A Conversation with LeeAnn Marie Webster
Veteran marketer, email wizard and author LeeAnn Marie Webster sat down to talk about all that and more. LeeAnn is firmly in the "honor" school of email marketing, with a firm conviction that messages that benefit the customer on the other end benefit the business. (We bonded on a shared loathing for robo calls!) She also shares some interesting personal tales, like living as a "digital nomad" for a year, without a car. If you're in email marketing, or marketing, or you're thinking about finally tackling that book...this is a great conversation!
SLIGHTLY COMICAL AI TRANSCRIPT
Matthew Dunn
Good morning. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn, host of the future of email marketing. And my guest this morning delighted to talk with her even though we've never met before. Leanne Marie Webster, woman of many parts email marketing expert virtual events expert, Leanne entered. Introduce yourself, please.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Oh, hi. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I love I love talking about email. It's such a weird thing to love talking. to somebody gotta love it. Right? Yeah, that affects all of us. By the way. I'm so super excited to be here and to have this conversation. And let's see, I got 20 Plus, we're not going to count how many over 20 years of business marketing and business development experience and few different industries. I'm a lawyer by training, I noticed that don't hold that against me.
Matthew Dunn
Practice not doing it anymore, though. Right? I
LeeAnn Marie Webster
didn't get anywhere. Okay. And let's see, I don't know there. There's all kinds of ways I could go with that question. So um, but I've run my current business I've had for 10 years this year is 10 years. And and my prior business is where I learned all about email and the power of email, we can chat about that. And that's a so I've been in the in the online email game for also for a little over 20 years,
Matthew Dunn
over 20 years. Okay, so you've been you've been at this for a while. And you're also we'll delve into this a bit more, but you have a book coming out. So add author to the tagline there, right? Well, when's when's the book release? And what's the title
LeeAnn Marie Webster
and book will be released in mid September. And the title is Email Marketing Mastery, and it's 52 tips to build grow and nurture your email list. Without being cheesy or sleeping
Matthew Dunn
without being cheesy or sleazy. I like that. We'll come back to the, to the challenge of writing a book and and Iron Man and stuff like that. But let's let's, let's do something unusual to talk about email marketing first, because way down. Get ready for that. Yeah, I know. You said something interesting. We were chatting just before just before hitting start on the record about your philosophy about email marketing. Would you touch on that again? So we can learn a bit from that?
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah, well, so my approach or point of view is called email with heart and heart is an acronym. And I'll walk through my signature process which we could go there but the bigger point that I want to talk about is um, you know, I created email with hearts. I wanted to change the conversation around email marketing, because I felt that oftentimes the conversation is build the biggest list as possible through any means possible. And then pummel people with messages until they break down by? Yeah. And yeah, that doesn't recognize that there's a person on the other side of that at symbol and, and even larger than, then email. My philosophy is, we have a responsibility as, as content creators to do what I call honor the inbox, which is really the look at, you know, how can we this was a relationship that we're building, and that's that sacred space, that the in the inbox space, even though a lot of people don't treat it that way. But how can I, as the creator honor that. And then, on the other side, as a receiver, I consider the inbox to be sovereign space. And so how can I as a receiver, you know, um, have some control of who, who gets in the inbox. But even if we take it beyond email, you know, I think it's, it's much, much bigger, it's how do we, how do we honor the fact that my desire to get my message out? Doesn't Trump your desire? To Yeah, um, you know, control what, what you get? Yeah, you know, or, or what you see, like, just because you have my, my phone number, doesn't mean you can text market message me. Right. Right. Right. have me in all your Danby, Facebook.
Matthew Dunn
And how rapidly me you mentioned, you've been at this for a couple of decades. And I think I get to add it a decade on top of that total for myself, but, um, so 50 years of email between the two of us probably, on how quickly that's changed?
