In this episode, Laine Belcastro shares her journey from corporate marketing to becoming a solopreneur and email marketing consultant. 

Laine discusses the importance of networking, finding your niche, and the challenges of pricing strategies. Laine emphasizes the significance of email marketing for business growth and introduces her new venture, Accountability Arcade, aimed at helping entrepreneurs set and achieve short-term goals. 

The conversation highlights the balance of multiple revenue streams and the mindset shifts necessary for success in the solopreneur world.

Laine’s Links

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

Website: https://lmbdigimarketing.com/ 

Takeaways

• Laine has her own email marketing automation consulting business.
• Networking is crucial for solopreneurs to find opportunities.
• It's important to focus on a niche to avoid burnout.
• Pricing should reflect the value provided, not just time spent.
• Email marketing is a powerful tool for brand recognition.
• Consistency in email outreach is key to staying top of mind.
• Accountability can help entrepreneurs achieve their goals more effectively.
• Starting with a simple nurture program can keep contacts engaged.
• You don't need to have everything figured out to start your business.
• Taking action is more important than waiting for the perfect plan.

Sound Bites

• "I'd rather be homeless than go back to corporate."
• "Networking is key for solopreneurs."
• "You don't need a website to get started."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

02:02 Accountability Arcade Service

03:43 Leaving Corporate America and Starting a Business

07:57 The Power of Networking

10:01 Finding Your Niche and Specializing

13:19 Pricing Models for Solopreneurs

17:39 Flexible Pricing and Meeting Customer Needs

19:32 Effective Email Marketing Strategies

27:35 Creating an Accountability Group

31:25 Balancing Multiple Revenue Streams

34:16 Taking Action and Diving into Entrepreneurship

Hi, Laine, welcome to the Corporate Escape -y podcast.

Hello, Brett. It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

No, my pleasure. I'm super excited about this one. And we're to get into, I don't know what the best way to say it, solopreneur marketing, accountability, all things that we have a lot of questions in the community about. So I think this is a very timely topic. So to help maybe set the stage for the audience, just let them know a little bit of what you're working on. I know you're working on a couple of different things, who you're working with. And I do want to go back a little bit in your escapee journey, even though you've been out for a while.

you

Mm

So think it's been interesting. So I want you to share with what you're working on today and then we'll go back in time a little bit.

Sure. So today I have my own email marketing automation consulting business, which I've had for quite some time. so I help small to midsize companies focus on streamlining their marketing automation strategy, as well as the technology that they use to implement that strategy. So I come in and do a full audit for clients and dig into their email platform.

to see if they are in fact validated, their domains are not damaged so that we know that we're playing by the rules. And then I do a deep dive into their data and look at what campaigns they've been doing, if at any, and see how we can build a better strategy around that. And I also look at third party integrations that they might be using so that we can kind of see what do you really need? What do you.

not need, can we do to save you some money here and just have one source of truth for your email marketing and also just having that visibility into your lead and customer activity is going to help build that better strategy. So that's on the email side. And then I also launched a accountability arcade service that helps new entrepreneurs.

either leaving corporate America or that maybe they've been in the game for a few years and they feel kind of lost on how to reach the next steps of their business and how to get those clients. So we hold bi -weekly meetings and we work on short -term goals so that we can identify where you are now and where you would want to be in the next month or the next three months, six months, whatever it is to just take the overwhelming way of saying, we're not going to focus on

going five years down the road, let's just get you to that next level. And I hold you accountable and stay on top of you in between meetings to make sure you're doing what you say you're gonna do so that we can get you to reach those goals.

so much to talk about and we will get into it. And what I love about the accountability piece is one, especially for the solopreneurs, especially just leaving the gap feels like, you know, corporate to being solo is, you know, around the world when it's really not that far if you do break it into smaller chunks, right? So I think that's, it's so important. So yeah, let's hold on to that talk. So I'm going to come back to that. I want to get into the email marketing because it seems like email marketing has been around for

Mm

decades, but yet nobody really does it very well. shouldn't say nobody. Not very many small businesses are very effective with that. So, those two, I definitely want to get into, but let's, talk about your, I think we're coming, you're coming up on your 10 year anniversary. one of the OGs of corporate escapees, what were you doing in corporate? I'm going to guess it's in marketing, but kind of talk us through why you made the decision to leave, to go out on your own.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thanks.

and just kind of share how you got started.

