Be Brave and Find Your Journey

Val:

Okay, everyone. Thanks for being back here. I am excited to have another guest with me today because, you know, I haven't been doing so many of those in the recent months. And, of course, as always, I always say this, every guest is coming in equally, what I need to hear, which I know is also that you will need to be here because you're on this journey with me. So I'd like to welcome Lauren for coming in. Thank you for having a chat with me. And, gosh, it's so hard to not just go, like, right in. Yes.

Lauren:

I hear you. I hear you. But, Val, I I love connecting with other entrepreneurs. And when you told me that you live, like, 45 minutes for me. My heart just sang. So I'm really, really thrilled to be here making a new friend.

Val:

So crazy. Yeah. We were just talking about the that I've had a few other Washingtonians recently that there's definitely gotta be a meetup somewhere

Lauren:

Yes.

Val:

Happening soon.

Lauren:

A 100%.

Val:

So, Lauren, would you go ahead and tell my listeners whatever you would like them to know about you?

Lauren:

Yes. Okay. So I'm Lauren Gaggioli. You can say it like ravioli, and you have to use your hand if you're gonna get the pronunciation correct. So, I'm married into the name, but I'm actually more Italian than my husband, which is Hilarious to me. But I got my start. If you go on the way, way back machine, I have a degree in theater. It is the exact wrong degree for a person like me.

Lauren:

I'm very type a, and I didn't want to produce and write and direct. So to just be an actress, you know, acting to the whims of other people, I realized very quickly that was annoying to me. And, also, I really hate wasted time. Like, efficiency is one of my highest values. And so after a couple of stints on sets, I was like, Oh my lord. I need to get out of here. So I pivoted very quickly, and I started kind of while I was Pursuing acting, I started tutoring the ACT and SAT kinda going back to my nerdy roots as a way to make money. And I was working with a larger company, but realized that I had a real affinity for it.

Lauren:

I love to teach. Teaching is absolutely my bag, and I really actually adore teenagers and cats as you can hear. And so I really kind of found this amazing little niche. And, like, I found that the thing that really made the test prep curriculum that I was given sing was when I went off script. And so I really was able to see the human behind the questions and meet them with unique answers instead of just this is how you do it. So I also realize, and this will come into, bearing later, that I like frameworks, not formulas. And I prefer to teach in that way so that there is wiggle room for individuals to really own who they are, their own story. And now after creating an online ACT and SAT company where I ran it for 7 years and then sold it for 6 figures.

Lauren:

I have pivoted into helping other entrepreneurs, particularly digital entrepreneurs, but It works for everybody. Learn the ropes around SEO. So search engine optimization, making, you know, best friends with uncle Google and helping yourself by paving the path for cold traffic, prospects you've never met to find you, connect with you, and learn and grow with you and your business to turn them strangers on the Internet into happy clients, leveraging the power of Google. So that's what I do now, and I love it. And I love handing off that knowledge. This is not the kind of thing where, like, And now we are bound at the hip if you would like results for forever. I wanna teach Amanda Fish and send him away. So that's that's my happy place, and I love doing podcast interviews because there's so much potential here.

Lauren:

There's so much possibility, and I love giving people a taste of what is actually possible, and it all is fed from my own story. So it's tried and true. It's what I've done, and now I'm doing it for clients and friends.

Val:

Right? So SEO. I know some of us

Lauren:

Right now. Some of us.

Val:

Don't go away. Some of us just went, boo hiss. And and I know for me, it's years of saying that and just, like, pushing it back. It's like,

Lauren:

I'm gonna do it later.

Val:

It feels like work. I don't in one, you know, kinda thing. And I think I've told myself that for so many years that I, like, believe it now. It's like

Lauren:

Oh, yeah. But you

Val:

you start looking, and that's like, but what if I had been doing it all those years?

Lauren:

And that is the thing. The best time to plant an SEO optimized blog post was 12 to 18 months ago. So, yes, like, the next best time is today. Right. Val, I'm so curious because when people tell me that, and I get that a lot, I I'd love to understand. Is it just the fact that it seems work? Because you clearly are a hard worker. You're doing a lot in your business.

Val:

It doesn't feel fun. Oh. It doesn't feel fun or creative.

