Amplify Your Authority

If you’re tired of generic, robotic AI content, keep reading and discover how to turn ChatGPT into your content-creation partner using a simple strategy that makes your content more aligned, human, and efficient.

 

A few years ago, I bought an Instant Pot during a Black Friday sale. Everyone was raving about it, but when I opened the box, I was overwhelmed—so many buttons, pressure valves, and a manual that made me question my intelligence.

I was so intimidated that I moved it across two states before I ever used it. But once I finally gave it a try, I realized how simple and powerful it really was. That one small shift changed everything—and now I use it all the time.

Using ChatGPT is a lot like that. If you’ve ever felt intimidated or frustrated with AI because the results were off-brand or robotic, I get it. But with the right method, you can turn ChatGPT into your content-creation partner—and love what it produces.

 

In this week’s Amplify Your Authority podcast, I’ll share a powerful, user-friendly approach that flips the script on prompt engineering.

Instead of obsessing over the perfect prompt, I’ll walk you through how to provide the context AI truly needs. When you do, ChatGPT becomes more than just a tool—it becomes your content creation partner, helping you write faster and more effectively.

Using my C.O.N.T.E.X.T. Method, you’ll turn ChatGPT into a reliable writing partner that understands your voice, your brand, and your goals.

 What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

• Why prompts alone often lead to weak or off-brand AI results
• A formula for turning AI into a content partner that reflects your voice, brand, and intent
• The full breakdown of the C.O.N.T.E.X.T. Method
• How to drastically cut content editing time—and love what AI gives you the first time
• How to eliminate hallucinations and endless edits

 

Key Takeaways:

• The Importance of Context: Discover why context is more critical than the prompt itself when using AI like ChatGPT for content creation. Learn how setting the stage with the right information can lead to more accurate and effective AI outputs.
• AI as a Creative Partner: Explore how treating AI as an intern or partner can enhance your creative process. By giving AI a clear role and detailed instructions, you can produce content that aligns seamlessly with your vision.
• Avoiding the “Hallucination” Trap: Understand how providing context prevents AI from making erroneous assumptions, leading to content that truly reflects your intentions and reduces the need for extensive edits.

 

Quotes to Remember:

• “AI is only as smart as the context it’s given.”
• “When you give AI your brain, your brand, your voice—it gives you content that feels like you.”
• “The prompt is the ask. But context? That’s the conversation.”
• “Context turns AI into an intern or a partner in the creative process.”

 

Your Next Step:

Subscribe and listen to the “Amplify Your Authority” Podcast! Click Here!

Rate & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Tip: Use the following prompts inside ChatGPT (free or paid) to craft your review! 

• How did you discover this podcast?
• What’s your biggest takeaway from this episode?
• How has this podcast helped your current journey?

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to write a review! 

 Follow Marisa on Social Media:

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Watch on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:00]:Most people that wanna create content using AI are looking for prompts. They’re trying to figure out what the best prompt is to use with ChatGPT so they can get their writing done faster. But here’s what I’ve discovered drives better results. It’s not the prompt, it’s what precedes the prompt, and that is the context. So in this episode, we’re gonna flip the script, and we’re gonna talk a little bit about context. And you’re gonna discover a more human friendly, story based approach to working with AI to create your content. Stay tuned. Hello, and welcome to this episode.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:43]:Today, we’re gonna talk about how to generate content using AI and what the best approach is so that your output is much better than what you’ve been getting, which means less edits and you’ll be able to be more efficient with your time. But first, let me ask you something. Have you ever overcomplicated something that was actually very simple once you understood how it worked? I think maybe we all have. I know a few years back, I bought an Instant Pot. I call it Instant Pot, but it’s an Instant Pot during a Black Friday sale. Now, apparently, everyone was using them, so I thought that I should probably be that person that cooks more efficiently, and so I got one. It came in this big box, and it was packaged well. And you could see on the front, it had a picture.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:33]:It had lots of buttons. And it when I opened it up, it had warnings about pressure valves that I didn’t understand, an instruction manual that made you question your intelligence. Well, I looked at it, and although I wanted to use it here’s my confession. I was afraid to use it because I thought the pressure cooker was gonna blow up in my face. I thought it was going to explode or something, and so I I didn’t use it. I moved that thing twice to two different states and never used it. Fast forward three years, once I moved to Tennessee, I decided since I brought it to this state, I was gonna go ahead and use it. So I plugged it in.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:13]:I hit pressure cook. I set the time, and guess what? It worked. It was easy. It was simple. No explosion. Just quick and easy juicy chicken in minutes. And the kicker was the chicken was frozen when I put it in. It was a game changer, and I use it all the time now.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:31]:Kind of the same way for people that are looking at ChatGPT. They overcomplicate and think this is just gonna be too scary. The output’s gonna be horrible, and they overthink it when really it can be very, very simple. So let me go over a few little teaching points. The first one is why prompting alone isn’t enough. Prompting is only part of the equation. What precedes the prompt is context. Let me give you an example.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:58]:When I ask my husband to do me a favor and, let’s say, grab something from the store, and I give him instructions as far as what it is that I need, and then I leave out the tiny details, right, about what I need. He goes to the store. He sees all kinds of choices and options, and then when he comes back, he’ll bring the wrong thing. And, of course, his response to me is, Marissa, I can’t read your mind, which is so true. If I could be more detailed or snap a picture of something that I need, it would make it much easier. Well, it’s the same thing with chat GBT. It can’t read your mind. We have to give it very explicit instructions, context, so that it understands what we’re trying to do because it has no clue.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:43]:AI is only as smart as the context is given. The prompt is the ask. It’s the command. It’s what you’re wanting it to do, but it can’t do something without the context. Context is the conversation or the scenario of the situation. Here’s point number two. Have you ever been taken out of context? You can see the importance of context. I laugh because I’ve done this.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:09]:If somebody only hears part of a conversation or if they misread a text message and they take something out of context, it can be disastrous. And you don’t even realize it was taken out of context until you’re not invited to the family barbecue. Then you realize somebody misinterpreted something because of context. So you can see why context is so important. And that’s what happens when you give ChatGPT a prompt without context or explaining the scenario. You give it too much room to fill in the blanks, and that’s when it begins to hallucinate. Hallucinate simply means it fills in the blank with whatever it can find. It’s not really aligned with your brand or with who you are or what you do.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:53]:It’s just trying to fill in the blanks, because it’s trying to please you. And sometimes it’s hilarious, sometimes it’s just wrong, and other times it leaves a big old editing mess for you to clean up. And it’s not because AI is ineffective, but we left it to guess, and we don’t want to do that. So here’s what I want you to walk away with. I want to introduce a simple method. It’s an acronym called context, and with each letter, I’m going to give you a method to be able to make sure that you give it the context it needs. So, obviously, this word has seven letters, and so there’s seven parts to this method. But once you remember it, you’ll just think, oh, context.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:37]:Do I have all these pieces in here when I’m giving it the scenario before I give it the prompt or the actual do this for me? So here we go. The first one is the c in context, and that is clarity on AI’s role. What do you want AI to be? You don’t want it to act like something. You want it to be someone. So you tell it, what do I want ChatGPT to be? Do I want it to be a strategist? Do I want it to be a writer? Do I want it to be an analyst? Do I want it to be an editor? What is the role? So that is the c, clarity on AI’s role. The o in context is objective of the content. What is the goal? So when I think of objective of the content, what is the objective? What is the premise? What is the purpose of this piece of content? Is it to educate? Is it to inspire? Is it to convert? Is it to entertain? So you want to give it a clear objective so it says, okay. I understand what we’re trying to achieve with this piece of content.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:44]:The n in context is niche or audience. We want to make sure we tell it, give it the context or the scenario of who this is for. Is it for a certain level? For example, a beginner, intermediate, advanced level. Is it addressing certain pain points or certain interests? So explain as much about the audience. And if you have an audience profile already created, you can simply upload that document to ChatGPT so it understands the audience, and it will help you with the output so it aligns well for that audience. The t in context is topic and point of view. So what is the subject? What is the topic? And what is your point of view? What is the take or your belief on this? And that’s what you wanna provide for it. And notice, we’re not asking it to do anything yet.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:39]:We’re just giving it context. The e is for expertise, brand, and research. Now here’s where we can be a little bit more tactical if we want to, if we’re writing something that’s how to, and we can explain and go deeper with the tactical portion of your point of view, or you can give it a little bit more of the business knowledge or maybe a case study. Or even if you need more research done, here is where you can ask it to research this topic and to cite the website where it got the information so you can review it yourself and see if you wanna use that and reference that website for that research that was done. The x in context is expression. Expression of style and format. You want to be able to upload samples of your voice, your tone, the way that you communicate, the language that you use, the formatting that you use, how do you format things, whatever the output is, whether it’s a blog post or a social post. What’s the format? And give it examples so it will understand the format.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:47]:So the expression of style is what really begins to shape this into something that sounds like you. The last one, the t in context, is terms and constraints. So are there certain terms you don’t want it to use? Is there jargon words that you wanna eliminate? Are there certain AI giveaways that you wanna make sure it doesn’t include, like unleash or unpack? Are there constraints? Is there something that you do not want it to do? Like, for example, do not use emojis, because it can go emoji crazy if you let it. So there could be some constraints. It’s the do’s and the don’ts, the rules that it needs to follow. And perhaps it could be a word count not to exceed a certain word count. So all of those things creates the boundaries for it, so the output is better. Context turns AI into an intern or a partner in the creative process.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:46]:So let me go over the context method very quickly. The c stands for clarity on AI’s role, the o, objective of the content, the n, the niche or audience, the t for the topic and point of view, the e, the expertise, brand, the research, the x is eXpression, style, and format, and the t is the terms, conditions, or you can consider the rules, the do’s and the don’ts. If you give it a little bit of this context method, your output is gonna be much, much better. Then when you do say, now I want you to and you ask it to produce something, it will have all the information that it needs to be able to produce better output. Once again, think of the prompt as the ask, but that is the second step. The first step is the context, which is the instruction or the scenario of the situation. So it understands and it continues to learn what it is that you want. Context helps ChatGPT, or any AI for that matter, make sense of the request or what you’re asking it to do.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:01]:Otherwise, it doesn’t know, and it will try to pull from anywhere just to make you happy. When you give AI your brain, your brand, your voice, it gives you back content that feels like it came from you. That’s the power of context. I hope you found this episode helpful, and it will give you a little bit more confidence when using an AI tool to generate content. And if you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would leave a five star rating and a review so I can get this out to more people. Until next time, take care. Bye bye.

How to Turn Skeptics into Loyal Clients in a Trust Deficit Era

Feeling like your marketing’s not hitting the mark anymore? You’re not alone.

The trust deficit in today’s market is real—audiences are skeptical thanks to automation overload, pushy sales tactics, and too many broken promises.

But don’t worry—there’s a way to pivot.

In this Amplify Your Authority episode, I share five practical strategies to overcome the trust deficit, build real connections, and turn skeptics into fans—all without those outdated, high-pressure moves. Let’s make trust your secret weapon.

 

Why This Matters Now

The trust deficit is why traditional marketing’s losing its edge—I’ve felt it, and I bet you have, as well.

But here’s the upside: it’s your chance to shine.

By tackling the trust deficit head-on with genuine value and connection, you’ll stand out and build a business people can’t help but trust.

 

What You’ll Get Out of This Episode

• Why traditional marketing has become less efficient (even when you’re doing it “right”)?
• How to offer stellar customer service before someone’s a client—and why it matters.
• What a “long runway” looks like and how it nurtures leads without feeling salesy.
• Learn to use free value to build bridges with your audience.
• Discover steps to rise above the noise and win over your ideal clients.

 

Big Takeaways to Jot Down

• Transparency builds trust: Share your privacy policies—people need to feel safe.
• Play the long game: More touchpoints mean deeper connections over time.
• Show, don’t just tell: Stories and visuals are an added courtesy that builds trust.
• Great customer service starts before the sale.
• Honesty wins: Overpromising creates short-term wins but long-term distrust.

 

Episode Quotes 

• “The biggest marketing problem today isn’t competition—it’s a trust deficit.”
• “Take ‘random’ out of random acts of kindness.”

 

Your Next Step:

Subscribe and listen to the “Amplify Your Authority” Podcast! Click Here!

Rate & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Tip: Use the following prompts inside ChatGPT (free or paid) to craft your review! 

• How did you discover this podcast?
• What’s your biggest takeaway from this episode?
• How has this podcast helped your current journey?

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to write a review! 

 Follow Marisa on Social Media:

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Watch on YouTube

 

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:00]:The biggest marketing problem today isn’t competition. It’s a trust deficit. So if you’re a solo business owner, how do you stand out in an era of skepticism? What brought this on? In this podcast episode, I’m going to give you a little background and also five trust building strategies that you can implement right away. Stay tuned. Hello. Hello. And welcome to another episode of Amplify Your Authority podcast. Before we get started, could I ask for a wee bit of a favor? If you’re a listener and you enjoy the podcast, would you mind going to Apple podcasts and giving me a five star rating and a review? I would really appreciate it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:44]:I was looking at my, Apple Podcasts and I realized I don’t have hardly any reviews. I think I’ve had one review per year, which is horrible. It’s terrible. So I know there’s gotta be somebody listening out there because I see the the numbers. So if you wouldn’t mind, I would really appreciate it to kinda bump up this podcast to just leave a little review, and you can always use ChatGPT to try to formulate your ideas, but I’d appreciate it so much. And I’d love to give you a shout out on the podcast as well. So today, we’re talking about traditional marketing. So traditional marketing methods are losing their effectiveness.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:19]:I don’t know if you’ve noticed that or not. If you’ve been online, you probably have. Things are different. The market has changed, and it’s been changing since COVID, and it’s continued to change. And that was in 2020, and we’re in 2025. So we’re seeing this happen online, and it’s making it harder for people to convert and get clients. So if this is happening to you, it’s not you. It’s everyone is being affected by this.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:45]:So why are audiences so skeptical? Well, I think we’ve seen it ourselves. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. There’s a lot of automation overload now that we have tools and third party tools. There’s constantly pushing out marketing pitches and messages, and it’s very, very aggressive. So this aggressive sales tactics has also made people feel a little skeptical as well. And the delivery of content has not met expectations. And so people are a little skeptical now, and they’re a little bit more reserved when it comes to even giving their email address. And that’s probably happened to you as well.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:25]:But when we’re solo business owners and we’re trying to navigate this marketing world, how are we we going to do this? And this is something I’ve had a look at too, how to shift my marketing to see what I can do differently because I’ve noticed it too. And things that used to be much easier five years ago is definitely not as easy and not as effective. We’ve seen that with webinars, and we’ve seen that with other types of content that’s out there. So people are pivoting. People are testing. They’re trying to see what works and what doesn’t. So here today, I’m going to give you some tried and true tips on how to continue to build trust because that is going to be your main asset. Because of this deficit, when you show people that you can be trustworthy, that you are honest about the content you create and the words that you speak, it’s gonna go a long way.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:14]:Much further than maybe before, when people didn’t think they had to do all of that. So let’s go into the five tips. So we want to be very transparent. Now I know that is an overused word. People always say transparent, transparent, transparent. What does that mean? But you wanna be transparent in the way you prioritize data privacy. First of all, make sure that any of your pages that ask for an email, that it has your privacy policy, it has your terms and conditions. And nowadays, people are even adding how they use AI.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:49]:So that’s a first and foremost. We need to do that. We have to do that. A lot of times people will buy emails and they’ll blast emails to people to see what will stick. That’s not a common practice among solo business owner. We create valuable content, and in exchange for that content, if they wanna download, watch, listen, consume it, they will give us an email. So everyone in your email service provider has raised their hand saying, yes. I wanna hear more from you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:18]:So we need to reassure people their information is private, that we will not sell their email, and that they can trust us with that. And being transparent, that’s just part of it, explaining the ins and outs behind the scenes of your business. Maybe your mission statement is part of being transparent, what your goals are, maybe what your five year goals are. Maybe that’s part of being transparent. Just depends on your business and what you wanna put on your website that would mean value to your audience. So they think, oh, wow. I’ve not seen this before and this person is being really transparent about what they’re doing and where they’re headed. So you wanna make sure that you offer a clear opt in and not a lot of false promises and also an opt out.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:07]:So when you send an email, there needs to be a place for them to opt out. Oftentimes people kind of work around this where they create multiple lists and people will opt out of one list, but they’re still on another list. You wanna be clear. If they wanna opt out, you can give them an option. Opt out of this campaign or this promotion, but stay on the main list or opt out of all lists. And so you can modify that if you want to. If you want them to self select what they receive, you can do that too. Takes a little bit of time, but it gives them the opportunity and empowers them to be able to say, this is what I wanna receive from you and this is not what I wanna receive from you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:47]:So don’t do those gimmicks where they unsubscribe from one list and then you’re blasting them through another list. Just make sure you give them options and it’s very, very clear. You should have one main list. And if you segment, then they can be removed from that one segment if they choose. The second way that we can improve trust is to create what I call a long runway. Now, when you think of a runway for an airplane, I think of the San Francisco Airport. And when we used to live on the West Coast in Nevada and also in California, we would have to often fly out of San Francisco. Well, that runway, the airplane, it would take off and in a few seconds you’re in vertical mode because there wasn’t a long runway and it always made me a little nervous because I knew it was down below, the nice big blue ocean.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:39]:And so you would take off and it would go practically vertical because there wasn’t much of a runway. The same thing coming back. As soon as it landed, it had to put on those brakes because that runway was very short. So when we’re looking at it for marketing, a long runway means simply that you’re going to have a lot of touch points to build trust. You want to communicate often with someone, especially if they opt in and they’re part of your email ecosystem. You wanna create touch points, and you want to give them a chance to get to know you and trust you. That’s what I mean by a long runway. If you’re doing something online on social media, you’re not gonna DM them like some people do on LinkedIn and immediately pitch the offer.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:24]:You wanna create some relationship. Maybe if you even get on a call, it’s just simply to find out about their business, or you can have some type of free coaching call that you’re offering that if they’re interested, they can sign up for that. It’s not a sales call. You can serve people. And so that’s what I mean by a long runway. What can you do to create multiple touch points? Not just one or two and then bam, you know, try to sell them something, but how many touch points will it take? Where are they in the customer journey? Again, if they’re not aware of the problem, it’s gonna take a lot of touch points. If they are and they’re pretty close to buying, it still requires some touch points because they don’t know you. Right? They may need the solution that you have, but they don’t know you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:14]:And so this is where we share a lot of testimonials and case studies to build that trust. Of course, once they’re in your email service provider, you can email them. But if they’re not, you can create video messages. There’s ways you can use your phone on certain social media platforms. You can leave a voice message. You can put out content like podcasts and newsletters. It’s very value driven. There’s different ways to stay visible and create those multiple touch points.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:41]:You can also offer a high value resource that when they access it, they think, wow, this is amazing. Now maybe it’s a a little training, a mini training. You could look in your archives and see, did you have a webinar that you did at some point that had a lot of great teaching? Could you take a slice of that and create maybe a little video around that topic? Most webinars have, three misconceptions or three best practices. Maybe pull one of them and create maybe a seven minute, ten minute video that has some content to it, maybe a template with it. Just something very simple that they can consume that when they watch it and they download the resource that goes with it, they go, wow. This was really valuable for a free resource, and it actually taught them something that they needed. And so you can look at some of your archives and see, webinars aren’t converting as well either as great as they are. I’m not saying that this is the case all the time, but it’s much harder than it used to be.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:40]:Webinars are still effective. I love webinars or master classes, whatever you wanna call it. It’s still the same thing. It’s a webinar. And, you can create trainings, workshops, and those are effective too. And I think it’s a great way to get to know your audience. But just know it’s just a little harder. You want that nice long runway and to be able to bring people into that live training if it’s going to be live.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:03]:And the best result would be if they come from your email list. So that’s why we wanna always be able to offer some kind of free resource to bring them there if we do want to have a webinar. But you can create some little mini training that has a lot of value. It’s just it packs a punch with value. It’s very quick to consume, almost like a video that you would see on YouTube, and you can put that in any part of your marketing funnel. So that’s the long runway. So so far, we’ve talked about being transparent, making sure that you’re very clear about privacy. The second is you create a long runway.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:40]:The third is content marketing, where you show more than tell, where you show more than tell. Now with content marketing, storytelling is huge. Right? Because that’s what case studies are in testimonials. They’re stories. But you can tell your own story of transformation too. So with content marketing, you wanna incorporate stories as much as possible. Remember the Chicken Soup for the Soul books? I remember I got published in one of those, and the whole concept was, we want the stories to make them feel like they just had a nice cup of chicken soup. That warm feeling inside.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:16]:Right? You can decide, you know, what type of content you wanna provide, whether it’s video, written, audio, but make it so that it’s helpful and they learn something, at least one, two, three takeaways from that content. Another way that’s helpful to show and not tell is to provide images, like any graphs or charts or maybe a blueprint. That’s really helpful. I just had a call not that long ago with a group and I said, you know, give them a visual like you see in a mall when you go and see the mall map, and you stand in front of that map and it shows a little circle, you are here. Maybe show them you are here, and to get the transformation that you’re looking for, you need these steps first. So maybe just start with this first step and then give them value with that first step. So there’s different ways that you can do it and sometimes these graphs or charts or blueprints are so valuable that people will take a screenshot of it so they can save it. So think of ways that you can create marketing content that shows and doesn’t just tell with stories, images, graphs, and that sort of thing.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:29]:The fourth way to build trust would be to deliver great customer service before they’re a customer. That’s just practicing good human skills and being courteous and following through. When you say you’re gonna do something, follow through. Right? If you meet someone at a conference, follow through if you make a promise or if you say you’re going to send them something. Treat that prospect like a VIP customer. So deliver great customer service before they’re a customer. So be helpful with DMs, emails, community interactions, and that goes a long, long way. It builds your reputation, and I’ll tell you, it’s going to stand out because a lot of people don’t do that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:15]:And offer guidance without expecting any immediate transaction or return. One of the sayings that I have is take random out of random acts of kindness, because we need more of that. You don’t need to be random with acts of kindness. You can do it all the time. So be sure to take random out of random acts of kindness when you’re interacting with people. So another way of giving great customer service before their customer is to provide frequently asked questions on your contact page. Because sometimes people don’t want to schedule a call if they have one little question. So think of the obvious, maybe, objections that people might have or questions around whatever it is that you have on your, free coaching call or your contact page.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:01]:What is on their mind and try to answer that? For example, some people might think, well, how much do you charge? What would you say in a frequently asked question? Or how long it takes to deliver this service? You know, those those type of questions that you can quickly answer in a frequently asked question. And, again, you wanna be clear and you want to provide it as a service to them before they’re a customer. So think of the frequently asked questions you would create on a product page. You would think of all kinds of things to make sure that they buy. You wanna do the same thing for these people that aren’t clients yet, answer some of those simple questions for them. The fifth tip for developing trust in this trust deficit era that we’re in is don’t embellish. Honesty sells more than hype. So be realistic about the products and services, what they can do and what they cannot do, who it’s for, who it’s not for.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:57]:I think that’s really important. Because, really, as I think back and I look at my own audience, a lot of them are in the beginning stages. They don’t need to invest in high ticket offers at this point. They can learn because there’s no lack of knowledge. I mean, to be totally honest, there’s no lack of knowledge. You can Google stuff. You could go on YouTube. There’s books that you can buy.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:24]:There’s things that you can study, right, without, you know, paying a lot of money for a high ticket. There’s so much to be done in the beginning, the fundamentals. Again, understanding you and what kind of business you want, right, and understanding the bandwidth that you have and the season of life, and then understanding your audience and understanding your business, what kind of business you want, having a business profile, and again, what type of products you wanna sell. All of those things take time, and so when people are in the beginning stages, I don’t think they should really think about investing in high ticket. Now, that’s my opinion, but, they can, but it doesn’t necessarily bring the results if they’re not ready. I’m talking about the 10,000 and above. I’m not talking about, you know, a thousand dollar program or a $2,000 program. I’m talking about the big bucks, 10 thousand, 20 thousand, 30 thousand.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:20]:That’s what I’m talking about. Just wanna I just wanna cover that because I think there’s been a lot of disappointment, and I think that’s why there’s such a trust deficit. And I’ve fallen into that too, and I’ve paid for things that I wish now I wouldn’t have, but lesson learned. Right? I still learn, but I I learned other things other than what I thought I was gonna learn. But you have to just be careful with your resources. So be that person that is very realistic with the products and services that you sell, what it can do, what it can’t do, if it’s a right fit for that person. If they need a call with you, tell them, hey. We can get on a call to see if it’s a right fit for you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:58]:Or if it’s out of your scope, let them know, you know, this is out of my scope of work, but let me find you a referral that I can refer you to. And I will make some calls, and I’ll let you know, and then follow through on that. Use real testimonials, no fake or vague or raving fan quotes. Use real testimonials from clients. Avoid high pressure tactics that create short term wins, but long term distrust. So we wanna make sure that we avoid high pressure. I know most of my listeners are not high pressure. Most of my listeners are very faith based oriented people, so am I.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:37]:I’m probably just speaking to the choir, but I felt it was important for you to be aware of the trust deficit, so that as you’re creating your marketing content, you keep that in mind, and you make sure that you go a little over and above to create that trust with people. So consider in every step, what can I do to add trust with this person? Because I’m a total stranger to them. What could I say? What could I offer? What could I do to eliminate that skepticism they may have? We have to do a little more these days than we had to in the past, but that’s okay, because we wanna make sure that we’re bringing in the right people. We wanna make sure that they are excited and ready to work with you. Right? We don’t want them coming in to then be disappointed. We wanna serve them well. So here are the five. Be transparent and share the privacy policy, the terms and conditions, and maybe if you use a lot of AI, how you use AI.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:38]:And let them know that you don’t sell their email address. Number two, create a long runway with lots of touch points. People don’t just go from, you know, from meeting you to buying, typically. They will especially if it’s coaches or consultants or service providers. Other businesses maybe so, but not when it comes to coaches, consultants, service providers. So you wanna create that long runway, more touch points, build more trust. So sometimes it takes five, six, seven, eight times, and then they’ll say yes. So just don’t give up and don’t think it’s anything about you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:10]:It’s just we’re living in this trust deficit, and so we wanna make sure that we give people ample time to be able to get to know us. Number three is use content marketing to show, not tell. Make sure you show them with testimonials, case studies, images, graphs, blueprints, show them. Number four, deliver great customer service before they’re a customer. And number five, don’t embellish. Be honest. It’s not enough to say, oh, these results aren’t typical. You know, just be honest across the board of what you offer, what it can do and what it cannot do, who it’s for, who it’s not for, and be very upfront and offer a call if they’re not sure if it’s a good fit.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:57]:But most, like I said, most of the people listening to this podcast are pretty honest and upfront. I feel like I’m preaching to the choir, but it is what it is these days, and I just the main thing I want you to know, it’s not you. I don’t want you to begin with the self doubt or imposter syndrome or any of that. I want you to realize that it is what it is right now. Same thing that we went through when COVID hit, when the recession hit, and we have this now. There’s always something. So we need to let that that fire inside of us, what caused us to wanna start our business, to to be able to burn bright, keep fanning that flame because that’s what’s gonna get us to the other side. That’s what’s gonna help us pivot and adjust and refine by remembering why we started this business, Keep that fire burning, keep fanning that flame, keep serving people, and you’re gonna do just great.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:55]:You’re gonna stand out because you are building relationships and trust. So until next time, take care. Bye bye.

