In this interview episode, we have a repeat guest: Liz Wilcox sharing her secrets on how to infuse your personality into your business and email marketing. Don’t worry, it’s a good step-by-step which I know you’ll love!
In this episode you’ll hear:
Join the waitlist for Liz’s Email Marketing Membership here>>
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram Stories and tag me & Liz, @ambitiousbookkeeper @thelizwilcox
For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:
Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com
Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper
Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup
Connect of Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa
Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.
Podcast Publishing Tools
In this interview episode, we have a repeat guest: Liz Wilcox sharing her secrets on how to infuse your personality into your business and email marketing. Don’t worry, it’s a good step-by-step which I know you’ll love!
In this episode you’ll hear:
Join the waitlist for Liz’s Email Marketing Membership here>>
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram Stories and tag me & Liz, @ambitiousbookkeeper @thelizwilcox
For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:
Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com
Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper
Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup
Connect of Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa
Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.
Podcast Publishing Tools
[00:00:29] Serena: Welcome back Liz to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. I'm so excited to have you. We are in year two, basically by the time this airs, we will have hit our one year. Podcasting. And you were one of our very first guests, so welcome back. So excited to have you.
[00:00:48] Liz: Oh my gosh. Congratulations on one year that's so awesome. And thanks for having me back. This is so fun.
[00:00:56] Serena: Yeah. We will link the first episode we did together in the show notes. And I think we kind of talked about how to get started in email marketing. So if you are completely unfamiliar with email marketing, definitely tune back to that episode, but listen to this one still , but let's do a brief, like reintroducing you to our audience. So I'll let you do this spiel.
[00:01:20] Liz: Yeah. What up, what up I'm Liz Wilcox and if you haven't guessed yet, I'm an email marketer. So I teach people how to make email really simple. And one of the reasons that I wanted to come back on the show is because I know there's a lot of fear, especially with bookkeepers, around actually writing emails, that sound like you. Right. And I know, you know, maybe you spend a lot of time in, spreadsheets and it's hard to kind of get out of that. You know, very logical What's the word I'm thinking of brevity, but that's not it just keeping it really short and simple and thinking people don't wanna get to know you, they just need to know their numbers.
[00:02:01] But I wanted to come back and talk about that. A little of my background. I started off as an RV travel blogger. I got really good at email marketing through that and so good that people said, oh, wow, what are you doing talking about RVs? You need to be talking about what you're doing with email. So, you know, fast forward now I'm talking to you and Sharina are Sharina. Oh my God. I was trying to combine your, your last. I was like, don't mess up her last name. So I just messed up the whole shebang bang, but that that's me. That's me. what's up? I swear, this is just water.
[00:02:39] Serena: That's okay. I can't tell you how many times I like. Just botch stuff and it's okay though. Like, I think that, well, I, maybe I'm speaking for other people, but I like it when people just like screw up and they're just, eh, whatever. like, it doesn't matter.
[00:02:57] Liz: Yeah. You know, it's a good. You know, it's a good segue into, you know, what we're gonna talk about today is people love that behind the scenes stuff, especially, you know, we're living in this world where people are content creators, right. You know, especially in the last couple years since quarantine, you know, everybody and their mom is on TikTok and you know, it's never perfect and people are.
[00:03:20] You know, we're coming very much out of this, you know, everything's gotta be perfect and polished. And I think it might even be a relief to bookkeepers, cuz of course we want our numbers to be perfect and they need to be spot on as much as we have that information. But. You can give yourself permission to mess up the host name or have a typo in your email. You know, as long as you're doing good in the bookkeeping, people wanna see you as a real person.
[00:03:47] Serena: Yeah, I have done like a lot of work on perfectionism in from just my whole corporate career and everything. And, and then going out on my own and trying to model after these really polished. People online, I will name no names, but you know, we all have seen them where it's like, I could never do that because I could never be that polished. Like some of them are so polished that they sound scripted, but they're not like, and that's very intimidating. So I hope that. People read my emails and watch me online and realize like it's okay to be awkward.
