IAM1113- Content Creator Collaborates with Business Owners

Laura Gariepy is the owner of Every Day by the Lake, LLC, a freelance written content creation company that helps busy business owners stay top of mind with their target audience. She is also a business coach to new and aspiring freelancers and runs an online resource hub for them called Before You Go Freelance. In addition, she helps other writers get clear on their message, plan their content, and produce compelling written works.

• CEO Hack: Sticky notes and notebooks
• CEO Nugget: Remember why you got into business
• CEO Defined: Taking control and making decisions that support your goals

Website: https://www.beforeyougofreelance.com/

Content writing business website: https://www.everydaybythelake.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauragariepy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydayLake

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Transcription

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00:27 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:56 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Laura Garrape of Every Day by the Lake LLC. Laura, it's great to have you on the show.

01:05 – Laura Gariepy

It's great to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me.

01:08 – Gresham Harkless

Definitely super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Laura so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Laura is the owner of Everyday by the Lake LLC, a freelance writing content creation company that helps busy business owners stay top of mind with their target audience. She is also a business coach to new and aspiring freelancers and runs an online resource hub for them called Before You Go Freelance. In addition, she helps other writers get clear on their message, plan their content, and produce compelling written works.

I love first that she has so many, she helps out so many great business owners who struggle with their ability to communicate. But even more, As she says, she helps out in sharing all the keys to her success and all the awesome things that she's been able to do because I think so many times people hold things close to the vest. So Laura, truly appreciate you for doing that. I appreciate you for having me on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:01 – Laura Gariepy

I definitely am.

02:02 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

02:10 – Laura Gariepy

Sure, so I had a kind of traditional career path for a while. Graduated with my MBA, and was in human resources for about a decade. The career was good to me, but after a death in the family, I realized the 9-to-5 life wasn't working out. I needed more flexibility to attend to what was really important to me. So I tendered my resignation in early 2018. It took a little while to figure out what I was going to do, and what direction.

I was going to take my business in, but ultimately I kind of fell into freelance writing And once I really got going with that, it snowballed pretty quickly. From there I decided that I could take my natural teaching tendencies as well as my experience freelancing and writing and extend that into a coaching service for others.

03:00 – Gresham Harkless

Nice, I definitely appreciate that. Sorry, of course, to hear about the death in the family, but so many times things in our lives will kind of propel us and even kind of, I think, sometimes focus us on what's really important and how we can kind of lean into that. It seems like you definitely have had that experience.

03:17 – Laura Gariepy

Absolutely. And I feel like out of every tragedy can come a rebirth, essentially. And that's what's happened to me.

03:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love the way that you said that. So you get that opportunity to kind of rebirth and look at things in our lives and ourselves and then completely different lights. So I love that you've been able to do that. And I know I touched a little bit upon like how you work with your clients and how you serve them. Could you drill down a little bit more and tell us a little bit more about that and what that looks like?

03:44 – Laura Gariepy

Sure. So for the writing side, basically, I collaborate with my clients and each relationship looks different. So they may say, here's a list of topics, go right on it. They may want to go back and forth and try to brainstorm together or they may rely completely on me, say, okay, you're the expert, you figure out what to write. And so it really spans the gamut, which is interesting, because I have a variety of different kinds of working relationships, which helps me grow and learn new skills and stay sharp.

And on the coaching side, it's completely tailored to each individual client. So no 2 coaching programs look alike. And again, I really love that variety. That's 1 of the best things about self-employment is that no 2 days look alike and you're always learning, growing, and meeting new people. It's really tough to stay stagnant when you're running your own show.

04:37 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. As you said, sometimes that's the thing that draws people to entrepreneurship or starting their new thing or being a freelancer because you don't have that stagnation and doing the same thing over and over again. A lot of times you're learning different things, you're experiencing and talking with different people. So sometimes that's what attracts a lot of people to it.

04:57 – Laura Gariepy

Yeah, 100%.

04:58 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. And I love that you are able to, cause I don't know if you find this when you speak with clients that a lot of times we struggle with being able, sometimes we're really great at what we do, but we can't necessarily communicate that or don't know how to communicate that. So to be that bridge sounds like it's something that you're able to execute well.

05:16 – Laura Gariepy

Yeah, and it's really rewarding too, because not everyone is good at everything. I certainly farm out different aspects of my business that aren't my forte or maybe don't give me a great return on investment of my time. And so to be able to be that point person for someone else in the field of communications and writing is just awesome to me.

05:37 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And then on the other side of the house, so to speak, you being able to kind of provide so many coaching services. And I think it extends, if correct me if I'm wrong, to your podcast and so many different resources that you provide that help out people as well.

05:51 – Laura Gariepy

Yeah, so in 2020, I kicked off a brand new website called Before You Go Freelance, and it's all free resources for new and aspiring freelancers. I won't lie, it is a bit of a funnel technique to try and get folks to ultimately engage my coaching services or purchase digital products, but I definitely love to give away lots of information for free because I know that I wouldn't be where I am unless I had the mentorship and guidance of others. And I received many, many pointers from folks without having to pay for it. So I'm just trying to pay it forward in a sense.

06:25 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely love that. And I think too, so many times when you have those experiences and things that you go through, we often find that we have, and we'll get the same question over and over again. So I love that you've been able to kind of have that in blog posts, podcast content so that people can kind of get the answer to some of those questions, and then if they need, they can have more services.