Want to book more sales calls without feeling like you’re constantly pitching?

Today, we’re tackling a question I hear all the time—should we be selling all the time, or is there a better way to convert leads into buyers without exhausting your email list?

I get it. You’re nurturing your audience, providing value, and trying not to come across as pushy. But if you’re not selling consistently, you’re likely missing out on opportunities to serve your audience at a deeper level. In this episode,

I’ll share how you can book more sales calls by refining your organic sales funnel—without feeling like you’re always in “sales mode.”

Whether it’s fine-tuning your lead magnets, repositioning strategy calls, or crafting a welcome sequence that works for you, I’ve got practical tips to make selling feel natural.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

1.  How to book more sales calls without chasing leads or burning out your list
2. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make with their email list—and how to fix it
3. The secret to turning a “strategy call” into an irresistible, value-packed session
4. How to create content that moves people from curiosity to commitment
5. Simple tweaks to your website and emails that drive consistent sales

 

Key Takeaways:

• Selling is about guiding, not pushing—when you position your offer correctly, people will raise their hands.
• Your free resources should lead to transformation or a milestone, not just information.
• Strategy calls aren’t just calls—they’re an opportunity for a mini transformation.

 

Quotes to Remember:

• “Selling isn’t about a perfect moment; it’s about having a system that moves your audience from awareness to action.”
• “People don’t just want a solution—they want transformation. Make sure your offers reflect that.”
• “Create content with intention—always lead your audience to the next step, whether it’s a download, a call, or a purchase.”

 

Your Next Step:

Subscribe and listen to the “Amplify Your Authority” Podcast! Click Here!

Rate & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Tip: Use the following prompts inside of ChatGPT (free or paid) to craft your review! 

• How did you discover this podcast?
• What’s your biggest takeaway from this episode?
• How has this podcast helped your current journey?

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to write a review! 

 Follow Marisa on Social Media:

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Watch on YouTube

Fun Clip: At the end of the video, meet my grand fur baby, Moose, who makes a special cameo in this episode. (He’s a French bulldog with quite the personality!)

 

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:00]:Today’s question is, should we be selling all the time online, or is there a better way to convert leads into buyers without exhausting your email list? That’s what we’re gonna cover today in this week’s podcast episode, so stay tuned. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s podcast episode. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick. I’m an AI marketing coach and certified copywriter. And I’m excited to talk about this topic, about sales and organic sales, and should we be doing it all the time? Are we gonna exhaust our list? How do we do this? Because what I’ve noticed is that many people will go through all the effort of growing their email list and then nurture and nurture and nurture. And once in a while, they’ll promote something. Here’s what inspired this conversation. I am currently writing my book, and so this has forced me to really double down with my systems, the things that I have already in place online, my website, my flow as far as the funnel, and really fine tuning some things so it works behind the scenes to give me time and space to work on my book.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:15]:And so as I was thinking about it and improving some of those things, I thought I would share that in a podcast. And I think it’s important to know that the answer to the question, should you be selling all the time, is yes. You may think, oh, I don’t wanna come across salesy or pushy. You won’t. You’re not gonna be doing it to everyone on your email list, and you’re not gonna be doing it all the time on social media. You’re gonna be giving value, and as people decide to opt into your free resource or your strategy call, then you’ll be able to bring them into a funnel. So we’re gonna break this down so it’s really clear for you. So selling isn’t really waiting until that perfect moment or doing it just quarterly because we don’t wanna exhaust our list.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:02]:It’s about having a clear and intentional strategy to move your audience from awareness to action. And when they’re ready to do that, it can vary, but we always have something working in the background. So we’re gonna look at a couple of different ways to do this organically, and this might help you rethink some of the systems that you have working on the back end. So let’s start with content creation, because a lot of people that are solo business owners are very busy week to week with content creation. They’re creating posts for social media. They’re creating YouTube videos. They’re creating podcasts. They’re creating, creating, creating.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:43]:And I see often that there’s less selling. Now what we need to do is to realize the reason why we’re doing a lot of this organic free content is to bring people to our email list. We’re trying to get them to take an action and see the value of what we have and take the next step. So, really, without even going into great detail, we need to have some great lead magnets. We need to have some great resources. And that can include a strategy call, but you don’t wanna call it a strategy call because that’s very vague. People don’t want solutions. They want transformation.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:22]:They want results. So, what could you provide in a strategy call that would give a slice of what you do and give them some quick wins, some results? It’s the same thing as a PDF resource. It gives them that quick win. It helps them reach a small milestone on their journey to the outcomes that they want. I’m feeling very distracted because I have a fur baby at my feet that is whimpering right now, so I’m trying to ignore him while I do this podcast. But in any event, I may show him to you if you’re watching the video. For those of you in the audio, you won’t be able to see him, but he’s a French bulldog, and he’s a pistol. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:03]:Anyway, back to this. So what we’re trying to do is, with the strategy call, have a clear outcome, and that’s going to help people when they do visit your website or you offer it on social media to realize what they’re going to get, what the transformation is, what the outcome is. And that’s gonna help get more calls booked by doing that. For example, instead of just saying, you know, contact me for a free strategy call or contact me for a discovery call. Again, we don’t know what that means. But if you say something like, if you’re ready to break through overwhelm, schedule a call with me and we’ll identify what’s draining your energy and help you regain focus. So that is a slice of what maybe you offer in one of your programs. And so you can position it that way for a free strategy call.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:57]:Or another example would be boost your productivity. Learn one time management skill that saved me hours. Book a free call so you can position it in a way that they know exactly what the outcome’s gonna be when they schedule a call with you. Another example would be LinkedIn profile audit. Schedule a free thirty-minute call to optimize your profile and increase connections. You see the difference? Rather than just say strategy call, discovery call, or book a free call, you’re taking something that you know is of interest to them, and you’re saying, hey, let’s connect. I’m gonna give you one tip to help you with this particular problem. Another idea could be validate your business idea.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:42]:Book a free call, and I’ll give you some tips on how to validate your business idea before you invest time and money. So by changing the wording, it helps you use that as a free resource or a lead magnet to get more people to book a call with you. And then you could put that on social media as well and have it definitely on your contact page. So I updated recently my contact page to include some different things on it because I need to have a lot of these things really crystal clear and working behind the scenes so that I have more margin to work on my book. So when you have this really crystal clear free offer, which in this case we’re talking about a call, scheduling a call with you, then you can put that on social media if you want. If you’d rather not do that and you think, oh gosh, if I do this and I do get people booking calls, then my whole calendar is gonna be freckled with appointments, and I’m not even sure if they’re ready to buy yet. That seems like a lot of time. I get it because sometimes we just don’t have the bandwidth.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:50]:Now, it’s always great to get on calls if you can because then you get to have a conversation with someone and you can get a lot of market research. But I understand if you’re working another job or if you’re working on something else and there is just no margin, then you wanna have some type of free resource they can download, and that makes sense. But you can still have a funnel and lead them to a sale as well. So with the free strategy call, the idea is to really kind of figure out where the gap is and to let them know that if they would like to pursue this further, that you do have some options for them. And if they are interested in finding out more, you’d be happy to go over that. But you don’t wanna be pushy. You just wanna let them know that there are options for them. And hopefully, you’ll have a variety of different offers from low end, medium, to maybe your signature offer that you can decide when you’re talking to them what would be the best fit for them.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:47]:Now, for those of you that do not want to do the strategy call and do not have the bandwidth for it, then a free resource would be a good idea. And you can have a funnel that leads to a sale as well. Now, when you have a free resource, whether it’s a PDF or maybe it’s some type of free community that you have, whatever it might be, they opt in, you have their email, and what happens is most people will start with the email nurture sequence, the welcome series, but they don’t know what to put in these. And so they often ask me, what should I put in it? Well, there’s a lot of strategies around this, but I’m gonna keep this really simple. If it’s something like they subscribe to your podcast, They have opted in to be one of the listeners to receive it in their inbox, email inbox. But in the welcome series, you can suggest another episode that you know has an offer or promotion in it. And so you can go ahead and lead them there. They’re gonna listen.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:54]:They’re gonna get value. They’re gonna be educated. They’re gonna be inspired. And there, they’ll hear how they can continue that journey through some product that you have. So you can very easily be selling them without feeling salesy or pushy. Now, if you have a free resource that you have them download and it’s something valuable that brings them to that next milestone, you have a welcome series, but it doesn’t have to just be a welcome series and then lead them to your main list to get all the other things that you have. You can take them through a journey of unpacking maybe that resource and explain why it’s important and leading them perhaps to a free training. Now this free training doesn’t have to be an automated webinar.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:42]:It could be a video that you created, maybe it’s unlisted on YouTube, and it talks about why that resource is so important and why it’s the first step. And the second step would be whatever your product is. So you can lead them in that welcome series, and you can make it three emails, five emails. It depends on their awareness of the solution and the problem that they have. If they’re oblivious and they’re just kinda testing the waters, you might want to explain a little bit more. If they’re ready and it’s some kind of resource where you know they would be ready for that next step, then maybe you only need three emails. It just depends on the industry and the market and where you think they are in that customer journey. So if you have in the welcome series a link for them to watch a video or to register to a automated webinar that’s going to teach them something, then they will hear about the offer there.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:41]:So you can always be selling without feeling salesy because, keep in mind, you’re not sending this to your entire list. You’re just bringing new people in through a funnel, helping them, giving them a little bit more value, and saying, here’s what’s next. There’s a free video or there’s a free webinar. And from there, you’re leading them to the offer. So there’s different ways of going about this, but you should think for every free resource you have, how can I lead them to the offer? Because that’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to generate leads, and organic traffic is hard enough of just creating something that people are gonna download or register to or book a call. So you wanna make sure once you have that dial in that you have an offer on the back end through a funnel. And you can always do order bumps and other things, but you wanna think that through.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:36]:That’s something that you wanna take time and spend maybe an afternoon and think through how each one of your free resources are going to lead people to a next step that equals revenue. That way, if you have order bumps or something that they can download or something they can access for $17 or $15 or $29 or $49, if you want to run ads, it’s gonna help offset the ad cost. So you always wanna be thinking, how will I continue selling with every opportunity that I have without being pushy and without exhausting my entire list. Now when you have a traditional promotion, then you can create a campaign for your entire list. And maybe those people that have just opted in, maybe you don’t include them because they’re in a funnel right now. So you wanna make sure that it makes sense in how long that funnel is before you bring them in to your main list and they start receiving the other content that you have. So that’s why segments are great and tagging people are great because you can decide who should get this promotion and who shouldn’t. So when you think of the organic funnel, you want to, yes, create content, but don’t just stop there.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:54]:Create content, but with the intention of having them register, download, book a call, and always, always share the transformation, the result. Because people don’t just want a solution, they want results, they want transformation. So always let them know what that result is going to be. So that lead magnet, yes, they go into a nurture sequence, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t tack on and offer the next step because that’s how you can help them and go deeper to give them the transformation, the results that they’re looking for. So the key to strategic email marketing is just remembering the journey and the state of awareness. You know, how aware are they? Do I have to unpack this and explain this from the beginning? Do I need to clarify? Do I need to give examples? Do I need to teach more before that offer? You have to figure out where they are. And using automated webinars or videos is a great way to sell because it’s educational, people like videos, you can keep it short. If you don’t wanna do a full blown out webinar, you don’t have to.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:03]:You can just create a short, maybe ten-minute video or seven-minute video that explains something and leads them to that next step. So you don’t have to create an automated webinar. I just like them because they opt in, and so I can use that outside of the email sequence. I can use it as a standalone lead magnet and offer in other places. So using those videos can be very helpful, especially if it’s a low-end offer, and then creating that pathway that naturally leads them to the next funnel, whatever that might be. That way, these things are working behind the scenes while you’re creating new opportunities or speaking or those other things that are gonna move your business forward. Because looking for opportunities to speak, prospecting, targeted leads, all those things take time. And so if you’ve got a variety of ways to be able to bring people into your ecosystem, all the better.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:01]:So a final thought here is you don’t wanna keep your audience waiting and just get them on your email list and just send them newsletters and information without ever selling them anything. You wanna create those opportunities to truly help them. And you can periodically also send small promotions with your newsletter that’s not a full blown promotional campaign, but you can drop maybe something that you’re promoting at the end of a newsletter, and you can mention that this is still available, there’s still slots available, or the doors are still open, whatever it might be so that they know. So use all your resources to be able to make sure that you’re leveraging them and bringing people in, putting them in a funnel, making sure that they’re taking those sequential steps toward low offers, mid-range offers, and maybe your signature offer. So leverage those things and use the free resource and strategy calls to be able to get more leads and sales. So I hope that was helpful for you, and until next time, take care. Bye bye. Here’s the fur baby that looks small but weighs a ton.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:15]:Meet Moose. I know. A face only a mother would love. Anyway, Moose, you gotta, like, chill.

Discover the top 9 irresistible offers with AI copy prompts that can help you create urgency, scarcity, and ethical persuasion to boost conversions.

An offer is more than just a price tag—it’s the invitation to take action in your promotional content. How you position that ask shapes the buyer’s decision and directly impacts your conversions. The way you frame, package, and present an offer can be the difference between a quick yes and a lost opportunity.

In this episode, we’re diving into nine powerful offer types that copywriters use to boost sales, but that many solo business owners overlook. Plus, I’ll share AI simple copy prompts to help you get started with your writing.

By the end of this episode, you’ll know exactly which offer to use and how to improve it with AI-powered marketing.

 

Here’s What You’ll Discover In This Episode

• Why your offer positioning matters more than you think
• The nine different types of irresistible offers that drive sales
• How to match the right offer to the right product for the right audience
• AI prompts to help you write compelling sales copy faster
• The one offer everyone should promote

Join me as we explore these dynamic offers that could change your conversion results and increase revenue.