[00:04:24] Liz: Oh gosh. Yeah. A big mistake. I have a friend she calls herself the cringy mom and she has this movement called like cringe forward. Shout out to Jen Campbell. And it's just so. Awesome watching her because no offense, I love her. She's my friend, but there are some things she puts out there I'm like, wow, that's really cringe, you know, but then she just was like, yeah, I'm cringe. I try too hard here. I am like, y'all just go for it too. And I think it's it's definitely awesome that we are living in this day and age where, you know, we can be a little cringe, a little less polished and let it be inspiration to you. Serena and I both make money being ourselves, being our awkward you know, typo mispronounced selves.
[00:05:07] Serena: Yeah, absolutely. I've gotten it's funny. I get some heat too, and I don't know if you do or if it's just my audience, but when I have typos in my emails, I've gotten replies and like, it's just, it's funny. I always just laugh about it. It used, that's something that definitely would've upset me a long time ago, and then I would've been afraid to continue to put myself out there, but that is one of the, the things that you definitely have to be prepared for and work on yourself internally and like be okay with it. And otherwise something like that is just gonna derail all of your efforts.
[00:05:44] Liz: Yeah, let's talk about that for a second. I mean, you got into business for yourself, right? You started this bookkeeping thing, you know, oh, I don't wanna work for corporate. You know, I wanna sit at home. I wanna do it my way. Mm-hmm so do it your way. And yeah, you might have typos and people. Oh gosh, I can't, I won't get in. It's too rated R to get into some of the things people have replied back, commented, whatever. Right. . For me, it's just keeping centered in the fact that I started a business for myself. So I have to be myself. And have this sort of abundance mindset that I'm not the only person going into business for myself.
[00:06:28] We are, you know, it's unprecedented the amount of people that are going into business for themselves. So there are plenty of fish. In the sea that are gonna hire me. Right. If this person comes back and they're upset about a typo and they think, oh, you know, if they can't even spell that, right, what are they gonna do for my numbers? Like, they're not for you. Right. You know, your stuff, you are educated, certified, all that. And there's a reason why you didn't go into English. Okay. You know, like it's totally different and the right people will know that. And I think even we're moving into this new market. where not only are people accepting and tolerating of those mistakes, like the market is kind of demanding it.
[00:07:15] I listen to a podcast episode cuz I, you guys geek out on bookkeeping and things like that. I geek out on email and this guy was saying, this is a guy that works with giant retail companies. People that send out millions of emails a month. And he said, you know, I'm seeing if you don't email with a little bit of personality. If you, act like nothing in the real world is happening and it's always business as usual. There's no personality in your emails like you are losing right now. And he's talking about gigantic retailers.
[00:07:48] Yeah. So the little guy, people like you and me. You know, if we've got a couple dozen people on our email list, we're at a real advantage to say like, Hey, I'm a real person. You can actually hit reply. Get to know me, ask me questions. I'm the one answering, you know, this isn't like. I know your love of QuickBooks, right? But this isn't QuickBooks, right? Where it's like, obviously someone, you know, a 24/7 customer service who is gonna give you the run around, like, this is me, this is Liz Wilcox in the inbox. I'm gonna be the one replying. And that's a huge, huge, huge advantage right now.
[00:08:23] Serena: Yeah, absolutely. So what is one of the biggest things, cuz I know you have a email marketing membership where you write weekly templates for us so that we don't have to come up with all of our own ideas.
[00:08:35] Liz: Boom
[00:08:36] Serena: ...To send out emails. And you do have quite a few bookkeepers in there. And so before we hit record, you were talking about this being probably one of the hardest things for this type of personality, the bookkeeper, the accountant, was just being yourself and being okay with that. So how do you help people get over that hurdle?
[00:08:57] Liz: I emailed Serena because I had so many, there were just so many bookkeepers coming at me like, oh, people expect me to be this way and I've got to be polished. I'm thinking of you know, some kind of like eighties, executive, like this is the image in your mind that you have to be. And I've just seen so many people like Serena, like even my bookkeeper, when they've loosened up a little bit and shown a little bit of their personal lives or personality, just how different their business becomes, just how better they feel connected not only to their email list, but to their clients as well.
[00:09:37] The people on their list that are already, you know, booking with them. And so I just wanted to come on and kind of wax poetic about you know. Try to convince you to show a little bit of personality. So I always say in your emails and in any correspondence, really, if you can lead with a little bit of personality, your vision for your clients or your potential clients and your value system, it's gonna change the game for you. And think about it. If when. Are hiring someone when you are looking at a brand, how many times do you go straight to reviews? Even on Amazon. Amazon spends a lot of money trying to get you to write reviews because they know consumers. You know, they're looking at a product they're scrolling-- I'm doing the finger thing right now--
[00:10:23] they're scrolling directly down and they wanna see if the product is any good. and a little bit of the personalities of the different people buying, if you don't believe the testimonials or the reviews, you believe they're fake. And so again, we're living in a market that demands all three of these things.
