Refocusing on Yourself to be a Better Business Owner with Lori Walker
“You never know where you’re going to wind up or what you’re going to wind up doing.”
So many times we think that we don’t have enough experience to call ourselves experts in our niche, but I’ve found that what so many people forget is that all of our past experiences in our personal lives and our career can be used in cultivating our unique expertise.
Lori Walker, a freelance writer and digital marketer and alumna of the Business Genius Bootcamp, is on Strategy Snacks today and one of the things I love most about her is how she brings her unique experience from her past work in the legal industry to her work now. It’s a huge testament to the fact that all of your work matters, not just the work you do now. Even more, we chat about how refocusing on yourself and your needs will make you a better business owner and lead to even greater deliverables for your clients (one of her biggest takeaways from our work together!). I love this conversation so much, join in!
Topics:
How Lori brings her unique realm of experience from her past work in the legal industry into the work that she does
The need for organization as a marketer so you can repurpose with ease and purpose
Why you should prioritize your needs in the morning rather than jumping right into client work
The tools that Lori (and Frenchie) uses to refocus herself in her business and in her personal life
Overcoming the shame that can come with the need to curb your electronic behavior
Episode Resources:
- Join the waitlist for Business Genius Bootcamp
About Lori:
Lori Walker is a freelance writer and digital marketer. She is the Director of Marketing and Editor in Chief at The Poetry Lab. She writes personal essays, memoir, and poetry in Tulsa, where she lives with her husband and cat, Joan Didion.
For more from Lori, be sure to:
- Visit her website
- Follow her on Instagram: @lorithewriter
- Connect with her on LinkedIn
For more, make sure to:
- Follow me on Instagram @frenchie.ferenczi
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Frenchie: [00:00:00] Hello, hello, and welcome back to strategy snacks. I'm Frenchie frenzy. I am growth strategist and thought partner to industry experts, creatives, and online business owners like the wonderful Lori Walker, who is joining us here today. Lori is a content marketer and copywriter. Who was part of business unit bootcamp, who I got to know randomly through the internet, which is my favorite way to meet people these days, Laurie.
I'm so glad you're here.
Lori: Uh, thank you so much for having me. I've been looking
Frenchie: forward to this. Oh, thank you. I would love, love, love before we go further. Can you just tell our listeners a little bit more about you, who you are, what you do, who you work with, all those good things. All right.
Lori: Um, I'm Lori. I live in Tulsa, and I, like when she said, am a content marketer and copywriter, and this means that I [00:01:00] work on making social media graphics and reels, writing blog posts, website copy, newsletters, lead magnets and landing pages, book trailers.
I've gotten into doing that lately for one of my friends who is an author. Um, And, um, yeah, uh, brand voice guides, uh, so yeah, a little bit of
Frenchie: everything you bring, you bring the, like the voice and the brand to life on the page, whether it's the digital page or elsewhere, the social media pages everywhere.
Um, that, that is awesome. And you. I'm going to just spill some beans about what I know about you having gotten to know you. So you can't, you were a lawyer in a past life, is that right? Or you were in the legal field? Yes. Briefly. Briefly. And it was not for you. Um, but what I love about people who have like these [00:02:00] journeys is that like you bring this like completely other realm of experience into the work that you do.
And this is just my personal opinion. And because I know you, but I'm like, I feel like having that extra facet, even if like legal means nothing to, you know, like the average marketer marketer content marketer copywriter, I think just having that experience gives you like another facet and more like dynamic outputs to the work that you do, just because you've had to think in a lot of different ways.
And I think that that is Super cool. So I guess my like, aside from me, just like, you know, talking you up, like my other kind of question for you is when you kind of think about your journey, right? You're turning to where you are now. What is like one of the things that really stands out to you about kind of what you've learned and what you bring to the amazing content that you're creating for people?
Lori: Wow. I feel like this is a really big question and I'm going to try to not [00:03:00] answer it super expansively. But, um, I mean, I, I agree with what you said about it being kind of everything works together. Uh, like my legal background, I think that that, um, gives me a unique way of thinking about and analyzing projects that I get.
Um, you know, how can I talk about this, you know, the features of this. Uh, item or the benefits of it, or, um, I've also, I contain multitudes Frenchy. I've got a, uh, background also in, uh, library science. So a lot of research stuff, which that comes into play whenever I'm doing, uh, like writing blog posts.
Cause I have to research, uh, oftentimes, you know, a bit of stuff. Like I'm writing blog posts for a luxury apartment matching site. And I recently wrote about pickleball in Atlanta. Oh, I've never been to Atlanta. Never watched [00:04:00] pickleball, never played it, but wrote a good enough article about it. So, um, yeah, just kind of stuff like that.