 Episode Key Takeaways About Irresistibles offers

• If your product isn’t converting, the issue might not be the product—it’s how you’re presenting the offer.
• The way you frame, package, and present an offer impacts conversion rates.
• Not all buyers respond to the same offer type—choosing the right one is key.

 Episode Quotes to Remember

“A great product doesn’t sell itself—it’s the irresistible offer that makes people say yes,” Marisa Shadrick.

“Don’t rely on just one offer strategy—mix and match, and test different offers,” Marisa Shadrick.

 

ChatGPT AI Starter Prompts

The Transactional Offer (Clear & Direct Buy)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Write a compelling transactional offer description for [your product] that clearly lists benefits, features, and pricing, making it easy for the customer to say yes.”

The Trial Offer (Risk-Free Entry)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Create a persuasive opt-in landing page for a free trial of [your product]. Highlight the no-risk factor and key benefits that encourage users to sign up.”

The Founder’s Offer (Exclusive Early Access)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Write an email announcing a ‘founding member’ offer for [your product]. Make it feel exclusive and urgent while showcasing the benefits of joining early.”

The Limited Supply Offer (Scarcity-Driven Sales)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Draft a high-converting social media post promoting a limited-supply offer. Use scarcity-driven language to create urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out).”

The Limited Time Offer (Urgency-Driven Sales)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Generate a countdown email sequence for a 48-hour flash sale of [your product]. Include urgency-driven subject lines and strong CTAs.”

The Application Offer (High-Value & Exclusive)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Create an application form for a high-ticket coaching program. Include qualifying questions to ensure only the best-fit applicants are selected.”

The Payment Plan Offer (Lowering the Barrier to Entry)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Write a pricing section for the offer section of a sales page that highlights a payment plan option. Emphasize affordability and ease of access.”

The One-Time Offer (Now-or-Never Upsell)

AI Prompt: “You are a high-converting direct response copywriter. Create a persuasive upsell page for a limited-time, one-click upgrade offer. Use urgency and scarcity to drive immediate action.”

The Subscription Offer (Recurring Revenue Model)

AI Prompt: “Write an onboarding email for a subscription-based product. Highlight ongoing value and the benefits of staying subscribed.”

 Your Next Step:

Listen to the “Amplify Your Authority” Podcast! Click Here!

Rate & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Tip: Answer these questions inside of ChatGPT (free or paid) and have AI craft your review! 

• How did you discover this podcast?
• What’s your biggest takeaway from this episode?
• How has this podcast helped your current journey?

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to craft a review! 

 Follow Marisa on Social Media:

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Watch on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:00]:Hey there. Have you ever put together an amazing product or service? You launch it only to have very few results, very few conversions. Well, the problem may not be what you’re selling, but with your offer. Did you know there are nine different types of offers? By the end of this podcast episode, you’re gonna know the psychology behind all nine offers, and you’ll be able to choose the best one for your business. Stay tuned. Hey there. I’m Marisa Shadrick, online marketing consultant, copywriter, and AI Whisperer, and we’re talking about offers today. Selling isn’t just about having a great product.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:51]:It’s how you position it. And most people default to the same transactional type of offer. And there are nine different types that copywriters use, and I’m gonna share that with you today so you can pick the best one. And at the end, I’m gonna share one other offer that you may have not considered to be an offer and how it can help you move more products and services. So let’s get started. The nine irresistible offers with an AI prompt for each one so that you can begin to use a tool like ChatGPT to help you craft these offers. So here we go. The first one is the transactional offer.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:28]:You’ve seen it. It’s clear and direct. It’s very straightforward. It appeals to buyers who are ready to make a decision. Now keep in mind, I said who are ready, who are already aware of the problem, aware that they need a solution, and perhaps even looking for a solution. And here you are. All of a sudden, you appear, and they go, that’s exactly what I needed. And so there’s no fluff to it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:48]:They’re ready to buy, and they buy. That’s great. In a perfect world, we could take that all day long, couldn’t we? But not everybody’s in that same place as far as buyer awareness. The transactional offer does work, but you have to make sure it’s aligned with the right products. So here’s an example. Get our six-week coaching program for $997, includes Q&A, workbook, and lifetime access. Very clear and direct. Maybe it’s about creating YouTube videos.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:16]:Maybe it’s about growing LinkedIn, and they’re going, I needed to do this. I need to learn how to do this. And so they are ready because they’re looking for the solution. So here’s a simple ChatGPT prompt that you can use to start writing your transactional offer. You can say you are a high converting direct response copywriter. I want you to write a high-converting product description, and then you name your product, and you give it information about your product. And you say clearly list all of the benefits and features and price in a way that makes it easy for the customer to say yes. And you begin to write and edit the transactional offer, making it very clear, direct for those people that are ready to buy.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:00]:The second offer, number two, is the trial offer. We’ve seen these. Right? Now, what is a trial offer? It’s a low commitment offer that lets customers try before they buy. They’ll have a limited window to try it for free, and if they like it, they can go ahead and buy it or sign up for the subscription. So why does this work? It reduces the buyer hesitation because they get to do a little sample of it and test it out to see if they like it, and that builds their confidence when they’re ready to buy because they’ve seen inside before they paid. An example of this would be try our software for fourteen days, cancel anytime. That’s why it’s low risk. It’s a trial offer, makes people feel comfortable.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:44]:They’ve looked inside and now they’re ready to buy. The best use case for this, of course, would be subscriptions and memberships that would be ideal for those types of products. A simple ChatGPT prompt for this would be, you are a high-converting direct response copywriter. I want you to create a compelling landing page for a free trial offer, and then you name what the offer is, you give all the details about the offer, and then you tell it to highlight how risk free it is and emphasize the benefits of trying it now at no risk to them, and they can cancel any time. So that is the trial offer. The third type of offer is the founder’s offer. The founder’s offer is very exclusive because you can only have a founder’s offer one time, so it’s very exclusive. Think of it as an early bird access, and typically, it is connected to an early bird price.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:40]:It’s something that’s being launched that’s new, and you get to be one of the first ones to experience it. With a founder’s offer, you may see a wording like introductory offer, and with that comes that early bird price for early adopters, and it rewards those fast action takers. So, an example of this would be joining as a founding member for only $27 a month. Price increases next month. See how they added urgency to that? The best use case would be for new product launches, or maybe a beta program that you have. Now, a simple ChatGPT prompt that you can use, you can tell it you are a high-converting direct response copywriter. I want you to write, and then you tell it what you want it to write, whether it’s an email or if it’s some type of section of your landing page. And you say, this is for the founding member offer, and then you name the product, you give it the product information, and then you tell the AI tool, make it feel very exclusive, because you create that fear of missing out.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:42]:And then you tell the AI tool to create urgency, because this founding member price is gonna go away after a certain amount of time. So you give it all of those variables, and you also tell it to explain and showcase the unique benefits of joining early. And the AI tool will then crank out some information for you. You’re always gonna have to tweak and refine, but it gives you a running start. So the fourth offer is a limited supply offer. Now you might think, how could it be limited if it’s online? Because most of us work online. But here’s how it’s limited. Sometimes you wanna have a small workshop, a small training of maybe 10 people, so you can give a lot of high value and it could be very interactive, very high touch.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:25]:So you want a small group to give them the best transformation. That’s gonna be limited spots. And so you wanna position that offer as a limited time, limited spots for only 10. It creates scarcity once again. So why it works is pretty obvious. It creates that fear of missing out, the FOMO, and scarcity increases perceived value. The less there is, the more demand, supply, and demand. So an example would be only 20 VIP coaching slots available.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:56]:Once they’re gone, they’re gone. So, the best use case for this would be maybe a high-ticket coaching program, some type of workshop, a mastermind group, or even an exclusive product release that maybe you want a beta group that you’re gonna work with, and it’s gonna be very, very high touch. So that’s very exclusive too. So limited supply offer is one that you can work. A simple ChatGPT AI prompt you can use, like, if you wanna post it on social media, be once again, tell it what it is. You are a high-converting direct response copywriter and ask it, please write a persuasive social media post for a limited-time supply offer. Make it clear that once it’s gone, it’s gone, and use scarcity-driven language to drive urgency. And then it will produce some copy, and, of course, you have to give it the knowledge.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:45]:You have to give it information about the product of what you’re selling. So the more knowledge it has, the better output it can give you. And once you have that, you can tweak and adjust it. Okay. Let’s move on to product number five, the limited time offer. We’ve seen this as well. This creates incredible urgency to act now. Think Black Friday, and it’s only available for a limited time, maybe for a weekend.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:10]:So that’s what we’re talking about here. It creates urgency, and there’s a deadline. That’s what makes it work so well because it’s deadline driven, and the offer expires within a certain time frame. And you often see a clock, maybe ticking down, in an email or even on a landing page, you see the clock ticking down. So that’s a limited time offer. It works because it encourages fast action and prevents procrastination. So if people are interested in that, they’re gonna click on that because it’s only for a limited time. An example of this would be a flash sale.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:43]:Get 50% off our course in the next 48 hours. Who doesn’t like a good deal? Right? 50% off could cause more people to click and buy. So the best use for this would be, like I said, Black Friday, holiday sales, product launches, quick conversion campaigns. Sometimes you wanna take various products you have and bundle them and offer them a kind of weekend sale. You can do that as well. A simple AI prompt for this would be, once again, tell ChatGPT who it is. You are a high-converting direct response copywriter, and then ask it to write a countdown timer email sequence for a 48-hour flash sale. Include urgency driven subject line and call to action, and it will help you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:27]:Again, you have to give it the knowledge. You have to give it the information about your product, all the details, all the benefits, the features, and it will produce what you ask it to. But give it all the knowledge first so it can get better output. Let’s move on to number six. The sixth offer is the application offer. This is very exclusive, usually for high value group coaching or maybe even one on one coaching or a mastermind. So the application offer is they don’t tell you how much it is. There’s not even a button to buy.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:00]:You have to first apply and qualify to be in a program. And so why this works, it positions a product as high value and very exclusive, making people want to know more or want to be a part of it. An example of this would be applying for our business accelerator, only 10 serious entrepreneurs are accepted per quarter. So there’s a waiting period if you don’t get accepted. So there’s even more scarcity and more urgency added to it. The best use case would be for high ticket coaching, mastermind groups, or private consulting. There’s some consultants out there that have a year-long waiting list that people have to wait a year before, you know, everything cycles through and maybe there’s an opening again. So this could be very effective too.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:47]:A simple ChatGPT AI prompt would be, once again, tell it who it is. You are a high-converting direct response copywriter, and then ask it to create an application form for a high-ticket coaching program. Include qualifying questions that ensure only the best fit applicants are selected. Again, give it the knowledge, the things that you want it to know about your exclusive program so that it can give you the best output. The seventh offer is the payment plan offer, and this one, obviously, people don’t wanna fork out maybe $5,000 at once, and so you give them options to pay an installment. Sometimes they pay a little bit more than if they paid full price, but it gives them an option. It keeps them, you know, happy because they have more cash flow, and they don’t have to put all that cash out for a product. So it lowers the barrier of entry.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:40]:It’s a very flexible installment option. It breaks the high price into smaller payments for them. Why it works is because it makes expensive investments feel more affordable and accessible. An example of this would be join today for just six payments of $97 instead of paying 597 upfront. So it gives you a little bit more flexibility, and that lowers the barrier of entry. The best use case would be online courses, maybe a high ticket program, or even a membership. A simple ChatGPT AI prompt would be, once again, tell it what it is. You are a high converting direct response copywriter.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:17]:Write a pricing section for a sales page that highlights a payment plan option. Emphasize affordability and ease of access. So let’s move on to offer number eight, the one time offer now or never upsell. We’ve seen this when people maybe download a free resource, and on the thank you page, there’s a one time offer, limited time, sometimes there’s a countdown timer, but it’s exclusive for them because they downloaded something, and if they want access to this one, they’re not gonna find it anywhere else. They’re not gonna find it on your website. It’s there on the thank you page for a limited time, and so this one time offer creates urgency. It’s a limited upsell available once only, usually at checkout. Why it works? It creates that urgency and prevents second-guessing.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:10]:An example of this would be at a VIP coaching session for only $49. Well, if you normally charge $500 for a coaching session and they see $49, that’s a pretty good deal. Right? You we wanna make it a no brainer. So the best use case would be for digital products, any kind of add-ons, or cart upsell. A simple ChatGPT prompt for this would be, you are a high-converting direct response copywriter, create a persuasive upsell page for a limited time, one-click upgrade offer. Use urgency and scarcity to drive immediate action. Once again, give it the knowledge it needs, explain what it is that you’re doing, what preceded it, and where you’re trying to head them to, and what a little bit about the offer, and it will improve the output. Number nine, the very last one, the subscription offer.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:03]:The automated renewal model. This is awesome. If you want to have a certain amount of revenue come in every single month that you can count on and plan for your business and your cash flow, the subscription model is wonderful. Takes a while to get there because it’s kind of upside down in the beginning, but if you can get it going, wow, it’s a great way to go, the subscription offer. So it’s subscription based, and it auto renews until canceled by the customer. So why it works is it encourages long term commitment and recurring revenue, which is wonderful. We all want that. Right? An example of this would be subscribe for $27 a month and get exclusive AI marketing templates every single month.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:48]:Cancel anytime. So a subscription model works really, really well and you can work combinations of these offers so that you can increase your annual revenue. So, the best use case for subscription would be memberships, SaaS businesses, or subscription boxes as well. A simple ChatGPT AI prompt would be, once again, tell it what it is. You are a high-converting direct response copywriter, and then have it write an email that promotes your subscription. So tell it that this is an onboarding type email for subscription based offer, and to highlight the ongoing value and benefits of staying subscribed. So you paint the picture of the value they’re gonna get long term. There you have it, the nine.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:38]:Let me just briefly go over the nine. The first one is the transactional offer that we see most of the time, and most people just default to that transactional offer. But you can see there are so many others. There’s the trial offer, number two. Number three is the founder’s offer. Number four is the limited supply offer. Number five is the limited time offer. Number six is the application offer.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:01]:Number seven is the payment plan offer. Number eight is the one time offer upsell, and number nine is the subscription offer. Now I want to mention one other offer that you might think is not an offer, but your lead magnet is an offer. It’s a first step to selling. And so when you’re creating lead magnets, I want you to make sure you treat them as an offer because it is. A lead magnet isn’t just a freebie. It’s a strategic offer designed to build trust and lead to a sale. Instead of money, customers exchange their contact information and making that the first step in their journey.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:40]:And by delivering immediate value and being able to nurture those people on your email list, you are helping them solve a small part of a problem, but they still have more that they need to do. And so your paid offers can help them with that. So why this works so well, it removes the resistance and hesitation because they get to know you. Number two, it presells your main offer because they’re gonna hear from you and understand what you’re all about. And number three, it builds your email list and nurtures leads. You can ask questions, and you can find out maybe what their objections are. And not only do they get to know you, but you slowly get to know them as well. Even the analytics of an email list, whether they open it, whether they don’t, which ones clicked, which ones don’t, that gives you a lot of information about your audience.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:28]:So there you have it, the nine offers with a little bonus offer and some AI prompts to help you. Now if you need help with some of this stuff, I have a membership that you can join, and I’ll put a link to it. But it’s all about AI marketing and how to create your offer, specifically your lead magnet. And I’d love for you to be a part of it. It’s a subscription model. Right? It’s a low barrier of entry. We just went over all the offers. And it’s something that I think will, in the long run, month after month, help you with all of your marketing pieces.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:06]:So I hope you go and check it out. I will leave a link in the show notes. Just go to Community.MarisaShadrick.com. Please remember to rate and review the podcast. Or if you’re watching on YouTube, if you could subscribe and also leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you. So until next time, take care.

Many entrepreneurs focus on external challenges—marketing, sales, or strategy—but a recent survey revealed 7 limiting beliefs that could sabotage your business. 

In this episode, we’ll uncover the seven most common limiting beliefs that hinder many entrepreneurs.

More importantly, you’ll walk away with powerful mindset shifts that will help you break free from self-doubt, fear, and mental roadblocks—so you can finally build a business positioned for growth.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

• Unmasking Limiting Beliefs: Discover the top seven limiting beliefs that may be holding back your business success based on a survey of 30 solo business owners.
• Inner vs. Outer Challenges: Explore how internal thoughts can often be more of a hindrance to business growth than external challenges, and gain insights into tackling these mental barriers effectively.
• Empowering Reframes: Learn how to reframe mindset blocks like “people won’t pay for what I offer” and “I’m not good enough” into empowering affirmations that propel your business forward.
• Harnessing Experience: Understand why your age and accumulated wisdom can actually be a competitive advantage, especially if you believe you’re “too old” to succeed in the entrepreneurial world.
• Time Mastery: Uncover strategies to prioritize and create systems, challenging the belief that you “don’t have enough time” and reclaim control over your day.

 

These insights are just the tip of the iceberg in understanding how mindset can significantly impact your business potential. Tune in for actionable strategies!

 Episode Key Takeaways:

• Awareness is the first step to breaking through mental barriers.
• Limiting beliefs are silent saboteurs that keep many entrepreneurs from financial success.
• Reframing your thoughts is a game-changer—your mindset directly impacts your revenue and growth.
• Personal growth is just as crucial as strategy in building a profitable and sustainable business.

 

Episode Quotes to Remember:

• “Once you recognize a limiting belief, it loses its power over you.”
• “People don’t just invest in products or services—they invest in value and transformation.”
• “Every successful entrepreneur started somewhere. The only way to fail is to stop trying.”

 

Your Next Step:

Listen to the “Amplify Your Authority” Podcast! Click Here!

Rate & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Tip: Answer these questions inside of ChatGPT (free or paid) and have AI craft your review! 

• How did you discover this podcast?
• What’s your biggest takeaway from this episode?
• How has this podcast helped your current journey?

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to craft a review! 