Yeah, it's kind of your classic story. I had grown up in a family of entrepreneurs. So I knew from a very early age that I wanted to do something on my own because I saw how that lifestyle was. And I saw, hey, you can work hard and you can also kind of make your own schedule and do what you want. So I saw that and I knew that that's what I would eventually be doing. I just didn't know how or when because after

Yeah.

And was working for a great company. And then your typical startup came around and poached me and promised me the world of, Hey, you can build your own marketing team. You can have all this money and you can do what you want. And so I took it just to do something different. And obviously that turned out to be not true. And I realized within probably six months that I was probably going to get laid off from that. And so.

I just started networking around and event in the back of my mind, I was thinking I'm going to find another full -time job because I still wasn't sure if I should go out on my own yet. But now that I was in Atlanta and of course, cost of living was a lot cheaper than New York city. the more I networked, the more consulting jobs that I was offered versus full -time. And it was doing just marketing, email marketing consulting.

That's awesome.

me just deciding, okay, I'm going to go full force and I'm just going to, when I network, I'm not going to say I'm looking for a full -time job. I'm just going to offer what I do. And I just literally had coffee with anyone and everyone. And I would reach out to people on LinkedIn that were like third and fourth connections. I don't even know if fourth connections are a thing anymore, but I just, yeah, probably not.

Probably not, but yeah, no, I get it, yeah.

But yeah, I just kind of pounded the pavement and really just talked to anyone I could and figured out, okay, here's how I build a LLC and here's how I just keep clients coming in. And it's still very hard because I feel like that, I feel like that thing in the back of your mind that says, my gosh, this could end tomorrow does not go away with time as much as it is. yeah.

Thank

No, that and the imposter syndrome, It's still, it's funny you said that because I do, the way I tell people, you can find success in sounds like you did in the first few months. And after about a year, you you get to that rhythm where, now I can replace the corporate income. And I'd say two years is when I got comfortable that I'm like, yeah, I don't think I'm going back. But there's always those moments where like, am I going back? No, I'm not going back. But

Mm

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely been ups and downs where it's like, should I be going back to the corporate? And I just, I'd rather be homeless.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Well, there may be the clip for the intro for the title of this one. Go back to corporate. No, I'd rather be homeless. Something like that. That's all you need to know about the escapee world. So no, and I love what you said about the networking too, because that was an underappreciated part. And I still think that's one of the top five questions I get from folks or new members that says, well,

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, that's very true.

my website and I'm not very good at marketing and sales. I'm like, it's networking, it's networking, it's networking and anybody can do that. I mean, there's introverts and you're, but if you can have a good, the way I put it, if you're 20 years in corporate, you've had to do some things, right? You've had to develop some relationships in order to do this. So you have been networked and you may not even have realized you were doing it. And now it's just really a curiosity. Go meet people, see how you can help them and

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Yeah.

Mm

forget who it was, a guest we had on recently basically. The more I try not to sell, the more people want to help you. So it's funny.

Yes, it's so true. Yeah. You can't go out there and hard sell everyone. It's really just having conversations and being yourself. I mean, I didn't even have a website for probably the first year, or maybe I made one by myself, but I wasn't even putting it out there. So, so many people I think get hung up on those big steps of like, I can't be on my own until I have a website or until I have, you know, a corporate bank account, which, you know,

Yes, you probably should have that pretty quickly, but things like a website and marketing strategy. I mean, you really just, I know people be against me saying this, but you don't need it for the first year. Really. You just need to get started and everything else will kind of fall into place.

You don't.

take care of itself. Because even with the escapee world, right, and we're up to almost 900 members as we're recording this. And I do have a website, but I haven't launched it yet. So, right, it's connecting with people and we gave them a place to go, obviously, but it's just kind of like your LinkedIn page.

Mm -hmm.

See?

