Creating Content That Sells | Laura Higgins

People don’t buy from brands. They buy from people they LIKE and TRUST. And in the world of online business, building a strong personal brand is non-negotiable.

In this episode, Laura shares the content strategy that took her from broke uni dropout to a multi-million dollar business owner before 30! We're talking Instagram tactics, the power of storytelling (why people connect with stories, not sales pitches!), and why being relatable beats being "perfect" every time.

We also covered:

• How rebranding transformed her business in 1 year
• The ONE thing she focused on that helped her business triple in size
• What “main character energy” means for YOUR brand

Plus, Laura shares her one question that will transform how you approach content creation.

You don’t need fancy ads to grow. Just strategy, the right steps, and a little sense of humor. Watch the full episode now.

Book mentioned by Laura Higgins:

Donald Miller's book "Building a Story Brand" https://amzn.to/4eATBEP

Follow Laura Higgins at:

https://www.instagram.com/laurahiggins
https://laurahiggins.com
https://www.youtube.com/@laurahigginsofficial
https://www.facebook.com/lalasocialclub.co/
https://au.linkedin.com/in/lauramelodyhiggins

Follow Ken Okazaki at:

https://www.instagram.com/kenokazaki/
https://www.youtube.com/c/KenOkazaki
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-content-capitalists-with-ken-okazaki/id1634328251
https://open.spotify.com/show/09IzKghscecbI7jPDVBJTw

Content Capitalists YouTube

Transcript

Live in this age of chat GPT, of every man and his dog has a podcast. Everyone is sharing content. Everyone is kind of a personality. And in the coaching space, there is so much noise. And so we have to keep coming back to the question of, well, why would someone choose me?

KEN: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Content Capitalist podcast. Today, my guest is Laura Higgins, and I've known her from afar and only recently have I met her in person, but I've been wanting to get her on the podcast to share with you what she's actually doing. And we'll get into that. We'll unpack it together.

But first of all, Laura, I want to welcome you to the show and thank you so much for coming here as my guest.

LAURA: Ken, I'm so happy to be with you. It's, it's been really cool to be able to connect with you online, but so special to see you in person. So I'm, I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me.

KEN: Well, thank you as well. you've really caught my attention because as a coach, you do social media really well. And when I say really well, I think that a lot of people are consistent and they got the consistency part down where it's like create the content, get it out. But a lot of people struggle with brand.

And I've seen you execute that exceptionally well, especially for the space that you're in. And if anybody is interested, go just search Laura Higgins Instagram or wherever your, your main channel is. And look at her brand, the style of photography, the, even the style of writing, the aesthetics of it all.

I'd like to know, did you get some formal training or a higher threshold team, or was this all yourself? Just. You had a good sense and you just hacked it out.

LAURA: Yeah. So I am a creative that has been my whole journey is I started my business. At the age of 23, I started a creative agency, mostly doing social media management. So I always had a, an eye for branding and design and photography, but it was never like my main thing. I was kind of like the generalist person who would be like, Oh, I'll take some photos.

Oh, I'll do some, I'll do some design stuff. I, we have, we do, um, have a website design studio as well. So I've always been creative. Um, And I've always had a vision of how I wanted it to look and feel. And people like particularly my husband will laugh at me because he's like, you know, it doesn't matter as much how it looks and feels, but that's my first kind of question is how is it going to look?

How is it going to feel? so that's my lens in which I see everything. So I think that's why our brand, is so prevalent and. Does work really well is because that has been my whole lens of how I've run my business. but in terms of actually building the brand, I brought in some really amazing, um, agencies to help me with executing it.

Uh, because I had the vision, but I, I was like, I'm too close to it. I can't do it myself.

KEN: I love how you brought that in. How you talked about how you started as being a generalist, doing a little bit of everything and then laser focused on what you're doing now. How'd you drop into being a creative artist and what age was that? What triggered it? Let's talk about that.

LAURA: yeah, well, I. So I was a uni dropout. I, I went to study journalism and I remember going to a lecture one time and uh, the guy giving the lecture, he was like, Oh, you know, is journalism even a degree anymore? Is, are you going to get a job? Probably not. And I was like, well, what the heck are we doing here?

And I left and never went back. I was like, this is terrible. I'm not going back. So I left uni. And I dabbled in design. I also did a design, like a graphic design course. I, I was a serial dabbler. I was definitely a generalist. And what was interesting is I was. So I would have been 2021 working in coffee and, uh, my brother in law owns a coffee roasting company.

So my whole family is obsessed with specialty coffee. And, um, he said to me, Oh, Laura, like we've got a job in sales. Do you want to come and work for us? I was like, I've never done sales. I don't know what I'm doing, but sure. I'll give it a go. And so my job was to. So I would go into coffee shops, I would go in with my bag of beans and be like, do you want this?

And they'd be like, no, get out of here. And I'd be like, okay. And like, kind of disappear and, uh, just feel the rejection deeply. And then I would go to the next cafe and do the same thing. And so. I wasn't very good. So my brother in law was like, Laura, I think, and this was, this would have been in 2015, 2016, maybe he was like, I think this Instagram thing might be kind of an avenue for us as a business.

You're pretty good at the designy stuff. You design websites every now and again, you're creative. Maybe you should give that a go. We'll move you out of sales. And I was like, sure, I'll give that a go. And very quickly, their whole Instagram

exponentially grew. They took off and I was like, Oh, okay, cool.

This, this social media, this marketing thing is kind of a blend of all these things I love. I love brand. I love photography. I love writing. and it was this beautiful blend of all of it. And then I

KEN: one second? And

LAURA: Yes, tell

KEN: because you, you go from. sucking us at sales and not really enjoying it to taking over Instagram and he said it blew up. Now, I think that there's going to be a lot of people, including myself, who's going to wonder, okay, how did you blow up a coffee roaster Instagram account?

And how did that affect the business? Can we like, was it just better photos? Was it better captions? Was it viral trends? Give us a few nuggets here. I'm so curious.