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yes, yes. It used to be. I think that I don't know that anybody ever remembers even at the beginning, having like, an empty email box, like, there was probably like, day one, right? When you're challenged. I feel like, there's always been a lot of things going on, but I feel like that's grown exponentially. But I feel like there was a sense of like, I'm, at least in the very beginning, you know, the email was created email, it was kind of to replace those direct mail letter communications. Beginning, I feel like people were a lot more conscious of, what am I using this for? Why am I sending the email? And what's it all about? And, and it wasn't used in this kind of, like, manipulative, you know, lasting kind of way? Yeah,
Matthew Dunn
yeah. You Well, it was a, it was a genuine one to one originally, you know, known person to known person that we've sort of blown out into a pseudo one to one but really broadcast it. And rather rude. Medium, all too often. Yeah,
LeeAnn Marie Webster
yes, yes. We really saw that in, you know, when the pandemic happened? Oh, and yeah, because all of a sudden, you know, it was like, Oh, I bought something from you six years ago. And it was, I don't care what you're doing in your facility. You're sanitizing everything that I want to know if my restaurant down the street will deliver, like the information you wanted from the pandemic often didn't come through, because it got behind all this other stuff.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah, behind all this other stuff. And, and depending on your, you know, inbox manager of choice, where is it? Do I have to hunt for it? Did I filter it because of all the other bozos stuff? Yeah, yeah. You know, hide is become hide the meaning, like died the message or something like that. And yet the philosophy you mentioned, which, as I said early on, totally agree with that. You know, think about the person on the other side of the ad, and their inbox, their overloaded inbox before you. Yep. I mean, this is this may be a funny analogy to bring in. But I, but I get I get him on messages all the time with, hey, we'll write your content for you. And I always just irked, I'm like, What makes you think you have to say what I would have to say. And how can I can't outsource thinking PS, you have no freaking idea. What's interesting, so just more manipulation. Yeah, boo, go away. Leave me alone.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Right. They scraped your email from somewhere. Yeah, yeah. And I did a talk a couple months ago, and someone said, you know, well, Leann, yeah, I, you know, I understand what you're talking about. And I got this opportunity to buy this list of, you know, 30,000. And, you know, the guy wanted to charge me 2000. I talked him down to, you know, whatever. And I just don't want email. I just don't want and I go, don't do it. No, it's not even worth $1. Don't Don't do it. You. There's so many reasons not to do it. I don't care what the metrics are. I don't care if you're like, Oh, well, only 2% of the people open it, which would be very low than X percent of the people. What No, yeah, stop. That's the stuff that it's annoying everybody about email. So let's stop.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah. It's not worth it. It's not worth the damage. There there. There's a funny, there's a funny sort of push pull that I've I've noticed, I mean, campaign genius, my company small niche technology that expands bunch what email could do getting in touch with our potential clients is actually real, it's really hard. It's really hard. How do we, you know, how do we do this? Because if I call the email, no, don't do that I could buy lists. No, don't do that. I mean, the, when I do email, someone, I've never met some other way. It's like half an hour of really trying to assess is this worth the interrupt? on their side? It's like, that's the responsible thing to do. And, you know, like, and not blow it in if if they say no, not of interest, no problem at all. But at least I try to invest the time. We try to time to get there.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
And and to think about it, I love that perspective that you're talking about. It's one of the things that I one of the elements of heart, is to really think about what's in it for them to open it. And I think too often people write their emails, one on one or you know, email blast newsletters or whatever from the standpoint of, I want you to buy my thing I want you to, you know, sign up for my course I want you to buy my book, you know, whatever. Yeah, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not against sales. I'm not against having you know, that be a desire. But you have to write the content from the standpoint of what's in it for them. And yes, you can you can give them something and then say, hey, and I have this other tool that can help you if this is what you want, and even lead them down the path. But there's got to be something in it for them to open that email. Yeah. Otherwise, you know, the delete, delete, delete, and then that starts hurting. deliverability. And then there's all kinds of others.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah, unsubscribe, etc, intrigues the heck out of me that that email that emails survived, in part, right. But it is the last comments, the last digital comments to a great extent.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
I mean, well, if I don't, I'm actually not surprised that it has survived. Because it's so powerful. I mean, we see this all the time, you know, that the hot social media platform will come out and, you know, everyone's all in it in on it, and they're doing everything. And then the algorithm change the algorithm change the algorithm change. Yeah. And or they start charging or, you know, I remember I'm sure you do, too, when Facebook came out, and we used to be able to put a post and get in front of organically for free. Yeah. 60 70% of your audience. Yeah. And then it was like, 50% 45%. Now, I think you can only get in front of about 15% of your audience organically. Wow. Like, it's insane how that's chipped away, that my email list, I'll open my email list. And as long as I am doing good practices in order to keep you know, and keep myself off the spam list. Yeah, that's never going away.
Matthew Dunn
Right. Right. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's your actual direct connecting, there are very few of those left. What's your perspective? Since you mentioned it? What's your perspective on on text messaging? for that same kind of, you know, ultimately, you can control the list, you can manage the relationship, what do you think Bible useful? Maybe?
LeeAnn Marie Webster
You know, it's interesting, cuz I hear people say this all the time. Well, we add, you know, text methods, I get a 70% open rate on the text message. First of all, I think that the false open rate, I think, all the open rates on text messages, and DMS, through social media platforms, I think those are inflated, because I think many people will do what I will do, which is, I don't like seeing that red thing. There's no way for me to delete it, or get it out of my queue without opening it. Yeah, yeah. And so um, you know, so I have to open it in order to do it now. And I personally, not a fan of text messages. And I I don't mind them if I don't mind them one on one from a friend you know, or from right, you know, if your significant other is like thinking about stuff. I like getting that tech. Yeah, um, but I for marketing, I hate it. Dude, I'm the bigger thing was and I know some people don't mind and I know I can be a little extreme on this. But here's the big thing with it. You've got to get permission. And when it really sticks in to me or like a big thorn in my paw so to speak, is when I have to give up my phone number. If I'm signing up for something, I don't have the option to not give my phone number. Yeah. And then they take the phone number and I'm giving it as a calendar thing or like something that is not saying yes, send me marketing messages. Yes, yeah. And then all of a sudden I start getting Come on with them. And it's like, why should it goes back to exactly what I was saying? Like, why should the onus beyond me as a receiver to have to take some action to opt out? When you should have never opted me in in the first place? Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah. Unless it was a really explicit, do you want, right messages from us? Check here,
LeeAnn Marie Webster
right. And then that's like that I, by the way, I always uncheck. Like, I don't I don't give it my phone number. But what really, like I said, what really gets me if there's some things where I can't, I can't not put my phone number in, in which case, I will usually put in the wrong phone number.