And the other thing I like what you said about the networking is you stopped telling me you're looking for full time and basically said, were you telling, hey, at this, were you very clear that, hey, I'm an email marketing consultant or did you learn the lesson of saying, hey, I can do all this marketing or were you very niche, nichey to begin with or how long did it take you to get to that? Okay.

Yes.

Mm -hmm.

No, I definitely was like, I can do anything and everything. I told everyone I was just a market, a digital marketing consultant and that I did email, I did SEO, I did social. I told people I did everything because I was like, well, I got to do everything in order to make some money. And it wasn't until, I mean, I probably did that and ran myself into the ground for probably the first year, maybe two.

Yeah.

of saying just yes to everything because I was so scared. And then after a while I was like, this is actually going to damage my business if I keep trying to say yes to every little thing when I don't even like doing social and I don't care about SEO. Like I'd rather just be my email nerd and focus on that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's such a good lesson because even I still catch myself doing it sometimes where I have to go back and refine. right, really, what are we doing? What am I doing right on the business side? What's the offer? Because it is easy to say I can do all of that.

Thanks

but nobody remembers you when you're networking, right? So if you go in and have a meeting with somebody and it's like, yeah, she's that email network or that email marketing expert, this company really could use that help. Where if it's a generalist, there's a lot of generalists. having that focus that somebody remembers you for. And I tell people, you can be opportunistic about other jobs that come through and if you want to do it, do it. But when you're doing outreach, make sure they can remember you for one thing so they can always come back and.

Mm

Yeah.

It still pays off. I got a call last week from somebody that I hadn't talked to in two years and said, hey, are you still doing that thing with growth with small businesses? I'm like, I am. So it hadn't been that long that people do remember exactly what It's a long game, too. That's the other thing that I found is networking is hopefully becomes.

Mm -hmm.

multiplicative, that's the word I'm looking for, right? You just keep having it and it keeps growing and the more people you help, the more people want to help you. So.

Yes.

Yeah, it's very true how you talk to people today and it could be two years from now when they come back around and say, hey, I remember we had this conversation and you mentioned just the word email or something like that. But I've had people come back that I haven't spoken to in five, six years that just come back and are like, hey, I remember you, talked about this and I think I'm finally ready to pursue that now.

Yeah, that's awesome.

It is very much a long game and it could be instant gratification or it could take a year or two. You just don't know, but it's always worth having the conversation. Even if it's just a casual conversation where you don't even talk about services. It's just, they build the relationship.

Yeah.

and you never know who they're going to introduce you to or one call. It's just, kind of the one random call that comes up. You're like, do I want to take this? Then you're glad you did because it just introduced you to two new people that you wouldn't have met otherwise. So, curious about when you first started working with clients from, I know you kind of came from an agency background. So did you have an idea on pricing when you started working with these small businesses or trial and error? How did that, how did that go when you got started?

It was definitely trial and error. I never worked directly in an agency. did subcontract with a lot of agencies. So I was at a lower rate. And once I decided to just strictly be on my own, it was very much trial and error. think the first year or two, I think I was charging by the hour. And just because

Okay.

I just figured that's what consultants did. And then the more people I talked to, I realized that is probably the worst way to do it. You know, it still can work for a lot of people depending on what the project is, but I quickly switched to a retainer model, even though I was so against it in the beginning, but being that I was just on my own, I wasn't giving them this big hefty price tag of an agency retainer. It was more.

let's be more realistic and I'm going to charge you for what I'm worth and what I'm, what value I'm providing. And that was the other thing I had to learn too. mean, charging based on just the value on top of the actual work itself, because you know, I could put together an email and probably half an hour, but somebody else who's paying me to do that probably can't do that at all. So it's, have to think about, okay, well I'm providing a value.

Yeah.

And I'm going to charge an hour or two, whatever it is. Now it's more project based, of course, but it was definitely a learning process of how do I get pricing going and what's the best way that's beneficial to me and the client.

Yeah, yeah, and you're probably under charging for the first few years too is going to be like, that's okay.

absolutely. Yes, I was probably I was charging peanuts.

Right. And that's what people think. Well, again, because corporate trains you, you have to be perfect. You can't make mistakes. You have to maximize every deal if you're in sales. And the fact is, if you get one wrong, then you know not to do that the next time. And yet you price it a little bit differently. And I do like the value for time versus money for time or whatever that that expression is, because it is true. You spent 20 years building this expertise. And just because you can you shouldn't get punished because you can do it quickly.

Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Right? I mean, you're paying for the value or the output of what you're going to deliver. So, yeah, I like it. And I like, I do like the retainer model is, that, did that take some selling it first with the clients or how do you, if you don't mind sharing, how do you kind of position that with, with your customers?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's

it didn't really take a lot of convincing. it was more so, it was more beneficial to me to do it that way, to be honest, because I'm not having to track my own hours. I don't need to worry about kind of pulling a huge report for clients based on every single increment of what I'm working on. Because at this point, I mean,

Right.

My clients are hiring me for a reason. They should trust that I'm doing the work. So I switched to just the flat rate by month, just because I know that I'm providing them with a certain amount of work. And I give them a full outline of what's going to be done every month. And they were very, open to that mainly because it made it easier for them. They knew exactly what they were going to be paying every month.

They didn't have to worry about going over on hours or, you know, they didn't have to worry about, I'm going to have a different bill every single month from this vendor. It's the same thing every month, no matter what. And if there's extra projects that come in, you know, every now and then I'll say, okay, this is just going to be an addition to the scope that we already discussed.

So it really wasn't too bad because I do think it makes it easier for the clients as well in terms of just knowing what they're going to spend.

Yeah, I like that model and that's kind what I encourage folks to look at kind of a good, better, best. Where I know a few folks in our community, they'll offer like, you know, at the lowest end, I think Shannon calls it a help desk or hotline, right? Where they have access to give her a call on any people issues throughout the month. And that's a small retainer. But if she knows she's started getting enough calls and then maybe they should upgrade it to a...

Yeah.

Program right a fixed program kind of like a retainer then you know at the high end it becomes fractional She becomes a fractional leader within the group and I kind of like the different like said I tell people not to put a box around it because meet the customer where they're at It's gonna be a much easier sell that for you than trying to force one thing down

I'm to

Mm

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I, you know, I'm still flexible with clients. mean, if, you know, I'm working with a smaller client and they just really need a lot of help, I'll totally cave and be like, all right, let's just cut the price a little bit just because I want to help them. But, you know, I'm always flexible, but it's still nice to have that just flat rate. know what they're getting every month.

Yeah.

Yeah, and so you know how to budget for it too, right? You know what the revenues are gonna come in, which is super helpful as well.

Yes. Yeah, that was kind of a big, big reason for that.

And are you specifically focused in one industry or is it just small business? Are you kind of? Agnostic to who you work with

I'm pretty agnostic. work with a lot of different interesting, geez, I can't talk, industries. Yeah, interesting industries. There you go. I mainly work with B2B clients. I do have some B2C clients that are super fun to work with. The only industries that I really stay away from are probably,

Interesting industry, yes.

finance and healthcare just because there's so much red tape and it's just a lot. There's enough red tape with email in general so I don't need to add anymore.

Yeah, same.

Yeah, I'm 100 % with you. That's, I mean, a lot of it, you're right. I mean, the foundation, the principles are all the same, but there's just that extra layer of regulation and industry specific. So yeah, I'm with you on that.

Mm

Mm -hmm. Yes. Yeah, those are privacy laws that I do not want to mess with.

And two, think, all right, so maybe you could transition into what you're doing with the accountability group, because I do want to get your recommendations on, you know, solo business owners and how do we leverage what you've learned with the email marketing and those types of things. So I think we can go two paths. Well, one, why don't we start with that? What should we be doing as business owners? Because right now, the one thing I'm fortunate, I've probably got an email.

Yeah.

Yeah.

list of probably 1 ,500 names. Am I doing anything with it? Nope. So maybe I need to be talking with you after this to figure out what do I do with it. But you know I do outreach but I'm not again it's I know it's probably lost opportunity for me. throw me out of the equation. Think about people just getting started. How should they be thinking about

Mm

I'm kidding.

lol

Okay.