LAURA: It, it was, yeah, it was a mix of a bunch of things. So we just decided it was, their brand was really fun and we decided, let's just make our Instagram a little bit ridiculous. And so we would do like user generated content. So we'd ask baristas, what's the weirdest coffee order you ever received?

And we'd get people to send in their, their weirdest orders. We would do hilarious videos. And also we did beautiful content. So the photos were really high quality, but it also had this cheekiness to it. and also we featured the cafes that, Like the coffee was in. So we did really great storytelling.

We made it humorous. We entertained and we connected with people on this like daily basic need for coffee and how it's part of every single person's day. We're all different, but most of us will drink a cup of coffee. And so we really thought, okay, how can we help people to connect over this? Mutual love of, of coffee of this thing.

and absolutely it made a big difference in their sales. they kind of found that they got sold more retail coffee. They landed more wholesale accounts and all of that stuff happened too. and it just was fun. I think for me, it was like, I didn't have a degree in marketing or anything.

It was just like. What would I enjoy reading? What would I find entertaining? How can we do something with coffee that felt different and not the same as every other coffee roaster out there?

KEN: so basically they just give you free reign, like work your magic and, and somehow it worked. It sounds like what I'm picking up here, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you had a sense for it. And then you figured out the how to's later. Like you have a vision of what's how you want to feel when you consume it.

And then you reverse engineered, okay, if I want to feel like this, like amused, entertained, engaged, then I need there to be somebody drinking coffee. They need to be sitting like this. That needs to be this other person who says this thing. And okay, to get that, I need this camera, I need this shot, I need this actor.

Okay, let's get it done. Like, is that kind of your process? Like you, you see the vision and then you go back in time to create it.

LAURA: Yeah, I've always been able to see what it could be. And I think this applies even with how I create content now. I see it and I can, I can visualize what it should look like, what it should feel like. and it might be a ridiculous idea. And it might be a terrible idea.

Like potentially 90 percent of the ideas are crap, but there's one idea that really, really takes. And so it was just, Playing and be in experimenting. And absolutely. I learned so much of the how on the job, like getting feedback at this point. I didn't even think Canva was a thing. So it was really like, I'm figuring stuff out in Adobe illustrator and trying to design graphics.

So it was really, a lot of learning and I just kind of became obsessed with it and realized. Okay, cool. This is, this is pretty fun and the cool thing about Instagram too, is that you can see the difference. You can scroll through the feed and go, this is where it started to change.

And this is where it started to level up. so that was really cool to see the kind of before and after and seeing the impact. on the bottom line as well.

KEN: That's great. you mentioned My two favorite things from Australia are Canva and ACDC.

LAURA: Those are two amazing things.

KEN: Yeah, it's tough to beat those. Okay, so thank you for your contribution to the world, Australia. All right. So I interrupted you there for that. I'm sorry. but I just love how you, said it in one line and it blew up and I was like, hold on, hold on. I think a lot happened to make it blow up.

And I think there's a misconception where people just think make more content and then I'm going to blow up. it's just a load of crap. I made a post the other day and tons of people engaged where I said, your content is like sushi. If it's stale, making more of it is not the solution. And a lot of people, they think we're not getting enough engagement.

It's like, let's just make more. I'm like, no, no, no, no. You got to dial this in first.

LAURA: I liken it to, imagine I'm playing an acoustic guitar. An ACDC song. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm nailing it. I'm playing an acoustic guitar and And so I really don't know what I'm playing. I'm just kind of strumming and just figuring it out. I don't know any chords. And so I really don't know what I'm playing. I'm just kind of strumming and just figuring it out. If I then put down the acoustic guitar, pick up an electric guitar, plug it into an amp and do the exact same thing. Are my results going to be any different? Is it going to sound any better? No, it's just going to be louder. And so I think when people are think more, I've got to do more. It's really like, Are you amplifying something that works? Are you amplifying like a beautiful song or are you amplifying like the sound of a whining cat or the style sushi?

Like, I think we, we can have this misconception that more is more, but I think quality comes first and getting traction comes first before we start amplifying it and doing more of it.

SPT: it.

KEN: Absolutely. Is, is there a certain KPI you look for in terms of traction or is it more like a gut feeling?

LAURA: yeah, it's interesting, actually, even yesterday I sat down with our team and we. We look at our numbers and some content that I think is going to perform really well doesn't, and I'm sure we'll talk about what's working and what isn't. but I'm looking specifically at Instagram now I'm looking at shares.

So I'm looking at if a piece of content gets shared a lot, whether it's shared to someone's stories or a friend is sharing it, like DMing it to someone saying, Hey, look at this. That to me is a really good marker of, is this content shareable? Is someone going to send it to their friends or send it to their audience?

Because that's a really good marker of whether the content is landing. So that's what we're measuring a lot of now. and we havedifferent objectives for different pieces of content. So some content it's like, let's just, we just want to be present. We want to be consistent. We're just going to keep showing up even if the engagement is not as high as.

As another content pillar, we still like to have this, this mix of, of these core pillars that we know our audience needs to see. but some, content just outperforms others. And so I think it's also knowing what is the objective of each piece of content. And we measure based on did that achieve the objective?

Yes or no. Is there still value in sharing it, even if it doesn't perform as well as another piece. Yes or no. So that's kind of how we're measuring and tracking at the moment.

KEN: I love that. Thank you so much. so much. Now. I really want to get into the what's working, but, the reason I invite people who are doing at least a million dollars a year here is because want proof, you know, like I've listened to too many theoretical stuff that is probably You know, generated with chat GPT and they might be saying the same thing, but if the person behind it has actually done it, it's a whole lot different.

So could you tell us we got to the part where you took the social media of the coffee Instagram account. And I know that you've done some coaching, you've done some agency work. Give us the fast forward version through the rest of that. How, what were the stages of business to get to where you are now?

LAURA: Yeah. So I, after working with the coffee company, I then had a bunch of other people start approaching me and saying, Hey, can you do the same thing for me? And so I started a kind of a side hustle, an agency, and then it got to the point where the agency was busy enough for me to quit my job. so then we went all in on that.