[00:10:43] So with your personality, this is not like, oh, Liz, I'm an introvert. This is why I got into numbers. So I wouldn't have to talk to anybody nobody's knocking on the office unless there's an emergency. I don't mean you have. Share everything with people, but there are little bits of your personality that you can connect to other people like just human to human. Right. There's 1,000,001 email marketers out there, but Serena's had me on twice. Why? Probably because she likes me as a human.
[00:11:12] Serena: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:13] Liz: There's something about me. That's like, oh yeah, she's the one for me. And so if you're willing to put a little bit of yourself out there, Then, you know, you're gonna pick up the right people and you're not gonna have those crazy clients. Right. Those people it's like, oh, I dread it when they email me or, oh, I hate getting on the phone with this person.
[00:11:32] I got off, off the phone. And I think we talked about this in episode 13, about how much I love my bookkeeper. Mm-hmm I got off the phone with her a couple weeks ago, and no joke. I couldn't even help myself. I don't, I just wasn't thinking. I was like, okay, I love you. Bye . And she was like, I immediately got read. I was like, oh, I'm sorry. Like, is that crossing a boundary? She was like, no, Liz, I love you too. You know, thanks so much, like peace out or whatever, but she loves to work with me. You know, she knows who I am as a person.
[00:12:05] And I love to work with her because I know her as a person. And so just drawing out a little bit of that person in you is gonna go a long way. And I'll give you a couple tips on this. So these tips are related to like, if you're thinking, yeah, but I don't know I'm boring or what do I share? I'm scared to share anything. I'm a private person. Like you can Google me and you would never guess I'm a private person, but I actually am. There's a lot of things you don't know about Liz. So. You can draw from two things, really very, very simple things that are gonna make human connections that are gonna show you're a person and show a little bit of what kind of person you are.
[00:12:47] So, number one: you can draw from pop culture. So obviously again, if you Google me, you'll see that I do this a lot. People call me the Fresh Princess of Email. I've gotten sync in the background right now. Usually I'm not wearing it today, but usually I got my Seinfeld hat on, you know, Insync earrings or something like that. I draw from a lot of music, inspiration and people love that people will be texting me or DMing me. Oh my gosh. I just heard Backstreet Boys on the radio or, oh my gosh. I saw this commercial that had MC Hammer and it reminded me of you that has nothing to do with email. Right? But it makes me a human.
[00:13:27] Serena: It makes you memorable.
[00:13:29] Liz: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:13:31] Serena: Like, we just, I'm gonna interject for a minute. We just recently had in town, there was a block party that was like a nineties block party. And you were supposed, dress up in nineties. They had a DJ playing all nineties music and I was literally thinking of you the entire time.
[00:13:49] Liz: See that's how powerful the pop culture piece is. And it doesn't have to be music. It doesn't have to be a decade. It can even be like the only example I can think of right now is the Shamwow.. Right. Like, do you guys remember that? It's from like, You know, I don't know, like 2008 or something, and it can be like, if you still use a Shamwow. You know, that is a personal thing. If you've got kids even just saying like, oh, I'm picking up my kids from school today. Just very simple person things.
[00:14:21] And then the second thing, if you can't think of anything in pop culture, that's not really jiving with you. And this one you're gonna kind of roll your eyes out, cuz everyone does this one, but it's so easy and so simple, a beverage, pick a beverage. like, if you drink coffee, if you're a Dunkin' Donuts, you know, #teamDunkinDonuts over Starbucks, or, you know, McCafe or for me, I drink Mountain Dew, like a 12 year old boy interested in motocros. OK. Just ride through the desert, you know, and that's something that is very easy for me. And that reveals, almost nothing about me, but it's something-- you know, Serena immediately started laughing. You either think, oh, that's funny, or, oh my gosh, she's gonna kill herself. I need to email her right now to tell her, to stop drinking that, you know, cancerous drink. Right. I get more replies whenever I talk about Mountain Dew than anything else, people are either like, Oh, I love that. Or especially if I have people in different countries and they're like, that is quite literally illegal where I live, like stop drinking it right now.