 Follow Marisa on Social Media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Watch on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:00]:Have you ever thought that your thoughts could be sabotaging your business success? Well, based on a recent survey of over a 30 solo business owners, I discovered that we’re all pretty much alike, and we’re going to unmask some of the prevalent limiting beliefs that hold some business owners back. You’re gonna discover the top seven limiting beliefs and how to overcome them so you can reach business success. Stay tuned. Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m so glad you’re here for season three. Can you believe it? It is moving right along.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:52]:So I took a little bit of a break. I am back, and I’m here with some insights from a survey that was taken of a 30 solo business owners, and it reveals some interesting facts about limiting beliefs. And I thought I would share that so that as you’re moving through quarter by quarter to reach your goals this year, you can be mindful of these types of limiting beliefs to overcome them. So once you recognize and you understand what they are, then you can reframe them and continue to move forward. So as entrepreneurs, we often focus on the external challenges, but oftentimes, the real challenge isn’t external. It’s internal. It’s within our mind. And many of us know this.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:34]:Right? That’s why we journal. That’s why we read a lot of self help books. Right? Maybe you listen to Tony Robbins. You listen to inspirational positive speakers. But we still gotta do the work and figure out what some of these limiting beliefs are and tackle them head on, or they can hinder us as we move forward. It’s not always the external things. It’s the internal things that do this. So by identifying and addressing these mental barriers, we’re gonna be able to reach our full potential and drive our business forward.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:05]:So let me take these seven limiting beliefs. There was a whole bunch of them, but I narrowed it down, consolidated it to the top seven, and we’re gonna start with number seven and work all the way through backwards to the number one limiting belief. So you may not have any of these, or you may have one, or maybe a few. Right? Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I had many of these that I had to overcome. But I’ll tell you this, and here’s the truth. Once you’re aware, that’s it. Game over. Because you’ll be able to address those limiting beliefs on a daily basis, or in my case, I had to do it hourly.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:45]:When I was competing for an international speech competition, I had to do it hourly because the the limiting belief was such a stronghold. So don’t despair if you have one, two, or three of these or more. Awareness is the key and it’s game over. Once you’re aware, you can do something about it and it will be something of the past. So let’s start with number seven first, and I think you’ll find these pretty interesting. Number seven was people won’t pay for what I offer. This is a limiting belief, and how it affects our business is that it leads to underpricing or undervaluing services, making profit much harder for yourself. It also can cause fear of sales conversations.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:30]:You’ve kind of tried to avoid them, and it leads to inconsistent income, which we need cash flow. This creates hesitation in marketing and reduces visibility and conversion. So this is all related to not believing that people will pay for what you offer, and it affects your business in a big way. But here’s the reframe. Instead of looking at all these negatives, say people invest in what they value. My job is to communicate the transformation I provide. Talk about the value. Talk about the transformation.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:08]:Talk about your own story, how you were able to maybe overcome whatever it is that you provide or teach on. Most of the people that listen to this podcast are coaches, consultants, or service providers. So you have to realize that if it worked for you, it can work for somebody else, and people pay for transformation. They pay for that. They don’t they don’t necessarily find features and modules and, you know, the number of lessons that are in a course valuable, but the transformation is huge. So when you understand that people invest in value and transformation and your job is simply to communicate that transformation, then you don’t have to fear that they’re not gonna pay for what you’re offering. So let’s move on to limiting belief number six. I’m not smart or talented enough.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:57]:Now keep in mind, this is over a 30 people that said these similar things. Right? And this is how it affects our business. It stops entrepreneurs from pursuing big opportunities due to self doubt. They don’t pursue those larger opportunities because they doubt themselves so much. They think that they’re not smart enough or talented enough, and that could cripple your your business. The other way that it affects your business, it prevents them from investing in learning and mentorship because they’re figuring, well, I’m not talented enough. I shouldn’t spend money on a mentor or coach because it I’m just not gonna be able to to get the the transformation I need. Other people can, but I can’t because I’m not talented enough or I’m not smart enough, and you think that it’s not gonna work for you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:45]:The other thing is that when you believe that you’re not smart enough or talented enough, it leads to fear of visibility. And when we have an online business, the key thing that we need to do is be visible. Visible with our frameworks, visible with our transformation that we bring, visible with our opinions. We need to be visible, vocal, whether it’s in written form, video form, whatever way that you are communicating online, the goal is to be visible. So if you believe that you’re not smart enough or talented enough, subconsciously, you’re gonna fear visibility, and you’re not gonna want to pursue those larger opportunities because there are larger opportunities. There’s summits, there’s speaking opportunities, you’re not gonna pursue those. So we need to reframe, and we need to consider this and flip it around and say, I don’t need to know everything. I can learn, adapt, and surround myself with experts.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:46]:So right out of the gate, you don’t have to know everything. You know enough to get started. If there’s areas that you’re not familiar with or skills that you need to learn, you can learn that. You can adapt and you can surround yourself with experts that are going to encourage you and lift you up. Number five is I can’t trust others. This is another limiting belief that makes you think that you have to do everything yourself, and nothing can be further from the truth. You don’t need a large team, but you could collaborate with other people. You could have maybe one person, a virtual assistant, one or two people that work with you, that you have a relationship with as you’re growing your business.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:29]:So trust is important, and you know what? There’s people that will try to scam you, but there’s a lot of good people out there in the world. I’ve met a lot of great people. So they’re honest people that are credible, have integrity, perhaps even the same values you have as well. So this is how it can affect your business in a negative way if you feel like you can’t trust people. It causes micromanagement, preventing business scalability. It also leads to the fear of outsourcing or hiring, keeping you kind of stuck doing everything. Now, nowadays, we have abilities to be able to duplicate ourselves, so to speak, using AI. That’s another topic altogether.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:14]:But I do still use a couple of people in my business for certain things that I do not like to do, and they take care of it. I use AI a lot as a team to help me duplicate myself, my efforts, and that way I don’t have to grow a large team. But you can’t have the fear of outsourcing or hiring out. And it also limits business partnerships and collaborations, which is important. It’s all about that relationship marketing. If you don’t trust people, you’re not gonna be likely to partner or collaborate with other people, because you’re always gonna be wondering, are they trying to pull one over on me? Or, you know, you’re always gonna be suspicious, and that’s not just a healthy place to be. Right? So the reframe would be trusting the right people and creating clear systems will allow me to scale without stress. So you see how it’s very simple to reword it and make it turn it into a positive.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:13]:Make it a positive experience, not a negative one. So I’ll repeat that one. If you’d have trouble trusting people, just say trusting the right people. Notice I said the right people. And creating clear systems will allow me to scale without stress. Now let’s move on to number four. Number four is I can’t succeed in business. Now this is a huge limiting belief that believing that maybe it will work for someone else, but not for you, and this is how it affects your business in a negative way.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:41]:It prevents taking risks. Oftentimes, we test things and we take a risk. Nothing is guaranteed. Most solo business owners and larger businesses actually will take a risk, will try something on a trial to see if it’s gonna work. And if it doesn’t, it was a test. No big deal. Right? But if you’re afraid and because you think you’re always going to fail, you’re not gonna succeed, you’re not gonna take risks. This leads to the fear of selling again, making it hard to attract clients.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:14]:It creates imposter syndrome as well, stopping business owners from stepping into more of a leadership role. The reframe for this is very simple. Every successful business owner started somewhere. I can learn, once again adapt, and improve over time. So every successful business owner started somewhere. So if you think I can’t succeed in business, just know that everyone had a starting point where things weren’t as polished, where maybe they didn’t know everything. They didn’t have all the answers. They just took the next step.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:50]:So you can just reframe that and realize well, for one thing, you can’t read the future. Right? You not a mind reader. And the other thing is that you can’t compare yourself to someone that is fully successful, that’s been having a business for, you know, ten years plus, if you’re just starting out. And you can’t label yourself that way, because that is going to create a negative ripple effect. So just remember that every business owner started somewhere, and that you can continue to learn and adapt and improve over time. Number three is I don’t have enough time. Boy, we hear this one a lot. Right? When we’re trying to sell coaching programs and such, like, oh, I don’t know if I could make the calls and so forth.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:33]:I don’t have enough time. But if you say this, and it’s a limiting belief in your business, here’s how it can negatively affect your business. This leads to poor prioritization. If you think you don’t have enough time, you’re not gonna prioritize the things that need to be done. And if you don’t do that, then you’re gonna be always just managing fires. Right? Taking care of things that pop up that are urgent. And so it leads to poor prioritizing, focusing on the urgent instead of the important tasks. And then it stops entrepreneurs from delegating or automating work.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:14]:So if you don’t have enough time or you say you don’t have enough time, you’re not gonna take the time to automate something that’s gonna give you more time. Right? Or you’re not gonna take the time to maybe delegate a portion of it or maybe get a contract worker and show them how to do something because that takes time. You know, I can do it myself much faster. Or you’re not gonna take the time to maybe learn AI because you’re saying, oh, that’s just such a huge learning curve. I’ll just have to do it myself, when it could actually save you hours, if not days, of work. Right? So not having enough time can have a negative impact, and then it causes burnout from trying to do everything alone. And that’s the last thing you need to do is try to do everything alone instead of optimizing a good workflow. So here’s the reframe.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:03]:I have the same twenty four hours as everyone else. I can prioritize and create efficient systems. I’ll say it again. I have the same twenty four hours as everyone else. I can prioritize and create efficient systems. And on this one, I will say too that one of the things that really helps with time management is creating great goals and really good habits, because that helps you execute on the things that need to be done, not just the things that are demanding your attention. Okay. Let’s move on to number two.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:38]:Number two. This one is interesting. Out of all of these people that answered the survey, I am too old. I am too old. If that was the case, I’ll tell you right now, I wouldn’t be here. So I am too old is number two. This is how it negatively affects your business, creates resistance to adapting to new technology, right, and marketing trends, like, for example, AI. So if you think it’s just too far gone for me to start right now when everything is so advanced, hey, I’ll tell you, it is the best time because everything’s so much easier, and it’s plug and play.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:22]:It’s drag and drop. It’s things are so user friendly. There’s never been a better time. The other negative, effect to your business, if you believe that you’re too old, is it discourages starting or scaling a business. It discourages starting or scaling a business of fear that it’s too late. I’m just now starting my book, And if I had this mentality, I’m too old, I would have said, oh, I should have done that a decade or two decades ago. It’s I’m too old now to do it. And here I am doing it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:55]:I’m in the mess messy middle of doing this right now. So it could discourage you from starting or scaling a business, and it undermines confidence in networking with younger professionals. Did you hear that? It undermines the confidence in networking with younger professionals. I believe we can learn, like, we meaning older like I am, we can learn from younger professionals just like they can learn from our life wisdom, our experience. Right? I think we can learn from each other. So that mindset could be very crippling as well. So here’s a reframe. Experience is a competitive advantage.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:41]:Many successful entrepreneurs started later in life and thrived, which is true. I think I did a podcast episode on that, but that’s the reframe. Experience is a competitive advantage. Many successful entrepreneurs started later in life and thrived. Now, drum roll for the number one limiting beliefs that can negatively impact your business. I am not good enough. Hard to believe, right? I am not good enough. That’s pretty amazing to me.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:16]:I’m not good enough as number one, I’m too old as number two, and I don’t have enough time as number three. This particular one, I’m not good enough, it sounds very similar to the one, number six, I’m not smart or talented enough. It’s slightly different, and this is how it affects our business in a negative way. This leads to self doubt. When you think you’re not good enough, you’re gonna doubt all your decisions, everything that you’re doing. You’re gonna wonder, did I do that right? Should I go in this direction? Or, oh, I just heard that this is a better way to go. Maybe I should do this. You’re gonna be starting and stopping over and over again because you’re gonna doubt yourself.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:56]:And then you’re not gonna charge what you’re worth either. And this causes hesitation in marketing as well, leading to inconsistent visibility. And if you had any of the other limiting beliefs that causes not wanting to be visible, it just compounds. Right? It results in way overdelivering in comparison to what you’re charging. In other words, you’re not charging enough for everything that you’re providing. So it’s overdelivering, and there’s nothing wrong with overdelivering. But when you really overdeliver, and you create, like, a $2,000 course and you’re only charging $47, you’re underpricing, and that can lead to burnout because the math is just not gonna work, right, for the time you put into it. So here is the reframe for the number one limiting belief, I am not good enough.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:47]:Here it is. I have valuable skills and experience that people need. I may not be perfect, but I am capable of serving my clients effectively. I’ll read it again for the number one, I am not good enough limiting belief. I have valuable skills and experience that people need. I may not be perfect, but I am capable of serving my clients effectively. And there you have it. The number one limiting belief was I am not good enough.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:22]:Number two was I’m too old. Number three is I don’t have enough time. Number four is I can’t succeed in business. Number five, I can’t trust others. Number six, I’m not smart or talented enough. And number seven was people won’t pay for what I offer. So limiting beliefs will hold you back in your business growth. But again, as I said earlier, being aware of these limiting beliefs is game over.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:51]:Once you’re aware, it’s almost like you take the top off of a can and you expose it, and it is exposed to the air, and all of a sudden it’s not in this in this can with a seal on it creating tension, you’re releasing it. And you’re able to see it for what it is and reframe it and be able to think through it, whether it’s journaling or writing in a notebook and realizing, is this really connected to truth of who I am? Or is this something that I just have going on in my head because maybe of a past experience or maybe my childhood or whatever it might be? You’re able to at least expose it, to look at it head on. And that’s how you can continue to reframe it, and you can catch yourself on a daily basis when this limiting belief is trying to raise its ugly head, and you say, no. I’ve already reframed this, and I have a reframe for this. And then you just say that to yourself. Right? So recognizing and reframing these beliefs is the key to building a profitable and sustainable business. Because remember, a lot of the challenges aren’t necessarily external. Oftentimes, they’re internal.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:00]:So I hope you like this podcast episode, our first in season three. And if you like this podcast, be sure to leave a review and a five star rating. I would love that so much. And until next time, take care. Bye bye.

Improve your website with AI tools.

My website has evolved over the years. In the beginning, I struggled to figure out what to say. Now, the challenge is saying too much—”delete, delete, delete.” 

It’s all part of the process. As we grow and evolve, so should our websites.

That’s why revisiting and refreshing your website is essential to stay up-to-date and relevant.

In this podcast episode, I share practical insights on transforming your website into a lead-generating asset.

So, grab your favorite coffee or tea, settle into a comfy chair, and let’s dive into website makeovers—now easier than ever with the magic of AI.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

How to Dazzle Your Home Page: Your homepage isn’t just a brand presence; it’s the front door to your virtual home. We’ll explore how to use compelling headlines, subheads, and visuals to ensure your audience knows they’re in the right place.

Secret Sauce of Freebie Placement: What’s a good call to action without a perfectly placed freebie? Learn the art of strategic placement above the fold to ensure your visitors can’t resist engaging with your content.

The Magic of Multiple Lead Magnets: It’s like fishing with several hooks in the water. I’ll show you how to tailor these magnets for various pages, capturing leads wherever they land on your site.

UX (User Experience) Tweaks: Enhancing user experience doesn’t have to be complicated. Simple tweaks can make your website more user-friendly and improve navigation and accessibility.

Plus, we’re going beyond just tips – I’ll introduce you to three AI tools that can become your newfound allies in making your website engaging and effective.

 

Key Takeaways:

1. Your Website is Your Virtual Home:
   • First impressions matter. A clear headline, compelling subhead, and intuitive navigation can keep visitors engaged.
2. Strategic Freebie Placement:
   • Customize your lead magnets to align with specific pages, such as blog posts, podcast episodes, or YouTube videos.
3. Essential User Experience Tweaks:
   • Prioritize accessibility with readable fonts, subtitles for videos, and mobile optimization.
4. Use AI Tools for Website Improvements:
   • Ask AI to critique your website copy and provide suggested improvements.

 Quotes to Remember

“Your website is a lead generation tool. And if you want to grow more leads, it is imperative that you have your website updated.”

“You want all of your graphics to load quickly. If it takes a while for it to load, it might discourage people from lingering.”

“Your website is often the first impression people will have of your business.”

 Resources Mentioned to Improve Your Website with AI

• Colors. Co – For creating beautiful and cohesive color schemes.
• Perplexity AI – Research tool for competitor analysis.
• ChatGPT – Ideation and copywriting support.
• Claude AI – Fine-tune your final copy for clarity and engagement.

 Your Next Step:

Ready to amplify your lead generation with AI?

Join my private membership, Amplify Your List Building with AI.

Transitioning into AI-powered marketing can simplify lead generation and help you grow an engaged email list that drives sales.

• Custom GPT tools to simplify your lead generation.
• Live strategy coaching sessions for in-depth support.
• Professional done-for-you designs for professional lead generation resources.
• Tools to master email sequences, sales pages, and productivity planning.

Act now to lock in the special founding member price!

Visit Community.MarisaShadrick.com to learn more.

 

Too Soon to Join a Membership? Grab This Free Resource

Start Building Your Email List with a Simple Checklist

If you’re a personal brand, this checklist will help you grow your email list by choosing the ideal resource that attracts and converts browsers into engaged, targeted subscribers.

CLICK HERE to download your free resource!

 

Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Use ChatGPT to compose your thoughts!

If you’re watching on YouTube, remember to hit subscribe!

 