And what's interesting about social media, and you would know this too, can running an agency yourself, like. I probably had done it a couple of years and I was doing everything. I was, we were designing websites. We were managing social media. We were writing copy. We were doing content shoots.

Like we were just doing everything, anything to do with their online presence, we kind of just did. We'd even do some Facebook ads where you just kind of were like, let's just take this from you and let's, let's make it work. But what's interesting is you can have the best marketing plan in the world, but if your offer isn't good.

Then you're still not going to land clients. You can have the best social media strategy, but if your website isn't dialed in, you're not going to convert. And so we realized we can only do so much before it actually goes back to the. The client for them to do some, they had to do some work as well. And so I saw that and thought this isn't going to be sustainable for me long term.

And at this point I was working with people in the coffee industry, people in the wine industry, Pilates studios, CrossFit gyms, financial planners, mortgage brokers, I was working with the strangest mix of. Industries. And I was trying to share valuable content. Cause I was like, cool, we should educate, we should add value.

But I was going from. Trying to be a wine expert to being a financial advisor. And I was like switching hats. And I was like, this is not going to work long term because we actually need the founder to share their expertise. And so

KEN: So

were you the one on camera for your clients in those accounts?

Oh, okay. 

LAURA: them and I was like, does like writing the posts and writing the content.

but this is probably before video was as much of a big deal. And so it was really static photos, design tiles and things like that. and so then I thought, well, actually I need to move into consulting. So I moved from done for you into consulting. And then from there, this is a very quick version, but I, launched a course in COVID then I still did some consulting work as well with like, I would just do like, People could book me for a day.

I'd map out their marketing strategy. And then I moved into group coaching because I saw that I could give someone a plan, but then they'd be like, I don't know how to implement this. So I needed to support them to implement the plan. So that's where we launched our group coaching and that's kind of.

Where we are at today and in the mix of that, to be a year and a half ago. Now we rebranded from my agency brand, which was called Lala social club. We rebranded from that just to Laura Higgins. And that is when we went all in on the personal brand, our business. Almost tripled in, in 12 months once we did that.

I think there was so much momentum building and then we rebranded and we were clear on our niche and everything felt like it took off there for the coaching side of things. So that's kind of like the short. Little version.

KEN: Well, thank you. Thank you for that. And, If people wanted to find out more and dig for themselves, would they go to laurahiggins. com or your social media or like if they're curious or do you have a book?

LAURA: I don't have a book. A book is the next thing on my agenda. Um, but yeah, laurahiggins. com or Instagram is laurahiggins as well.

KEN: Okay. Great. I'm looking right now. Uh, I had Rocelle go through and find some posts that you put out that looked interesting. I want to ask you about this one. You're wearing, a black coat and orange halter top and you're holding up a sign that says, Dear client, we don't know what, quote, make it pop, unquote, actually means.

Tell me about this.

LAURA: So have you, do you follow the account? It's called dudewithsign.

SPT: with sign.

KEN: I don't, but I, I'm sure, I'm sure I've seen it because now that you say it, I, it sounds so familiar. Yeah, I've seen a lot of pictures of a dude with a sign. I didn't know it was a thing

LAURA: Yeah. So he's got millions of followers and all he does is he stands on street corners. He's generally like in New York or something. And he's standing on a street corner with a sign that just says something, really shareable, really relatable. And I thought, how cool would that be to do something like that for creatives?

Because my niche is I help creatives like photographers, graphic designers, essentially me. Five years ago to scale their businesses. And there are so many things that are so specific to creatives that only creatives get and that creatives would share with their friends. Cause they're like, Oh my goodness.

I totally relate to that. It's like designer humor kind of thing. So yeah, that was the kind of the whole idea around that is like, what's something that's frustrating or relatable or funny for my niche. And I find that those content pieces do perform really well, because there's no ask, there's no Like ulterior motive.

It's just there to kind of entertain and be relatable.

KEN: and super shareable too within the industry. So how does this compare with another post where you're actually trying to like, well here you're, you're probably going to get a lot of shares within creative industry individuals. And are you finding that that's bringing in leads? Or is that more just trying to expand your reach on social media?

Can you talk a bit about the strategy behind that?

LAURA: Yeah, that kind of content is really, I think of it as top of funnel attention content. It is purely to get eyeballs.we're not kind of following that up with a big lead gen strategy because it's not, it probably wouldn't make sense in the context of that post. So. For us, the whole purpose of that is to just get attention and get eyeballs.

And we find that, like, I definitely find that that content, the stuff that's funny and relatable, it is a really good engagement booster. and it's also good for non followers to find you. So that's the kind of thing where we would, put hashtags on it to become more discoverable and also.

Sometimes if it performs well, we'll even throw a boost on it just to amplify it even further. And just to say to Instagram, Hey, can you find some more people who would relate to this content?

KEN: And, so are you saying this is more like, is there a direct connection or is it more like branding? Right, where there's, it's kind of, you kind of look at it as overhead rather than as like a conversion campaign or something, right?

LAURA: Yeah, absolutely. So I just look at it. It's almost like, um, this is a bad way to put it, but it is kind of almost like algorithm fodder. It's like, let's just use this to engage and get attention. We have other strategies that we're using to get people into our funnels and to convert.

KEN: I'll tell you how it affects me, like when I'm scrolling around, I see that image and if later on, you know, I'll chuckle, you know, I'm like, Oh, that's cute. Right. And later on, if I see. Some content from you where I realize you have something to offer two things go on in my mind number one Oh, she had like a million, you know views on that thing like she's kind of knows what she's doing and number two is gonna be thatWhatever she's doing for herself.

I'm Presupposing that what I learned from her is gonna help me do that for myself as well So there's the first the familiarity like oh, I've seen her before That's interesting. And then she must have some skills that I can learn. And those connection points might not happen on the spot when I see the first one, because I don't know the context.

But it does help when I do finally get the other side of the puzzle, which is what you're offering. So I think it's extremely valuable. I can't remember the name of the dude, the guy who, started by doing the, You know, having the green screen at the laptop and doing Zoom calls in crazy places.