[00:15:31] But it's just something that's so simple and starting off very simple, like. A beverage or you know, something in pop culture, a band that you like, something like that, it helps just get you started. Of course I prefaced everything I said, oh, personality, personality. Obviously. I don't think Mountain Dew is part of my personality, but it is part of who I am. And it's a very simple way to start being a human in my business. Does that make sense?
[00:16:04] Serena: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm like over here thinking I'm like, I wonder what people think of like if there's anything in pop culture that makes them think of me. So I'm like, what could that be?
[00:16:16] Liz: You know what makes me think of Serena? So I don't know if you guys have ever been on a zoom call with her watched any of her videos or anything, but she has this beautiful, like blue painting behind her. And any time I see something like that, I think of her because it's just so memorable. Like Serena said, it's so memorable and it's just this background thing, but I've been hanging out with her on zoom for like two years. And so if I go to you know, if I'm walking through like TJ Max and I see anything with that, like dark blue and kind of light blue together, or I don't know what kind of painting that is, what do they call with the big wide strokes? When I see that, I think of you.
[00:16:57] Serena: Wow. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty cool.
[00:17:01] Liz: It's not, it's not pop culture, but it's--
[00:17:03] Serena: It's not, but it doesn't matter. I definitely like the colors are on brand and it just kind of worked out. And I, I mean, like I have a blue phone case. I have like, I have a blue car. I have a blue water bottle.
[00:17:17] Liz: There you go see, and it can be just that simple when you start off in your business trying to be relatable, trying to sh you know, when you hear somebody like me, oh, just show your personality and you see them. And they're like, you know, Wearing this outrageous thing. You're like, well, I can't be like that. You can start very small with maybe just a color or maybe-- I see Serena's nails are painted. Maybe you get your nails painted every single week. And so you just kind of inject that into your brand until you figure out what the heck you really wanna be. Right?. Just pick something very, very simple and run with it.
[00:17:55] Serena: I like that. So pop culture and a beverage are your first two tips for personality.
[00:18:01] Liz: Yeah. Yeah. So I said personality, vision, and values. So the next one is making sure, in emails and really everywhere you market, to share your vision with your clients. You know, not every bookkeeper is the same. And not every client is the same. I think of it like this: so let's say you are graduating from Liz Wilcox University and like, what is the degree that I am handing you when you walk across the stage? For me, it's, you make money with email marketing, like simple as that. That's the diploma, that's the degree. So that's my vision for you.
[00:18:37] And so in emails, I'm constantly talking about you making money with email, because that's my vision for you. Saying things very explicit, very direct, I want you to make money with email. I created this product, so you make money with email, with bookkeeping, you know, I want you to know your numbers.
[00:18:57] Serena help me out here, it's the end the day folks! What would be your vision
[00:19:03] Serena: For my clients? It's like, it is pretty much like that. Like, we want to help you understand your numbers so that you can make better decisions and be more profitable or get more time back. Like, you know what I mean? Whatever it is for your clients and most clients need that and want that. But you can spin it however you want. You can spin it towards like what their industry is and, and that kind of stuff,
[00:19:25] Liz: Yeah. I love that. And it's be direct and say this over and over. You know, if you're not saying this at least once a month, people aren't gonna remember, you know, they've got TikTok nowadays. They're not paying that much attention, but it's gonna set you apart, especially in email. If you're sending out sales messages or newsletters. You know, people are savvy. They're like, Ugh, this lady's trying to get me to book, right. This lady just wants to get me on a call, da da, da. But if you tell them the vision, then they don't think that anymore. Oh, this person really cares about me, you know, staying in my zone of genius so my business can grow and I can save time. Because you've told them explicitly, that's what you want.
[00:20:07] If I just showed up in my inbox and showed up on social media, just constantly selling and not talking about my person, always talking about my products, what do they think the vision is? That I wanna make money mm-hmm and of course that is true. I wanna make money. Serena wants to make money, you know, you gotta eat and that's fine. But when you share the bigger vision of things, people wanna get on board, this is not for Forest Gump. You've seen that movie, right? Mm-hmm again, pop culture reference. So, you know, forest he's running through. And, you know, running in the desert and he's got all those people behind him. Right? And then he just stops and he's like, well, I think I'll go home now. And everybody's like, they look confused, but they're not mad, but that's not real life, that's a movie.