FOLLOW MARISA

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/ Join the Podcast Community! https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 Watch the Podcast on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:14]:Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m so glad you’re here. I am really excited to share with you today all about websites and how you can improve it or give it a makeover using 3 AI tools that I will mention throughout this training and give you a little bit of background about these tools, but help you in the process of improving your website. Now we’re talking primarily your homepage, but we’re going to touch on some other pages of your website. Why is this important? Because your website is a lead generation tool. And if you want to grow more leads, it is imperative that you have your website updated.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:00]:Why? Sometimes people want to find out more about your business. And where do they go? They’ll go to your website. So it’s really important to have that updated. So when they go there, they can find out more about you. And you wanna create a really great user experience. So they can download a free resource or schedule a call. Depending on your industry, the call to action will be different. But this is a lead generating tool.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:26]:So I’m going to share with you systematically some tips on the website, and then I’ll let you know which AI tools will be helpful in building out the copy for your website. So when we think about our website, we want to think first about the audience. So if they were coming to your virtual home, what would they see? So with the homepage, the headline is really important and the subhead, so they can self identify and know this is for me. The outcome of what your business provides is important too. So if you can put that in the headline and the subhead, they know exactly what it is that you sell, what it is that you do, and it’s a no brainer for them. Then they’ll go and look and scroll down and look for some more things and, hopefully, click on some of the tabs that you have. Now when you have a website, depending on the industry, again, the call to action could be to schedule a call or to download a free resource. It just depends on what it is that you sell.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:28]:But you can also have a start here button, which is very helpful for navigation. Because people, when they come to a website, especially if there’s a lot there, they just don’t know what to choose. Right? If you have a lot of tabs, and we’re gonna talk about the aesthetics of tabs in just a second. But if you have a lot of things going on, and there’s just the remote chance that it’s confusing, the first thing that you can do if you don’t have time to work on your website is just have a start here button. And that way, they can start their click it, and you’ll be able to direct them or have a video that directs them. That could be very helpful, which is a great segue for another thing you can have on the home page is a video. You can place a video there and have a really compelling headline, subhead, and a video that explains exactly what it is that you do and how it is that you serve your audience. And this will be really, really helpful for them to cut to the chase and hear your voice, hear how you care because you’re speaking from the heart.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:28]:You’re showing empathy. And we’ve talked about how empathy is really, really important when you’re reaching an audience. You want them to know that you understand what their struggle is and that you’re willing to help them or help them reach at least a milestone so they can continue on their journey. So the imagery is really important, and you wanna use a good color scheme. There is a great tool called colors.c0 that you can find color schemes. And I’ve mentioned this in a previous session. So you can go there, and you can check out color schemes. You don’t wanna have too many colors.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:01]:Maybe 2 colors that you change. Mine has blues and grays and whites. And then you wanna have a contrasting color for any buttons or any call to actions. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about buttons and fields and see, like, which one you should choose to leverage and optimize your page. So your homepage really needs to tell a clear story. And, again, depending on your industry, there may be just minimal things that you need on the homepage, or you may need to build it out and put a little extra. It just depends on the industry. Number 2, the secret sauce of freebie placement.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:41]:This is really important. So you need to consider, again, on the homepage, if you’re gonna have some type of call to action, which you should, it should be above the fold. What do I mean by that? Before people scroll down, so when they type in your URL or they find you on Google and they go to the website, the first thing they see is that headline, that subhead, maybe a little bit of copy, maybe a video and a button. So if you don’t have a video, maybe you have an image. That’s fine too. Again, depending on your industry, but there should be a button before they even scroll down. So it needs to be crystal clear as far as what it is that you do so that when they see that button, they’ll want to click it to maybe book a call or download a freebie. So the placement of the call to action is important as well.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:30]:Whether you have a button or feels, the thought behind it is a button creates a barrier because when you click the button, then they go to the form with the fields and they have to fill it out. But there’s those that believe that micro commitments is a good thing to first visit the page, to first click the button. These are micro commitments before you’re asking for the email. The other school of thought is that there would be some fields there. Now, if you’re asking them to book a call, this is gonna be hard because you’re gonna have to go to Calendly or some type of scheduler that you have, so they’ll have to click it to go there. But if it’s for a download and you wanna have feels, the school of thought is why create more barriers? Cut to the chase, provide the feels so that while they’re thinking about it, they can go ahead and put their email and their the name in the feels and then get their resource. So what’s the right answer? There is no right answer. It depends on the industry.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:37]:And again, a lot of this when it comes to lead generation, it’s testing and tweaking. It really is. You need to start one way and then go back and see, did that work? Do I need to change this and turn it into a button? Or do I need to change the button and turn it into fields? Do I need to remove the image in the header and put a video? This is all part of the process of testing and tweaking and refining what you’re doing on your web page. So the point is you should have a call to action. Whether you decide to have fields or a button is up to you. If it’s not working, then flip over to the other way and try it the other way. You also want to put the placement of a call to action in different places of your website. If you’re a writer and you have a blog, you should have a call to action where you blog.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:31]:So whether that’s in the footer or whether that’s maybe at the end of the blog post, somewhere where people can access your resource right from the blog without having to go somewhere else. If you’re a podcaster, there should be a call to action on the podcast show notes. If you share YouTube videos, you should have somewhere on there. Maybe you have a main page that lists all the YouTube videos. You should have a button somewhere in there so that they can, download something. Now here’s the thing. When you’re doing this, depending on which way they come to your virtual home, because your virtual home has different ways of accessing. Right? So if they’re really interested in the blog and the topic that you blog about is really compelling for them, then the lead magnet should be something that seamlessly works with the blog content.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:33]:You might even consider a content upgrade. So if you do a lot of how to’s in the blog, maybe you should have a content upgrade that you change periodically that relates to the topic that you write about, and they can download it. If you’re a podcaster, maybe be it could be as simple as subscribe to the podcast community. That simple. Right? If a YouTuber, maybe it’s, a 3 part video series, where you’ve taken the best of the best of YouTube, and you collected it for them, where they can start and they can achieve some type of milestone from watching these videos, or you can create brand new videos, 3 part videos. Maybe they’re 5 minutes a piece or 7 minutes, and you create these where they can get access to it. It should be related to the page that they came in on. That gives it a little bit more of a chance of being able to acquire an email from the person that is on that page.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:34]:Obviously, you wanna have a contact page. Now how you word this is up to you. But on your contact page, I recently changed mine. It said book a call, which is totally boring. So I changed it to free consultation. So you can change the tabs too. So if you have a tab that says, free consultation or contact me or something like that, that tab, you can change the name of the tab. So if for some reason that you’re not getting a lot of people to go to it, try just changing the name of the tab so that when they go there, they’ll be able to schedule a call with you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:15]:And even on that page, you wanna make it really compelling on that page. Maybe even have a video, embed the calendar, so that once they’re there, they go ahead and schedule that call. So the placement of the freebies, whether it’s to subscribe to your podcast community or download a resource, it’s really important to customize it based on the page that they’re consuming. Because typically when they go to it, maybe you mentioned the blog post on social media, or maybe you have a newsletter and you mentioned it. They’re going directly to that page. They’re not going to the homepage. They’re going to that post. They’re going to that podcast.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:57]:They’re going to that YouTube video. So while they’re there, you wanna be able to capture those leads. So the placement is really important. In the about section, you might wanna have something different. Maybe it’s the same thing that’s on the homepage. But my point is, think about it a little bit. Think about their experience when they get on that page and what you should offer on that page. And, again, side widgets are the same way.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:21]:Think about the user experience if you have that. And the last part for placement too is the footer. The footer is usually universal, so it’s seen on every page. So you might wanna consider what would that be so that it’s something that they would want, all of them would want, that you have, and it would be kind of a universal free resource. Maybe it’s a challenge. Maybe it’s, a quiz that you have. What is it that you can provide in the footer that everybody would want? And then don’t forget the navigation menu. Now, when it comes to the navigation menu, those are the tabs in the top of your website.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:01]:You don’t wanna have more than 5. I would say 5 is plenty. But if you have more live pages that you wanna feature, but you don’t wanna have a row of 7, 10 tabs on your website, you can create what they call a hamburger menu, where you click one tab and you see below other pages related to that. Let me explain a little further. Like on my website, I’ve got my homepage, I’ve got my about page, I have services. But when you hover over it, you see under services, which is the tab that’s visible on the website, you see consulting, copywriter, and you see group coaching. But you don’t see that unless you hover over services, and then people can click one of those pages. And then I also have, which is another placement for freebies, I’ve collected a bunch of my resources and put them on a page of its own, and it’s called free resources.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:59]:So when they hover over, they can go ahead from free resources, check out the podcast, check out the articles, but also the downloads. So there’s a page there where it has all the free resources on a page, and it features all the free resources under downloads. So that’s another place that you can place your free resources when you have, say, 3 or maybe you have 6 of them, depending on how you wanna lay it out. You can create a page and start dedicating all your free resources on that page. That way, if you’re a guest on a podcast and maybe the audience is mixed a little bit, you can send them to that particular page that has a lot of downloads so they can choose. And that’s what I put on that particular page. When you go there, I tell them, choose your adventure. And then I put a little bit of text, and then below, it’s all the lead magnets below it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:59]:So that’s a way to do that. But I only have 5 tabs, yet I have, let’s see, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 pages that are live on my website, but you only see 5 tabs. And that’s a great way to be able to not overwhelm your audience by using those tabs and then creating these subcategories below the tab, like free resource has podcast, articles, downloads. Services has consulting, copywriting, and group coaching. And contact has free consultation and speaker media kit under contact. So I have 2 pages there. So number 3 is scaling with multiple lead magnets. I touched on this a little bit.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:42]:It’s really important to have more than one lead magnet. And you can see that on your website, you can clearly have 3 or 4 or 5 lead magnets depending on the pages that you have live on your website. And you have more of a custom type of call to action for each page rather than one for all. Right? Because there might be a disconnect. Now when you have these different lead magnets, and again, scaling these multiple lead magnets, you wanna be able to create them, but also find out where people came from. And this is where tags come in handy. Tags are something that your email service provider allows you to do, and it’s a way to identify the contact. So you can create the tag and give it any name you want.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:32]:So if the resource is a free book, then the tag would be free book. Now what I do to organize my tags is I have tags for giveaways. So giveaway is spelled out in caps and then semicolon and whatever the lead magnet is. The second lead magnet would be giveaway, semicolon, whatever the lead magnet is. 3rd giveaway, semicolon, and so forth. I have that for the giveaways. I have that for events. I have that for various categories so I can find them easily and be able to, know where they came from.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:11]:Now, why is this important? Because if they download something and you find that a lot of people are downloading a free resource, wow, they’re really interested in it. And you’re identifying where they came from, and you can begin to segment that group and offer something that is unique for them since they’re so interested in that free resource. But you can also use tags in a way to show whether they’re a beginner, intermediate, or advanced. So if what you’re selling or what you’re promoting, a workshop, whatever it might be, if it’s more intermediate level, you can tag them intermediate. If they’re more beginner, you can tag them beginner. That way it helps you. If you’re thinking about what product am I gonna create, and you start looking at your tags and you see that everybody has the beginner tag, then you’re not gonna create something that’s more for an advanced level. If you’re creating content for beginner and you find that people are downloading resources that’s more advanced, then you wanna create a product or something for the more advanced students.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:16]:Right? So it’ll help you in understanding your audience. Okay. Let’s move on because we’re talking about website. I kind of digressed and went into the lead magnets. So in any event, you do wanna scale multiple lead magnets on your website. Number 4 is UX. So that is user experience tweaks that keep visitors coming back. So with this, I’m gonna go very quickly because I kinda touched on some of this, the usability.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:44]:It has to be very user friendly. A lot of white space, a lot of bullets, easy tabs, maybe no more than 5, maybe a start here, maybe a welcome video. Make the user experience easy. Guide them. Right? Number 2, accessibility. When you have videos, you want to be able to have all of the text visible on the video. For the people that are maybe hearing impaired, that would help for them to be able to to read it as opposed to just listen to it. And you wanna also make sure that it’s mobile friendly.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:21]:So you wanna check it for not only desktop, you wanna check it for tablet, and you wanna check it for mobile. So there are ways that you can do that, and you wanna make sure that it is very user friendly. Sometimes on mobile, I hide some things that are on desktop when it comes to mobile because I don’t need all that on mobile. And so I’ll adjust a few things on mobile. But you want the accessibility to be great and user friendly for people that are jumping in, either looking on desktop or looking on mobile or looking at tablet. The aesthetics, we talked about this too. You wanna make sure that the design is very appealing. No crazy colors.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:00]:Right? Less is more. And use visual hierarchy. So that would mean have bold headlines and subheads, so you can really see the breaks and see kind of with the headlines and the sub headlines. You can almost see a story being told just by looking at that. That’s what I mean by having that that visual hierarchy. The headlines are bold. Maybe it’s a contrasting color for the headlines, and you wanna make sure that they can see that very easily for those people that like to scan. And then the performance, you wanna make sure that all of your graphics load quickly.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:43]:If it takes a while for it to load, it might discourage people from lingering. So you wanna make sure that you compress your images and that everything loads very quickly and it’s not slow. And then the content, this is really important. Right? This, again, user experience. Is the messaging clear? We kinda touched on that, the headline. Is it concise? Is it tailored to your audience? Can they self identify? Interactivity is another. You could have a chat feature. Again, your email service provider sometimes offers that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:13]:I’m sure there are tools that offer it as well. But you can add a chat feature where people can actually click the bubble, and you would get a notification, and they would ask a question, and you can answer the question via text. So that could be really helpful. So you can have engaging features like that. You could have maybe something that feels very interactive, like a quiz. Maybe you want to have that featured on your website so people will want to take advantage of that and self discovery is always appealing. So that might be something that they would like. And again, can they interact easily with it? Are the buttons clear? Is it visually appealing? Are you using big enough fonts? Sometimes the font is teeny tiny.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:57]:So you wanna make sure you do check on different devices to make sure the font is clear. Because not only are some people hearing impaired, but some people can’t see very well. So you wanna make sure that the font is a decent enough size so people can see it. And the last is the engagement tools. You have things like pop ups. Now some people say, I hate pop ups, but they’re effective and they work. They really do work. So you could have either a pop up that’s timed that appears, perhaps a few seconds after they scroll.

Marisa Shadrick [00:21:29]:You could have an exit intent pop up, which is one that would happen when they are getting ready to exit out. Then the pop up appears, so you’re not interrupting their experience on the website. It’s only when they’re thinking about exiting that the pop up appears. There’s welcome mat, which is full screen. Those kinda bug me. But, again, you might wanna test. Maybe that’s something that you’d wanna do, have a welcome mat so that as soon as they go to the website, it kind of takes over the entire screen. It’s a full screen type of pop up.

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:02]:But if it’s something really, really compelling or new news or something limited time, you might wanna use it. You wanna think of maybe using the ribbon at the top of your website for a way for them to subscribe to something. And, again, the chat feature is another thing that you might wanna consider. Now the AI tools are really simple. When you’re writing the copy for your website, you might wanna do a little bit of research, research competitors or research on your topic. And you can use perplexity to do all your research, and it will give you the cited work that you could check out. Maybe you need to freshen up the messaging. Right? Then if you need some ideas for your website or maybe some of the the wording, you can use, chat g p t for all the ideation of something that you want to create, and it will be great because they can search the Internet.

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:59]:So the ideation process of it, if you’re not sure, you know, what should I put on my about page? The about page, by the way, is about your audience, not about you. You interject how you help them, and that’s how you start speaking about what you do. But you could ask chat gpt to help you with the about section. Just give it a little bit information about what it is that you do, and you wanna be more relevant. So how would the outline look for an about section if I wanna make it all about my audience and then come alongside them in the copy so that they see how I can help them, you can ask chat gbt. And then finally, for the final version, I would use Claude to be able to really make the copy sound human. So those three tools, perplexity for all the research that you would need so that you really dial in on the needs of your audience and check out competitors. Then ideation, I would use chat gbt to ideate some ideas for some of the pages or maybe how you want to stack, you know, the tabs.

Marisa Shadrick [00:24:02]:Maybe you have a lot of live pages. I have these live pages. I only wanna have 5 tabs on my website. Chat gbt, can you help me figure out, you know, what I can title these tabs? All of that, you can use Chat gbt for any ideation. And then the final copy, once you have something written, you can go to Claude, give it an example of your writing style of your voice, and ask it to improve the copy for blank page. If it’s your home page, ask it to improve it with that, and then you can get a final copy that you can put on your page. And you can give your website a makeover using 3 AI tools, Perplexity, ChatchePT, and Claude, to improve your website. And make sure that, again, in recap, you wanna make sure you make your home page dazzle, that it’s really clear, Use some of the elements we talked about, like make sure you have a button above the fold, a video, a start here, whatever it is to help guide the people.

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:02]:Number 2, the secret sauce of freebie placement. Keep it above the fold. You wanna have it in on every page, but you wanna customize the call to action so it fits the article page or it fits the podcast page. So you wanna have multiple ones. And then scaling all of these, you wanna be able to make sure you create these lead magnets, but then you can recognize where they came from. So you wanna be able to use tags to do this. And then the user experience is all about making it easy for them to navigate on your website, to be able to access the content, to be able to know where to go, to have the font big enough to read, all of those last details. And then you can, again, use things like pop ups, and you can use a chat feature.

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:52]:You can use a ribbon at the top to try to get people to download a resource or schedule a call. And, ultimately, you can use 3 AI tools, Perplexity for research, ChatGbt for ideation, and Claude to refine your copy. So hopefully, that was helpful for you to maybe give your website a little bit of a makeover for the coming year, and it’s a work in process. You’re always gonna be tweaking and adjusting, but having a pretty well designed website does not hurt because people do go there to check you out, to see what it is that you do, to see if they wanna work with you. So I encourage you to give it a look and keep it fresh, keep it updated. So that’s all I have for you today. So take care, and I’ll talk to you soon.

As entrepreneurs, we test ways to connect with our audience and communicate our message effectively using the best ChatGPT copywriting prompt.

AI can be a game-changer for creating content faster, but let’s face it—it needs your insights and human touch to turn words into meaningful connections.

In this episode of Amplify Your Authority, I’m sharing how to write the best ChatGPT copywriting prompt to bridge that gap between technology and human connection. 

I’ll walk you through a simple, step-by-step framework for incorporating your unique voice, empathy, and audience insights into AI-generated content. This will help your writing truly resonate and drive results.

If writing copy has ever felt like a struggle, this episode provides the clarity and strategies you need to succeed.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

• The seven essential components of a great ChatGPT prompt.
• Why empathy is the missing ingredient in AI-generated copy.
• How to identify your audience’s external struggles (behaviors, speech, body language).
• The importance of linking external signs to internal emotions.
• A simple method to define your offer’s transformational benefits using antonyms.

 

Key Takeaways:

1. Empathy Transforms Marketing: AI is a powerful assistant, but the human touch is irreplaceable.
2. Understand Your Audience Deeply: Identify external struggles (what you see, hear, and notice) and link them to internal emotions like fear, frustration, or self-doubt.
3. Craft Context-Rich Prompts: Provide AI tools with detailed insights into your audience’s pain points and desired transformations to create the best ChatGPT copywriting prompt.
4. Showcase Transformation: Write the benefits of your offer using antonyms of the negative emotions you’ve uncovered to drive engagement.

 

Quotes to Remember

• “Empathy is the bridge that transforms marketing from transactional to transformational.”
• “AI can automate tasks, but empathy is inherently human—and it’s the key to truly connecting with your audience.”
• “Your copy suffers when you don’t dig deeper to understand your audience’s internal emotions.”
• “Empathy amplifies the power of your writing, bridging the gap between AI limitations and your audience’s needs.”
• “A great ChatGPT prompt isn’t just about information—it’s about layering in empathy, insights, and transformation.”

 

Next Step:

Ready to amplify your lead generation with AI?

Join my private membership, Amplify Your List Building with AI.

Gain access to:

• Custom GPT tools to simplify your lead generation.
• Live strategy coaching sessions for in-depth support.
• Professional done-for-you designs for professional lead generation resources.
• Tools to master email sequences, sales pages, and productivity planning.

Act now to lock in the special founding member price!

Visit Community.MarisaShadrick.com to learn more.

 

Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Use ChatGPT to compose your thoughts!

If you’re watching on YouTube, remember to hit subscribe!

 

FOLLOW MARISA

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/ Join the Podcast Community! https://marisashadrick.com/listen

Transitioning into AI-powered marketing can simplify lead generation and help you grow an engaged email list that drives sales.

 Watch the Podcast on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:15]:Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick. And today we’re gonna talk about how you can integrate AI to produce better copy. Now, many solopreneurs, they have great expertise and great products. But when it comes to marketing, they sometimes struggle in writing the copy that resonates with their audience, especially when the benefits are intangibles. Like, for example, peace or confidence, hope or fulfillment.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:46]:It’s really hard for them. And sometimes ChatGPT will be limited in what it outputs because of these intangibles. So I’m gonna walk you through the process so that you can get better output when you’re using ChatGPT. AI tools are very helpful to generate content, but they lack that emotional depth and human understanding that’s required to connect in a meaningful way. So let’s start with the basics. In our previous episode, I talked a little bit about how to craft a prompt. Let me summarize here because as AI changes, we discover new ways to be able to prompt engineer. So to summarize, you would first start with who the target audience is.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:30]:So you need to understand who you’re writing to and give that information to ChatGPT. And then you would also want to explain about your brand or give a brand overview of what it is that you do, your business. The third thing you wanna do is provide the product that you’re selling, as much information as you can as far as what it is, whether it’s a coaching program or whether it’s a course, whatever you have available already. Obviously, if you haven’t written the sales page, you don’t have a lot of details yet, but the idea of what the product is. The 4th is context. This is where you give ChatGPT your unique perspective, what’s gonna make this sound like you. You’re gonna give it the resources and the do’s and don’ts when it starts writing for you. The 5th is that you’re gonna assign it a role.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:23]:You’re gonna ask it to assume that it is a copywriter or assume that it is a marketer and that it will be writing whatever it is that you want to write, whether it’s email campaign to sell to a product or whether it’s a sales page, whatever that promotion is. The 6th step into providing a really helpful prompt for chat gbt is to give it a sample of your writing or give it a summary of your writing style. And lastly, the 7th piece is to ask for what you want. Give it the request that you need. So all of these things are layers that you provide so that it could get an understanding of what you’re trying to produce. Now it will produce some content, but it’s not enough to really engage an audience. Because, again, we want to connect with our audience emotionally. We don’t wanna just talk about the features and the modules.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:18]:We want to demonstrate that we understand their journey. We understand their struggle. We understand their pain. But there’s a lot of layers to this, and this is what’s missing when we’re trying to have ChatGPT produce great promotional copy. But here’s something to keep in mind. Your audience and our culture suffers from a lot of stress. Stress is no longer an occasional challenge. It’s a cultural epidemic.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:47]:The World Health Organization has classified stress as the health epidemic of the 21st century. Every day people navigate a relentless wave of pressure, whether it’s unexpected events, life transitions, health concerns, or economic uncertainty. It’s no surprise they’re disengaged with content that feels hollow or out of touch no matter how well you used AI because it lacks that human touch. We have to have that information and input that so we can get better output. So what makes writing truly connect with people? It’s not the data, it’s empathy. Empathy is not a hard skill, it’s a soft skill and we can develop that muscle. Empathy is the bridge that transforms marketing from transactional to transformational. So AI tools, as helpful as they are, can automate tasks, but empathy is inherently human.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:54]:Empathy allows writers to understand emotional nuances, address fears, desires, and struggles authentically, foster trust and relatability through storytelling. You improve your marketing by seeing the invisible, the emotions behind the actions. And there’s a way that you can do this and figure this out for your own audience. And then once you understand that, you can look at what the transformation would be from engaging with your product or your service and write better copy. But you need to gather this data first so that you can input this into chat gbt and get better output. So here are a few steps you can take to begin to understand your audience at a deeper level. We’re not gonna just look at the superficial things, the easy things that everybody defaults to. We wanna go beyond that, and that way our copy is gonna stand out.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:55]:So let’s break it down. If you have an audience that has a problem, there are gonna be some signs. So what are those signs? So I want you to consider if a friend had the problem that you’re trying to solve, what would you hear them say and what would you see them do? So as I walk you through this process, you’ll probably think of some words you wanna jot down, and this is gonna be really valuable information to give to chat g p t. Okay. First, we’re gonna start with the external struggles. Now, think of somebody that you know that has the problem your audience has. Why? Because you’ll be able to visualize the external signs and the internal signs if you know that person really well, and then you can translate this to your audience. Okay.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:47]:We’re gonna start with external. There’s 3 parts to the external. There’s the body language, there’s the speech, and then there’s the behaviors. So let’s start with body language. If your audience had this problem, what would you see as far as body language? Perhaps it’s hunched shoulders, or maybe it’s crossed arms, or maybe they’re chewing their nails. That’s where I want you to go when you’re thinking about your audience with this problem. What would their body language tell you? The second is speech. What would you hear them say? Would they be complaining? Would they be comparing themselves with someone else? Or maybe would they be expressing doubt? What would you hear them say? The third component is behavior.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:41]:What kind of behavior would you notice if your audience had this problem? For example, lack of sleep. Maybe they’ve lost their appetite, or maybe they’re watching too much TV, and they’re getting a little bit lazy. Now, these are all signs. They’re external signs of something that’s happening internally. Now, I want you to consider the internal signs as internal tension. Now, hear me very carefully. When you begin to look at the internal tension, the words that come to mind are gold, and this is what you want to give ChatGPT to produce better copy. So how do we find the words that are going to express the internal tension, especially if it’s an intangible? This is where you’re going to link the external signs to internal emotions.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:43]:I’ll say it again. This is where you’re going to link the external signs to internal emotions. For example, some of the external signs that you saw, what does that tell you about their emotions? For example, are they feeling frustrated? Are they experiencing fear or worried about failure rejection? Are they discouraged or losing hope after repeated setbacks? Do they have a low self esteem? Is that what’s causing the external behaviors or the external signs? Do they feel guilt? Maybe they are feeling they’re letting others down by not doing enough. Are they feeling resentful? Are they harboring bitterness over unmet expectations because of comparison? Are they feeling overwhelmed? Are they struggling to manage multiple responsibilities? Are they full of anxiety? Again, stress is a big one. Right? Feeling unsure about the future, the decisions they need to make. Are they feeling loneliness? Is that the cause for the external signs? Maybe they think they’re the only ones struggling this way. The other is imposter syndrome, which is another one that’s pretty popular. Right? Doubting their skills or worthiness, despite some achievements that they’ve had.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:13]:Once we begin to look at the external signs and break it down to what do we hear them say, what do we see them do, what are the behaviors, and then we link that to an internal emotion, now all of that data, all of that that you’ve done, that research, you can input that into ChatGPT using the framework I mentioned earlier, and you’re gonna get better output. Now, everything so far is to understand your audience. We haven’t even begun to touch on the transformation that you bring, but this part is easier. The hard work is really understanding your audience. I know you’ve heard that a million times. Do you understand your audience? But I’m giving you a step by step in how to figure out what’s really going on with your audience. Go deeper because your copy is going to suffer if you don’t go through this exercise. There’s a quote that I absolutely love.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:11]:It says opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work, and that’s attributed to Thomas Edison. This is a little bit of work, but think of all of the messaging and the copy you’re gonna produce once you have a clear understanding of your audience. You can use it in email sequences. You can use it on sales pages. You can use it in social posts. You can use it in articles. You can use it in podcasts. You can use it everywhere.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:44]:This is so fundamental. So if you extract all of this and you make a list of the words, then you can input this into ChatGPT. Now, for transformation, how do we do that? This part is easier. It’s not gonna be as hard. It’s not gonna take as long. Identify the antonyms for each word that you wrote down. So an antonym is the opposite. So if you said something like frustrated, maybe the antonym would be confidence, and you can use a thesaurus to figure this out.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:19]:Right? Or use ChatGPT to figure it out. You can take the word that you extracted for the external struggles. Right? What we heard them say, what we saw them do, and the behaviors, all of that, and just look for the antonym. What’s the opposite of that? And grab all of those words for your transformation. The transformation your product or service provides, and you give that to ChatGPT. So remember, in the beginning, when I gave you that outline for creating a prompt for ChatGPT, and I had point number 4, which is context. That’s what this is. It’s the context.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:03]:It’s not only your unique perspective, but it’s the resources. It’s the information about the audience going deeper than just saying target audience. Now your target audience may be homeschool moms, but after you do this exercise, you’re giving it context and you’re going deeper and explaining what the struggle is. That’s how you create a super great prompt and produce better output. So let me recap with one statement. Empathy amplifies the power of your writing, bridging the gap between AI limitations and your audience’s needs. So I hope this was helpful, but I also got some good news for you. I’ve opened the doors to my private membership where I provide not only custom GPTs, but also coaching just like I did in this podcast.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:57]:So if you’re listening to this podcast and you like to get a deeper understanding of lead generation plus custom GPTs to be able to execute quickly, you might wanna check it out and check it out quickly. Depending on when you’re listening to this podcast, you may still be able to access the founding member price before it goes up. But at any investment, it’s gonna be so worth it because I’ve loaded it with lots of great stuff. Not only the live coaching, not only the custom GPTs, not only a special GPT for productivity so you can map out your goals for an entire year, but also done for you professional designs to help you with your lead generation so you can grow your email list. You’ll be able to write better email sequences. You’ll be able to write better sales pages all in one place. Amplify your list building with AI. So I hope you check it out, and I hope you like this podcast.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:53]:If you did, please leave a 5 star review and rating. And if you’re watching on YouTube, I would love for you to hit subscribe. So I’ll talk to you soon. Take care.