Matthew Dunn
Like the trick. I have a I have a I have a Google Voice number. I've actually had it since before was Google Voice but have a Google Voice number connected to my mobile. And I use that as a buffer. Right? Are you filling in anything? That it's not actually friends like friends and family? Number? Why? Because I can ignore that a little more easily.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Exactly. I have the same thing. The same thing. It's open phone or whatever. And mine is a are that added up? You can do this with Google Voice. I can tell it not to bother me during certain times.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah. A little bit little better control and then then the phone itself. Yeah. You mentioned you know, you mentioned just because you have a phone number you make just because you have a phone number. My phone number doesn't mean your text me. Funny. My brain short circuited because there wasn't point when phones were actually used for voice. I remember that. Oh, well. There's a long time ago. You know, just because you have my phone number doesn't mean you call me all the time like that. That was a respectable protocol. Yeah. Right in its day, and now it's actually flipped over where, particularly millennials, if you call them without texting first. You're being kind of a day. They're like way who, huh? Yeah, why are you calling me? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And when I get the odd sales call that I accidentally answered, that's unsolicited. Like, kind of chaps me. Like, don't do that. Especially when it's scripted.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Oh, my gosh, the end of robo calls. I don't know, how is anyone making any money off the robo calls? When I think when things happen? Somebody must be making money off this at some point, because otherwise, why are they still doing it? But I can't imagine anybody's making $1 off a robo call, like who is answering that call? saying yes to whatever the offer is?
Matthew Dunn
Have you gotten any of the ones where it's completely silent when you answer? Oh, no, I do not. What's that Google Voice numbers listed as a business number? I don't know why. But I was getting two or three a day, where when I pick up the phone? Absolutely not pick up the phone. He said, when I answer. Nothing, but like, background noise, like sounds like a call center. But no person, no voice, no nothing. And they'll sit on the phone for like two or three minutes. Like, oh, and I'm thinking of voice sampling. Someone's trying to build a profile. Maybe it's the only thing I could come up with.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Just verifying that it's a real person and a valid phone number.
Matthew Dunn
Maybe, but I've gotten to where if I if that line rings I? I answer. And I remain silent? Because if it's a person, what Hello, someone, okay, an actual human being. If it's a robot that just want to sit there. I'm glad to run up there bill on the venue. You're in the UK with zero horns off the boat and go. Okay, well, philosophically, we're very much in in line about that, which is I'm delighted to hear that because it's it's not an easy line to hold. And there's such a temptation to do ethics creep in marketing, I think,
LeeAnn Marie Webster
you know, it's so interesting, because, yes, and no, I mean, yes. And no, I guess, I guess there's a part of me that always like, no, no prices is to pay for my integrity. Yeah. And what I also find is, you know, when, when I talk to or learn from the people who, you know, are in that kind of, like, you know, just send a send and just build a list of lists. They only seem to be in need of adding a lot more subscribers to their list. And I think it's because they're churning so much. Yeah, yeah. Versus my list, which is not giant. Yes. 2200. Um, but I have a six figure business and 55% of my business comes from my list. And I rarely make direct offers to my list. Yeah. And, you know, I like I love to speak and I love to do things. And of course, I'm always looking for ways to grow my list, but my growth isn't like I need to add 500 and 1000 another, it because I'm churning people out. It's, you know, do I want to find more People who are aligned and want to and want to work with me, yes, I want you on my list. And so I think that, um, it's if you're if you're doing that kind of churn and burn, then you're always searching for the big leads and the big subscribers and big thing because you know, you're going to lose so many. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah, this one pays off. And you're not actually measuring the cost of what you lost? By doing it. Yeah, it's not, it's not super sustainable in the long run. Yeah, yeah. And then we end up with more technical safeguards, like deliverability, which you mentioned. And really, that suddenly, slowly increased resistance to try anything, consider anything open anything, answer the phone, that all of us are experiencing, like, stop communicating with me. And it's like, we're making our own cotton pickin problem. Like, oh, I agree. actors are.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah, the bad actors are, yeah, are the, you know, Oh, my gosh, that like tagging in the Facebook post. That's the one. Um, you know, that was happening for the longest time. And you'd see, I'd be like, well, I don't remember doing and me and 75 other people. And so I've just told people when they do that, I removed myself. And then I say, I love you. I love knowing what you're up to. But unless we're at an event together, yeah. Are we gonna have some parameters, then Don't tag me in your posts.