[00:20:57] No one is going to just blindly follow along with you. They're gonna make their own assumptions and they're gonna follow off if you don't tell them exactly. Where you're running to where you're going. So definitely don't be afraid of sharing that vision for your clients, with your clients and your potentials all the time. Again, that's gonna show a little bit of your personality too. Like, wow, this person's taking this seriously. They're not just out there to sell their services, they have a point to all this and that's gonna make you stand. you know, hot beverage Mountain Dew or not, just having that vision, right?
[00:21:35] Serena: Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
[00:21:38] Liz: All right. So then values is the last piece.
[00:21:43] Give me a second. I'm on a roll here. I gotta drink some more water friends.
[00:21:46] Serena: No, no worries.
[00:21:48] Liz: Can I keep like, you can't see me, but I've got my mic stacked up. So cuz I just moved and I don't have like one of those arm thingies and I'm trying to drink water, trying to hydrate, trying to be a good person to myself. And I keep moving the water bottle around the mic you know, like, like a, like a claw machine. So it doesn't hit the mic or, you know, make noise. So if you hear little waves in the background, that's not the ocean. It's my water bottle. Okay.
[00:22:20] So we went through a little bit of personality the, the vision for people and then your values and Serena and I talked about this at the top of the hour, but just, you know, living in a day and age where you can be yourself and where you can share what is you believe in. Now this isn't spewing your politics everywhere and constantly commenting on, you know, current events. No, that's, that's tiring again, go to TikTok.
[00:22:49] But you can share what you believe in, especially in regards to your product, your services, your industry. So for me, In email, a lot of people will tell you to tell stories. I personally don't believe in that. And so I'm constantly telling them what I do believe in. I do believe in saving time, you know, leading with the personality, vision, and values, other things you can listen to episode 13, I go way more into that.
[00:23:16] But you've gotta have a value system. There are certain things within you and this, this one might take you a while. It might take a lot of practice of getting comfortable with email and marketing and just being in business for yourself until you're like, oh yeah, this is why I do things the way I do right. For me I price most of my products pretty low, because I believe in. Affordability that took me five years to figure out! So you're not like, wow, I don't have anything like that yet. I don't know. I don't know. Don't stress this one. I want you to just put a pin in it. And when you do something or when you, especially when you get on a sales call and you immediately know oh, my gosh, this person is not for me. What's that? Like TikTok audio, like immediately? No, I've seen what I need to see immediately. No, like we've all been on that call. There's something in your value set that is telling you, no don't book this person. It's not worth the time, the energy, the money, right.
[00:24:14] So take note of that and start talking about that. Like, I wanna work with clients that, you know, won't reject me from my typos. That's number one, showing your values that you know, and a little bit of personality, right? So saying, you know, I value numbers over grammar, even something simple as that. And, that's gonna let the right people in that are like, oh yeah, actually I really don't care if you can't spell as long as you can run my numbers. Right. Or whatever it is. Even I know. I joked about it earlier. I can't remember what Serena recommends, but I know it's not QuickBooks , even though it's like--
[00:24:52] Serena: Xero
[00:24:52] Liz: I was like, it's not Xerox Liz. That's something completely different from the nineties. But you know, if it's easier to start with that, like what companies do you value? What processes do you value? And just saying those, is gonna really help the right people like, oh yeah, I hate QuickBooks too. I tried that. It was so confusing and they might not ever log into Xero, but they know that you've got something better and that's gonna jive with them immediately. So sharing different value sets is really important as well.
[00:25:25] Serena: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even realize that that was-- now that you're talking about it. I'm like, yeah, that's a thing. I've talked about on sales calls with people. I'm like, sometimes I'm kind of like hesitant. I'm like, I hope you don't mind, but like, we don't use QuickBooks, so we will migrate you. And they're like, oh, I freaking hate QuickBooks. It's so confusing.
[00:25:46] As a business owner, trying to DIY things. So it's like, it, it works for some people. It doesn't work for others, but yeah, I didn't even realize that could be one of ' em.