Trust is the bridge that turns leads into clients, and one of the most effective ways to do this is by using webinar strategies that build trust, authority, and sales.

Webinars create connections, provide value, and establish your authority—all critical ingredients for nurturing relationships that lead to sales.

 

In today’s episode, I’m sharing a private coaching session I held with my list-building community.

You’ll get an inside look at webinar strategies, not just as a lead-generation tool but also as a way to present and sell your offers confidently.

And since 2025 is just around the corner, I’m also giving you an exclusive sneak peek at my reimagined membership.

This program will combine custom AI tools with expert marketing strategies, making it easier than ever to build a responsive email list and turn prospects into loyal clients.

 

Here’s What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

• How to build trust and connection with your audience through value-driven webinars:
  • Trust is the foundation for every successful lead, and webinars create the space for authentic interactions.
• Why starting with your offer is the key to creating seamless and effective webinar content:
  • Reverse-engineering your presentations ensures your message aligns perfectly with your product or service.
• The pros and cons of live webinars—and how to overcome the most common challenges:
  • From handling tech hiccups to keeping your audience engaged, you’ll learn practical solutions to make your webinars successful.
• How webinars can help grow your email list and establish your authority in your niche:
  • It’s not just about selling—it’s about creating lasting relationships that lead to long-term clients.
• A sneak peek at how AI tools in my revamped membership can simplify your marketing strategies:
  • Imagine cutting through the overwhelm and focusing on serving new clients.

 Episode Quotes to Remember:

• “Your email list is your business’s most valuable asset. It’s where cold leads become warm buyers.”
• “Webinars are not commercials—they’re opportunities to build trust, authority, and connections with your audience.”
• “AI isn’t replacing your creativity—it’s amplifying it. And that’s the future we’re stepping into together.”

 Webinar Strategies Key Takeaways

1. Trust is Key to Conversion: Webinars are one of the most effective ways to build trust with your audience. By providing value and interacting live, you create a foundation for stronger connections, making it easier to convert leads into clients.
2. Reverse-Engineer Your Content: When planning a webinar, start with your offer. By designing your content around the solution your product or service provides, you ensure your presentation seamlessly transitions into your call to action.
3. Plan for Success: A successful webinar requires preparation, including a realistic plan for all the assets you need—registration pages, follow-up emails, promotional graphics, and more. Give yourself enough time to create and promote your event effectively.

 Your Action Step

NEW: Download the Checklist: A simple checklist to help you execute a realistic webinar launch with all the essential assets needed for a successful event.

 

FOLLOW MARISA

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/ Join the Podcast Community! https://marisashadrick.com/listen

Transitioning into AI-powered marketing can simplify lead generation and help you grow an engaged email list that drives sales.

 

Become a Founding Member of Amplify Your List Building with AI private community.

Expert coaching

Custom GPTs

Supportive community

Designed to save you time and maximize your impact.

Learn more at https://community.marisashadrick.com/ 

 

Watch the Podcast on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:14]:Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m Marisa Shadrick, your host, and I have a special podcast episode today for you. I’m actually gonna take you behind the scenes to a live training that I did last week inside my private membership. Now my private membership has gone through, evolution, so to speak. It’s always been about marketing, but with the rise of AI, the direction has changed and it’s going to be very different in 2025. But this particular session that I did had to do with webinars, and I thought it would be very appropriate for you to get a glimpse inside of the membership.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:53]:Now what’s different next year is that I am incorporating AI marketing. So this private membership combines the power of custom AI tools with expert marketing. So you can finally build an email list and turn those prospects into clients simply by nurturing them. And when they’re ready, they’ll raise their hand and they’ll buy. It’s much easier to sell to a warm list than try to do a sale through some Facebook ads or try to do cold outreach or just post and hope that somebody will buy something when they don’t even know who you are. So I thought the content would be really helpful because it gives you some insights on webinar. There’s also a download that I’m gonna offer, and you’ll get a sample of the type of training that I do inside the membership. But in 2025, here just a month and a half from now, there’s gonna be the integration of AI, and it’s gonna be pretty awesome.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:45]:I’ve created a number of custom GPTs. There’s also a community hub that includes productivity GPTs. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I am a Michael Hyatt full focus certified coach. And so a lot of the strategies I use, like the smarter framework, is what I built into the chat g p t so that people can create those goals, because it’s really important to have goals so you can execute. So I’m excited for you to take a sneak peek. I’ll be telling you more about the membership here soon, and I’ll put a link in if you like to check out the information and see all the goodness that’s gonna be included. But with no further ado, here is the replay to last week’s coaching session on webinars. Hello.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:29]:Hello. And welcome to the list building with AI membership elective. Today, we’re gonna talk all about webinars. I’m Marisa Shadrick, your online marketing consultant and certified copywriter, and webinars are a great lead generation tool. There are some things you need to know, and so we’re gonna cover a lot of material in a half an hour, but no worries, there will be a replay. So you can always go back and check out the replay and take notes. All of this is a process. So don’t expect to just, you know, execute all of these lead generation strategies at once.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:08]:Pick the one that best fits for you. And I’m always available if you have questions. Now, before I start, you might have noticed some changes on the platform, color changes, I’m color coding things, I’m moving things around. The platform for the membership is getting a makeover. It is gonna be better, stronger, and it is gonna be more, user friendly in the way it’s been organized. We’re gonna still be doing the coaching calls live, and I’ve added a few things on productivity. All of this is gonna launch January 15th, and I don’t wanna take up too much time talking about it, but I just wanna let you know that you will be seeing a video in December introducing the new platform, all of our paying customers, everyone that has joined the membership. This is gonna be part of what you’re gonna experience.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:03]:So if it doesn’t align anymore, if you’re not into list building and using AI and transitioning into this AI marketing, I totally understand, But I will explain all of that in the video for those of you that, it is a good fit for you, whatever price you entered the membership. You are grandfathered in, my friend, because you’re not gonna pay up any more. So congratulations for that. So let’s get started. Today, we’re gonna talk about mastering webinars. I’m gonna grab my notes because I always have tons of notes. Mastering webinars for list building and connection. So where do we begin when we’re thinking about webinars? It’s always good to reverse engineer.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:45]:I know you’ve heard me say that before. You start with your offer. What are you offering? Now, hopefully, you’ve gone through all the homework of figuring out what your audience wants, what their needs are, their struggles, their challenges, and you’ve created an amazing offer that you’re ready to present to them. And webinars, it’s a great way to be able to talk with a live audience and explain your promise, explain who you are, give case studies, be able to interact with the chat. It’s got a lot of advantages, but you wanna start with the product. So why do I say that? Because if you start with the product, you probably have already the content for the webinar within the product, whatever that is. And so what you wanna do is take a slice of that, just a slice, and build it out and create maybe 3 takeaways for the audience to learn something, to get a quick win, and be able to introduce the offer that’s gonna make it faster, easier, or maybe they’ll be able to execute with support, whatever that might be. So you reverse engineering.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:55]:You start with the product, and then you figure out, what do I already have in my offer that could be a slice I can take out and build out the webinar? So that’s the best way to go. So why do I say that? Because when you’re presenting, it will be easier for you to hang on. I gotta let somebody in. I don’t wanna omit anybody. Okay. Let me let something in here. So okay. Back to the presentation.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:23]:Why do I say that? Because when you’re presenting the webinar, by the time you’re ready to introduce the offer, it’s gonna be seamless. It’s gonna make total sense for you to be able to make that offer. If your webinar is disconnected and not really connected to the offer, it’s gonna make it really super hard. So let me go back here and find my notes because I lost my notes. Okay. There we go. So that’s why we wanna do that. We want it to be seamless transition from the webinar training into the offer, so it makes total sense.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:58]:So think of the webinar as an introduction that has an outcome has to have an outcome. So when they go to the webinar, they’re gonna say, this is what I’m gonna walk away with, or this is what I’m gonna learn, or this is gonna be my takeaway. This is gonna be what’s gonna help me reach that milestone. There’s gotta be an outcome. And so you want to start building the webinar, introducing your offer by means of a slice that you’re gonna teach, and there’s gonna be an outcome, and it’s gonna lead to the product seamlessly. What you can, explain or teach would give your audience that dopamine hit, that quick win, and lead leave them with wanting more, whether it’s support step by step, a course, coaching, whatever it might be that you’re offering, and it will lead them to wanting more and raising their hand to your offer. For example, when you’re giving a webinar training and say it’s about productivity, some people say, well, if I if I give them value and if I give them teaching that is gonna help them kinda go on their merry way, they’re not gonna need me. Well, if I’m doing a webinar on productivity, I could explain how to be more productive.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:16]:But let me tell you, it’s really hard to execute on your own. Sometimes we’ll put it on the back burner. We won’t get it done. We need accountability. And so even though you know how to do it, for example, in productivity, you can explain how to be productive, how to set goals, how to execute on those goals, how to create habits, but will they do it? Right? It’s the same thing losing weight. You can explain how you’re gonna lose weight. Reduce the intake of calories, increase your activity, but can they do it on their own? So you can give value and still have an offer at the end that helps them actually execute on that particular topic so that they can reach the outcomes that they want. So whatever you choose to teach during the webinar, it should be a slice of the big picture.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:06]:We don’t wanna overwhelm. It’s not a commercial where you just give case study after case study and give examples to why and use all this, you know, try to intimidate saying, if you don’t do this, this is gonna gonna happen. You know, the sky’s gonna fall. No. It’s not a commercial. It’s not a high pitch. It’s something that’s gonna give them value, give them that dopamine hit, but you’re not gonna give an entire system either, because I’ve done that. I’ve done that mistake.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:33]:Others have done that mistake, and we have learned that less is more. We wanna keep it really simple so they can follow along. And this is what you wanna think. Now this this is what my husband told me years ago, and he was so right. Don’t tell him I said that, but he was so right. He has a lot of sales calls where he has to do face to face, and literally in an office in a conference room with CEOs. And he always says, you you gotta consider some things that are really simple. This is the human human connection.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:04]:What do you want them to think about or consider? This is what you’re gonna be thinking about when you’re thinking about your webinar. What do you want them to think about or consider? Because maybe they’re they’re not considering it. They’re not thinking about it yet. What do you want them to feel? Like, a nonprofit could really focus on that. What do you want them to feel? Empathy. Maybe they’re trying to raise money for a nonprofit, so they want their audience to have empathy for their cause. Right? What do you want them to feel? Right? Maybe it’s the feeling of, finally having peace and finding a solution. What do you want them to feel? What do you want them to believe? Well, belief is really important too.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:46]:What do you want them to believe? You want them to believe it’s possible? Do you want them to believe that they can do it? Do you want them to believe that this is different for these reasons? What do you want them to believe? And so oftentimes, for belief, what I do is I look at possible objections, and I flip them. So I think of what is an objection, maybe a limiting belief that’s causing that objection, and how can I incorporate a little bit of that in my webinar to help them believe that this is possible or overcome that objection? So belief is important. And then finally, what do you want them to do? And that’s usually the call to action at the end of the webinar. This is really, really fundamental, and it’s so effective in so many ways. What do you want them to think about? What do you want them to feel? What do you want them to believe, and what do you want them to do? Really, really helpful to answer some key key questions that will help you create a great webinar. So let’s move on to the pros and cons of webinars. Here are the pros. Okay.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:51]:You’re gonna build real time connections because it’s live, and, typically, webinars are free. So people will sign up, and if they sign up, it’s gonna grow your email list, which is like, woo hoo. That’s what we’re trying to do. Right? And it’s gonna establish trust because they’re gonna hear from you, and it’s gonna it’s gonna position you as an authority, as an expert. Right? It is an effective lead generation tool. So whether they show up live or not, you’ve got their email list, and you can do follow-up with emails. It’s very interactive. So this provides some great market insights about your market, because it’s interactive.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:28]:And we’re gonna talk a little bit about engagement and how you can do that, but this is an opportunity to find out what they have to say. And in webinars, there’s different tools, but most webinars, there’s a chat feature, and people are asking questions, and you wanna encourage questions, and you find out based on those questions where they’re at in a process. So it’s very, very helpful for that. And you also have the ability to repurpose the webinar. You can take sections of it and maybe write a blog post, or maybe you can create social media content from that content, or you can put it in an automated webinar and create an ongoing evergreen lead magnet later. So there’s a lot of pros to it. Now here’s the cons. Gotta look at the good and the bad.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:14]:Right? The cons is that it requires dedicated time and energy for the planning, for the creating, for the promoting, and for the follow-up. There’s a lot. And that’s why, you know, you don’t wanna just try to slap something together, and I wanna have a webinar in, like, 3 weeks. You need more time to promote, so you you need give yourself ample time. So when live, this is another challenge with webinars. Since they are live and you’re using technology, you never know when technology is gonna pick you in the butt, frankly. So you’ve gotta be an understand, and you gotta be ready for the unexpected, and just flow with it. Right? Just don’t worry about, you know, Internet interruptions or getting pixelated.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:04]:You know, just know that if it happens to you, it’s happened to everyone. It’s happened to me. You know, it just happens. I did a webinar one time. I forgot to hit record. Oh, that just made me think, did I hit record here? It’s recording. I just had the thought that I’m not recording. But I did this on a webinar, and I forgot to hit record.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:25]:So I had no replay. Pretty bad. Right? So I had to recreate the webinar recorded on my own, which was like yeah. That’s what I did. So just know this stuff happens, and it happens to everyone, but just go with it. Just go with it. Plan planning takes away a lot of anxiety, and planning takes away a lot of mistakes. There are some things, variables that you can’t control, but control what you can and just flow with what you can’t.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:54]:So the other challenge with webinars is that people don’t always attend live. Yeah. They don’t attend live. So you can do some things to try to incentivize and gamify the webinars so they attend live, and we’ll talk about some of those things. But that is kind of the the downfall that webinars aren’t as highly attended as it used to be. People will say, well, I’ll just watch the replay because I got too much stuff on my plate. And so and then they never watch the replay. You know? They forget about it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:23]:So that can be a challenge as well. And then keeping them engaged throughout the webinar so they don’t jump in and jump out. Right? So that could be a challenge as well. But overall, webinars, I’ve sold a lot of products and high ticket products through webinars, and so they don’t have to be overly attended to convert. And I did a partnership one time with a colleague of mine, and it was to help him, be able to get more clients because he was a web designer, and he was able to get some clients. And we only had, I think, like, 5 people attend. And I think he got 2 or 3 clients from it. So it’s not in the number.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:05]:It’s really being targeted with the right people being there. So even if you have 5 people or 10 people attend live, just go with it and be excited about that. And because those people are probably very, very much aligned with what you offer. So let’s move on to webinar essentials. Now I’m gonna copy and paste some of this for you because you’re not gonna be able to take notes of all this stuff because I’m gonna go through all of this with you, kind of an overview of some of the things to consider that you will need. So you wanna start early because oftentimes, we don’t realize how many pieces there are to creating a webinar. And then we get overwhelmed. And then we’re 2 weeks ahead, and we haven’t created emails.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:47]:And, we’re, like, going crazy. So give yourself enough time. That’s why I work in quarters. So plan, maybe Q1 of next year will be when you do a webinar. And so you would start planning in January for a webinar that you’re going to promote in March. Give yourself 2 months to create all the assets that you’re gonna need. So you have to promote early, and that is gonna really help you, and you’re gonna stay calm, you’re gonna be in your calm zone, and you’re not gonna feel overwhelmed, and you’re gonna feel really confident when you go live, because you’ve taken care of everything. So that’s one of the essentials is to start early and give yourself 3 months to plan all this and at least 4 weeks to promote it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:31]:Mhmm. Yep. That’s what I said. At least 4 weeks to promote it. So regardless of how you’re gonna promote it, make sure when you go in promotion mode, 3 weeks can work too. But but, ideally, if you can give it 4 weeks, that would be great. And then leverage your best marketing tool. So when I mean marketing tool.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:49]:So whatever it is that you do online to promote your brand, maybe you’re a YouTuber and you create videos. Maybe you’re a podcaster. Maybe you write newsletters. Maybe you have a real super great newsletter and people are signing up for the newsletter and you’ve got an email list already. What is it that you do on a week to week that is your best marketing tool? Will you get engagement or people maybe it’s a lead magnet. People are signing up to specific lead magnet and leverage that one. You could do other things, of course, but leverage the one that’s working for you and think of ways that you can kind of put a little fire under that, and that would help you as well. So you want to leverage your best marketing tool, whatever that is, if it’s social media, podcast, newsletter, or lead magnet, if you have now, this is kind of a little bonus tip for you under the webinar essentials.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:43]:If you have a lead magnet that is converting really well, and people are signing up monthly or week by week, here’s what you can do. On the thank you page for that lead magnet, create a video invitation to your webinar. So if they’re already signing up to something that you have, just announce it on the thank you page. Hey. I’m so glad you decided to download this resource. I just wanna let you know that I’m gonna have a masterclass coming up here in a few weeks on January 15th, And I would love to see you there. We’re going to cover all kinds of great content and give them the outcome of what it is, and you’ll be able to walk away with what are they going to walk away with? Right. You can even incentivize by saying, and when you register, you’re also going to get, you know, something, whatever that something is.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:40]:And we’re going to talk about some things here in just a second. So you can do that and just remember to change it once the webinar is done. But you can that way, you don’t have to change anything else. It’s just create a video with a link and keep any other copy, you know, keep my email on your safe list or, you know, connect with me on social, whatever you have on your thank you page, you can leave it there, but just change the top part. And then when the webinar is over, swap it out and put a picture of whatever you had before on there. So that’s a good way to leverage what you have already. So what I do too is when I’m gonna have a webinar, I change the commercial on my podcast, and I do that as well. So there’s different ways that you can promote as well.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:20]:But use and leverage whatever marketing tool is working for you. So here’s a quick checklist for essentials. These are not things that you have to have, just some ideas to help you plan strategically and be able to have a week by week of what your tasks are going to be based on what you decide to use. So let me go through these very quickly. So for example, you’re gonna need a webinar registration page. Do you have to decide whether you’re gonna have a video or no video? If you have a video, that’s one more thing you’re gonna have to create. It’s another task. So you’re gonna have a webinar registration page.