Yeah.

setting up that marketing and the outreach and the email specifically and maybe some best practices.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think the most important is that your list is filled with organic people that came to you from either, you know, networking events or just talking to people, conferences, things like that. Do not buy a list. Do not steal people's emails off LinkedIn and assume that you can use them. I know a lot of people do that, but there are privacy laws that are getting very, very strict on that.

but try to target as much as possible and have an email platform. You can start with things like Mailchimp for free, HubSpot is free, I think in the beginning. They'll quickly charge you. But if you're just getting started, there's plenty of platforms out there that are cost effective that you can just start doing some consistent email communication.

Yeah.

So whether that's even just a newsletter once a month, I mean, just something to put your brand and your name in people's inboxes. And I think the main thing is just consistency. So if you're going to start emailing, make sure that if you do have a newsletter, it's the same cadence every month, every week, whatever you're doing. if you are just doing more targeted outreach, just make sure you stick with that. So don't.

send an email once in January and then nothing for the rest of the year because they're not going to remember you. So the main idea is yes, email marketing does lead to revenue. It's the most, it's the fastest growing marketing channel that there is right now. And it's just growing faster than any other channel. so if you're not doing it, you should, but it's really just, it doesn't have to be as complicated.

Yeah, guilty.

in beginning. even if you're just sending anything, it's really just about brand recognition in the beginning.

Yeah.

And especially as we think is one of the things I got to remember not to confuse is like with the escapee world versus what I'm still doing on the fractional and some of the services for small businesses or two different markets. So if I look at the small business that email list is much, much, much smaller. And I'm thinking a lot of the escapees are going to have smaller lists. So I think your advice is keep it targeted, but value added or consistent, if it's just even if it's outreach.

Mm

So again, if we're only looking for five clients, maybe on the high end, some people only maybe want two or three clients. It's just good. So I'll get to a question I promise. just trying to think of the best way to ask. Because what I know when I capture and I come across business owners, I don't do a very good job of then following just back up.

Mm

Okay.

to check in and maybe that's what I need to be doing with some of the outreach is, we had a good conversation. There's nothing we can work on together and I may or may not, I may keep them on my LinkedIn, but I don't have it in a file where I'll just reach out and check in and see how they're doing. is that something you would recommend? that as simple as that, just say, hey, here's all the folks I talked to last quarter. I'm just going to do a simple email out to them and okay.

Mm

Mm hmm. Yeah, I would say to just stay in touch. So I always say that, set up a simple nurture program that just has a cadence of once a month, maybe twice a month to reach out to those people that you've spoken to in the past, just to keep them engaged. it's kind of like thinking about.

email almost in the same way as social, only not as intense. So you're not going to email somebody every single day because you might get annoyed. So people are posting on LinkedIn, for example, every day or twice a week, however often it is. And that's fine because that's social, but you still want the engagement and you want people to follow up. So if you're posting and people are commenting, you're expecting them to the poster to comment back.

Yeah.

So you're expecting that back and forth engagement. And it's the same with email, just a little less often. So you expect someone to follow up. So if you're not, you just kind of fall in this black hole.

Yeah.

And I think too.

Again, yeah, like most of that I'm guessing probably 95 % of that's what everybody does. So if you want to be a little bit different, just do these little steps. Cause that's the other thing I found with LinkedIn where for a while I was super disciplined about doing follow -up on LinkedIn. But that, I have a problem with that platform just from a messaging standpoint that if you don't catch somebody right away in the sense of an email, then that, especially if you've got a lot of stuff in your inbox,

Mm

Mm

Yeah.

you lose track of it it's gone. So that's, do like switching folks out of that into email just to keep the conversation going. But I do it, I need to be more structured with that approach. And again, every time when I talk to you, it reminds me of, I've got to be more structured with this approach.

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and the other thing to remember is it's always good. Anyone you have contact with on social media, it's always good to ask them if they can, if you can email them or keep their email, always ask permission. But the reason for that is because you want their email address in your own platform because you do not own their information on your social media. So you can interact with somebody all day long on LinkedIn. But at the end of the day, if LinkedIn goes down.

just suddenly disappears one day, you have nothing. So that's why the email side is more important because you need to own that information and you don't own it.

Yeah.

