165. Open a Client Portal to Other People’s Audiences with Laura Lopuch
Does the idea of sending cold emails or cold DMs give you the heebee-jeebees?
I never really considered myself a cold email kind of guy, until I reached out to THE person who teaches cold emailing
And how did I reach out? I sent her a cold email!
My guest this week is Laura Lopuch and she took us on a deep dive into cold emails & partnership marketing.
During our pre-show chat she totally shifted my perspective – and today she’s going to change yours as well.
Laura has developed her “Cold Email Cashflow Method” that will help you take charge of your business destiny.
So if you’re interested in finding the secret weapon to build your network & sell more of your stuff, listen up!!
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Transcript
Laura Lopuch:
Think of your partnership as not just like a one-off but more of a at the start of a relationship, and how can I really help this person’s audience and show up in an authentic way and a way that helps them grow their audience’s trust in my partner? Your partner is, in essence, putting a little bit of their reputation on the line for you to come and present to their audience. So how can you recognize that and respect that and really like rise to that level and give them really strong value in return?
Brad Powell:
Welcome to the Standout Business Show, the show for business leaders who want to make a bigger difference by doing business differently. I’m Brad Powell, your Standout Business Coach, and today we’re talking about creating a client portal to other people’s audiences. So here’s my question Does the idea of sending cold emails give you the chills? Well, I never really considered myself a cold email kind of guy until I reached out to the person who teaches cold emailing. And how did I reach out? Well, I sent her a cold email. So during our pre-show chat, she totally shifted my perspective, and today she’s probably going to change yours as well. My guest this week is Laura Lopuc. She’s joining to take us on a deep dive into cold emails and partnership marketing. Laura has developed her cold email cash flow method that will help you build your network and sell more of your stuff. So if you’re interested in finding out the secret weapon to getting more clients, cash and freedom, then stay tuned. And with that let’s start the show.
Brad Powell:
Hey, aura, welcome to the show, hi, brad, thank you, I love the intro. That was fabulous.
Laura Lopuch:
I feel like I’m on like a late night show or something,
Brad Powell:
Right, if only it was late at night, we could, we could be there. Yeah, thankfully it’s not because I would be asleep, I would be done Right, me too, like I have carefully picked the time that I broadcast to be like mid-morning or mid to late morning, and that’s for me it’s kind of like the time when my cylinders are all firing together.
Laura Lopuch:
Yeah, it’s really important to pick that.
Brad Powell:
It is. It is. Because if we’re doing this at like three or four in the afternoon, it wouldn’t not so much I’d be hitting that dead zone. So before we get there, to that dead zone, I just want to open up this topic. I mean, we’re going to talk about this connection between sending out cold outreach in the hope and in the strategy of creating partnerships and lasting connection with people.
Brad Powell:
I think a lot of people, when they think about cold emails, they think, oh no, this might be the worst thing possible for me to do. There’s my initial way to connect with someone, because I’ll annoy them, I will give the wrong first impression, they’ll look at me like I’m some kind of spammer and that’ll ruin whatever relationship that I might want to create. I have felt this way as well, like I’m just going to say that in my world I’ve always been like, oh no, I don’t want to be that guy. I get emails that annoy me. Why would I want to do that with other people? So what is it that people like me are missing when we think about this stuff?
Laura Lopuch:
Yeah, so there’s a lot in that question. First off, there’s definitely this bias against cold emails in the fact that you’re bothering someone. But once you start to think about cold emails in that you’re actually striking up a conversation with a stranger, because at its core, the definition of a cold email is you’re sending an email to a stranger, someone you don’t know, asking them to take a specific action. And the bias around cold emails comes from the fact that you see so many cold emails in your inbox that are transactional, and so that comes off as sleazy. It’s like hey, I want you to buy my thing. It’s almost like if you’re walking through like New York Times Square and people are like thrusting you know things at you. They’re like trying to engage you, or someone’s begging for money, someone’s putting like a theater pamphlet in your hand.