[00:25:54] Liz: Yeah. And for me, on a call with a bookkeeper, just from that customer perspective. I don't care what you use, but I love that you have a stand on something that means you really know your stuff. If you're like, oh yeah, I can do this. And maybe I can go over here too. And whatever you're using is fine, I'll just adjust. That is like, well, what are you an expert in, right? Yeah, I don't know. And so for me, when, if I'm on a call with you and you're like, oh yep. I love QuickBooks. That's what we use. I don't know what you use, but we'll be migrating you or the opposite, like, oh my gosh, we gotta get this fixed right now. That makes me like, that signals to me like, oh, she's really strong and firm. She must know what she's talking about. Right. So not being afraid to stay firm in those things is actually really valuable for your potential customers.
[00:26:49] Serena: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Cuz that's a question I get a lot from other bookkeepers. They're like, do you ever get pushback? And I'm like, I don't. I thought I would like, and I'm mm-hmm you know, I'm nice about it. I'm not like you're on our system or you're outta here type of thing. It's more of like, these are the systems we use. If you're okay with that, we're gonna migrate you otherwise I can refer you to somebody else type of situation. But yeah, I don't ever get pushback. People are more than happy to. Migrate over, cuz like you said most, I mean most of our clients don't log into their, their books either, but they wanna just know that they're done and they're done right.
[00:27:25] Liz: Yeah. Amen. And for me, my, I hired my bookkeeper and she took one look at what I was doing or not doing. She was like, we're just starting over from-- you need a whole new bank account, you know? And any, because I knew she knew what she was doing and I knew a little bit of her personality. Right. Like I knew she was a real human. You know, it wasn't this big, giant, not that there's anything wrong with, you know, giant companies, but I knew she had my best interest at heart because I knew her as a person. I knew where we were going together and, you know, I knew her values. Right. I was like, okay, whatever. I mean, I was in tears trying to set up that bank account, but I was like, Angelica tells me, this is what I need. Then I am not leaving this bank until somebody gives me an account. Let's go.
[00:28:13] But you know, that's, that's the power that you have as this type of service provider is, you know, whether you're working with new entrepreneurs are seasoned or whoever. We really gotta get our book straight. And so we really wanna know we are in good hands. So leading with that personality, vision, and values is gonna make us feel so much firmer. And so it's gonna get you more of those sales calls, those discovery calls, those bookings, whatever you wanna call it.
[00:28:43] Serena: Yeah. And more clients that are confident in you. So. Yeah. Sometimes you have to fake the confidence a little bit to get the, to get the, the clients that are confidence. See, I can't even talk tongue twister.
[00:28:56] Liz: She's doing a great job. Isn't she let leave her a five star review today. Pause them. So go in, leave her review. We love Serena. She's amazing. If I could turn my sound effects on, I'd give you a round of applause, but just know everyone, everyone-- yeah. Everyone listening right now. Pulled over in their car, stopped doing the dishes and we are all giving you a round of applause. My dear.
[00:29:20] Serena: Awesome. So yeah, let's recap. The personality, the vision for your clients, where you're headed with your business and the values. It seems pretty simple, right?
[00:29:31] Liz: I think so. Thanks. Thanks Serena. Yeah.
[00:29:34] Serena: Simple, not easy.
[00:29:36] Liz: Yeah. And it's not easy, but it, it gets easier over time. You just have to get started and. You know, pick one. For me, I think probably the vision that you have is probably the easiest to start with. If you're one of those people, that's like, oh, I don't know how to present online, or I don't know what my value set is. You do know what you want for your clients. And if you don't, again, pause, take five minutes. I know you can figure this one out, you know, like, oh, you know, Serena Shoup. Did I get it right? I think so.
[00:30:09] Serena: Yeah.
[00:30:10] Liz: She, you know, we're crossing her line. This is what we're doing. We have our own bookkeeping business, right. That's profitable. Like that's the degree. What is the degree for your people? And start sharing that online, send out if you have a client list right now, or some kind of email list already, you know, send out, Hey, I just wanted to share my vision for the clients that I work with today. And it can be just a, you know, Two minute write, you know. Hey, I, I wanna make sure anyone that works with me feels confident in their bookkeeper saves time and every quarter where they're at financially so they can make The best steps for moving forward in their business or whatever, you know? I mean, see, even I know part of your vision , you can do this! I believe in you so wholeheartedly.