Marisa Shadrick [00:21:00]:You’re gonna have to decide whether you have a video or not, and you’re gonna have to work on the copy, make it real, uber compelling, and then you’re gonna have a webinar confirmation page. So the confirmation page just gives them the next steps, tells them to save the date, all those wonderful things. So that helps them be able to be ready to attend the webinar. And then you’re gonna have also pre webinar registration follow-up emails. So these are for people that registered and said, yes, I wanna attend the webinar, but are still waiting to attend the live webinar. What happens in between? You’re gonna have some emails to keep them excited, to keep them engaged, to let them know that it’s coming, keep it, you know, so that they don’t forget about it. So you wanna create some emails for that. And then you’re gonna have, of course, the webinar slide deck.

Marisa Shadrick [00:21:53]:Some people feel really comfortable creating slide decks because they don’t have to do it in front of a live audience, and they can just kind of work behind the scenes. And they like the graphics, and they like doing that kind of stuff. You can always use chat gbt to take your your content that you’re gonna have and help you structure it. So you wanna have a great, you know, title, title page, and then you wanna have, you know, some things of what they’re gonna discover, and then some key takeaways, and then transition into your offer. Most people kind of understand what webinar structure is like because they’ve attended webinars. Right? So you’re gonna create your webinar slide deck, and then you’re gonna consider whether you’re going to want to have a webinar handbook. Do you want 1 or not? Will it help people stay engaged if they see blank lines that they have to listen and fill out? So that’s up to you if you wanna have a handbook. Plus, the handbook is a great resource for them to keep.

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:49]:Make sure you brand it with your brand logo and email or URL so that they can be sure to access the product. So you whether you have a handbook is up to you. Are you going to have a webinar state of the end bonus gift? That’s another thing to consider. What would that be? Another thing on the checklist. Right? Then when it comes to promotion, you want to be able to have emails. Now, I’ll tell you, honestly, the biggest part of creating the webinar is not even when you go live. It’s all the emails. Webinars are one of the lead generation tools that require so many emails.

Marisa Shadrick [00:23:31]:So if you don’t like writing emails, webinars are probably not for you. Maybe you love public speaking, but you hate creating emails. You need a lot of emails. So you’re gonna need an email for your email list to invite them to it. And that’s gonna be a campaign, like a sales campaign that you create, inviting them all the way up to very, very much last day that they can register for this webinar. So you gotta figure out on your calendar when you’re going to have these promotion emails to sign up for the for the webinar. And then you wanna make sure that you tag everybody so that when they do sign up, they’re not getting those emails. Right? So you wanna work with your email service provider and figure out how to do that so they only get emails.

Marisa Shadrick [00:24:16]:It’s usually, it’s usually like an if if then. Like, if they register, then take this tag off and add this tag. There’s ways that you can do that in an email service provider so that the flow is seamless. So if they’ve registered already, they’re no longer getting the promotional emails anymore, and they’ll be getting the emails between registration and live event. Are you going to have graphics? You might wanna have, you know, square graphics, elongated graphic, maybe horizontal graphics. Consider, do you want a graphic that represents this training, right, with the title and the date? So consider that as well. What are you gonna have for graphics? And it’s always a good idea to have them in all the different sizes. I primarily am on LinkedIn, so I only have to worry about one size.

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:08]:But if you have something like that, then you can post it on social and other places, and you can even have a pop up on your website if you wanted to. So promotional graphics, that’s another thing to put on the to do if you wanna have that. And then the social promotional content, what’s the social media content calendar gonna look like to promote this? So are you going to have copy, like text, or are you gonna have videos? Another thing to consider, right, for promoting it. We don’t wanna just create the slide deck and the webinar and kinda fall short promoting it. And then you could also consider, do I want it on my website? Like I said before, you can use a pop up, or you can have a banner at the top of the of the website promoting it. So are you gonna do that? Are you gonna run ads? That would be another thing to add on your to do if you’re gonna do that as well. And then post webinar, you’ve got emails there as well. For everybody that had registered, they’re going to get the replay and then a sales campaign, a sales email campaign, if they haven’t registered yet for your offer.

Marisa Shadrick [00:26:11]:Right? If they haven’t bought the offer, you want to try to still convert them. So you send them the replay and then emails to promote the offer. And for the emails for the rest of your email list who did not register, did not attend the webinar, you might even want to create an a promotional campaign for those people. So now we’re talking segmenting. Right? We’re talking about a group that registered. They’re gonna get promotional campaign, and then we’re talking about the group that didn’t register, but we’re gonna create a different campaign. Why is it different? Because they didn’t they didn’t get the the privilege of listening to all the great stuff that you included in the webinar. So here’s what you can do.

Marisa Shadrick [00:27:01]:You know what to do for the registrants that were there, getting the replay, haven’t signed up yet, haven’t bought, great email sequence for them. For the other folks that never registered, you still wanna send promotional campaigns to them, but it’s gonna be different. Here’s a little tip. Take your webinar transcript and pop it into chat gbt and help it help you write emails to invite people to your offer. And that will help take some of the load off because you need 2 different sets of emails. You don’t wanna send the replay to everybody because they never registered. They didn’t want it. So why are you sending it to me? But you do wanna announce and let them know.

Marisa Shadrick [00:27:47]:And maybe maybe they just don’t like webinars, but maybe they’ll read your email and they’re going, oh, I want this. So you wanna create something different. And maybe it could be a 3 part campaign, or it could be a 5 part campaign. It depends on how you wanna do that to announce it and the content that you wanna put. Maybe it’s the same content that’s on the webinar, but you shorten it and create, like, a 5 or 7 part email sequence to see if they would like to join your offer, whatever that offer is. So there’s a lot of emails. So beyond that, you have abandoned cart emails too. If you really wanna get granular and take care of every touch point, if they’ve gone to the cart and they have not completed, you could do abandoned cart emails as well.

Marisa Shadrick [00:28:33]:There’s a lot of webinar tools that help you with all this stuff, so you don’t have to figure it out. And we could talk about that in in 2 weeks, talk about some of the tools that you can use. But in any event, best practices for engagement, this is the fun part. When you create the webinar, don’t just create a training, a teaching, a class. This is an event. Treat it like an event because an event is exciting. Maybe have some giveaways, maybe raffle off something fun. Bribe them to come and show up live.

Marisa Shadrick [00:29:07]:Tell them that they’re gonna get something awesome when they attend live. And then once they attend live, tell them they’re gonna get something even better if they stay to the end. So you incentivize it, you gamify it, and you keep the energy high for those people that are there ready to go to sleep. Right? You wanna keep them engaged. So you encourage live interaction. Now Now this is where you can find out about your market. Right? You can have polls. You can have questions.

Marisa Shadrick [00:29:35]:You can see what questions they have and see where they’re where they’re at. What’s what’s in their headspace? Right? What are they thinking? And this helps you for future promotions as well, and it helps to keep that engagement going. And then you can consider, also, if you’re a little hesitant of talking head or just slide deck. I’m a disruptor, so I like trying different things. But you can do interview style webinar, where someone is interviewing you, and you’re providing the content through the answers that you give. It’s very different. It’s not slide after slide after slide, and it’s not talking head, talking head. It’s an interaction that you’re having, and you’re welcoming the audience, and you’re being interviewed like a little TV show interview, and you’re explaining the value of whatever that topic is.

Marisa Shadrick [00:30:26]:That’s another way to do it. I did this with one of the webinars with a colleague, and we did one together that way. And I thought it worked out really well. I thought it was very different and fun because I was asking all the questions that I knew my audience would be asking. And then he was giving the answers to it. So it I think it worked out really well. So that’s one one way that you can do it also if you don’t wanna do slide deck. So, you can incentivize all every part of it, create an event, right, and make it fun.

Marisa Shadrick [00:30:58]:And then, the event also kind of helps with the social media part too when you make it fun that it’s an event too. But you always wanna create urgency. Urgency to register early. Maybe some of the bonuses will go away if they don’t register by a certain date. You know, you wanna create urgency to register, urgency to take advantage of the opportunity in the webinar. What’s going to happen if they don’t register during the webinar? Is there something that they’re going to miss out on? Maybe they can register later, but they’re not going to get the special bonus for that’s a webinar bonus. So urgency and then urgency in your emails to register by a certain date because the the cart closes, the opportunity closes. So you wanna create urgency, urgency, urgency all the way through.

Marisa Shadrick [00:31:50]:So that’s very helpful for engagement. Okay. How to avoid mistakes? We’re at the bottom of the hour, so I’m gonna finish this off really quick. This is the last point I wanna make. Overloading content. Again, you’re providing a slice, not an entire blueprint. I’m gonna have, like, 3 takeaways. This is the one thing, the common mistake of webinars.

Marisa Shadrick [00:32:12]:I’ve been on webinars that were over 4 hours. It was overkill. It was too much. No. Don’t. I I tuned out. I would start getting mad. Thinking, why is this thing so long? So don’t make it overkill.

Marisa Shadrick [00:32:27]:I like keeping my webinar short and no more than an hour. That includes q and a, the promotion, everything. So I make sure that I teach for about maybe 40 minutes. 40 minutes gives me a little flexibility depending on questions, q and a. And then, you know, be able to promote the con the promote the offer and then take q and a questions and then have a countdown timer. We could talk about countdown timers. They have them for the actual webinar that you can put on it, with a slide deck, or you can have countdown timers in your email. We could talk about the tech stuff in 2 weeks if you like, and we can cover that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:33:05]:The other thing, that is a common mistake is skipping rehearsals. It’s always a good idea to test everything and to do a run through to make sure the flow and the transition’s good so you’re not, what’s coming up next? Oh oh, yeah. Here. You know, you wanna make sure that you’re comfortable with it enough that you anticipate what’s coming. If you use PowerPoint, it’s great because it allows you to see it very easily, you know, your notes, and keep it keep it simple, the notes, not in blocks of paragraph, just some bullets so that it just triggers your memory and you’re off and running. Don’t just read it verbatim because that will get boring unless you’re really good at it. You could put a lot of personality when you’re reading it, so it doesn’t even seem like you’re reading it. I can’t do that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:33:52]:That’s why I’m not very good with teleprompters. But maybe you are. So that might work for you. So don’t skip the rehearsals. If you want, see if there’s a buddy that will help you on the back end, monitor the chat and the questions, and be kind of a moderator. And then you do it for them so that you don’t have to invest in a an assistant to help you. You just find somebody that can support you on your webinar and help you with all the tech stuff, and then you support them. That’s one way to do it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:34:22]:And then the last one of a common mistake, lack of post webinar follow-up. Don’t drop the ball. Make sure that when you have a webinar and it’s done, I know you’re gonna feel relieved and tired after 3 months of preparing for this, but you’re not done yet. Make sure you do those follow-up emails to the people that didn’t register to the people that did register. Just make sure you do all those follow ups and give incentive or give urgency for them to take you up on your offer. So work on those. So the biggest challenge with a webinar, I think, is all the emails. It’s tons of emails, lots and lots of emails.

Marisa Shadrick [00:35:05]:So, so just give yourself enough time. If you give yourself enough time, you’re gonna be calm. You’re gonna think things through. Nothing’s gonna pop up at the last minute. You’re gonna have a great webinar because you’ve given yourself a month to promote it. And it’s not about the size of attendees. It’s about having the right audience attend. And don’t forget to personally invite people to your webinar.

Marisa Shadrick [00:35:30]:That goes a long way. When you personally invite people to a webinar, they like a personal invitation. So that’s a good way to promote it as well. So that’s what I have for you today. Maybe webinar is what you want to do next year. Maybe that’s what you’ll do. And once you get it down, tweak it a little bit. You can reuse it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:35:46]:It’s like rinse and repeat. You can have a webinar. You don’t even have to you know, you could have it every quarter, but most of the heavy lifting is done. Most of the work is done. You might tweak things here and there, but it’s done. So why not do it again every quarter to promote your product or your service? So, anyway, hope that was helpful. Thanks so much for watching. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me in the community, and be looking out for some updates about the community.

Marisa Shadrick [00:36:14]:Lots of good stuff coming. So I’m excited. So hopefully you’ll be excited too. And we’ll kick off the new year with a brand new platform, with some added features in it and added content to help you execute on your goals. So take care, and I’ll talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Embracing Neurodiversity in the Workplace will reshape your understanding of what’s possible.

In today’s episode, I’m thrilled to introduce you to Shea Belsky, an inspiring tech leader and advocate for neurodiversity in the workplace.

Diagnosed with autism at an early age, Shea has turned his experiences into a powerful message of inclusion and adaptability.

Whether you’re leading a team, working alongside neurodivergent colleagues, or simply curious to learn more, this conversation offers eye-opening insights into building a more empathetic and effective workplace.

 

Here’s What You’ll Discover in this Episode 

• What is Neurodiversity? Shea explains the expansive range of neurodiversity, which includes autism, ADHD, dyslexia, epilepsy, traumatic brain injuries, and more.
• Shea’s Personal Journey with Autism Diagnosed at age two, Shea shares how his early life experiences and challenges shaped his passion and career path in tech and advocacy.
• Beyond the Spectrum: The Color Wheel of Abilities Discover why Shea finds the traditional “spectrum” view limiting and how a “color wheel” perspective provides a more accurate understanding of unique strengths and needs.
• Treating Neurodivergent Individuals as Individuals  Learn why it’s crucial to see each person’s abilities and challenges individually rather than assuming a one-size-fits-all approach.
• The Power of Early Disclosure – Shea emphasizes how early conversations about workplace needs lead to better outcomes, fostering support and success for both employees and employers.

 

This episode is an invitation to expand your understanding of what’s possible—one conversation at a time.

 

Episode Key Takeaways:

Redefining Neurodiversity: Neurodiversity isn’t limited to autism; it’s a broad umbrella that includes ADHD, dyslexia, and more. As Shea powerfully puts it, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person,“ underscoring the individuality within each experience.

Building Workplace Inclusion: Inclusive workplaces aren’t about blanket accommodations. Genuine inclusivity comes from open conversations and tailored support, recognizing the unique strengths each neurodivergent person brings.

Finding Your Voice: Through Shea’s journey from a shy teaching assistant to a confident speaker, we learn that growth often requires stepping beyond comfort zones and embracing chances to develop new skills.

 

Quotes to Remember:

• “The best thing you can do is treat people with kindness and respect. Ask, ‘How can I support you?‘ and let them guide the conversation.“
• “The range of neurodiversity is vast—each individual has unique strengths and needs, so don’t assume one label fits all.“
• “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person. Each experience is distinct.”

 

About Shea Belsky

Former Chief Technology Officer of Mentra: A Neurodiversity Employment Network. Currently a Senior Software Engineer at Hubspot

 

Connect with Shea Belsky:

LinkedIn: Shea Belsky

Website: www.sheabelsky.com

 

Rate, Review, and follow on Apple Podcast

Did you enjoy this episode? Would you give this podcast a 5-star rating and Review? If you need help with what to say, here’s a suggestion.

• How did you find me?
• What do you do for a living?
• What was one helpful takeaway?

You’ll help reach and support more people. Thanks so much.

 

FOLLOW MARISA ON LINKEDIN 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/Join the Podcast Community! https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Watch the Podcast on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:13]:Hello. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amplify Your Authority. I am so glad that you are here because today we have a truly insightful conversation with one of my guests and you’re gonna really enjoy this because one of the beautiful things about entrepreneurship and our journey is discovering how many different perspectives there are in the world. Right? And we learn, it shapes us, we grow, and it makes us more relatable. Well, we’re about to hear from someone who brings his passion and advocacy to neurodiversity. So if you don’t know what that is, stay tuned because we’re gonna talk all about this. Shay Belsky, he is a former chief technology officer from Mentra, which is a newer diversity employment network, and he is currently a senior software engineer at HubSpot, but he’s also a speaker. And I am so excited to have Shay with us because he’s gonna just bring some light into this topic.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:10]:Hi, Shay. How are you?

Shea Belsky [00:01:12]:I’m doing great today. Thanks for the introduction, Marissa. I’m really excited to be here, talk about autism, neurodiversity, and what that means for entrepreneurship and doing things your way.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:22]:Yes. Absolutely. And I I think it’s important for us to talk about these topics and really become a little bit more, savvy and aware because, there’s so many misconceptions out there, but let’s start with you. Let’s start first when it comes to, neurodiversity. Can you just give us an overview and explanation of what that is and what it includes just so we’re all on the same page?

Shea Belsky [00:01:46]:Neurodiversity represents biological differences in the way that the brain operates, the way that they perceive information, interact with the world, interact with people. It describes different ways that are pretty low level as far as how people kind of operate. And different versions or different iterations of that include autism. I am autistic, includes ADHD, ADD, dyslexia, epilepsy, traumatic brain injuries. There’s a very broad umbrella of depth, which neurodiversity includes. One of those being autism, one of those being me, but it’s very broad and vast.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:25]:Okay. Got you. So it’s kind of the umbrella that includes all of that. Okay. Great. Well, why don’t we start with you? Can you tell us about your journey with autism? When did you first recognize your unique perspective?

Shea Belsky [00:02:39]:I was diagnosed at a pretty young age at 2 years old with autism. At the time, it was the diagnosis of Asperger’s. That diagnosis has since been phased out as far as the medical definition goes, and I’ve kind of been grandfathered in as far as being diagnosed with autism. I could still choose to refer to myself as having Asperger’s. For sake of simplicity, I choose not to go by definition anymore, but if I was to be asked if I had Asperger’s, that is technically true. But for simplicity’s sake, I just say that I am autistic to make things easy. Gotcha. And this was also at a period of time when most of the people getting an autism diagnosis were white men, to be honest of you.

Shea Belsky [00:03:20]:The understanding of autism and your diversity in women, people of color, people of different genders was very hard to come by. And so most of the science, most of the literature, most of the knowledge was around how autism presents itself or implicates white men like myself. Mhmm. And when this conversation happened, the doctors said to my parents, like, your son may never lead an independent meaningful life. He may you may be looking after him until you grow old. And that was a scary thought for my parents being like, oh my gosh. There’s really not a lot of hope. And the good news is that over the last 20 years 20 to 30 years that I’ve been around, amount of knowledge, the acceptance that society has created for people who are autistic and neurodivergent has really been transformed.

Shea Belsky [00:04:13]:There is still work to do in that department, but being diagnosed with autism is no longer a complete death sentence or doom for families or people who are autistic. There’s a lot more resources, understanding, knowledge, and empathy around it, which is huge for people like me and their families and their friends.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:34]:Of course. And that’s great news. Right? How wide is a spectrum just in autism alone?

Shea Belsky [00:04:40]:One thing about that which is pretty interesting, which I love talking about is the fact that the idea of autism being a spectrum is something of a limiting factor or not a good description of autism. Interesting. Here having this conversation. But if you bring me to a pretty loud environment, bring me to, like, a closed a bar, a pub, somewhere with a lot of sensory input, then maybe you would think I swing the other way as far as this spectrum goes, which does not adequately describe myself as being capable of doing many other things. Now a better framework to think about this is much more of a circle, a color wheel, which says Shay is great at communicating. Shay is great at executive functioning. Shay is great at these other things, and maybe he struggles socially. Maybe he struggles with sensory things and these other things.

Shea Belsky [00:05:34]:So there’s not any one place for me to say, like, by and large, I am lower high functioning or lower high end of spectrum. But instead, I can adequately communicate my strengths in areas where I need some help and additional support.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:49]:That’s awesome. Thank you for clarifying that and and for allowing me to ask the dumb questions. They’re probably in people’s minds because I do wanna learn. I do wanna understand more. And we just hear bits and pieces of what we hear in media, and that’s it. Right? So I’m so glad you’re on the show to bring us some more clarity. So it’s interesting that there’s a a for you, it it sort of led you in the intersection of technology and advocacy. What did you always enjoy technology?

Shea Belsky [00:06:19]:I’ve been around technology for a pretty long time. My dad works as an IT service provider for people in New York City. So he will go out to companies and businesses in Manhattan and around that area to help them with their computers. So I’ve always been around it. My grandfather also worked at IBM for a very long time. I’ve been around technology for a long time. Like, I always think that my dad brought home kind of the cutting edge cool things when I was younger. Like, getting to go on the Internet, like, the early 2000 was a really cool thing.