06:46 – Laura Gariepy

Exactly, I feel like when you put free content out there, it's kind of generic and standard. Here are the basics, but because I don't know you personally, I can't guide you on how to apply it to your situation. And that's where the coaching comes into play.

07:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes it's great to know the plays and how to execute the plays, but you don't really know how to tailor it until you get that coaching and that opportunity to kind of learn how to take it to the next level.

07:14 – Laura Gariepy

Exactly.

07:15 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. So would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? It could be for your business or yourself or a combination of both. But what's the thing you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

07:26 – Laura Gariepy

Really just how I go about collaboration. I really want to partner with my clients, whether that's on the writing side or the coaching side. And then leaning more towards the coaching side, I think what makes my approach unique is that I don't just sever the relationship once the coaching package is over. That person has, you know, become almost a friend to me.

In fact, some of them are actually true friends that, you know, where the relationship has continued to deepen over time. You know, I want to know how they're doing, and if I can provide additional support along the way. So it's not like I have your money, here's your stuff and see you. So I really want folks to feel like they're supported and that they have a friend and a resource in me on an ongoing basis.

08:12 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:23 – Laura Gariepy

So I'm going to kick it old school, I guess. You know, I do have some apps that I use to manage my business and my life, but I am basically obsessed with sticky notes and notebooks. I do a lot of things analog, I write a lot of things down, I have master to-do lists for the month that I work off of, and then you know behind that page in the notebook are all the notes that I have to take for each assignment, for each client interaction, so that everything behind that monthly checklist is supported by my actions, like kind of behind it in my notebook, and to kind of keep me on track during the day.

I have the main things I have to accomplish on a sticky note. I included our podcast meeting on today's sticky note because it's a main highlight and all the other things that I have to get to today. And then when it's done, I take great satisfaction and ripping it up, throwing it in the garbage, and creating a new 1 for the following day. So that is that is my hack. I feel like writing things down, helps cement them in my brain. And it's just really gratifying to check things off of a list.

09:32 – Gresham Harkless

It's so well, I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or potentially if you were to happen to a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

09:46 – Laura Gariepy

So I would tell any entrepreneur to remember why they got into business to begin with. It's really easy to lose sight of that, especially as you gain momentum and more and more people are demanding your products and services. And so it can be really easy to put the blinders on and just go all out into focusing on that to the detriment potentially of other important areas of your life. I know I'm guilty of it. I've had to be told on occasion that you're chasing the money too much and you're in this for the freedom.

So why are you making choices that don't support that? And so I think just to be aware of why you started your company to begin with is important. It's your compass. It helps you make decisions every day to rule things in or rule things out. And if it doesn't support your overall goal, or your overall why for being an entrepreneur, then it shouldn't be on your to-do list.

10:45 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Laura, truly appreciate that. And I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping that different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Laura, what does being a CEO mean to you?

11:00 – Laura Gariepy

I was really thinking about this because I was reviewing the questions ahead of our conversation. And to me, being a CEO is taking control. It is fully realizing the autonomy that you have over your life. And it's making decisions that support your goals, even if those choices might be unpopular. So, being a CEO of a company of your own destiny is not always an easy thing to be. But honestly, we all are CEOs of ourselves, of our own lives to some degree or another.

11:48 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I absolutely appreciate that definition. And I think it breaks down sometimes what we don't realize, amongst our lives is just the amount of decisions that we make and those decisions go down to like, should I go right or left? But also in our perspective and our mindset and how we're looking at those things that sometimes will happen.

And if we're looking from, you know, this is happening for me versus this is happening to me, those are decisions that we ultimately make. But having that control and taking that control over that And the totality of that is something that sometimes we don't realize and sometimes wanna say that we actually have that control over.

12:25 – Laura Gariepy

I think you make a great point. We obviously can't always control circumstances. We just talked about our plans for our businesses being a plate of spaghetti. Well, it doesn't get all tangled because we decided it was going to be. It just happened. But we do have the capacity to choose how we're going to respond to those instances.

And I think, you know, attitude is everything, you know when it comes to especially things being derailed or delays or, you know, having to pivot. If you can try to see the upside or a lesson learned, even from, you know, your darkest hour, you're going to have a leg up on the folks that get mired in the disappointment.

13:14 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, Absolutely. And I know even the most astute planners probably didn't plan for a pandemic. So sometimes things happen and you have to realize how are you going to adjust and change and pivot as a result of that.

13:25 – Laura Gariepy

Yes, absolutely.

13:27 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Laura truly appreciates that definition. And I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get a hold of you, listen to your podcasts and hear about all the awesome things that you're working on.

13:45 – Laura Gariepy

Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to kind of toot my own horn. You know, I would honor and welcome a conversation with any of your listeners so I can be reached directly via email at laura at everydaybythelake.com. If you're interested in any kind of content writing services, my website for that is everydaybythelake.com. And if you're considering becoming a freelancer, I would absolutely love to support you on that journey as well. You can check it out before you go to freelance.com there are lots of free resources there and definitely willing to have a conversation with you if you would like some extra help and guidance on that journey.

14:26 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. Well, Laura, we will definitely have the links and information below in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. But truly, appreciate you for bringing everybody's words and what they hope to say to light for those businesses. But as well, as I said, in the beginning, like keeping that information, that knowledge, not close to the vest, but actually sharing that is absolutely huge.

So I appreciate you for helping so many freelancers who maybe don't know the way that they should go or just want to have that community feel and opportunity for people to do that. So thank you so much again for sharing today. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

15:03 –  Outro