Laura Lopuch:
Everyone’s wanting something from you, and that’s, I think, where the bias comes from. Is that a lot of times, the emails that we’re seeing are cold sales emails which are wanting something from us, and so our guard goes up and so then we’re like, oh, you’re selling to me, how awful. But the truth is, everybody wants to be sold something. We like to buy things. We just don’t want to feel that selling towards feeling, and so I think what a lot of people are missing about cold emails is the fact that cold emails, at their heart, are just you reaching out to a stranger to start a conversation.
Laura Lopuch:
It’s not like, hey, brad, buy my stuff. It’s hey, Brad, you have a cool podcast. Are you looking for guests? I’d love to come on and talk to your audience right. Or when you reach out to me, hey, laura, I love what you’re talking about with cold emails. I think my audience would be super interested. Are you interested in doing this? And so that’s really, I think, where things kind of go haywire is that it’s not transactional, it’s more starting a conversation, and that’s what you’re doing with your emails too in starting a conversation with your guests and saying are you interested, Would you like to come on my show, would you like to share about your expertise? And that’s a very different flavor and a different feeling than hey man, brand my stuff.
Brad Powell:
Right, I totally agree with that. And in fact, as you just mentioned, I mean this is the primary way that I work with my podcast. Yeah, almost not everyone, but almost every guest that I connect with is someone I’ve never met before. I do research, like I go and look at mostly on LinkedIn, to see through it, like a number of things that are like well, what is this person, what are they posting about, what is their business like the work that they’re doing, and what do they have to say? That’s not only interesting to me but could be interesting for my audience. And when all of those things combine, then I will literally, you know, reach out to them and send them a message saying hey, you look really cool, I have this thing. Would you like to come on the show? And to me it’s.
Brad Powell:
I feel really comfortable doing that, partly because I’m making an offer that is fairly generous. Like I’m saying, you know there’s something that I could do that you know I’ve got some people who might really like to hear what you have to say and you know good things could happen, who knows. And I just want to take it one step further. And this is where we get into the whole partnering thing. A big reason that I do the show and the reason that I reach out to guests and that I have an interview show instead of just a bunch of solo episodes is because I do want to meet all these interesting folks. I have come on as guests and I’m growing my network and I’m growing a network of peers where, yes, collaborative things come from those kind of connections and it’s completely true that in most cases the relationship started from a cold outreach.
Laura Lopuch:
And I think it’s super interesting because, first of all, you’re pre-qualifying people in your research and you’re only reaching out to people that are a good fit, so that probably increases your conversion rate. Your yes rate on the other side, right, you probably get a lot more yeses than if you didn’t pre-qualify, so that probably increases your conversion rate. Your yes rate on the other side, right, you probably get a lot more yeses than if you didn’t pre-qualify. So I think that’s a really important step to highlight, and I think that’s where a lot of those mass cold emails that we see on our inboxes go awry is you really have to figure out who the person is that you’re cold emailing in order to make them a right fit offer. For example, like if you’re, if you’re going to email, say, a vegan who doesn’t do cheese, who doesn’t do meat, and you’re like I’d love to send you like an Omaha steak house box of steaks for your response, they’re going to be like not interested because you’re fitting the wrong offer to the wrong person. But if you’re like I’d love to send you dairy-free ice cream, if we’re doing bribery which I don’t recommend, but this is just an example I’d love to send you dairy-free ice cream in order to get on the phone with you, they’re going to be a little bit more tempted. So I think it’s really interesting to highlight that you do have to pre-qualify and find the right lead, the right recipient for your offer for it to be successful. And I think that’s also a lot of times where that bias on salesy and sleazy cold emails comes into play, cause you’ll get an email that like I’d love to write an article on back pain for your blog and you’re like I’m like I don’t have a blog about back pain, did you not do any of that research? And so doing the research is a really, really important part of sending a successful cold email. And I like how you you’re seeing the.