And you want access. Yeah. Such a good, and so few people, even though it's a business platform, not a ton of people are on there every day, engaging and looking. It's, seems like it, but you see the same people all the time, not the other 8 million people that aren't as regular on there. Interesting. All right. So now I'm going to turn the tables a little bit, because one of the things I love about the escapee life, if you will, is multiple revenue streams, right? You can do different things and you can test different things. So.

Yeah, exactly.

Mm -hmm.

So where did the idea come for, and I'm gonna draw blank, you called it the accountability, So where did that idea come from and when did you get that started and how are you finding customers for that? I'm assuming those customers are different than your business customers.

Arcade, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So I literally just launched this. So I have been doing a test group, but where it came from is basically I have done so many, I've hired so many coaches. I've done so many masterminds. You know, we are all doing all of these coaching things at all the time. And we're going to conferences that are supposed to be mindset and motivation. And while we're there, it's

fantastic and you're super motivated and you have a big notebook filled with things that you're going to do. But then you leave and, or the business coaching is over for that week and you don't hear from anyone. So nobody is holding you accountable to say, Hey, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. Are you actually doing it? And do you need any help with that? How can I support you? Which is something that I needed myself and I still need that because

If I mean, I have so many notebooks from conferences and retreats and all of that, and they're just sitting there. I don't look at them. There's probably a million things in there that I told myself I was going to do and I haven't done any of them because nobody's following up. So you go to these things, you pay all this money and you leave, and then you're kind of at a loss all over again. So you go to another one. So my whole idea with this is to create a space where people can come in.

And we decide what are your short -term goals for your business? Why aren't you getting there? What have you done so far? Let's work on it and get you to your goals just within the next, you know, month, three months, six months. Let's not look at the big 10 year plan because that's daunting. And there's nothing wrong with that, but to get there, you have all these little mini steps that you have to take. So I wanted to create something where.

Yeah.

I can hold you accountable. I can follow up with you between sessions. So I do bi -weekly meetings and then in between, I'm basically following up with you saying, are you doing what you said? Do you need any help? How can we get this done? And so I've been doing a test group for the past few months and it's like, where was, where has this been? And it seems like nobody's offering that. So here we are.

Yeah, you're right. That's a great idea. And is that a group meeting or individual? Okay.

you

So it can be both. Right now I'm just doing a test group just to test it out. But now I'm going to be taking on more individual clients. depending on what clients want and prefer, I would be open to doing either or. So that's kind of, at the very beginning stages, so I can kind of pick and choose what I want to do with it. But yeah.

Yeah, are you marketing that or is that just are you networking? No, I just meant.

I should be. Yeah, no, I, I just created like the landing page for it and everything. So literally probably today I'm going to be starting to post about it on LinkedIn and just bring more awareness to that. So I think it'll start to pick up.

I promise I did have a, there was intent behind my question because I'm kind of dealing with the same thing with the escapee. It's going to corporate folks, but where I still do business with business owners, those are two different messages. I'm trying to be consistent with it, but I haven't found the right mix of content and or.

Thank

Mm

outreach where it makes sense. I guess I was more curious as you start to ramp up, maybe we'll have to bring you back on and talk about how you split your time and how you plan to reach those folks. again, there's probably two different schools of thought. One is you do all in on one thing. But I've seen some folks I think effectively, especially in the fractional space where, you know, John Arms, I don't know if you know John, but he...

Mm -hmm.

He's run in fractional, fractional university or Voyager U, but he's also still fractional CMO. So I think 80 % of what you see on LinkedIn and his content is around fractional, but then 20 % is still about fractional CMO to business owners. So I don't know if you, any recommendations on that or what are you thinking out of the box?

Yeah.

Well, I think, and I have thought about that because I was struggling with it for a bit because I was like, well, how do I just shift and pivot and are people going to think my other business is gone? Like I went through all of that. And I think for me specifically at the end of the day, these two kind of go together because with the accountability group, I'm still going to help you with your marketing and give you ideas on how to do the email marketing piece. so I'm.

kind of not abandoning one idea completely. And I feel like with many business owners, it's the same case. So they have their business and I don't think you need to have a million different businesses, but I think a couple is fine. But I think usually what happens with business owners that they have their main business, but then they start to think of little branches that go off of it, but everything is still related.