Lauren:

Okay. I love it. You're my person. Like, I definitely like, don't tell me what to do. I would do it the other way.

Val:

Like you must do this. This is all that you could do.

Lauren:

Frameworks frameworks are in the answer.

Val:

See? This is exactly, yeah, that's exactly why I had you do your intro because this was not really the conversation that I thought we were gonna have, but we are Definitely gonna go into so what does frameworks mean versus

Lauren:

So a formula to me is a math problem. If you do a and then you add b, you will get c. And that is inherently boring. Like, it it has its place. Like, I'm glad that math exists, but what I wanna give people is the full view. I don't wanna, like, just give you the next right step and be like, and do what I say, and then I will tell you the next step. Like, that's no fun. Like, I wanna show you the potential, the possibility, and help you see the full vision of what is impossible.

Lauren:

So for example, in that spirit, I drove for 3 years straight 16,000 new users per month to my ACT and SAT prep company's website. Dang. For free. No ad spend Right. Entirely to content I had written. I am a solopreneur. My dad did my finances. My mom did my shipping, Everything else, curriculum, course creation, website maintenance.

Lauren:

I had someone build the website initially, but after that, it was all me. It was me. And I wanted high profit margins. I really wanted to boost those profit margins by keeping the overhead low. And so I didn't bring other people on. I put it on my own shoulders. So I'm saying this is a possibility. Like, what would 16,000 people coming through your door, Your digital door

Val:

Right.

Lauren:

Do for your business. Huge. Let's say you converted 1% of them, which is the average. Mhmm. Right? What does that do for you? You can start doing the math really quickly back in the napkin. Right? 1% is easy. So there's a formula, but, like, It opens the door for you to say, like, oh my gosh. Like, I don't need to boil the ocean.

Lauren:

I just need the right people to come to my site at the right time when they have a question that comes right before they're ready to buy or and that's an informational Intent query. So when you do keyword research, it comes in 2 flavors. There's informational intent, somebody who's like, what is organic marketing? Versus somebody who is more of a transactional intent. They're like, is there an organic marketing course? That person has a credit card in hand, and you wanna treat that traffic differently, and we wanna offer different things to that traffic. So there's ways you can actually boost your conversion, but this It's just once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's kinda like taking I forget which one it is. I think it's the red pill in the matrix. Like, once you start seeing how it works and you don't have to do Everything to have it work.

Lauren:

And, also, if anybody is thinking, like, oh, it's gonna stifle my creativity, actually, it's gonna show you the exact language that your ideal prospect is using. And when we can mirror that language, we engender that know, like, and trust factor much more quickly. And so it's like body language marrying. It's the same principle but with language, and you're telling Google exactly what you're doing. And even if you don't do everything right by SEO standards, you can still succeed. I was up against the Caplans, the Princeton Reviews, the Revolution Preps of the world. And as a solo person, I was still able to have a profitable business, and I attained the 4 hour work week magic. So I Totally wanna come to this as your cheerleader and say, even if it seems awful, how you deal with the queries that you're addressing, that's the creative spot.

Lauren:

But if you ever feel like you're screaming into the void or you don't know what to write next, then this is, like, a way to go, oh, this is what they want. Mhmm. And to figure it out from that.

Val:

And I think you touching on the fact that it's telling Google who you are and what you're doing. I I mean, of course, we're telling everyone there, and that reminds me of back when I had a previous website. And I was bringing on a social media manager, and we didn't know each other. And so she was just on my website, and she comes back to me. She's just like, I can't figure out what you do. And, of course, for me, I'm like, what are you talking about? You know? And then I tried to look with her eyes and went, holy hell. My home page does not tell anybody what I am doing and what I stand for or anything. So it's taking that that Yes.

Val:

And I don't wanna say niche down. People freak out when you say down, but each page has its own story. Right?

Lauren:

Yes. Yes. And, also, like, you bring up such a good point. A lot of us who are designing a website, We go, oh, the home page. That's my front door. That's where people will come through. But unless you're Tony Robbins, people probably aren't looking for you by name. And so what they're actually gonna find you for are the things they know they need.