Laura Lopuch:
This is the start of a relationship where you bring someone on on as a podcast guest and now you have a connection. The start of a relationship where you bring someone on on as a podcast guest and now you have a connection. Now you have a relationship. And there’s been lots of times I’ve done partnerships with other people. In fact, sarah Noel block, uh, she came on your podcast and we’ve done several partnerships together. I came on her podcast a couple of times. We did like a joint webinar together and it. But the first tipping point was she reached out to me and invited me on her podcast and then built a relationship and we’ve done several partnerships since then and she’s not the only one, and so it kind of gives you like a chance to build that relationship and also it makes entrepreneurship feel a little bit less lonely because you’re getting to connect with someone and getting to meet someone cool and getting to ask them all the cool questions.
Brad Powell:
Yes, exactly, you’re meeting the cool people and asking the cool questions. Yeah, exactly, all right. So now we’re starting to look at this term that you coined, which is the client portal, which I think is a great concept, and so when we think about the design of a client portal you know you’ve already mentioned a couple of things that are part of it you want to research the people who are going to be coming through the portal. You don’t want just anybody to flood through and structure your outreach so that that is a conversational rather than transactional type of outreach. What are the other elements that are really important in client portal design?
Laura Lopuch:
That’s a juicy question. So I would say definitely if you’re reaching out specifically for partnerships and tapping someone else’s audience, which is one of the main ways that you can use cold emails. There’s actually seven different types of cold emails. The first one is the cold sales email which we’ve kind of touched on. It’s pitching one person directly to have them become your client. But the other six types of cold emails are more client portal creation emails, if you will like, partnership emails, where you’re you’re asking permission to unlock someone else’s audience. And so for those ones you’re really looking to see, does this potential partner have the, the clients that I want inside their audience already? Like, have they already gathered a big pool of the people I want to reach? And to unlock that reach I just have to send one cold email and present a reason for why that potential partner would want to allow me access to their audience.
Laura Lopuch:
So a lot of times that boils down to answering the question for your reader what’s in it for me? So how can you answer the question, what’s in it for me for your reader of your cold email? And sometimes a podcast interview is a great example of a content collaboration, which is one of those other types of cold emails, and so a lot of times you’re if you’re pitching a content collaboration, like if I’m pitching to get on a podcast I’m looking at their previous content, that podcast, previous content and seeing is there a content gap, is there a topic that they haven’t touched on in my case, cold emails and can I fill that gap? Would they be interested in me filling that gap and can I fill that gap? Would they be interested in me filling that gap? And also, if I fill that gap, would I kind of magnetize out clients inside of that audience that are already listening to the podcast. Does that make sense so far?
Brad Powell:
Yeah, totally. I like the idea of the content gap. There’s a flood of content and information all over the place. Everybody has gotten the memo that, yeah, we need to pump out as much content as possible and follow people like Grant Cardone and Alex Ramosi and just go bananas with content creation. And now that we have AI tools to help us do it even faster and quicker and not necessarily better, but just faster and quicker like on steroids now.
Brad Powell:
So it’s just there’s a ton of content out there and so, looking at carefully, like really carefully, and applying your own filter on, well, this particular person what are they talking about, what do they like to talk about and what is their audience most interested in like to talk about and what is their audience most interested in. And you can see that by even going deeper and looking at the comments and the conversation that’s going on on this person’s feed. And when you see people asking questions in that feed that this person is not necessarily the one to answer and you can do this on their feed. You can do that if you listen to their podcast episodes and you go, oh, this is a question that they got that I think I could really answer terrifically and that’s a really great conversation starting point where you can yes, you could do it through cold email, but you can also do it right on the feed Like jump into that conversation and say, hey, here’s my take on this and share it like, just like that.