Matthew Dunn
My my seriously lifelong best friends since age 12. I almost never go on Facebook anymore. Just gave it up. He's on there a lot. And if I go hang out with him, we play golf. Sure enough, I'm gonna get tagged in a post. My wife actually said, Frank, please Don't tag me. It just drives me bananas. Why did Why? Why did Facebook make it? So it's like what you said about having to unsubscribe? Why did Facebook make it her problem? Instead of I have to give you permission to tag me in the first place. I mean, I understand why Facebook did it. But it takes Right.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah. And there's probably a setting in there that I can change. But here's the thing. That's a double edged sword. Right. So yeah, I don't want to create work for myself. And I don't I don't mind if people tag me when I'm at an event with them or do whatever. And I don't want to have to say yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. To 25 tags that I want. Only so that I can stop the one two or three, five or whatever tags that I don't want. You know, naming
Matthew Dunn
Yeah, so we end up we end up spending a ton of time. Right? managing that ratio. Yeah. Yeah. It's work to stay private and polite.
To be a little bit fair and to tell tales on myself in the you know, the gray hair at the temples. I grew up in a really really small town up in the up in the mountains of Colorado is so small that No kidding. four digit dialing old mechanical switch dialing, I mean, I've done seven but not four, or, yeah, I've got the phone switch, probably I know some of the party lines. They're actually ran on the barbed wire to ranches. I'm not making that up. But back in the days of party lines on telephones, early history of the telephone, you had some of the same problems. They just weren't as visible and big, you know, so and so listening in on the party line was an actual known social problem. So staying private, was worked in as well. Wow. It's nothing like a small town. Everybody knows your business that you want them to? That's right. So, you know, there's some human nature, just the scale got a lot bigger. He's got a, he's got multiple wires into your brain these days. That's right. That's right. So So shift gears, you must have had to think through a bunch of this as well as you know, work through 20 years of experience to start formulating. 50 odd 52 I think you said tips in the book. How did you go about tackling that? How long did it take?
LeeAnn Marie Webster
And why? You know, it's interesting, it kind of flowed out to me pretty easily it was the or at least I'll say like 35 of them did. The rest I have to really think about but you know, because of my email with heart structure and because that's my signature system. Like what I kind of did was just looked at how are the ways that I always work with my clients and what are the things that I when I give talks what are the things that I'm always talking about or when the questions that I always get asked are what are my kind of go to here's how you build those are you grow? Here's how you nurture and this came out actually fairly easily.
Matthew Dunn
Okay, okay, that's good. That's good. Was was was kind of put this was was writing and expanding on that to make you know, the sort of word count that goes into a book awesome. easier, was it hard? Was it hard to wrestle down? Or do you feel like, oh, man, this is so short, no one's gonna actually get what I'm saying,
LeeAnn Marie Webster
right? Well, I did, um, it is a tip book. So it's a it's a little on the smaller scale. Yeah. And I picked that intentionally as my first printed book, because I felt like writing a book to what you're kind of alluding to, right? It can be like a big process, it can take a lot of time it can, you know, and how do you organize it? And what's the flow look like? And I know I've got a few books in me. And so I thought, well, I'll start with this. Because the structure I can have it make sense fairly quickly. And I feel like I can take someone on a journey fairly easily, because it's something I do often in my business. And so I'm, and then I and the company that I'm working with the publishing company, or the publisher is, you know, they have kind of a structure that they walk through as well. So I was like, Alright, I think I can plug my thing into your thing. Yeah. And then we can be on the other side of this fairly quickly.
Matthew Dunn
So let's get even geek here. Did you write in Word, Google Doc, an online editor, what you actually what you actually write in?
LeeAnn Marie Webster
I actually wrote it in and it started in Word started in Word. Yeah, yeah, I had notes in Evernote, those kinds of things I'd read. But it's more because again, I took a lot of the stuff that I talked about when I give talks or all of that. So it was like, Okay, well, you know, let me just pull my kind of my script and the way I do my talks and prep for my taxes, I kind of write a script, okay. And I play off of that. And so I took some pieces of those things and put it together.