Shea Belsky [00:06:50]:And I remember doing that and being like, wow. This is amazing. Let’s do that. And then for sure. Also, my time of growing up was also really interesting going from not having easy access to the internet, then you have the cart of laptops that go around the school when then you can use the internet. Then you had a computer lab, anybody could go to it. Then the ubiquitousness of the smartphone where you have the Internet in your pocket, like, that all happened within a span of, like, 10, 12 years or so where we went from nothing to instant easy access to all the information that you could ever dream of. And so that was a little bit of a whiplash from in that period of time, but was also really cool to grow up with that, to go from not having anything to having a flip phone, the the LG chocolates and the old flip phones of those days, and then having BlackBerrys then having iPhones.

Shea Belsky [00:07:45]:I’m an Android guy, so I always had an Android. But seeing that transition over time was really cool. And I said, I wanna be a part of that. Like, how do these people figure out what problems are worth solving? How do they identify these problems? And how do they know when they’ve actually solved these problems? And that was what led me to Cornell University. I studied information science there, which is at the intersection of computer science plus user experience, arts, ethics, humanities, and data science, and understanding how do we know when we’ve actually solved the problem? How do we identify what problems to solve? And how can we do so in a way that is responsible and ethical? And that program at Cornell was really the perfect blend of all of those things.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:30]:Yeah. And I could tell by just looking at your past experience, technology has been huge. Not only I mean, you were chief technology officer and currently now you are also now let me check back here. Chief, currently senior software engineer.

Shea Belsky [00:08:49]:Yes.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:49]:I mean so you, like, are really in the middle of technology. Technology is exciting because it’s changing all the time? I mean, practically daily now with AI and everything that’s going on. It’s an exciting world. And you’re right. There’s so many changes that came about in a short amount of time, and we don’t really think about that as much. So in in looking at your perspective and and your background and as a leader, innovator, loving technology, how has this affected your role as far as the development of technology or even using technology for some of the roles that you’re filling?

Shea Belsky [00:09:26]:It’s important to be thoughtful about what is going on in the world around you. How can you leverage what’s around you in a way that is responsible and ethical? What you don’t wanna do is slap Chatty Paty onto a solution and call it a day. And I’ve seen a lot of them. People just say, here’s our the the latest hotness powered by AI, powered by chat gpt, and I’ve seen a lot of that. What my company right now, HubSpot, is doing is really trying to be thoughtful about, let’s make this AI valuable. Let’s make it worth using for our customers, for our businesses that use HubSpot daily so that they feel like they’re gaining value from using it. And it’s not just kind of a slapstick kind of thing. For instance, one of the things that HubSpot is doing, which I think is really cool, is they have part of their application is for social media.

Shea Belsky [00:10:11]:People can use HubSpot to schedule social media, gain analytics and insight. And they now have a social media agent to allow you to learn more about your business about your social media and suggest content for it help you create assets and images for it and be a really good companion as you create content and for marketing folks who are doing social media stuff all day, that can be a blessing in disguise as far as just helping them a little bit. Even if they don’t use what it says, just getting the ideas and the inspiration behind that. And as me leveraging that sort of technology, it’s really important to to be aware of the things that are happening and thoughtful about how you do it because you don’t wanna rush it either and then you burn the bridges and you can’t do that again or at least for a while. You have to be strategic about it because you only get a couple of tries before it just people just get tired of it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:07]:Yeah. And that’s a good way of putting it. Don’t burn your bridges by getting too ahead of yourself and thinking this is great. And now we’re recognizing the repetition and the repeated language that ChatChpT has when people just try to input and output and post it somewhere.

Shea Belsky [00:11:23]:Right.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:23]:We’re seeing that. So, you’re really passionate. I kinda wanna segue into the work place. You’re really passionate about educating others about neurodiversity. Why is that? Is it something from the misconceptions you see or something from your past or I mean, obviously, you’re very successful. You’re also married. Right?

Shea Belsky [00:11:44]:Yes. Not

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:44]:you recently got married. Thank you, ma’am. Yeah. A year ago. Congratulations. Thank you. So why the the passion to educate others, as far as neurodiversity?

Shea Belsky [00:11:55]:What I’ve found in my experience is that it’s such a huge topic for people, but they don’t know how to talk about it or don’t know who to talk about it with. For many of my family and friends, I may be the only autistic person that they know about or the only person who they can have a conversation about it with. And that is unfortunately a side effect of society not filling those neurodivergent autistic people with the confidence that they need people to talk about themselves to other people. I’m really lucky and fortunate to have found my voice, found my level of confidence and ability to communicate about my autism, about me being neurodivergent and what that means to the world around me. But I would say by and large, most neurodivergent people may not have that level of confidence. They may not have the emotional safety. They may not have the supportive family, friends, workplace to be able to do that. And so for a lot of people who want to learn more, it’s challenging to to communicate with those people, to communicate with neurodivergent folks like myself and not for lack of trying.

Shea Belsky [00:13:02]:So in my advocacy, in my communication, I really try to make sure that not only do I share my story, but also, like, lift up the voices of others and try to say to them, like, I am one story. I am one grain of sand and a massive beach and a massive desert. So you I recommend people listen to other folks’ experiences too to gain a broader understanding because my experience is one experience of being autistic. I am aware of the experiences of those who have ADHD, dyslexia, epilepsy, but I won’t say that I have have any of those things and I don’t. So instead, I would say go find out those people who are talking about them and listen to them because they can give you a much better story about those than I ever will. Other than for me to say go talk to them.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:49]:Mhmm. Absolutely. So have you noticed some common misconceptions specifically in the workplace? Has there been, more people, more companies hiring people, or is there still a barrier there?

Shea Belsky [00:14:05]:The biggest thing that I’ve experienced and witnessed as far as neurodiversity at work goes is the lack of nuance, the lack of specificity when it comes to saying some individuals need some things, other individuals need different things. When an autistic person at the workplace needs is going to be different from somebody who has ADHD, who has dyslexia, who has a traumatic brain injury, who has depression. And yet sometimes I feel that those are all kind of lumped together into one thing and say, here’s what you get. Have fun. And that doesn’t really do those folks justice who need a more nuanced set of needs. Mhmm. For example, the needs that I have in the work place are very different from somebody who has dysgraphia. Dysgraphia describes people who have difficulty reading and writing and dealing with text.

Shea Belsky [00:14:55]:And so what I face on a day to day basis may vary from what they face, and they may need a different set of tools or technology to get their job done. And they may not have the same struggles that I do as far as socialization and sensory stuff. It’s just a matter of being able to process information in their world and actually do something with it. And so the misconceptions that I found is making sure that the needs of the individual are adequately met to be able to do their job.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:25]:Yeah. And some people listening to you might think, wow. He’s so articulate, and he’s so confident. Because you are. And how did you you talked about just finding that confidence. Where did that come from? Did that come from within you? You said you had a good support system, but was that trial and error? Was that like making mistakes and learning from mistakes? Or was that just knowing that you had skills that you you wanted to speak and become a speaker? What was it that led you to that confidence?

Shea Belsky [00:15:55]:A little bit of all of the above. When I got to Cornell, I said to myself, I I want to become better at this. Not necessarily, like, better at it than other people, but I at least want to be able to feel confident in myself that I can walk into a room and give a talk about something if my life depended on it. That’s an extreme example, but so much of being at a big place like Cornell is being able to take something by the wheel and run with it. Even if you’re not fully fully confident in yourself, you should be able to at least squeak by. And so for me, the barrier was let’s just squeak by and become confident in this. And what I actually discovered with equipment to do that was to become a teaching assistant Because being a teaching assistant gives me a lot of education and support and guidance as far as what students expect from a TA. And that was a great starting place for me to say, okay.

Shea Belsky [00:16:48]:Here’s how I lead a discussion section. Here’s how I run office hours. Here’s how I tell a student no. It was kind of like a little crash course for me as far as being able to communicate, and that was a great starting point to then develop my skills and do trial and error and become more and more confident in myself to communicate. And what ended up happening was I just really kept going at it, going at it, going at it, to the point that I did become good at it. Better at it than other people who then looks to me as a resource. And I’m like, when did this happen? I thought I was supposed to be bad at it and not great at it. But by the time I left Cornell, I was really feeling confident in my ability to communicate with people and help us help people in a room process information that maybe they didn’t know how to or in a way they didn’t expect to.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:35]:That is very inspiring because everyone struggles at some form or another with confidence, whether they’re venturing something new that they’ve never done before, especially entrepreneurs. So that was very inspiring. So I’m curious because you speak a lot. What was one of the most impactful full pieces of feedback or success story that you heard as a result of you speaking out and talking to different audiences? Can you recall 1?

Shea Belsky [00:18:03]:This is a one that’s more personal to me. I’m a big skier. I like to go skiing and I know a lot of people who do. So, like, it’s a very broad ski family. Mhmm. And I was talking with someone, like, not even someone who, like, I was, like, super close with, like, a friend of a friend or something, but somebody who was, like, vaguely aware of me and my existence. They were aware enough of me if someone had, like, shared a post I’d made on Facebook or Instagram or whatever. So they were aware of me, and they were just talking to me about their son who is autistic.

Shea Belsky [00:18:34]:They don’t know how to support them, and we’re just we talk for maybe 30 to 45 minutes. Not really a long time. And she says to me, like, I gained more learning. I gained more talking to you in this 30 to 40 minutes than I have with, like, hours of a professional. And that really sticks out to me as far as being able to share my lived experiences from the perspective of somebody who is autistic to somebody who obviously wants to do the right thing, is caring for somebody they love, and is maybe finding that the professionals in this space have varying ability to communicate what’s actually going on. Not to discredit any of those people. They are all professionals and scientific and way smarter than I am in those areas. I think what people often miss sometimes is that first person, that personal message or the ability to articulate that and have it be heard.

Shea Belsky [00:19:28]:And I think just listening to somebody who is autistic like myself gives people also a sense of credibility or like a sense of ease because like when folks like this person see me and being like, oh, your son with autism is capable of living on his own, having a job, driving a car, whereas maybe a lot of the doom and gloom they see in social media paint a different picture. But seeing it in the flesh in real life, it it kind of feels like you’re seeing a celebrity in real life or someone who you look up to because it it seems kind of distant on social media where it’s always these very polarizing personalities, but seeing it in real life makes it a lot more real and kind of in your face.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:09]:Yeah. Obviously, you know, parents that would come up to you, you know, they’re thinking of their child. What about people that really don’t know anyone, but they don’t know them personally, like, they’re not a relative. A lot of times people like, for example, if someone dies, you just don’t know what to say to that person. You know? They say, well, don’t say anything. Just be there for them. But how do you start a conversation without being and I’m I’m asking the question that probably my listeners are asking. How do you how do you start a conversation to get to know someone like with autism without maybe offending them or anything? How do you start that? Because I think that’s problem we have in our culture.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:49]:We don’t know how to start conversations, so we don’t. And we stay alienated and we isolated.

Shea Belsky [00:20:55]:Treat them like a human being. That sounds very simple, but something that I’ve encountered myself personally is the sense of, like, an infantilization. I had to be held with, like, child gloves, and that’s me personally. There are neurodivergent people out there who have a high set of support needs to maybe do need to be treated with love and care. But until you know that that’s what has to happen, don’t assume that that’s what you have to do first. Yeah. I have been infantilized because people know I’m autistic, and they don’t know better. They’re trying to do the right thing by treating with, like, almost too much caution.

Shea Belsky [00:21:31]:But, realistically, the simplest thing and the most effective thing you can do is start from treating them, like, with just kindness and respect and just talk to them and then see where that goes. Yeah. For the reason that the needs that I have as a independent autistic person are going to vary from somebody who is nonspeaking and can do everything else. Maybe they just rely on a communication device or a communication aid to help them interact with the world verbally. And you might not know that that’s the case until you, And you might not know that that’s the case until you communicate with them and just say, hey. Like, what can I do to help you? And this that question right there, like, what can I do for you? Which is so often glossed over or ignored for neuroendocrine people.

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:17]:I love that. And so simple and so easy. What can I do for you? How can I help you? How can I support you? That I love that.

Shea Belsky [00:22:24]:And try not to assume either. That happens in the workplace. It happens in life. Like the set of needs that I have vary from those of autistic individual who’s slightly like me but also somewhat different. It’s a really important quote which says, if you’ve met 1 autistic person, you’ve met 1 autistic person. And I think it also applies somewhat broadly neurodiversity to different extents, but the the needs that I have and the strengths that I have as an autistic person are really different. You can have someone else out there who is nonverbal, not able to communicate verbally, but is superior to me in their ability to be sensory, executive functioning, social, whatever. They just happen to struggle to articulate things or maybe they have a stutter or maybe they have something else.

Shea Belsky [00:23:10]:So putting us both in the same bucket to say you both need these things is really reductive and overly simplifying something that has a lot more complications to it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:23:21]:Yeah. And I think in the case of TBI, which you said it included also TBI, a traumatic brain injury Yep. That person was one way traumatic brain injury

Shea Belsky [00:23:27]:Yep.

Marisa Shadrick [00:23:27]:That person was one way one day, and all of a sudden now, you know, family members may not know how to start the conversation. So I think it’s important to just start with something simple and just conversation and because they’re all different. You know? Right. And so and just to say, how can I support you? How can I help you, you know, just to be able to have a starting point?

Shea Belsky [00:23:48]:And I

Marisa Shadrick [00:23:49]:think that at least will open up the conversation. So I love that.

Shea Belsky [00:23:52]:And for some neurodivergent people, they may not necessarily know what they need. They may not know that something does or does not work until they encounter it for the first time to be exposed to those environments where this environment works for me. This environment does not work for me. And Mhmm. That is also pretty true for people who have gone through a TBI. It’s traumatic brain injury. And they may not know that something is a sensory trigger for them or they struggle with environment until after it happens. And there’s little you can do in a situation other than to acknowledge that that’s what’s happening and then Right.

Shea Belsky [00:24:26]:Either back off if it’s not a good thing or lean into it if it is.

Marisa Shadrick [00:24:30]:Mhmm. So I’m curious. On a personal note, you were so busy with techno software engineer speaking, you know, holding down a job, got your how did you meet your wife? When did you have time to meet your wife?

Shea Belsky [00:24:44]:We met on Bumble dating app.

Marisa Shadrick [00:24:47]:Oh, how exciting.

Shea Belsky [00:24:49]:February 1, 2020, which is always really interesting. Technically, we are like a pandemic couple of the sorts, but also not really because we we existed for about a month and a half before the pandemic really shut things down for the first time. So we did a bunch of normal things that you would do. We went to the salery, the Downeast Sighter in Boston. We went skating in the common. We went for a lot of runs together. We did a lot of things together. And then when everything shut down, I she was studying for her board exam physical therapy, and I was working remotely at the time.

Shea Belsky [00:25:24]:And I remember calling her up and saying, like, my parents have a place in the Catskills in New York. Do you wanna come hang out? And she said, yeah. She was just studying. I was just working. And less than 2 months into knowing each other, we lived with each other for basically 10 days, and that was such a fascinating experience for some of the diverse time. Like, either it’s gonna work or it’s not, and that was a really interesting time.

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:51]:Oh, wow. That’s exciting. My husband and I, just a little tidbit there, when we met, 3 weeks later, he told me, Marissa, I don’t want to date you. I want to marry you. Wow. And that was it. And I said, yes. And we’ve been married 38 years now.

Shea Belsky [00:26:10]:Yeah. Congratulations.

Marisa Shadrick [00:26:12]:It was love at first sight. So people talk about dating apps and how can that work? Well, love at first sight, you know, 3 weeks later, we were engaged. So so, yeah, very exciting. Congratulations. I think that’s awesome. So looking ahead to the future, what changes would you like to see or do you hope to see when it comes to, neurodiversity and inclusion in the workforce, specifically in the workforce?

Shea Belsky [00:26:37]:If I had a magic wand and I could wait to do whatever I wanted, I really think that the standard should be that every manager, every person has an awareness of neurodiversity and knows what that means to people. I think as a society, we’ve come a really long way with people who are deaf and blind, have other, like, visible handicaps and how we accommodate those folks. And society has come a great way to making sure that those folks are included with captioning, with the rumble strips, the corner cut corner cuts on the streets for people who have disabilities that might be more immediately obvious or more of a physical effect or more of a consistent impact to the one’s life. We’ve neurodiverse. There’s a lot more nuance to it, and that’s where I think people kind of get almost tired of trying to account for everything. But you don’t have to tire of that or account for every single little thing. It starts with being willing to be inclusive, to be equitable and what one person’s end state of equitable might look like is gonna vary from someone else’s based on the job, based on your family, based on your life. As long as you are working to create that equity and to get to that end state, how you get there and what there actually looks like may end up being really different from person to person, from place to place, and that’s where I really would like to see society go in the long term.

Marisa Shadrick [00:28:06]:Yeah. For those listening, those in the neurodivergent community who may feel isolated right now but have a spark of hope from listening to this podcast, what advice or encouragement would you give them? The number one thing that I think is essential to

Shea Belsky [00:28:24]:becoming confident in yourself as a neurodivergent person is to is to look inward, to reflect on what works in my life, what doesn’t work in my life, and what what sort of help can I ask for? Can I get to facilitate those things? If you know that something in your environment, in your life, in your work is a turn on, then lean into that. Really embrace it. And if you know something is a turn off, try to work with your life, with your workplace to reduce that as much as possible or lean on people who can advocate for you. You don’t have to do it alone either. You don’t have to do it by yourself. If you feel as though you want to lean on your friends, family, coworkers, peers, boss, whoever it is to get stuff done, then do that because they should those people around you should want to have your best interests and to help you become the most thriving version of yourself that you have the potential to be.

Marisa Shadrick [00:29:22]:Yeah. So if people wanted to find support or maybe wants to find a job, now remote work, I mean, is so common now. I would think there would be more opportunities. I mean, where would they go, or could they contact you? Where would they start?

Shea Belsky [00:29:39]:If you wanna contact me, I am on LinkedIn, and I’m on the web. You can search for my name. There’s only one of me. I promise that you’ll find me if you search for my name in the podcast title or the notes or description or wherever you’re listed as podcast. If you search my name on the web, you will find me. There’s only one of me. I promise. And as far as the job search, as far as finding the right opportunity for you, that really does come down to understanding what your needs are and your level of comp of articulating those needs to an employer.

Shea Belsky [00:30:12]:Something that I do believe in very strongly is that if you do have a unique or bespoke set of needs that are going to come up in the workplace, the sooner your employer knows about those, the better. That way they know if they can or can’t support you. And if they can’t or don’t want to, then you know that they are an ableist employer, and you don’t wanna be there anyway. Yeah. At the same time, you don’t want to disclose unnecessarily in a way that could be distracting. So really be thoughtful about what you want to say, why you wanna say it, and what you’re hoping to accomplish. I think that’s that also takes some internal reflection to say, what’s my message? What am I trying to say to these people? That way, they know what they know what they need to know and nothing

Marisa Shadrick [00:30:56]:more. Yeah. That’s awesome. Shay, you bring hope and inspiration to everyone. So thank you so much for what you’re doing. Keep speaking. I hope people listening to this podcast will have you on their podcast, maybe even do you do stage presentations as well or all virtual right now?

Shea Belsky [00:31:16]:Certainly. I just came back from a conference yesterday, the Kennedy Quaker conference, and I am always eager to get up in front of people and talk. I am virtual in person. I’m in the northeast, but happy to travel.

Marisa Shadrick [00:31:29]:Yeah. Is there a book in the future?

Shea Belsky [00:31:31]:People keep asking me about that. And at this conference I was at yesterday, people were like, there’s no written material about neurodiversity and leadership. My talk yesterday was about how do you prepare neurodivergent people for career growth, to become a manager, to take on authority. And people said to me, there’s just so little literature on the subject. So it definitely got me thinking about putting something out there into the world. I think I wanna be in a little bit more of a concrete spot as far as what I actually wanna put the pen to paper on. But definitely, the gears are slowly turning. The seed has been planted.

Marisa Shadrick [00:32:05]:I hope so because you’re very good at communicating. You articulate everything very well. So I would love to see a book in the future, but no pressure. When the time is right, you’re a newlywed. Right? You’re a newlywed. Enjoy your wife right now.

Shea Belsky [00:32:18]:About a year.

Marisa Shadrick [00:32:20]:Yeah. So thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

Shea Belsky [00:32:24]:Thank you so much, Marissa.

Marisa Shadrick [00:32:25]:So everyone, if you need to contact Shay, he is available. You can reach him on LinkedIn. I’ll have all the information in the show notes. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Shay.

Shea Belsky [00:32:35]:Thanks, Marissa.