Laura Lopuch:
Yeah, definitely, and also be looking for the spots where the content that they’ve presented might have opened up a doorway of other questions. So, for example, I attended like a webinar and the host was talking about the different ways she’s used partnerships in her business to grow her lists and all that stuff. But that conversation opens up this bigger conversation of, okay, cool, I want to do that, but how do I pitch and what do I say and how do I follow up without being nagging? And so that was what my cold email was about. Like I bet your webinar opened up a lot of questions for your audience like bullet point, bullet point. Right, I’d love to come on and answer those questions for you and help your audience.
Laura Lopuch:
And the person I reached out to said yes, because she doesn’t have to do extra work, and so it’s like a win-win where she gets to tap into my expertise, my brain, and I get exposure to her audience. So it’s a mutually beneficial relationship instead of maybe it feeling more transactional on one side A lot of times, these content collaborations are really truly collaborations, because that audience gets to take advantage and gets insight into your knowledge and that host, your partner, gets to tap into and give access to your knowledge without them creating additional content, which is, as we all know, a little bit burdensome and work intensive.
Brad Powell:
Yeah, I think that’s really a valid point.
Brad Powell:
When you’re doing that kind of exchange, when people look at that, they’re thinking, well, I’m asking a big favor to allow me to get in front of this group of people.
Brad Powell:
But actually, by bringing this really valuable piece of content to that audience, you’re making the moderator of the group look really good and helping them in their mission to whatever it is that they’re up to, and the audience is really appreciative like, oh, this person who I’m following and I hang out with and I go to all their webinars. They bring these special people in, which makes it even better, you know, and that’s like this huge, big added value. And so when you’re thinking about, well, who could I talk to and would they even care and maybe I’m sitting over here with a really tiny email list, you know and like they don’t want, like they’re not going to be very interested in me, and I think part of the mindset shift that wants to happen is letting that go and thinking, no, actually I have something that could be really helpful in this instance and it’s added value, it’s really helpful stuff.
Laura Lopuch:
It is really helpful stuff and I would really encourage you, if you’re feeling like that of putting this potential person on a pedestal, to realize that when I pitch, say, a webinar or workshop or even a podcast interview, I have never, ever actually gotten asked the question well, how big is your list size?
Laura Lopuch:
Only time when that that question is asked is if I’m pitching a different kind of partnership, which is a email list swap, where I’m literally emailing my email list about my partner’s stuff, they’re emailing their list about my stuff. That’s the only kind of situation where your email list size actually matters and, by the way, those that kind of partnership helps grow your email list really, really well, because it does tap into your partners like, no, like trust factor where their audience and they’re going to refer people over to you and all that jazz. But that’s the only time that size actually comes into play. Usually, with that kind of content collaboration that we’re talking about, like a podcast interview, the partner, your host, is more interested in your expertise and how good of a teacher are you and do you really know your stuff? And do you have stories, do you have examples, do you have like kind of proof to back it up and if you’ve worked with clients one-on-one and gotten them some cool results, that’s your proof Like you’re ready to rock and roll.
Brad Powell:
Yeah, and I think you just mentioned the whole thing of the trust relationship between the two parties, and I think this is also a key point that we can talk about a little bit, in that, when you are going to speak to someone else’s audience, what you want and what will make it work so much better is that trust factor, in that the host, whoever is bringing you on whether it’s a webinar or you’re appearing on their email newsletter or you’re on their podcast or however this is manifest you want the person who is the leader of this, the email newsletter writer or the podcast host to bring you on as a trusted confidant and to really share that. This is somebody who I think is amazing and come on here and listen to what they have to say, because I think it’s going to be really helpful. And, even better, I got a bunch of really good information from this person and it has already helped me. And if that is you know, this is all part of the almost like the pre getting to know someone level, almost like the pre getting to know someone level, like as you’re thinking about doing these kinds of collaborations, if you can get to that place, then, yes, you feel like the green light is like, oh yeah, we should definitely do something. And if it still feels a bit transactional, it’s like, well, I don’t really want to know much about you, but you know, let’s just do a swap. That might not work so well. If the trust ad isn’t present it could just fall, like no one in the audience will appreciate you and or be that interested in paying attention. Tell me some of your experiences with that level of care between the two parties. And I mean you mentioned Sarah Noelle Block, who I have also gotten to know, and she and I did a couple of things together and like I had her on a panel discussion that was like a special episode of the show where he had three different people on.