Matthew Dunn
Okay, interesting. Interesting. I mean, that I, I've been in a few different fields. And I remember reading that one of the characteristics about writers that surprised writers is in like, maybe famous ones or people who do that for a living is the, the writing tools and process become very much part of how they do what they do when, when Eugene O'Neill the playwright, who ended up with Parkinson's near the end of his life. We know Neil stopped being able to write with a pencil. He stopped writing plays. He could have had he could have dictated he could have had someone take that but like the the biomechanics of writing, were set for him. Wow. Wow. And Tennessee Williams wrote on a typewriter, always. Wow there for The Glass Menagerie, which he wrote in pencil in in one of those little school notebooks because I Oh, wow, I held the manuscript in my hands, which was amazing. But, but now we've all got, you know, way too many digital tools. And now it intrigues me that to ask you about that process stuff, because some people still outline with a pencil. So yeah, you know, some people write with a pencil. Respect can't do that.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
I mean, I, I still do write a lot of things. Okay. And these are my journals. I take a lot of notes, like first time client notes, or just different things in that. So I still very can be very tactile. Yeah. And I even have, I don't use this for my calendar calendar. But I even have like a planner. Yeah, where I still do it's called commit 30. So it's like, it's where I can like outline. Yeah, I'm saying that it's my gratitude journal that I also use for planning and for like an overview, like, when I think about my year, like this, mapped out some key things in the year, so I still really like.
Matthew Dunn
Ironically, and funnily and you'll appreciate this, all the studies, the studies by all the experts are now saying, guess what, you know, writing scribbling is actually better. Wow. Yeah. You'll remember more, you'll take in more. And going well, yeah, as a visual communications guy. I could have told you that I had the handwriting of a serial killer. I can't even read it. So I don't do that. Literally, but this morning, it's something and I'm like, I don't know what that notes. What I have to like what was like I have to sign a check or something like that. Sometimes I feel like if almost forgotten. What I'm holding up a pen if you're listening to Okay, it's like how do you hold this in? What do you do with it again, cuz I can go through weeks? with Kelly.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, I have every I mean, this is my like to do list for the
Matthew Dunn
to do list i did i my mechanic, my biomechanical process, for sure. involves a keyboard like just got added to that and can't not plus I have the handwriting of serial killer and I type really fast so I can live with that. But it's that's that's got a cost as well, right. It makes one stroke kind of structure works. Other structures don't really work. I don't The keyboard keyboard is the most effective thinking tool, honestly.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
I agree. I agree. Well, it's interesting. Now, now that I understand a little more robustness of your question, when I think back, I did have I have another journal. This is like my ideas thing. Nice. So this is where I map out a lot of things. So I will like, if there's something that I'm like, thinking of, yes. Before I would ever touch the keyboard, I will usually map it out, map out the outline or something like that in this book. Yeah. And then go Where do I pull it from?
Matthew Dunn
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, that's one of one of your ways of structuring, you know, of getting externalizing the thoughts and structuring them enough to then hang words, paragraphs and sentences and things like that? Yes. I, I spent a few years doing explainer videos. We were one of the one of the first studios doing that. 2008 2009 and I had had a wonderful artist on staff, Heather, like she was amazing. But her her thing was, you know, execution, she could draw anything make any visual, but like, what do you want it to be? was left to me is the director, writer. And you can see the whiteboard over my head, like, I would make these awful whiteboard scribbles. And she got, Okay, got it. Like that was, that was our process for work, I would think it through on the whiteboard. And you know, it looked like a chimpanzee got loose with the markers. But it was enough of a map for her to then turn it into something, you know, polished it was like was kind of a fascinating. We got a shorthand after a write that because I couldn't I couldn't write if I wrote out instructions in English, you'd be like, yeah, this isn't visual. Yeah, I need visual. Right, right. whiteboard. So I guess that kind of makes sense to Yes. Interesting. As as we got thrust into virtual, and I do want to talk about virtual events, which I know you've got expertise. And as we got thrust in by the pandemic, to everyone's working remotely, I noticed that people were really starting to realize how much stuff got left out. Once they were in the office together once they couldn't be at a whiteboard together and how hard it is to take that shared Brain Stuff and make it work in a virtual setting like the like the conversation we're having. Now. I don't think we're there yet. I don't think we'll ever be there truthfully.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah, I mean, there's a there's a I think there's nuances to both. Yeah, yes. And I think it's interesting because the one of my main service programs is called lead machine weekend. It's a three day experience where we create your lead magnet, and we set up all the technology and yeah, and it's a it's a wonderful, like, get it done in three days. Yeah. And I was doing those live, or in person always live. haven't done any dead yet. But nice. I'm just doing them in person in Chicago or Denver. I'm for a couple years. And my coach kept saying, Can you do it virtually stripe version? I was like, No, no, no, no. And then literally, before the pandemic, I want the record to reflect before the pandemic hit a week before but still before. And I was, I have been well, about a month before the pandemic hit, I have been kind of wandering around and you know, doing when my walks by the lake and like universe help me things. And I guess this is just not I know, it's a great product. I know we deliver amazing service. Everyone has a great experience, not unrolling the way I want, like help me understand