And now he's, he does skateboarding stunts and he's got, you know, I can't remember his name. You know who I'm talking about, right?

LAURA: Yeah. Yeah.

KEN: If he started a social media agency, then I'd suppose that even though he's never taught a thing, I don't even know if he knows what he's doing, but somehow it's working. There would be people lined up around the block to work with him because he's made so many viral videos and he's so familiar and people assume he must know what he's doing.

LAURA: So I think there's huge value in that.and I think it's also. there's so much noise and there are so many, and I don't know if you see this too, Ken, but there are so many talking head videos of like, here's how to do this and here's my three steps to do this. Like there's so much of that content. And so I

KEN: kind of like what we're making right now.

LAURA: yeah, exactly what we're making right now, but it's like the stuff that I think gets cut through Is the content that breaks the pattern and not to say that the other content isn't valuable because it absolutely is, but it's almost like we need to think of it like a matrix of our content rather than just, I'm going to double down on this one type of content and this one pillar of content and this one way of delivering the content.

And I'm going to mix it up because person a might, come in at this point and really relate to that. And then they like you and then they see another piece of content, which makes them trust you. And so it's that thing of not discounting any content piece, but I think it's good for us to have a mix.

And I think the power of that content specifically that me holding a sign is that it. Almost felt like it was a secret that only creatives would understand. And so it kind of felt like, Oh, if you know, you know, and so for a creative person, it's like, Oh, cool. That really relates to me. And I think everyone has a version of that.

It doesn't have to be funny, but everyone has a version of that where your niche would feel like, Oh my goodness, they're speaking to me and. They feel seen. And I think that's the objective of that content that people feel seen. They feel like, wow, that's for me. And that's not for anyone else. It's for me.

And that's when people share it and that's when people engage with it. And that's when people follow you from the explore page or from not knowing you at all. So I think that's the real objective of that.

KEN: For sure. You know, this is a bit more complex, but something I've seen work really well with one of my clients is taking just what you said, all those thoughts that people think that, you know, they might be alone in, right? And turning it into a skit where you have the creative who is just like, like, well, you know, client didn't pay me very much, but doesn't matter.

I'm literally gonna kill my entire weekend to get this done because I can't ship crap. And then the friend is, You know, it's just like, what? They only paid you 20 bucks. It's like, it doesn't matter. like, I got to get this done. And then you have these conversation, which takes the internal conflict and externalizes it.

And I've seen that explode when people think. Like, when you explain their internal dialogue to them in a skit format, they love it and they share it. And then they're just like, they share it to their husband and their, or their wife or their co workers. They finally like, watch this so you understand what's going on.

And it's, a big deal. People can really fall in love with that. And you're allowed to do that. People feel comfortable doing that because It's a skit and they're not necessarily exposing their true self. I'm not saying this is me, but they are saying this is me, but from different skit perspective and therefore it's okay and they're comfortable.

And, uh, psychologically it's been so effective in getting people to engage and to share. But more importantly, they're like, ah, that person gets me. Like, I feel like I can trust them. And I think that's what you're, building with your audience for these posts as well.

LAURA: It's under rated. I think, I think a lot of people think, Oh, that's just a fluff piece or whatever, but I thinkwe buy from people we like and where a lot of people go wrong with content is they forget that it's personal and they forget that. I was actually having a conversation with a copywriter just earlier, and he was talking about how our point of view and perspective they are like our secret weapons in our content.

And that's, what's going to help us to cut through because we live in this age of chat GPT of every man and his dog has a podcast. Everyone is sharing content. Everyone is kind of a personality. And in the coaching space, there is so much noise. And so we have to keep coming back to the question of, well, why would someone choose me?

Why would someone choose me over another coach? And. Yes, you might know more stuff. Yes. You might have a, like a really cool framework, but at surface level, they're going to choose you if they like you and they can't like you if you actually don't show any of your personality, you don't show or share your perspective.

And I think a lot of us can hide behind, Oh, I'm just going to add value. I'm just going to educate. I'm just going to like. Share my offer and that's it. I don't want to show anything about my personal life. I don't want to share anything vulnerable. I don't want to share my perspective because I don't know how that's going to go and what, what purpose does it really serve?

But I have found that the attention getting stuff and the character and the, the perspective sharing content, those things build the other stuff. People are more likely to buy from me if they like me and they trust me. And they feel like they know me. So that's how I'm approaching content now. I'm just thinking, well, If I can get them to like me, then I'm, I'm kind of halfway there and I can show them, Oh yeah, you're cool.

You can trust me. Those are other content pillars that we, we look at, but I think it's such a simple one and such a, like, if we can get it right. The impact can be, really big.

KEN: And was that strategic around the time where you decided to make your name the brand that you operate under?

LAURA: definitely going under your own name is so, so helpful. And for me, going under my name really felt like I was stepping out of this. Oh, I'm just a 20 something started a business from my bedroom and figured it out and it was like, no, no, no. Like I built a million dollar business by the age of 30.

I'm not a little like side hustler anymore. And so I think for me, changing the branding, really meant stepping into a, a next level identity. And my content had to catch up to that too. So it was like the visual was there, the identity was there, but my content also had to level up. I had to become. More direct.

I had to become more confident in how I delivered content. I had to become sharper. My hooks had to get stronger. All of that stuff happened as I rebranded because it wasn't a we anymore. It was me. And it also meant that my story, my personality, what I'm up to on the weekend, it all makes sense under that brand.

so it just kind of sharpened everything. I think going to a personal brand.

KEN: I'm curious about how you structure your, your content nowadays in terms of the pre work, right? The preparation, the research, and the ideation, the actual execution, which is shooting and editing. And then the follow up like tracking, Marketing and things like that. Could you walk us through that and also include like how much time in each of these areas do you spend?

LAURA: Yeah, this is, something that we're always evolving, especially now as our team, our content team grows, for a long time, it's just been me. So I would film my own stuff. I would like. You know, figure out how to chop stuff down in AI tools and things like that. Now we have videographer who's on our team.