Brad Powell:
And then we also did a swap where we were on each other’s show, and then after that I took the interview that she did of me and I put it onto my feed and she did the same thing, the interview that I did where I interviewed her. She took that and put it on her feed and which was cool. Like I didn’t know she was going to do that, but it was, I think probably four or five months later, like out of nowhere I got. I got this bump because she did this thing. You know it was like great, awesome and but part of that was we connected and I think what she’s doing is really cool and we’re in nice parallel lanes of the work that we do and I have definitely benefited from some of the ideas that she shares.
Brad Powell:
And she has a podcast that I listened to. It’s like it’s in my playlist of it’s, one of the ones that I listen to, even though I don’t listen to it every single time, but I don’t listen to it’s like it’s in my playlist of it’s, one of the ones that I listen to, even though I don’t listen to it every single time, but I don’t listen to any show every single time. You know, it’s just that kind of thing where she’s now in kind of my ethosphere of people that I have a relationship and pay some attention to. So tell me you know some like I just want to hear a story from your experience of how this has evolved into a more trusted relationship.
Laura Lopuch:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So I would say it’s easiest to start thinking back on all the partnerships that I’ve done and this is my main marketing strategy, by the way, like I walk my talk, cold emails are my number one marketing strategy and so I’ve done a lot of partnerships and thinking about the ones that didn’t go well, it did feel transactional, even if it was an email list swap where we didn’t kind of take the time to get to know each other much and it was like oh, here’s my stuff, here’s your stuff, blah, blah, here’s my stuff, here’s your stuff, blah, blah, blah. Like I’m just going to send the email and I don’t really have, say, a personal story to tell. That kind of partnership does not go as well. You get maybe a handful of new subscribers who tend to unsubscribe quickly because there isn’t that electricity field, if you will, of like mutual trust. But I have had email swaps.
Laura Lopuch:
Say, I did one quite a long time ago, maybe four or five years ago, with Russell Lachlan and he emailed his list about me and I emailed my list about him and I’d had personal experience with him. I’d read his book, I had known him back when he was like a young fledgling marketer right, like there was kind of a breadth of relationship there and so I told stories in my emails about the ahas that I had gotten from reading his book and that seemed to do really well on his side. I’m not sure what he did on his side because I didn’t see his emails seemed to do really well on his side. I’m not sure what he did on his side because I didn’t see his emails, but I got at least 40 new email subscribers from that partnership and they’ve all stayed on my list. And it’s like four years later and I just looked at the stats yesterday when I was in my email subscriber and at least 40 of those people are still connected and reading my emails.
Laura Lopuch:
And so I think it is interesting to think about more of the holistic approach and not just one off wham bam, thank you, ma’am kind of transactional partnerships but like how can I actually show up and help this person’s audience?
Laura Lopuch:
And then that garners a lot of goodwill in that relationship and it will go on and kind of sprout more seeds later down the line.
Laura Lopuch:
Another good example is I came on Joanna Wiebe’s tutorial Tuesdays like six or seven years ago and presented about cold emails and since then we’ve done several other partnerships together, like a day-long workshop put together a course, for her was her blog editor for a while.
Laura Lopuch:
So think of your partnership as not just like a one-off, but more of a at the start of a relationship. And how can I, how can I really help this person’s audience and show up in an authentic way and a way that helps them grow their audience’s trust in my partner? I kind of going back to what you’re talking about of the partner that is allowing you access to their audiences, really saying, hey, I really like this person and I think you should listen to them, and that’s actually a really strong type of referral, if you think about it. And so your partner is, in essence, putting a little bit of their reputation on the line for you to come and present to their audience. So how can you recognize that and respect that and really rise to that level and give them really strong value in return?