what I need to do to evolve. This just helped me understand. And that day, I had a conversation with someone who was a perfect fit. And she couldn't travel to Chicago. She said, Can I do it virtually? And I was like, okay, universe. Yes, yes, you can do it virtually. And then two days later, somebody else who has already bought their plane ticket, realized they couldn't travel because a health reason she wanted to do unfortunately. So the week before the pandemic hit, we went in, we had a half life half virtual, and I told my assistant, you know, we're going to see, I don't know, I don't know, because we always thought we need to be in the room, we need to be helping you and looking over your shoulder and doing all that. And if I buy lunch the first day I was like, We're going virtual, this is so much better. And what I realized was people afford to do a creative process. They now they could be in their house, you know, and they could go pull the book off the shelf that they were thinking of or, you know, walk in their neighborhood or you know, go to their favorite coffee shop and and because we didn't have the because we hadn't even more tight parameter because we're online from this time to this time or, you know, you're going to go in a breakout room with the technical person at two o'clock versus we're all in the room together and you Have 72 hours to figure it out. Like it made people a lot more creative. And I made them a lot more productive. And so I'm so now I only do them virtual
Matthew Dunn
Hmm. And you're not going back even if you could sounds like
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah, yeah, well, the expense. Now, you know, before I was flying my assistant in from she lives in bfv, Montana. And so I'm like flying her in, and then the cost and the travel on then I got to rent the space. And then my attendees have to get a hotel room and travel if they're not in the city, and, you know, time and so I've been able to really up level, the experience of add more support to the experience has become more done for you than done with you. Because I freed up funds by not having to rent a location and and now I send a little goodie bag ahead of time people get this little treat. And so you know, you're able to do it differently. Yeah, yes, I would, it was very important to me to make sure that there's a tactile experience. And I think that's a really good key to creating a great virtual experience is to think about all the other like all the senses, but all the other factors within an event and have something tactile with you can that make sense for the event that you're doing?
Matthew Dunn
You just said something? You just said something interesting implicit in your description about your virtual events as well. Which is that knock on knock on wood assuming success and reemergence into not required locked down economy. Yeah, the live conference is gonna have a hell of a lot a hell of a lift to cost compete with the virtual one in the future. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Like and, and, and both from the cost of the event and the implicit cost the event like a plane ticket hotels.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Right. This is worth it again. I could just, you know, put it on the monitor here and attend. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I will go to I know that there are
LeeAnn Marie Webster
for sure. For sure. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I've attended a few events recently, and I spoke finally in person for the first time in a year and a half. Wow. Which was just like, huh, yeah, nice. And there was I had gotten so used to this box that I'm, you know, it was I forgot the things like, like being able to hear when everybody you know, laughs at your joke, or when everybody kind of kind of goes you know, or, or to feel the energy of people leaning in and really paying attention to what you're saying versus, you know, kind of being a little, you know, pullback so those pieces you can't replicate online, like there's no you can try you can you know, so I think there's a part of it that you know, that you can only do online that we are in person that will want to like do and recreate and I think when we start doing things in person, it's really got to be worth it to the point you just made that'd be worth it. Yeah, for the cost of the host it's gotta be worth it for the cost of the attendee like you had a really I think up your game budget in person events now that they're coming back.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, this may be a bit distinct too. I found the email marketing world to be terrific, like nicest people have any industry I've worked in and I've worked in a lot of them and and who else is going to be there? He's going to be my number one criteria for whether I get my button plane. Right? Not just to speaking but it's like who else is going to be there? I really want to you know, break bread or drink you know, drink bring a brew with is gonna matter and seems like I have no problem with that as a business decision. That's like, relationship stuff that makes the world world go round. Interesting sidebar study I've studied with the same voice coach for about eight or nine years pretty serious singer. We had to move that online. Oh, and some aspects of it have actually been better which shocked both of us like we're good boys. I say Rob, we got to make this work man because it's like this is your business. Yeah, and we work the technical the technical crap, like I'll figure that out. That's easy. What and the stuff that was better I never would have I never would have expected to have have improved in a virtual setting. That being said, I think we'll go back to live but it's some things progressed faster with virtual voiceless is like yeah, real real surprise that Yeah, yeah. Talk about something that you think is sort of only doable.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
What even Yeah, even just this morning, I had a follow up appointment with my doctor. And now all the follow up appointments are via zoom. Are they really? Yeah, cuz I don't need to get my blood pressure check. Like it wasn't one of those. But yeah, it was just to review some lab results and, you know, talk about some different things. And I was like, I don't even want to go back to person for something like this because the half an hour that I spent with her online was perfect. But it would have taken me two hours to, you know, grab the parking, get over there, right? And then you get back and wait. And, you know, I'm like, Let's keep this part.