He's amazing. And we have a really amazing graphic designer. and then my husband, Nate, he, he builds out all of the funnels and the ad side, but the organic side is really, it's a team of three and pretty much how it works is. The center of the whole kind of ecosystem is our podcast. We view the podcast as like the core content pillar because it's, A huge piece of content and there is a lot of value that we can get a lot of snippets we can get from our podcast. So that's kind of like the core pillar. and I can talk about some different things I've tried with that, but that's our core pillar that informs our email strategy. And then it kind of informs our.

Instagram strategy as well, because when we release an episode, we want to post about it. So that probably takes up a big chunk of, of like the pre work is like, I'll do the interview and then my team will cut it up and I'll write an email and we'll, that's kind of that whole piece done. In terms of the design elements, I'm super lucky to have a really amazing designer on our team who pretty much I'll just brain dump ideas.

All throughout the month, I'm, I'm just dropping ideas into a channel that we have, and then she takes those ideas. It could be a quote post. It could be a funny meme. It could be a carousel that I'm like, cool. We did this podcast or I shared this thing on email. Let's do it as an Instagram carousel. And she takes it and makes it beautiful.

and then we schedule it, send it and every month we review it and we look at, okay, what performed, what trends are we seeing, and it's been. Really good for me because the people on my content team are my dream clients. So I've got a videographer and a graphic designer. And so they come to me with ideas of like, Oh, we should talk about this or this is a really cool idea, or this visually could be a really cool move for an ad or whatever.

So that collaborative piece has become more and more essential as we've grown. Because I can't come up with, it's hard to come up with ideas in a vacuum. And so I think it's nice, like, collaborating with, the team as well. But that's kind of our basic, basic process.

KEN: I like it. And how much of your time does it take? Like on a per week or per month basis?

LAURA: it takes probably a bit of my time, I write every day. So that's my, also how I think about things too. I like, will brained up my thoughts. I'll see a visual and that'll give me an idea. I think it also depends month on month because each month my videographer will come to my place.

We'll shoot a bunch of content as well. But the good thing about that is once I've done the shooting, he looks after the rest. So I'm kind of like, my bit is done. So. I would say I probably spend five to ten hours a week on the content stuff.

KEN: Okay. And that includes the shooting and the ideation, writing, reviewing, all that?

LAURA: I think so. Well, now that you say that, I probably do spend more time now that you say that.

KEN: So would you say that like when you do content, like do you categorize that as marketing or, or is this also content that's going internal for your courses and coaching and things like that?

LAURA: Yeah, that's such a good question. I view it as marketing.and I mean that in the best way, I don't view it as like this must make sales kind of thing, but I do view it as, okay, this is what's going. Outward. and then my coaching side of things we've gotten better at having, I've got a head coach who really helps with some of the delivery.

So it means that. For a while there, if I'm honest, I was, I was getting absolutely burnt out cause I was trying to create for marketing and lead gen, but I was also trying to create for delivery and the internal, and that was really difficult to juggle both. so now we're, delegating a bunch of the internal stuff.

As much as we can, you know, but I think what I've also learned again, is that scaling and growing so quickly 12 months ago, or even 18 months ago, I probably could come up with enough ideas to make it work. And I, could do that cause I wasn't wearing as many hats, but I think as we've scaled, it's like, oh, cool.

Now we've got. A hundred clients, not 50 clients, there's more bandwidth that's taken up with those things. So now I'm moving into, I need so much white space to create because. otherwise you just, you get burned, your energy drops and then your output drops and then that affects everything, right?

Like it affects your lead flow. It then means you're not landing as many clients. It then means that when you lose a client, it, it drops off again. So it's like really, it's the engine of our whole business. And so when I'm not creating and when I'm not in the content. The whole business suffers. So now we've designed the business to be, how could I have the most amount of time creating as possible and what needs to happen for me to meet the output that I really want and working 10 hour days every day is probably not conducive to me being.

Creative and coming up with great ideas. So it's, it's been a funny season of shifting from, I will do all the things and I will be involved in every element of the business to now going, all right. My main objective is, is content and coaching. And if I can do those two things, we can sort out the rest.

KEN: I like that. I think that a lot of people might feel guilty putting as much time as they do or to put more time into creating content because I think there might be a part of us that feels like Are people going to see me as being vain, you know, like wanting the camera on me all the time, or, is this a frivolous endeavor that's, that's going to maybe get me business results?

And I sense that in your case there was a, some kind of threshold where you realized this is the main driver of the business, therefore it's worth my best time and my best thinking. And I want to dive a bit into that. Do you remember when, when you realized, okay, this coaching thing, this is, My main business.

This is my brand. This is my name. And was that because, you hit a certain revenue goal?what clicked for you at that point to make your decision to go all in on coaching and content creation?

LAURA: it's interesting because. Until I had a deadline and I remember when I launched my, my group coaching offer, I had 16 people commit and say, Laura, I'd love to be part of this thing that you haven't even created yet. Let's like give it a go. And instead of getting a deposit, like a normal person, I took a 1 deposit, from each of them.

So I had 16 at that point I had let go of my consulting because I knew I needed to step into the coaching. And I had a month of like absolute panic because I had 16 and I had employees, I had a mortgage, I had all of this stuff and I was really freaked out. But I had backed myself in so much that I was like, well, I could wait another two years to launch this or I could just do it now.

And so for me, it wasn't a question of should I go all in? And it was like, Well, If I don't give myself a deadline, I won't go all in, I will procrastinate. I will try to make it perfect. And so for me, it was like, okay, cool. I've got to go all in on the coaching. And then when the coaching kind of got a bit more dialed in, that's when I realized, oh, if I do this thing up here, if I pour more resources, time, energy, and focus into my content.

That's upstream. It's going to really affect downstream. And I saw this like huge opportunity of leverage and scale and profitability. And so it was like, cool. Well, if we can get this, the coaching engine humming, then I can focus on the content, while still making sure that we're delivering really well in the coaching and then we can.

SPT: pour more

LAURA: there. And so I think that was our tipping point when we went, how does this little seesaw work between the coaching and the content? Because I don't want to market something that sucks, like a product that sucks. I want to market a product that's really good and helping people get results. So I found people to support it where I needed them to.