Lauren:

They don't necessarily know they need You, they're gonna ask questions because when people are ready to solve problems, they ask Google for answers. Yeah. They're gonna Ask questions that are around the thing you talk about, and then they're gonna hit a blog post because that's far more granular. So rather than this flow down from home page to about page to maybe then they'll look at some blog posts. It's actually the other way around. They come up through the roots. They come up into those more granular answers to the questions they ask Google in an ideal world. Mhmm.

Lauren:

And then they're able to find you and understand who you are and how you answer that particular question. So that's the creative piece. Right? But we have to start so many of us wanna say what we're So many of us start with, like, I'm not an interior designer. I am a modern leaning, Eclectic collector. Like, we go to all this, like, weird language that Right. If you tell people what you aren't, you're not telling them what you are necessarily, and then Google doesn't know what you are. So if you say I'm an interior decorator, and I specialize in as opposed to I'm not this. Right? So it's a really different way of sort of flipping it because we we do need to stand in our purpose, stand in how we're different, stand in how we uniquely serve.

Lauren:

But in order for search to work, we have to start at the connection point of what people know we are Mhmm. And then work from there. Mhmm.

Val:

Well, in the words that they are looking for.

Lauren:

Yes. In the words they are

Val:

looking for. Usually pretty basic. I mean, if

Lauren:

we think of it you

Val:

know, if we're pulling up our phone, what are we typing in there? What are we asking, Google? Like, today, I was looking for recipes. I'm not looking for some weird random words. I am looking aimed for usually, I'm typing in what's the best chicken recipe. Easy weeknight chicken recipe. Exactly. Exactly. So that's the thing. How do we get to our customers Yes.

Val:

With the easy words that they're looking for? Yes. So maybe I overwhelm myself when I start thinking that way. Because even just bringing that in is just like, oh my gosh. I don't know. Yeah.

Lauren:

So keyword Search is where it all starts. You know? And I think there's something I think a lot of entrepreneurs were creative. We wanna, like, Just say like, just show up. Just have impact, and then you'll have income. And it's like, yeah. But you don't have impact if there's nobody listening. Yeah. And So that's lovely.

Lauren:

And, ideally, yes, I don't want you to, like, shape shift who you are to fit something. However, if you know what you do and you know who you are and you know how you serve and how well you do it, is there a way For you to find the language that somebody else who is in need of what you do would use, and the answer is keyword research.

Val:

Mhmm.

Lauren:

And I use A tool called Ahrefs. There's a few. There's Moz. There's Semrush. There's and Ahrefs is the one I have landed on. They have a free keyword generator where you can start typing in queries, and it'll tell you Mhmm. What words are used and adjacent words, like sim in the similar vein, what the keyword difficulty is to rank, and what the monthly search volume in Google is, averaged for the last 12 months. And so you can see, like, if I'm using language, I had somebody I had a client who was oh my gosh.

Lauren:

This Cat, she sounds like she

Val:

has a

Lauren:

cat. I can barely hear

Val:

her, so we're all

Lauren:

good. Good. She just sounds like she's dying. She's not. I swear. She's fine. Oh, sorry. I had a client who he was using the term recurring income.

Lauren:

He's an expert around memberships, and he was using recurring income. And what people are actually searching for when you put that in, he found that recurring revenue is actually the term that people are using. And so now now he's not writing a post about that. But by using that language instead, He's now anybody who does come to his blog is more likely to find it in alignment. There's no friction. Yeah. Right? Between, like, oh, you're saying recurring income. Does that mean what I'm talking about? Or, I mean, is that the same? Like Right.

Lauren:

You know? It reduces the Reduces the questions because as Denise Duffield Thomas says, a confused mind will not buy.

Val:

Mhmm.

Lauren:

And that's exactly what we wanna do here with our keyword research which is even if you do nothing else with it, just knowing the language that's out there, knowing the keyword volumes, hugely helpful.

Val:

Well and, I mean, I know I've gotten 2 different times because I've gone through so much, like, coaching stuff, and then you hang out with other coaches. And then next thing you know, you've got the coaching words popping out of your mouth, and I'm like, oh my god. I'm resonating. I'm like this and that. I'm like I'm like, it's gonna happen. Wait for it. There's a coaching word, and it's probably out of my mouth. But I I know one of the reasons why that was bothering me was because that's not what people are looking for or the words that they are necessarily wanting to hear.

