just a reality. People who know a certain thing, who have certain skills, they just assume that other people have that knowledge, have that understanding, have those skillsets, and they don’t understand that, “Hey, maybe that person does wanna hear that thing again.” And also, on the other side, that person who doesn’t have that knowledge, they’re just assuming that because somebody who they see in a spot of knowledge isn’t sharing it, that that person might not want to.

Again, that person just might not know that you don’t know that thing. If you ask, you can then have this great understanding, and this great combination of skills and values. So the curse of knowledge is real, Fire Nation. Now, Laura, you have some strengths, which we’ve kind of talked about a little bit. We’re gonna get deep into one in a second. But what would you consider your biggest weakness as an entrepreneur?

Laura: Oh my god. I’m like a weakness triple threat, okay? I sleep late, I procrastinate, and I watch way too much TV.

John: Wow, those are three of my least favorite things to do.

Laura: Well, and I don’t just dabble with TV. I binge hard. I’m like the Charlie Sheen of TV watching. I will take down a whole season in one night, and I won’t stop, and I can’t stop until I’m done.

John: You and I are so incompatible, it’s so funny. Whenever we’re watching a show on TV, Kate and I love – we watch Black List, and we love it, Downton Abbey, House of Cards. But, and this is such a hard and fast rule. It is my rule. But we can never watch more than one episode a day. That is the absolute limit. Now, we can watch more TV than just one episode, but we can never watch more than one episode of the same show in one given day.

Laura: You have such military discipline in everything.

John: I do. I think you’re right there. I agree with that. But it’s also there’s a sentimental value. I really get involved with these shows. With Downton Abbey, I fell in love with those characters, and I don’t want to rush through it. I literally want them to be part of my life for a decent amount of time. And that’s just kind of how I perceive some things. So, anyways, keep going.

Laura: Oh, that’s so sweet.

John: It’s true, but it’s true.

Laura: Do you know what I do, though?

John: Yeah, you binge watch.

Laura: I watch it again.

John: Okay.

Laura: I’m like, “Hello again, Walter White.”

John: Oh, Walter. I’ve missed you.

Laura: Hello, Walter.

John: Do you watch Better Call Saul?

Laura: Yes I do.

John: I love that show.

Laura: I love it, too. At first I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to. And now it’s really grown on me.

John: Oh, good. Good to hear.

Laura: Yeah, yeah.

John: What would you say is your biggest strength?

Laura: My biggest strength, I would say, is that I put personality into everything in my business. So people say failure is not an option. I would say boring is not an option. Failure’s always there.

John: Failure’s always staring at me.

Laura: Failure, fair game, but boring, no. So saying something in a way that doesn’t sound human or fun doesn’t fly for me. And I think that putting personality into my business gives other people permission to do the same thing. Like they say, “Woah, you can say that word?” Like, “Yeah, you can say that word.”

John: Coconuts, what?

Laura: Coconuts! I say coconuts!

John: I love not boring either, so Awesome stuff, Laura. And Fire Nation, you just gotta look at yourself. Be like, “Hey, maybe is this” – not that it’s not boring. That’s Laura for her. That’s her mantra, but is it you? Is what you’re doing, is it you? That obviously is Laura, being not boring, being interesting. What’s you? Really absorb that and take that. What, Laura, is the one thing that you are most fired up about today?

Laura: Today, I am most fired up about the Copy Cure. So I know that I told you that it’s helped thousands of people. I’ll repeat that number, thousands, plural.

John: Love it.

Laura: And I get so excited hearing success stories from people who’ve taken it, and come to me and said, “Oh my god, I re-wrote my whole site. I’m in love with it now.” Or they say, I’ve actually, a lot of them come to me and say, “ I’ve become a copyrighter because I’ve discovered that I love copyrighting so much.” Or they just say, “You made it fun.” And that thrills me. It thrills me to have a thing out there that I don’t have to manage, that’s just out there for someone to purchase and do, and binge watch, by the way, speaking of Breaking Bad.

John: Well I will say that I let people binge patch Podcast Paradise videos, for sure.

Laura: Oh, so that’s very fair of you. That’s because there’s so much of you, they’ll never have to say goodbye. It just keeps going. They’ll never finish.

John: Where can Fire Nation find out more about the Copy Cure?

Laura: At thecopycure.com.

John: Look at that branding. So spot on.

Laura: The URL was available.

John: thecopycure.com, Fire Nation. If your copy is lacking, and that makes you 99 percent of all people online, then check out thecopycure.com. It might just be your answer. I’m gonna have Kate check it out fo’ sho.’