And I, it's also a bit of a rollercoaster. Sometimes, sometimes you're super creative and you're like on fire. And other times you're like. Business can take other things from you and you need to focus on other areas. So

my ideal world is that I'm in the, I'm really focusing on what grows the business and what's my role in that piece.

And I think when we think about content, we've got to view it as this isn't just a nice to have or a creative pursuit. This is the marketing engine of my business. And if I'm not focused on this, I'm not growing. And I think that that's a big mindset shift people need to catch is that it's not frivolous.

It's not just, Oh, I'm just creating, Oh, I'm just playing with the algorithm. It's like, no, I've got to show up consistently. I've got to make sure that I have a system in place. I've got to have a way to show up and connect with my people and then do that consistently. So I think it's positioning it as no, this is the engine of my business.

KEN: do you think that most people who are business owners on social media are doing that? And, I'm gonna guess the answer is no, but when people come into your world and they come into your coaching program like what's the typical before state, like what's, what's going on in their world when it comes to what they're using for marketing, social media, content creation.

And what's the result that they come away with after working with you?

LAURA: This is such a good question. I think most coaches, and I work with a lot of creatives, and I do work with some coaches as well, most coaches are helpers. And so we, we start a business cause we really want to help people. And so for a lot of us, our default state will be, I want to be in the delivery cause I want to be the one helping.

I want to be serving my clients. I want to be on the ground with my clients. And that is a good thing because it means that we care about our product. It means that we are ethical. We have integrity. It means that we're actually delivering a really good service. The thing that I see a lot of is that. we can swing too far into that direction and we can obsess and try to perfect our delivery.

When our clients and our prospects actually don't need us to do that, they need us to show up and to invite them to take action. And if no one knows about your amazing perfected offer, then you can't actually help the people that you really desperately want to help. And so it's this catch 22 of like, if you really want to help people, then you really have to get confident and consistent with your content.

Because that's how people are going to discover you. And my reframe, if I'm ever talking with someone who's like, Oh, but I don't want to share anything on Instagram because I'm too busy. I'm too booked out or whatever the. Constraint is I'm like, well, it's kind of a selfish move because you're not serving them.

You're not inviting them to actually experience your solution. And so content is a big piece of that. Your sales process is a big piece of that. So if we're not doing the things that help people to get into our world and get into the solution that we have, if we only focus on the solution and not on the, outreach element of it, then we're not actually serving people.

KEN: Yeah, that's, it's such a good reframe, And I actually have worked with coaches who literally said, no, I don't really want to make more money. I just want to serve the people I'm serving better. And it's, it's a bit frustrating when you know that there's so much more, but of course they've got to choose their own path.

And, uh, sometimes I struggle with that too. Like, why, why don't you want to help more people, right? And, think it's a different psychology for some people. But, uh, obviously people who want to work with you, they want to grow in some way.

And.

The way you work with them, is it mostly dialing in their messaging?

Is it, technical stuff? Is it, artistic stuff? A little bit of everything? Like, because everybody's got their magic touch, which is, you know, that, okay, I'm so good at this. And there's these other things that are necessary in order for it to work. What do you think is that thing that you're the best at helping facilitate transformation?

And,

LAURA: Yeah, that's a great question. I think. obviously like marketing is my baby. I love talking about marketing and how we can communicate. And my big thing that I will say to people when they join one of our programs is the best communicator wins. And so it's actually not about, before you even think about your service, before you even think about your niche or your anything, we have to think about your communication.

How are you communicating to people? And so the messaging thing for me. Is one of the underrated parts. And it's never the part that people are like, Ooh, I need to work on my message. But it's the part that. It's the unsexy thing that really helps people to get traction because they start doing like we were talking about with the dude with sign where it's like, Oh my gosh, you're speaking to me.

It's the same with your messaging. If we can dial in the words that you use to communicate what you do and the problem that you solve in a way that helps your prospect to go, Oh my goodness, Ken is the guy to help me. The more we can zero that in, the more likely we are to win. And so I just think that's so powerful, especially now where there's so much noise online.

I just think our communication needs to. Get clearer. And the other thing too, is that, and I think what I hope that I embody in my content is I think it should be fun. I don't think it should be boring. I think a lot of people are playing it really safe with their content. They don't want to make a mistake.

They want it to be perfect. They are worried about what happens if I get no likes? What happens if, you know, people don't like me if I post this thing or what happens if it looks off brand? But I think I would so much rather. Have fun and be bold in my content then play it safe and be boring and kind of be vanilla I think vanilla is the fastest way to kill your business So I think it's really important that we get clear on our communication and also Be a little bit spicy and how we how we approach content.

KEN: and How do you help people get clear?

LAURA: I think most people Don't know the problem that they solve they think they do but they don't know the problem in there

SPT: customers head.

LAURA: So I think it's about going, okay, who is my person? What's keeping them up at night? What's their big roadblock? What do they really want to achieve? What's stopping them from achieving that and communicating it in their language so that they go, Oh my goodness, that is totally me.

And so actually a big, a great resource for this is, um, building a story brand by Donald Miller. His framework for messaging is so powerful. And it's something that I come back to often because it just, every story has a villain. Every story has a hero. Every story has a guide and we just need to work out.

What is our customer's villain? Like what is the thing that is like stopping them from getting what they want? What's, what's their great enemy. And then we need to figure out, well, what do they want more than anything? What's their hero's journey. And we are just simply there to guide them and we're not there to be the hero.

We're just there to guide them. And as a coach, that's our job.

KEN: Yeah, absolutely. that's a great framework and it's helped me a ton to help me so much. I want to go a little bit into, know, industry. misconceptions that you're probably seeing. you hear Gary Vesey, got to post 20 things a day. You see Alex Hermosi, you know, doing all kinds of content in every platform.

And there's a lot of people try to copy them from zero, right? And or you see people doing just, you know, following trends, you know, doing the trending music, the trending stunt or whatever. Now, in your perspective, what are some of the most damaging, you know, trends that you see people doing when they're trying to grow a business?