Val:

So once it started going in, I'm like, oh gosh. You're gonna lose touch. Stop.

Lauren:

Oh, yeah. Listen. Your awareness around that is really important. Like, you have that understanding of there's, like, this fuzzy middle gray area where I'm either like, if I go too far over this line, then I don't resonate. But, also, if you go too far the other way, then it doesn't look like you Know what you're talking

Val:

about. Exactly.

Lauren:

It's both sides. And so it's this, like, yes, I end proposition.

Val:

Yeah. So I've got things going through my head going, Oh my gosh. Am I even writing stuff for what people are searching for? Even for mine, I'm like, Friends and I are used to using for collaborations and joint ventures and stuff like that. Is that us here. I'm not Mhmm. Going to reach. So, yeah, I've I'll have my assistant start working on that next week. Yeah.

Val:

Go play with this and go see if we're doing it right. Please assess

Lauren:

where we stand.

Val:

Exactly. Go learn this. I love having him. He's my favorite guy after with

Lauren:

his support. So helpful. Helpful to have help. Exactly.

Val:

So one of the things I did wanna talk about, and let's touch on it maybe really quickly, was this whole idea of compartmentalizing. I know I have a lot of women on here, obviously, because as a woman, that's, you know, who I'm usually talking to and helping them out because I'm in it. I'm in it. I have had the same same issues. But when you talked about compartmentalizing everything, my brain just went, oh my gosh. That's so, so what I can look back and see that I have done over the years.

Lauren:

Oh, wow. Oh, I'm so glad I resonated with you Yeah. Since we're using coaching words.

Val:

I know. I know where that resonates. It's it's a thing.

Lauren:

It is.

Val:

But, you know, it's a beautiful thing when it happens. Yes.

Lauren:

So, yeah, something else that I do is I help people name their purpose, And we come up with what I call your big why statement as a part of a course. And the course was really born out of My working with teens who are heading towards college, many of them blindly, willing to shell out 6 figures.

Val:

Oh, yeah. I was there. Thing. They were like It wasn't 6 figures, but was there. Yeah. 2 kids off that way. Yeah.

Lauren:

Yeah. Where it's like, totally here that some people are like, just go have the college experience. However, like, what do we mean by that? And isn't sort of infantilizing our almost adults to be like, no. Like, just live in the protective nest. Like, to me, what I needed was somebody to to say, you're headed towards adulthood. This is the last stop on the way to adulthood. So let's find a way to set you off in a direction that you are gonna really thrive. Yeah.

Lauren:

And you wanna pivot later, and that's totally fine. But can we be relatively certain you're headed in the right direction? Because I have a theater degree, And that's dumb for me. Right. Not because theater degrees are inherently dumb, but because of who I am. And if we'd had that conversation about, like, You just don't wanna choose who you wanna be. Now you're saying, like, I can be a doctor one day, and I can be a nurse the next. And I can go off and be an archaeologist because I have a whole Indiana thing. Like, that's that's not practical.

Lauren:

And, like, I couldn't have articulated that in high school that that's what I was doing.

Val:

Mhmm.

Lauren:

But I just worked with so many high school students and saw myself in them who was, like, this go getter who was Supposed to go to college using air quotes there. Mhmm. And so I just put my head down and did it and wasted 3 years.

Val:

Yeah.

Lauren:

Not that I didn't learn anything, but there was a more responsible way to steward that time, money, and energy. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I also noticed that it was manifesting in my high school students as some of them were intrinsically motivated. They were really charging towards that finish line. They could do the test prep because they knew what it was gonna get them on the other side and not just out of out of high school and into college. What was on the other side of college? They were connected to that vision.

Val:

Mhmm.

Lauren:

And so I could see that in some students, and then the lion's share We're either just like me, head down, you know, do gooders, or they were actively rebelling and, like, needed some real big carrots to get them through every step. And it was exhausting for parents. It was exhausting for the kid. People were not connected and having those conversations. Like, it's such a rite of passage. It can be such a beautiful time of connection, and I could just see, like, it's just fights over the dinner table about what to do that hasn't been done.

Val:

I had one of each of those kids.