Laura: Please doe. That was do. It sounded like don’t.

John: Right. We gotta rhyme here, obviously.

Laura: Please do, I know.

John: We’re talking about Jay-Z and concrete jungles. Fire Nation, don’t go anywhere, because we are about the enter the lightning round. We’re gonna take a quick minute to thank our sponsors.

Laura, are you prepared for the lightning round?

Laura: I am.

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Laura: Not knowing it was an option, because I thought that it was for people who invented things, like PayPal or Spanx.

John: I love Spanx. I mean I, I mean I love PayPal. What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Laura: Something that a writing teacher taught me, and I think of this as the tuna fish formula, which is that saying we met and talked it out is meh, and it’s boring. We talked it out over lunch is a little better. But we talked it out over tuna sandwiches wins them all. So that’s about detail and specificity. Adding those little concrete details brings everything you write to life.

John: I really, honestly believe, just like when you mention the cow. You could have just said four legs, but then you brought in the cow and then all the sudden, I’m just picturing a cow with four legs. Beforehand, what am I thinking about? What’s four legs?

Laura: Yeah, you pictured it, but now I’m thinking when you said income streams, I thought, “Oh, I should have said udders.”

John: You should have. Next time, next time. Episode 2024. What is a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Laura: Collecting money up front from my clients.

John: Mmm, yeah.

Laura: It means I don’t have to chase them down afterwards and say, “Oh, hey, I hope you loved our session. Do you mind paying this one?” They’re all paid up, and it’s done, and it makes them love what we do that much more.

John: Yeah. Now they can just focus in and not be like, “Oh, am I getting enough out of this to keep paying monthly payments, da da da?” They’re in.

Laura: They’re in and they’re psyched, because they know how valuable it is. They paid.

John: Yeah. Share an internet resource, like Evernote, with Fire Nation.

Laura: It’s called onelook.com. Do you know this one?

John: Never heard of it.

Laura: Okay, so onelook.com. It’s O N E L O O K dot com, and it’s like a tricked out thesaurus. So it doesn’t just give you synonyms. So you can find a synonym that starts with a certain letter, like say you’ve got a thing, you’re thinking of doing a thing called the Fire Party, but that doesn’t have any ring to it. You want a word with F.

John: You want alliteration.

Laura: You want alliteration. A lot of alliteration. So you would look up party.

John: Fiesta!

Laura: A word related to party, exactly. See, you already got it. You don’t need this. But say your brain was drawing a blank. You could look up word related to party starting with F, and you would come up with fiesta, you would come up with fest, come up with fete. I don’t know what else. Festival.

John: Fire Nation, you tell me what you like the best and I’ll buy the domain. So, Laura, if you could recommend just one book for our listeners, what would it be, and why?

Laura: It would be Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, because – and I know I’m kind of zigging where everyone zags here – but anyone who wants to beef up their writing chops should get away from business books once in a while and read some plain old great writing. And I think David Sedaris’s writing is hilarious. I mean, his books are the kind of books that you insist on reading out loud to the other person in the room constantly.

John: You’re like, “You gotta hear this. You gotta hear this.”

Laura: One more, one more, okay, and then I’ll leave you alone. One more. And they’re also so insightful about the way people think and about the way he thinks and talks. And I love that. And he’s written a lot of books, and Me Talk Pretty One Day is the one I like best, possibly because it was my first. I don’t know if it’s definitely the best one, but it’s the one I say start with.

John: Well, Laura, I wanna end today on fire with a parting piece of guidance from you, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Laura: We’re not doing the other planet?

John: Nope. You yapped too long, girl.

Laura: Too long, okay. So parting piece of guidance? I would say, I’m gonna quote Elmore Leonard and say that if it sounds like writing, re-write it. And the way people can get in touch with me is at talkingshrimp.com. And I have a free gift for your audience.

John: Ooh, we love gifts!

Laura: I know, everybody loves gifts.

John: Me like gifts.

Laura: My likely. So this is a tackle your tagline cheat sheet. So it’s 20 plus simple formats for words that have them at hello. And it is at talkingshrimp.com/fire.

John: Oh, I love all of that. Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you’ve been hanging out with LB and JLD today. So keep up the heat, and head over to EOFire.com. Just type Laura, L A U R A, in the search bar. Her show notes will pop up with everything that we’ve been talking about. And of course go directly to talkingshrimp.com/fire for your killer gift from Laura B herself. And Laura, I wanna thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that girl, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flip side.

Laura: Thank you.