You never really know where you're going to wind up or what you're going to wind up doing. I love
Frenchie: that. I would have failed it as a library scientist. I know that for sure. The Dewey decimal system was lost on me just from day one. I was like, I, what do you want from me? I don't get it. I didn't
Lori: even do that.
Actually. It was more like research and kind of information. Organization. Um, so, and you know, that even comes into play, like with doing design work. I know the visual stuff I learned that on the job, uh, for a client, but you know, like the organizing the information, reading through a blog post and breaking it down into how can I make this into a carousel post or what would be the best way to present this information that that's where that also comes into play.
Frenchie: Yeah. And I'm just thinking about like, as a business owner myself, who has created. Tons of content. My content is all over the place, right? Like my canvas is [00:05:00] shit show and I have written, you know, at least 500 newsletters to date and they're somewhat organized. But I feel like having that as a marketer and having that way to kind of like organize and sort and file information is like so good because we're all like trying to repurpose our content.
We just like lose most of it along the way. So we keep recreating it from scratch.
Lori: Yes.
Frenchie: Um, okay. Sorry. I had to put you on the spot there, but let's dive into our strategy snacks questions. So the first thing that I would love to kind of hear from you is what has been one of your most exciting business moments, business wins moments that you've felt have been like, just stood out in your memories.
Lori: You know, there've been a lot of them recently. Um, I'll say this like kind of until about August, I was not in the best place with my business. Um, but then finally in August, I, I, I got freedom for [00:06:00] myself, um, in terms of being a business owner and, uh, A worker and a freelancer. And so that has opened up a lot of opportunities for me that I never expected.
Um, and so with that in mind, I'd say like the biggest, most satisfying when I think was the first time I saw my, my name in a byline for one of these blog posts that I had written, that was. So exciting. Cause I'm also a creative writer, um, on my own time and yeah, getting, getting that byline was chef's kiss.
Frenchie: Yeah, absolutely. There's something about that. Like, even if you know that you are a really good writer and all that, there's something about, I know that we're not supposed to like look externally for validation, blah, blah, blah, but like F that. There was something really nice about seeing your name on the page.
Lori: Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. I mean, just like, wow, somebody paid me. Yeah.
Frenchie: Money. Money, real money. Actual money that
Lori: cleared my bank
Frenchie: account. I [00:07:00] love it. I love it. And I got my name on the page as a result. Yeah. Yeah.
Lori: Cause I mean, a lot of times with these, you know, a lot of content marketing, you don't necessarily get the byline credit.
So. Exactly. That was pretty cool.
Frenchie: I love it. I love it. Okay. So on the flip side, what has been kind of one of the harder lessons for you to learn along the way?
Lori: You know, this one actually, it was hard, not in terms of like, it's sucking, but just difficult for me to internalize. Um, and it actually is something that came from you.
Um, it was learning to prioritize the things that I need to get done in the morning instead of doing client work first thing. And because it's not like I'm going to put off the client work for six hours while I'm doing a deep dive into my own stuff, I'm delaying it for like two to three hours so that I can do yoga, have coffee, do some creative writing, do some thinking on my [00:08:00] own business and then do the client stuff.
Yeah. So I love that.
Frenchie: I love that. I think that is really hard to internalize also because we're all kind of chasing dopamine all the time. Yeah. And so it's like the things that we know we're supposed to do, like give it that, give us that like instant hit of satisfaction. But I feel like that's where it's like the long game versus the short game makes such a big difference.
And what I will say is I've been thinking a lot recently about people like you who are doing done for you work and how easy it is that when you have the clients that you're doing work for and actually creating content for or creating assets for. That it's so easy to get caught up in just doing that.
And then forgetting to focus on your own business growth over time. And that's where you find yourself like, you know, a couple of years down the road being like, wait, why am I stuck in the same place? So I am glad that you learned that now, because I truly believe it'll pay back in [00:09:00] dividends.
Lori: I think so too.
Yeah.
Frenchie: Um, and then last but not least, um, what is one strategy snack that you want to share with our listeners?
Lori: So This one actually came from, uh, Laura Belgray and it is the refocus app. It's a free one that you can download and it will, I've got it set, uh, to where every single day At 8 p. m. it blocks, you know, email, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Wikipedia, even IMDB, you know, all the things that I want just screwing around on my phone when I would really rather be relaxing in bed, watching TV or reading a book.