Matthew Dunn
Well, think about the think about reduction in it just in exposure and infection risks of, you know, 50 odd people going in and out of the doctor's office in an hour. Yeah, it's better. This way. We like this. We will stick with much more of this than we thought. It's been a guy who's done virtual for a long time. I was like, come on, bring it on. Welcome.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Sounds like you said you were a digital yourself or a digital nomad? Was that during before or after? Oh, is it was a few years ago? Yeah. So you've had experience with this as well? Oh, yeah.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
I what, that's what's funny, when the pandemic had my non entrepreneur friends were like, have you heard of this thing called zoom? And I'm like, Yeah, I live in that thing. Like the original like subscribers. So yeah, but and and doing the I don't even know if I was using do I'd have to really think about it during my I'm sure I was during my road trip. And But yeah, I had complete I sold my condo, I got rid of 80% of my belongings. And I just set off to travel the US and to have some different God
Matthew Dunn
even in a car. You said to me,
LeeAnn Marie Webster
no cars, planes and trains, no automobile. Uber, I did public transportation. I would rent a car every now and then or use like a Toro or a Zipcar or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Dunn
Less stuff with you, at the end of the year than you had at the beginning.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
No question, you know, Oh, you know what I did? I did, because when I first I remember, the very first leg was Chicago to Denver. And, um, I had I choose to two checked bags, I carry on roll away, and then a messenger bag. Okay, and the very first one, and then I went up to weigh the bags, and it was one was 62 pounds. And one. And one was 56 pounds. Yeah. And I was like, full What? And then I realized I ended up weighing the messenger and the other and I realized I was carrying like, 140 pounds of stuff. And so after the first leg, I was like, I'm getting rid of getting rid of one of these check bags, for sure. And yeah, so I just found my way. And then I got rid of that. And then, um, and then I figured out how to like, a couple times, I knew I was going to stay far enough in advance. I like sent a box of things or whatever. But yeah, yeah. But then by the end of it, I was like, I don't even care. Like, I, you think there's all the stuff that you need? That was one of my greatest lessons of the whole thing was me. I really needed like, two or two pairs of shoes, you know? Yeah, you know, a couple of different types of whatever bottoms like, you don't need as much as you think you do. And you can wash things or I could always I just thought I can always go to like, target and grab another shirt if I'm desperately in need or whatever. Like, yeah,
Matthew Dunn
yeah, I had a partner in the explainer video business, Jordan, who had travelled around the world as a photographer with just a backpack. And he told me less and less stuff as he as he went along until it was down to you know, like, you know, the aware in a spare, and it was mostly filming cameras in the backpack and a great experience for him the whole way along, like, Huh, we should all we should all anybody who doesn't travel should for that reason alone, right? Absolutely. stuff. It's difficult to keep that discipline once you're actually back, you know, and can accumulate possessions, I suppose. But,
LeeAnn Marie Webster
well, again, it's interesting, because when I came back, I moved into a studio apartment. And then I ended up I wanted to have a little bit of a nicer thing, at least nicest place. I've lived into a co living space, or what what I called lovingly the camion. And so that was 14 people in a three level. And so I basically have my room plus, then everything else was sharing. And so I didn't have any I I had picked up like a bed when I came back when I got rid of that. So I didn't own any furniture. And then about a year ago, I moved into my own space and a large apartment. So it was really interesting because I had imperfect produce boxes were like my my furniture for a while. There's still my side tables in my data in my living room because I just haven't now I've got space to fill stuff up. And I have noticed that thing, that energy again. Well, you know, someday when I'm entertaining, I'll need these Yes dishes or I gotta have I got a martini glasses and margarita glass and drink a margarita not out of that pretty little glass. Yeah, just think how quickly it comes starts to fill back up.
Matthew Dunn
Have you ever seen there was a series of photographs I want to say National Geographic did it where they had, they had a household in every country empty their house, and they took picture of the family in front of their possessions. Wow, I haven't seen that. I would love to see that. It was a bit. Well, you made me want to smack smack all of us Americans, right in the chart? Like, dang, that's a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. Right? I mean, don't make me a cop, I've got a garage is not empty, although I do park the cars in it. So that's real.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
That was, that was actually one of the things that was I really, really noticed on the road. And because because I had gotten rid of, you know, like I said, 80% of my stuff, like I put a little bit of stuff in storage, and my Lake for say cookware, which will never leave my possession. But But otherwise, like when I would even like go stay with people that did Airbnb or friends of friends. And they would have all this stuff. And I was just so like, whoa. And then whenever we go to meetings, or whatever people would, you know, we got to take this book, or, you know, here's the goodie bag with all that. And I kept going, Oh, no, listen, I'm on the road, I have one suitcase that weighs 50 pounds. Exactly. And like, a room for it. And people would would get upset, you know, or Well, no, but but it's free. And I'm like, I don't care. I don't need more stuff like so it was really interesting for you to notice how much stuff people had, how much stuff they're trying to like, on off on you how this kind of culture of like, more and more and more and more and more is so pervasive.