Lauren:

There you go. Right? Or both. Yeah. It's such a lived experience. I'm sure everybody listening who has gone through it or has friends who have gone through it are like, yep. I know where my friend or I fell. You know?

Val:

I know.

Lauren:

It's kind of a universal truth. And so I wanted a way to reach the kids who were a little bit lost. And so this is a long and roundabout way to say that I create a course about purpose. And it initially, the first iteration was around those students and made for those students, but I realized that I was what I tell my daughter we need to be as self rescuing princess. Like, I built my own lifeboat with this course, and I was able to name my big why, which is to help others actualize their unrealized potential. I'm doing that with SEO. I do it when I homeschool my kids. I do it in a purpose course.

Lauren:

I'm often that friend who, like, shines a light on the blind spots that people have about their own amazingness and says, like, why don't we bring that into the light? Mhmm. You know? Like, that's who I am, and I am Lauren in each of those instances doing that. But what I found when my daughter was born, I sort of retroactively realized, now I am all encompassed mother because the to dos around taking care of a baby and all the love and all the The new responsibility just never go away. I started to realize how fragmented I was because when I was with my parents, I was daughter. When I was with my husband, I was wife. When I was with my friends, I was, like, this friend or that friend or and I was, like, shape shifting constantly, and I just wasn't grounded in who I was. And I didn't notice it until this, like, new umbrella of motherhood that starts to color everything really came on the scene. And so Big Y Life helped me as Lauren kind of unify all of these things and, like, stand above it all and say, this is what I bring to the table.

Lauren:

If I wanna live in my purpose Each and every day, I can look back and say, did I help anybody, myself included, actualize their unrealized potential? Did I Take any action in that direction with anybody. And it just leads to this, like, comfort and fulfillment of, like, I don't have to say, well, my purpose of my business this. And my purpose in my family is this, and my culture over here is that and this and that. Like, I can just be me and say, did I move this particular piece forward in any way. And once I can say yes to that, the rest and ease that comes on the other side. It's just so beautiful. It's also an amazing litmus test for taking anything new on. Mhmm.

Lauren:

Ego. Is this a nice value add? Would this be restorative and restful to me, or is this me living in my own purpose? If the answer is no to either of those things, I can say no.

Val:

Right? It's so amazing when you hit that, isn't it? I mean Of course. Luckily, you hit it earlier than I did. Yeah. I took a lot longer to, Figure that out, but what your was there too. It was just Yeah. Later. It was that moment of, oh, I'm so tired of putting my filter on and being Yes. This person for this person and that person for that one.

Val:

And it was because I was not feeling okay to be me because I don't think I really knew who me was. Yeah. And exactly what you just said because now that I know the connection and connecting people in life and in business Yes. Is my thing. It's just like you you sit back and you just look at it and go, of course.

Lauren:

Of course. Why didn't I realize this to you?

Val:

That's what I've Always done. It's like Yes. Hey. Do you know so and so? Because you were asking about this. It's like, I've done that my entire life. Why couldn't I have found that?

Lauren:

Why you create amazing bundles? Like, this it's exactly in alignment with who you are. A 100%. Yeah. 100%.

Val:

And I know if you're listening, you're probably going, whatever. You know? Because you haven't found it, and I I totally understand. I totally hear you. I had people trying well, you can't really I can't really try to help somebody find their purpose. It sounds like you've got better tools to help people find it instead of just running around. Right.

Lauren:

And I will tell you, I think so to your point about, like, of course, it was this. Yeah. My very first lesson, We go to the people around you, and we say, hey. So what do you think my strengths and weaknesses are? And we start to see The containers that we are maybe unwittingly fitting into.

Val:

Uh-huh.

Lauren:

Not and it's not like and you put me in this box. It's not like that. It's just like, Oh, like, this person expected something of me.

Val:

Yeah.

Lauren:

And I didn't even know that. Or, like, you and you ask, like, What are their favorite memories of you? It's just such a telling exercise. And, again, it's not for a gotcha moment. It's just for insight for yourself because I Genuinely believe, like Liz Gilbert says in big magic, that our most amazing treasures are already inside of us. Mhmm. We just have to go backwards

Val:

Mhmm.