But, you know, it's just easier to scroll sometimes and to pay attention to something. Um, so that just. And it automatically does it. I don't have to manually do it. If I want to access one of those things, cause sometimes I have [00:10:00] to, I have to go into the app and say, stop blocking for five minutes. And sometimes that's even a big enough pain in the ass that I don't want to do it.
So it's kind of helped save me from myself. Um, But then you can also like set it to block things, you know, during the day, which I need to get better at doing. Cause I think also just like we're recording this right after the holidays. So I've gotten into a bad habit of not being in work mode so much lately.
So I haven't been. You know, staying off my phone, like I should, but I need to get back in the habit.
Frenchie: So, sorry, I'm trying to adjust here. Okay. Um, so it's interesting. I actually just got the refocus app and I didn't even realize that Laura talks about it. Um, but the thing that I've realized, and this might be like a nice.
Test for you is that I've set it up so that like during certain hours, I don't have like boxer notifications pop up or email [00:11:00] notifications or Instagram notifications, which is kind of where a lot of my like, just like work happens there, but it can also really distract me. And so if I'm trying to do deep work and focused work, I will have those paused.
So I feel like for you in the morning, when you're trying to start your days before diving into client work, if you can set it up so that those are paused during that time. It might make it easier for you to focus on the things that you want to focus your time and energy
Lori: on. Oh yeah, definitely. And I mean, I've got it set.
I, I, I said where I had to start going off with like at 8 PM, I don't have it give me access to those things again until 9 AM. Oh, I think I need to probably extend it maybe until 10. Cause that's about when I actually finish all of the things that I want to finish. But yeah. And then I think probably just putting like, A hard limit on the amount of time I can spend on Facebook or Instagram and just in general would be
Frenchie: useful.
Totally. And I just want to add one more thing, which is like, I felt like almost a little bit of shame [00:12:00] around needing like an app to help control or curb my digital behavior until I really came around to the fact that like these apps are designed to keep us hooked and to keep us engaged. And so the fact that you need that extra help is not like a moral failure on your part or anyone listening's part.
Like it truly is because it's designed to do it that way. And when I really like leaned into that, I was just like, Okay. This is actually really helping me. And this is not me just not being like disciplined enough or whatever stupid things I tell myself.
Lori: Yeah. Um, I actually, over the holiday break read, um, it was a novel wellness by Nathan Hill.
And he has this whole section where he talks about like the seven stages of the algorithm. And I mean, it's, you know, it's related to the narrative of the novel, but just the, I mean, and he actually did research on this, like he has a freaking bibliography at the end of the novel, [00:13:00] which I really don't recall very much seeing that in other books, but I mean, it was just like, wow, they are really manipulating us and making us chase that dopamine of, Oh, somebody liked my, my stupid little thing that I posted.
I'm talking about memes. Cause that's primarily what I share, but you know, you know, you feel good
Frenchie: about it, but it motivates us big time. Yeah. All right. So, so many takeaways from this today. Um, what I want to know now, Laurie, how can everybody connect with you, find you, get to know you, get into your world, have you work on their content and copy, um, all those good
Lori: things.
All right. Well, first of all, I'm going to say, I'm glad that we've got a little bit of a delay before this airs. So this will give me time to do all the things that I need to do to make this an inviting place when y'all finally come visit me, but I've got a website. It is Laurie L O R I. Rights [00:14:00] words. com my website.
I have my services that'll, you know, content that I can create for you. Um, I've got my portfolio is on there a little bit about me, et cetera. Planning on starting a blog. Hopefully we'll have that by March, but we'll see. Um, and, uh, we'll also be linking to a, um, uh, free. Basic brand voice guide that you can download.
Um, just because I feel as a content writer and copywriter, it's really easy to have that. And you know, it'd be really nice to have all that stuff laid out whenever you go to write content for a new person. But a lot of people don't really have a solidified Voice guide. Yeah. Um, so this will hopefully get you thinking about it and thinking, um, you know, about what, what were do you, you do and don't use, um, so brand voice guide.
And then I'm also on Instagram at, uh, Lori, the writer, all one word, and then I'm on [00:15:00] LinkedIn. I don't know if this is quite how LinkedIn works with handles, but I'm, uh, Lori writes words. On LinkedIn.
Frenchie: Cool. Amazing. And we'll link all of that in the show notes so that you can just connect with Lori directly there.
Lori, thank you so much for being here today.
Lori: Thank you for having me. It was a blast getting to catch up.
Frenchie: Of course, of course. And to everybody listening, make sure you connect with Lori and come back soon for more strategy snacks. Bye everyone