[00:30:56] And just sending out an email like that, sharing it on social media, something like that. That's really gonna start to connect with people and somebody might reply. Wow, that's so awesome. I really want that. Or even if they don't reply, they are gonna read it and that's gonna stick out to them. Oh wow. This person. It's not just about like, you know, getting the check, right. This person has a vision for me. That's awesome. Right. So start with the vision and then you can start to add little bits of your personality. And I definitely would go check out episode 13, cuz I talk a lot more about like, very tactical, what to put in those emails. But yeah, starting out with the vision, adding in a little bit of personality, adding in, you know, your values.
[00:31:45] Like maybe there's an email in there where it's like, you know why I pick Xero over QuickBooks and you just kind of wax poetic or, you know five things I love about working with this type of person, whoever your ideal client is, those are value sets. I value people that love Insync if you're a Backstreet Boys fan, might not get on a zoom call together. You know, that's, that's a little joke. That's a little O O's humor for you. You know, things like that, just being very direct in your email marketing. And any type of marketing is really, really gonna help you out in the future.
[00:32:24] Serena: Awesome. Thank you so much. So, in addition to going back to that other episode, you, like I mentioned before, have an email marketing membership and when this episode goes live, you will be about to going into your annual flash sale to join it. So do you wanna talk about that?
[00:32:44] Liz: Oh, thanks. Heck yeah I want to talk about it, it's my favorite thing. And let that be a lesson. Maybe that's some inspiration for you listening. Be excited, like create offers and packages that excite you to talk about. It's not like a dread thing. I always create products and price at prices and products that delight me that I'm excited to talk about. So that's a little Liz Wilcocx on her soapbox side note.
[00:33:14] So anyway, email marketing membership is a $9 a month membership, where I literally write newsletters for you every single week, every single Monday, you get a template delivered directly to your inbox. Serena's one of the original members shout out to her. Yes. Yes, baby! And what I love about it is it's just this affordable thing where you can actually just get in and try out emails.
[00:33:41] So one of the things, one of the visions I have for people, potential people that aren't in my universe yet, or I just want you to try email, right? And so I created this product to get you. It's like, how can I get people to try this? It's like, well, I'll just write it for you. And what's great about the templates.
[00:34:01] I leave out the personality, the vision and the values they are, quarterly quips where it's like, you know, today was a insert the type of day here. Like, it's very actual, it's not a swipe that, you know, I wrote for my business and you hope and pray. You can figure out why I wrote it the way I wrote it and how to apply it. It's an actual template. And what I love about opening up this annual sale. If you become a yearly passholder, you get access for an entire year to the membership. So that's, you know, 52 new templates delivered every single week to you. But you also get access to every single product that I've ever created, or that I will create for the next year for free.
[00:34:46] So think of it like Costco, we have all been to Costco, right? You pay like 60 bucks. And then you get in and you buy everything. They sell almost everything at wholesale. So that's kind of the business model there. You get in, you pay the members, leave fee and you get everything for free. So it's $108. It's only open July 11th and 12th. Serena in the comments is gonna put her link to the wait list so you can get on the wait list. So it'll be open for just 48 hours.
[00:35:13] I'm really excited to offer this again, like I said, my vision is that you just make money with email marketing. Like that's, that's the direction I'm going with you. And so the yearly pass holders, not only do they get those newsletters, you're gonna get everything else. Like how to. What am I trying to say? There's a lot!
[00:35:35] Serena: There's a lot of it.
[00:35:37] Liz: How to, you know how to build community with email, how to, you know, keep your email list healthy so you actually land in the inbox versus spam. Ding! Ding! Ding! You really want that one. You know, sales emails, templates you know.
[00:35:51] Serena: Flash scale templates.
[00:35:53] Liz: Yes, flash sale templates. How to list build if that's a problem of yours. Lots of different other products. I also for pass holders do like launch debrief, so you can see behind the scenes of my business. And I'm trying to think I'm doing a summit this year, so you'll get that for free. You will not have to pay anything to attend or to get the recordings. I'm looking over here. You're gonna hear a big, giant piece of paper right now. Sorry. Oh, black Friday training. You're gonna get a black Friday training and black Friday emails. Things like that.