Lauren:

Before we can go forwards in that alignment with what's already true and resonant inside of you.

Val:

Yeah.

Lauren:

And when we can do that, when we can have a beat so it's an 8 week program. 3 of those weeks are spent looking backwards. 2 of those weeks are spent really getting that resonant statement down, really setting the needle on the compass of your life's trajectory. And then we talk about moving it into action because that's where a lot of it stops. Right?

Val:

They're like,

Lauren:

oh, you have your snaps. Uh-huh. And you're like, no.

Val:

Because action can be scary.

Lauren:

It's It's so scary to move it into action, and we have to learn how to feel that we're in alignment. And Again, not something we pause long enough as a culture here in the states in particular to even pay attention to.

Val:

Yeah. And not anything we've usually been taught.

Lauren:

No. And I don't think it's ever too early. Like, I have this thing with my kids that and it's probably the Indiana Jones thing. But I wanna be an archaeologist with my kids rather than an architect. Yeah. I don't wanna build them into something I wanna see. I wanna, like, strip away what's already there and see their truest hearts. Like Uh-huh.

Lauren:

Any hang ups, Any, like, they have. Like, my little guy, he's 4. He's just so sensitive and, like, is already judging himself, which is not something I am bringing into the conversation, but he is absolutely putting it on his own little shoulders. And so how do I bolster him so that he builds that confidence that he can continue to move forward in integrity with who he is because he's already perfect. I can see that. I'm his mother. I'm supposed to see And my daughter too. Like, I want to elevate the things that genuinely turn them on, and I wanna continue to reflect back to them so they can feel as connected to that at all times.

Lauren:

Right.

Val:

And I

Lauren:

also wanna create a safe culture in our home where they can tell me when I'm wrong. Yep. Now. No, mama. That's not actually what I love. Oh, great. You know, I wasn't invested in that. I was just trying to reflect back what I saw.

Lauren:

What is it that you do like? Right. And, really, I think if we can treat our own inner selves with that kind of tender care Mhmm. You'll be amazed what starts to come out. And some of us are closer to it. We just can't see it. Some of us are further away. It takes a little more work, but I really do believe that this is kind of work that changes the world because when you stand firm in what you love, that just makes the world better. There are ripple effects that come from that.

Lauren:

And so I think it's really powerful work to do for yourself, for your family, for your business, for clients, for the world at large.

Val:

Mhmm. Yeah. Because when you show up, you don't know who you're touching.

Lauren:

Absolutely.

Val:

We have no idea the ripples we have made when we show up as ourselves, For sure. It's been wonderful when you can see it, when it, like, all of a sudden shows itself to remind you to keep doing.

Lauren:

Yeah. Keep going.

Val:

That reminder. Exactly. Oh goodness. So thank you so much, Lauren. I don't wanna pack too much in here, because I know we could very

Lauren:

We could go on forever. I know. Exactly.

Val:

Do you have any last minute thing, a last minute tip, or just anything that's popping in your head that you'd like to share?

Lauren:

You know, I think often of those old timey maps where the edge of the map says Darby Dragons. And I think when you feel fear, when you're towards the edge of the map, that's a time to really go, Okay. Let's meet a dragon, and that could be really cool. Yeah. So whenever you're feel whether it's what we've talked about today, purpose piss or SEO. Like, it doesn't matter. But where there's discomfort and also this, like, curiosity, you can sort of feel that bubbling underneath. In those moments, I just wanna encourage you to be brave and figure out what your next right step is.

Lauren:

And if I can be a part of that journey, if these 2 paths are part of it, then by all means, please do get in touch. But wherever that is, find somebody who can support you as you start to explore off the map because the good stuff is out there.

Val:

Yeah. Oh, I love it. Thank you so much, Lauren. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Lauren:

You, Val.

Val:

So everyone, her information's gonna be in the show notes, so scroll on down and you will find out the ways to connect because I know where to use the word. Yep. It's coming out. If you resonated with are you're on and attack her social media and probably join her course and not be so afraid of SEO. We're gonna we're gonna embrace SEO because this is

Lauren:

Uncle Google is very strong. You want to be invited to his Thanksgiving table.

Val:

Exactly. For sure. Thank you,