Brad Powell:
Yeah, I think it all comes down to if you want to be successful in what you’re doing, you want to be helping other people be successful in what they’re doing.
Laura Lopuch:
Yeah, exactly.
Brad Powell:
Exactly, the more you can show up like you say authentically and just say, look, how can I help you? And then actually help. When you see a lot of stuff on online, when people say stuff like this, they’re thinking about your audience, your own audience, talking about forming partnerships and connecting with the people who, in fact, are your peers, and we’re all doing this like we’re doing the rock in the same boat in terms of we’re solopreneurs or we’re like almost alone all the time and it’s a lonely world. You know, going into business for yourself, even if you have people helping you, it’s still most of the time it’s you and your computer screen doing your thing. And these kind of interactions, I mean, this is actually the one of the reasons that I do.
Brad Powell:
What this show is that I get to have these kinds of conversations with people who are actually quite interesting, people who I genuinely want to get to know better, and it’s a highlight of the week that I have like when one week to the next is all my weeks would appear the same, except I can think, oh no, this week I talked about cold emails with this person, laura, and I just learned like this spark comes up and this comes out and I have stuff to take away that I can then use myself, I can share with my audience, and on and on and who knows what else will happen. But I think that’s part of this thing of compounding Like the more you do this, the more it compounds. And I just want to underline it can all start with a cold email.
Laura Lopuch:
It’s not that hard.
Laura Lopuch:
No, it’s yeah, exactly Like. Just if you think about it, just on the other side of like this fear is like this whole, it’s like the heaven, it’s like the whole realm of possibilities has opened up for you. Because, also on that topic of just sending a cold email, I’ve found multiple times in my business that as soon as I start sending cold emails and start proactively taking command of the direction that I want my business to take, there’s all these other opportunities that start coming in that I didn’t even know about, like I didn’t even think about pitching this person, and here they are in my inbox, like pitching me, which is a lovely feeling, but also like that lovely feeling you can give to someone else by recognizing their work and saying I want to support you. And so if you can start thinking about cold emails as just like a connection point, a conversation starter, it’s going to go a lot easier for you. Not to mention, we’re all kind of in the same boat together, like you said.
Laura Lopuch:
And once you start talking with another entrepreneur, sometimes even within the realms of a partnership I’ve had conversations lots of times where it’s like I’m struggling with this and they’re like oh yeah, I totally feel that same way. Here’s how I did to solve it. And then, all of a sudden, I have a shift, or I have another idea, I can try, or I just feel not so alone, and I think it’s a big myth in thinking that, oh, I’m a solopreneur or I’m an online business owner and I have to do this by myself. You actually don’t. There’s a lot of people around you who would be more than happy to help you and who are finding your work super interesting, and that spirit of collaboration is alive and well, and you can totally tap into it, too for your business.
Brad Powell:
All right. Well, I think that’s a great note for us. To close on, laura, if people want to reach out to you and go further on your insights with how to do cold emails like a champion, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you? And don’t be shy about sharing one of your free lead magnets or free courses that I know you have.
Laura Lopuch:
Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, in this period of emails, I am not active on social media. This might come as a shocker to you listening, but the best way to get more of these insights is actually to join my email list. So go to lauralopezcom and you can do forward slash everything. You can see the whole list of all the things that I have available. I would encourage you to sign up for um, one of the freebies listed at the top, and that gets you right onto my email list and that that is the lifeblood. Um, that’s where you’ll get the best stuff, that’s where I publish my email list and that is the lifeblood. That’s where you’ll get the best stuff, that’s where I publish my best stuff. So it really should come as no surprise that I’m an email lover at heart and not so heavy on the social media. So, yeah, I would say go to lauralopichcom, forward, slash everything and sign up for my emails.
Brad Powell:
All right, well, I’ll make sure that links to all your stuff are in the show notes and, laura, thank you so much for coming on today.
Laura Lopuch:
Thank you so much for reaching out to me, Brad. I loved your cold email and I’m glad that you sent it.