Yeah.

So I think it's fine to talk about the new service in a way that's still relating to your core business at some level. So I think as long as you address that upfront, it'll go over more smoothly where you don't get a lot of people saying, well, where's all of your other email marketing business and is that gone? So that's kind of my plan.

Yeah, it's no, and I think it makes sense because that's what I've been, cause mine is kind of the flipped, right? So I started with the, the community aspect of this, right? And that's been driven mostly through social TikTok, believe it or not, has driven a lot. then LinkedIn where the business side has mostly been networking and relationships, which I still think is going to be the core. And that's the way I'm going to still plan on.

Mm

Mm

is doing it that way, but still having a place and being able to tell both sides of story. Cause I am literally leveraging the power of escapees into small businesses. So it's, does tie together. So, all right. We'll have to compare notes as you go down this cause a little bit of uncharted water, but I'm curious. Yeah. I actually need to write while I was thinking even just a couple of core.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Yes, yes. I'll keep tabs on your LinkedIn posts. You can keep tabs on mine.

pieces because I do now have I will actually have three websites my personal site the escapee site for that and then the Academy for the business owners so again not leading with it but giving people a place to land if they actually do have questions for it so

Mm

Yeah.

Yeah. And you're way ahead of me because I haven't even put my accountability arcade on my main website. I just created a standalone page for it so far. So you're ahead of me. But again, you don't need all of these things out front. So there you go. It all comes.

No, you don't. A little bit of traction, then the word of mouth will help take care of it. awesome. All right, Laine, anything, I mean, this time has already flown by. So, anything we didn't cover that you think we should share with the audience?

Mm -hmm. Yep.

no, I don't think so. I mean, the biggest thing I would say is just dive in and don't get caught up in all of the big picture details right away because it's going to be scary no matter what. So just dive in and see what happens. And it's good that you have people like us to kind of support you and help you out with all of the things that we've already gone through.

Yeah.

take action, right?

That's so true. mean, that's what I tell people. My biggest regret is I didn't tell anybody for the first two years that I went solo. so, you know, there's there are communities out there. So, yeah, don't. I think I wrote a LinkedIn post today on.

Yes. Yeah, you're just a lot.

The biggest challenge for escapees is getting comfortable being uncomfortable, right? Because corporate life is as much as we may hate it, it's comfortable. It's what we know. It's you show up, you tell you what to do, you do it, maybe a pain in the ass sometimes. But here all of a sudden, we kind of walk through some of those things where you're responsible for your own schedule, the accountability, these types of things. But again, I've yet to meet anybody.

Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

that would trade to go back to the corporate life once they've been out.

Yeah, it's very difficult, but the pros outweigh the cons for sure.

Yeah, and if you just take action because most people won't take action. So if you're one of those folks that just do you're going to be successful. So I've seen people with little experience really don't know what they're talking about build a business because they're out there having conversations about it. So it's crazy.

Yeah, there are people that have businesses out there that have no business having a business. So if these there's people like that out there doing it, we can do it.

Exactly.

what I tell people, I'm like, there's people with half your experience and that are, that are doing this. Can you imagine if you actually did this, the value that you could provide? So it's easier said than done. And that's the one thing that's really surprised me is the mindset shift because people have been super successful in corporate all of a sudden, like, can't, I can't go into customer. I'm like, yes, you can. You'll be surprised. Yes, you can. It's, it's not bad. So. All right.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can. can. Yep.

So if people want to learn more about you and connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Yeah, they can go to my website, LMBdigimarketing .com or they can find me on LinkedIn, which is probably the easiest, Laine Belcastro.

and I will definitely put those in the show notes as well. yeah, one thing I'm really trying to do with this program now is make sure we bring people back to say, are they now? Because what I've really focused on the last couple of months is giving people use the corporate speak use cases, right? Of what different corporate backgrounds they're doing out here in the world and just to show people what's possible.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Right.

Right, but if you can think it, you don't have to open a cafe, you don't have to start a Google, you can actually build a nice little business based on your expertise. So awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking the time and sharing with the audience, and we will catch up with you in the near future.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was great. Thanks.

Anytime, thanks.