[00:36:24] And this is directed towards not only just, you know, B to B to B, to B, you know, that type of like online space. I have all sorts of people. Serena already said, you know, there are other bookkeepers in there, so I try to make it so not only does work for people with digital products, but it definitely works for service providers too. And bookkeepers. I always keep my bookkeepers in mind cuz I know I've got lots of them. awesome. Well, that's, that's my spiel. $108. Get on the wait list. It's gonna be fun!
[00:36:54] Serena: Yeah. And I wanna add, Even though you have a bunch of bookkeepers in there, like you are not approaching it from, and maybe this is a good or bad thing, but like, we have a lot, there's a lot of like marketing agencies and things out there that are specifically helping bookkeepers, but they're all kind of like doing things the same old boring way. You're not gonna get that from Liz. Like you're, you're gonna really learn how to show your own personality and stand out from other bookkeepers so that you are attracting the right clients and all that kind of stuff. So if you're worried about your stuff sounding and looking like everybody else's, it won't even if you're all using the same template, it will not sound and look like everybody else's like maybe those other marketing agencies would, if they're writing the same stuff for you and all their other clients.
[00:37:46] Liz: Oh, wow. That's so nice. Yeah. Thank you. I work really hard to give you examples. So along with the template, you'll also get two kind of A+ examples that are written in different ways. So sometimes I'll say this is for someone that is very familiar with their list and you know, other times it's, this is for someone who is like terrified of sending emails, or this is for a service provider, this is for an eCommerce brand.
[00:38:10] And even just like Serena said, like being around that and seeing those examples really helps you get a grip on why you would send an email like this what the marketing behind it, the strategy behind it, things like that. And I also do a video walkthrough with every single template. It's usually about three to five minutes a lot shorter than this podcast. So if you've listened this long, you're gonna love them. Yeah. And it really gives the why behind the email, so you can really actually-- you know, I don't want you to just blind-less-ly or blindly is the correct word.
[00:38:43] Serena: Blindly and mindlessly.
[00:38:45] Liz: Yeah. Amen there! Oh, dang. Serena is my hype, man. I need her more in my life. You know, blindly just send out what I tell you, you know, I want you to always be using discernment and, you know, thinking like, does this feel good for me? And so the video walkthrough and the other examples really give you a much bigger picture of the email. So especially after a year in the membership, you're really gonna understand email marketing and all that we talked about today, that personality, vision, and values. You're really gonna firm that up.
[00:39:19] And plus it's super fun. I know most people are like, oh, it's boring or it's too hard, Liz. So I was like, well, how can I make this fun for people? Because I know it's gonna make them money. But I've gotta convince them that it's fun first because most people think it's not. So it's really quite a fun time. I mean, our Facebook group is called the Sound Booth. So you can imagine how much fun we're having in there.
[00:39:42] Serena: Yeah. Awesome. Maybe we should brainstorm ways to make people think that bookkeeping is fun if you're able to make email marketing fun.
[00:39:53] Liz: yeah. So, so as bookkeepers we understand like, yeah. Trying to convince people like, oh, this is the thing you need. You know, when there's so many other, you know, fun and sexier things, like that's kind of what I've done with the email. So I'll get back to you on making bookkeeping sexy. Maybe we'll call Justin Timberlake. He's been known to bring sexy back.
[00:40:15] Serena: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Liz, for coming on here again. And just one last time, or I don't know if you even said it, but where can people connect with you online? Where is the best place?
[00:40:24] Liz: Oh yeah. I was so excited about the membership. Yeah. So if you're like, oh, I don't know about the membership or I. Seen more of, you know, your style, Liz, you can just go directly to Liz wilcox.com in the top right hand corner. You're gonna see a hot pink button. It says free email swipes. It's gonna give you an entire welcome sequence written for you for free. And actually it gives you three newsletter examples. I just updated this the day of this recording that are actually taken directly from the membership. So you can see that style completely for free. And technically you get three templates completely for free. And then if that's not enough, you also get 52 subject lines. Again, that's at lizwilcox.com the top right hand corner button.
[00:41:08] Serena: Awesome. Thank you so much. Well I can't wait to have you on again next year.
[00:41:15] Liz: Awesome. We'll make it an anniversary present. Yeah. I'm I'm Serena's anniversary present. Awesome. I've dubbed myself.
[00:41:23] Serena: Well, thank you again, and we'll talk to you soon.
[00:41:26]