Instead of just being an influencer.

LAURA: this is so, so important. there will only be one Alex Hormozy and there will only be one Ken Okazaki and one Laura Higgins. I know it's easier said than done, but I think the thing that we have to do if we want to cut through is we have to amplify what makes us different.

So copying the trends, following a format might be helpful in terms of getting the reps in determining. Okay, cool. like, that might be helpful when you're beginning, and that might be like level one, begin a level. But the next level up from that is going cool. What's my point of difference?

what's my genius and how do I amplify what makes me different from these people? So I think cool. Look at the trends, look at what other people are doing and maybe do that just to get competent and then level up again and go, okay, cool. How do I now stand out? How do I put myself in a category of one?

And I think that comes by experimenting and also like really, really dialing back into who is my person? What do they care about? What would they find funny? What would they relate to? What are their challenges? Like what are their aspirations? Who do they want to become? so I would say you can copy cat people for a while.

I've had, I've had plenty of people copy me and I'm like, okay, that's fine. You do you, but that won't work longterm. It's not sustainable because you're never coming up with your own. ideas. And so I think, yep, give that a go for a bit, see how it goes for you. And that might be level one and then level up from there and, become known like as your own identity.

I think that that's really important. I know it's not very tactical, but I think it helps us to create from a place of. I'm just going to be myself. Rick Rubin says the best way to be original is to be yourself. And it's so true. And so I know it might be a little bit of a

KEN: It's one of those things that

LAURA: thing,

KEN: it's true. It's true. And I think that before I got on social media and I heard that kind of advice, I'm like, well, I've heard that a billion times and, but it didn't really hit me. But now that I'm actually, you know, putting myself out there more. It makes so much more sense, so it's, it's hard for that perspective to hit until you've actually done something, uh, whether it's the wrong way or the right way.

Then, then you feel it, you feel the contrast.

LAURA: I don't know if you've experienced this, Ken, where you're like. You accidentally build someone else's business model. And you're like, Ooh, that works for that person. I'm going to just do that. And then you, you build it and you're like, Ooh, I don't love how this feels. I don't want to do that anymore.

And I think we can do that with our content too. We can accidentally build a brand or build a content kind of system that we're like, truthfully, I don't think this is me. There are parts of it that are valuable, but it's time for me to put my spin on it.

KEN: I agree. I've done that 100 percent 

and, uh, more times than I can count. But I think that it's also a good starting point if you don't know where to start. And then you go back and curate what you want to keep and what you want to change. And, think that process has worked for me.

LAURA: I'm curious, can. Cause a lot of people say to me, actually, they're like, Oh, when it comes to their messaging and when it comes to their content, like key messages that they're speaking about, they share the same message over and over again, and then they get bored of it and they move on. I'm curious what your take is on like, what do you do when it gets a bit, not boring, but it feels a bit like, Oh, I'm just, I'm speaking to the same pain points over and over again.

how do you approach that from your marketing perspective?

KEN: So I have this sliding scale, okay, and it starts with values, then it goes to strategy, then tactics, then like actual implementation. And the implementation changes the fastest, right? Okay. Now we're going to do reels. No, now we're going to do carousels. Now we're going to do these looping B roll kind of things, right?

The strategy level changes less frequently, like The strategy is we're going to run ads, grow your what we call authority funnel, and then within the funnel, we're going to nurture and convert. That's a strategy and that could work on multiple platforms, right? And then the values, they very slowly evolve.

And for me, I'll tell you some of the core values, right? Number one is you don't need fancy equipment to get started. Like, start with what you have and reward yourself with the equipment later. And that sounds basic, but for me, it's so important to get people to focus on figure out the messaging. Don't spend money on gear until you got that, right?

That's not gonna change, I don't think, for as long as I'm doing content, you know? another one is gonna be that, your canon events are your course narrative for everything. So I help my clients come up with about five they already have them, but crystallize these moments. Yesterday I was talking to one of my clients, her name is Sarah, and she was, and we drew this out of her in coaching, and she said that she was running multiple restaurants and it was Christmas Eve, and she was there helping and she was just going to pop in to check, but then it was so busy, she was greeting all these guests and taking care of catering and like all this stuff going on.

And then she gets a phone call at 7pm from her five year old daughter. And her daughter is just like, are you coming home for Christmas? and the babysitter said she really wanted to talk to you because she said she can't go to sleep until she talks to you. And at that moment, she just, like, everything snapped into place.

It was just like, holy shit, I'm running this, this business, which is a ton of revenue, tiny profits. And in order to have a better quality of life for myself and my family, but I'm not even with my five year old daughter who's crying herself to sleep because I'm here at this restaurant. so then we look at it in terms of the canon event was that moment of realization where everything from that point forward is going to be different because of that canon event.

And for some people, it's going to be a car accident. For some people, it's going to be bankruptcy. For some people, it's going to be flunking college or like whatever that's going to I 

SPT: But

KEN: that if you have five of these canon events in your life, The reason why these need to be so crystallized is because a Canon event usually results in you getting closer to the direction that you are now, and you're asking people to make a transformation when you're bringing them into your coaching.

You're asking them to trust you as a guide and to take them through their Canon event. And the more you share about yours, the things that affected the rest of your life forever, the more they're going to be putting themselves into your shoes and thinking, well, where's my canon event?

Who's my guide? Who is the coach I'm going to hire? And when you're building authority, what's happening is you're also building aspiration. I'm going to guess, Laura, and this is just a wild guess, you probably have a lot of women followers and clients, am I right? And it's not because what you teach is radically different from what men would teach.

Most men will have men, male followers, and clients because there's this thing called aspiration. I want to learn from the person who I want to be like. And when you share your Canon events and how you hired a coach, which is so important to talk about the people who helped you. Because now they're gonna think, who's my coach, right?

Ta da! Right? There you are. And, so one of the values is, like, your history needs to be crystallized into canon events. And those canon events are the narrative that you can say over and over and over, and apply to so many different contexts. there's a few more that won't change, but, I think that being authentic, which is such a loaded word, is probably the most powerful thing out there.

There's no faster way to gain someone's trust than to say, here's my open wound. Here is a part of me that is vulnerable, but I'm wanting to share it with you because I trust that you're going to understand the context and that because I'm being open like this, we're going to start to be able to have deeper conversations and not just superficial stuff.

And

it opens the door to so much more.

LAURA: Yeah, I, I think it's so powerful. And I was thinking about this this week. it was a while back. I shared two emails, sent these two emails one day after each other. Day one was a how to email. I shared this really simple hack. I was like, this is going to be awesome. Here's how to repurpose your content.

I shared like the step by step screenshots, all the things via email. I was just like, cool, I'm going to share this. This will be awesome. And the response was fine. The following day I shared a story. I think it was about people pleasing, which would probably be one of my Canon events where I. My mom sat me down and was like, I was so stressed and I was so overwhelmed.

trying to grow my business, but I was people pleasing my clients. I was people pleasing my team. I was trying to like have a social life and keep up with my friends. It was like this whole big moment. And my mom sat me down and she like stared me straight in the eyes. And she was like, Laura, the people pleaser must die.

And I was like, Whoa, like that's really freaking intense. Anyway, I shared an email about it. The difference, Ken, between the open rates and the response to my how to content versus my story of how I really struggled with people pleasing, the response was like chalk and cheese. It was completely different.

And that showed me that. People don't necessarily need more how to from our content because they can, they can get that anywhere and they can also get that in inside our programs. They actually need the, as you said, the authority and the aspiration and the belief shift, because that's probably the big difference between me and someone else who wants to do what, what I'm doing or who wants to do what you're doing is that you had a belief and you went through your journey and you're Can an event your story and you came out the other side and I think people find that so inspiring and that's the content that I'm finding is performing super well because it's real.

It's not me telling them. It's me sharing with them. Hey, I went through this. Do you relate to that? And the amount of people that have actually bought my programs or joined our communities, when we ask them, well, why do you want to work with us? They're like, Oh, I just, I liked Laura's energy. I related with her content.

They never say, Oh, Laura taught me a bunch of things and I implemented it and I got the results. They never say that they're like, I just liked your vibe. And so I think we underestimate the value of. The relatable, the stories, the perspectives, the, our own journey. We downplay that stuff, but it's so, so powerful.

KEN: You couldn't have said it better. And, uh, thank you for sharing that. Thank you so much. I, I'm not on your email list. I want to get on it now and, and see what stuff you're sending out. Uh, Laura, we have to wrap this up, but I enjoyed this so much and I want to ask you one favor, and I do this every now and then on the podcast, And I'm going to pre frame this.

A lot of times the best answers come not by someone instructing you, but by someone asking you the right question. And I'd like you to ask a question to me and to the listeners, everybody who's on the podcast. Like, what's the question that you think is when they answer it, is going to give them the most momentum, the most forward movement when it comes to marketing and social media?

LAURA: This might be a niche question, but it relates to, to me and my audience. I don't know if it relates to you. My question that I ask is. What would Beyonce do? What would a Taylor Swift do? what would LeBron James do? What would like someone who is the goat in their industry, what would they do?

How would they show up? And I think if we embody that, we show up like with a totally different energy. We show up with main character energy and I think that that one shift alone can transform your content.

KEN: I love that. I really like that. Who is it for you? Is it Beyonce that you think of?

LAURA: mine would probably be Taylor Swift.

KEN: Taylor Swift? Will Taylor Swift do?

LAURA: What would, what would

KEN: Now, now I gotta send you like, you know, a sparkly leotard, you know?

LAURA: Oh my gosh, yes.

KEN: rock it? Would you like go out and take photos with it?

LAURA: If you sent it to me, I would feel compelled to.

KEN: Now I gotta go find out where to find one. Um, let me think what's for me,

LAURA: Yeah, what would yours be?

KEN: you know, when I was younger, the person who I really loved a lot was Bruce Lee, but in terms of social media, a few people who are very knowledgeable, but at the same time, they don't have filters when they, when they share now, some people see that as a negative for me, I, I see that as a form of vulnerability, geez, now you see, you just asked me the question, um, who would I show up as?

Okay, there's a guy named Chris Doe. You probably heard of him because you're in the design space.

LAURA: I was, as you were talking, I was thinking about Christo for you. That is so weird. Yeah, you have that, you have that energy.

SPT: energy. 

KEN: He's got a great blend of, class. He's classy. but then he's also very, Tactical. So he's got a good balance of class and tactical, and then he's also got the aesthetics of, everything, That he does. Very well organized. Another person who I really look up to is Vin He has a channel called Ask Vin.

think he's Vietnamese, he's got these big black glasses and he talks about performance and energy and he's really great. So, but I think Chris Do, I should, I should watch more of his stuff again and see, like, I should show up as Chris.

LAURA: That is so weird because literally as you were talking, I was like, I was thinking Christo. I feel like that's, it's weird, isn't it? Like. When you have someone that you look at they're really inspiring because I would look at you and Chris Doe and be like, Oh yeah, you're not that dissimilar.

Like it's, it's funny that that's a role model for you. And I'm like, Oh yeah, no, you have that energy for sure.

KEN: All right, we got to wrap this up. And Laura, thank you so much for sharing. I think toward the end, we actually, I love that last 10 minutes more than all the rest. I mean, the rest was great, but, uh, it got, it got more real there. And I appreciate that. And thank you so much for bringing your story, your experience and your advice to the show.

And for everybody who's listening, thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. And, uh, there will be links down below to check out all things, Laura Higgins. And if you're listening on audio only, I highly encourage you go to the YouTube channel. You'll see that she is every bit as. branded and as put together as she is on Instagram and everywhere else you see her, she really is, a great example of being the brand instead of just playing a role and, uh, go check out the video, check out her social media, and I'll see you all next week. 

Ken Okazaki: No hustle worship here, we're a different breed. Action is what we got if action is what you need. Us content capitalists, we're breaking the flow. Cuz the old ways stay, new stories to be told. So content capitalists, get to the press.