Matthew Dunn
And possession is a two way equation, right? I own the thing, but the thing owns a piece of me. Yes, you really does. It's like you have to carry it, you notice that but even if you don't have to carry it, you know, at some point, yeah, you're gonna have to grapple with this. And I'm not willing to do it, Marie, you know, Marie Kondo, especially on my bookshelf, she can go to hell, but I like that was one of the hardest things to get rid of. cut my heart out.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
And I pared it down to five, and there was one that I took on the road with me. Wow. Now hook this back, at least laterally
Matthew Dunn
into our professional domain. Don't we have the same problem with digital?
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yes, yes, we have the exact same problem. And I it's so funny you say that? Because I noticed literally this morning 3100 photos, and my phone? photos. That's
Matthew Dunn
the perfect example, isn't it? You're like, yeah, I'll take a picture. I'll take another picture. It's like, man, we are so far beyond. Let's sort through the photos. It's become this algorithmic dumping ground problem.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Hopefully, many of you by now have paid 99 cents a month to get more storage. More storage. Yeah,
Matthew Dunn
yeah. Yeah. Are you let go, I'm gonna stick all of my photos on, you know, fill in the blanks platform. Why? So that I can search for pictures of Fred, because I'm never going to sort those things out and actually know which pictures Fred's in parallel. Boston now.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
I literally this weekend just redid, you know, my kind of to do list. Yeah. Any digital purge has been for three years or so. It's still on the wish list. Yeah, I can organize this somehow.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah. And it's it. It's insidious, in that you can leave it more, you can leave it less visible to a great extent, right, email inbox, perfect example. You know, those, those those those wonderful, evil people like Google is like, oh, no problem, multiple gigs of storage in your inbox. You don't really have to delete things. Right. Right. Yeah. Really, really, really should. Yeah, it's it's noisy. It's cluttered. It's, it's, it's, again, it gets worse and worse.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
There are little things that take your energy. So it's the I'm, you know, I when I did, and I did coach you for Coach training back in, you know, the late 90s. And one of the principles they taught us I remember early on was called tolerations. And people have different words for things like this, but it's basically like when that that broken lamp, you know, the the lampshade or whatever, you know, use it every day, whenever you walk by there and you see it, and you're not, you know, there's a part of you that knows you need to fix the lamp. Yeah. And it's like, and it doesn't, it doesn't seem like it's a big deal. Like, you know, whatever. It's not like you've got other lamps to use that like you can't read at night or something. But it's just a little bit of energy that pulls out and it's every time and I feel like with our digital world. We're like that, like I have five different email addresses for that. I Every day, yeah, yeah. And all of them except one. Now I go through periods with this but a lot, but I will go through and like clear them out so that they're back to zero. Well, because I find if I open the box and ever people have different opinion than this, but if you open if I open the box and I see it's just full of messages that gives me anxiety because it's a broken lamp. Yeah, yeah, all the things I got to do. And now I'm not paying attention to something, I'm dropping something or something. And then it's like now if I can, like, get it clean and out or get it to somebody else, or do whatever, or I'm going to be honest, every now and then I move over to a folder where I just collect select all and just delete them all. Why don't I just? Yeah, yeah, it's really important that somebody is gonna email me again and say, I need XYZ and I'll take care of it.
Matthew Dunn
Right, right, that that that word that Sidious word should, I should, like, I should everything The reason I actually have a hard time on Twitter is because it never ends. And and I read books to the end, and I'm never going to read to the end of Twitter. So why would I freakin start? No, you guys up. And truthfully, I don't feel a big gap in my life for not being parked on Twitter all the time. Right
LeeAnn Marie Webster
now. I actually don't have I think I kept I turned my Twitter account back on only because I had to be able to check hashtags for my clients. Yeah, we do events. But I never post in there. And I you know, just recently I did a staycation. And I spent nine days off of email, and then all social media platforms and zoom was wonderful. And I it made me change now how I'm doing and how often I'm interacting on social media platforms, I realized, you know, it doesn't, this is not adding to me or my life or my creativity. And and so it's just not worth it.
Matthew Dunn
Well, recursive comment, but the whole business decision process about launching this podcast, which, you know, is it out campaign genius? Yeah. Is it like personal brand stuff for me, I suppose. But that was I was like, I don't want to do I don't need it. Truthfully, it's actually turned out that it's great conversations with people that I might not have met otherwise. And the rest of it could be icing on the cake or not happened and I really don't I really don't care at this point. Like I get to hang out for an hour. I talked with Leanne that was it a podcast and is it content media? Yeah. Okay. I guess we should do that as well. But if that were the only outcome? I don't think I'd bother, honestly. Yeah, yeah. And and you got to look to find those things anymore, because the trivial will suck up your entire day. Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah. Which is why, you know, like the philosophy that we started with talking about email, like it matters, it matters and the more practitioners who take that stuff seriously, I suspect the better for, for all of us. And eventually my prediction is we're starting to back into you know what, culturally we need to regulate, think about this, and put some guidelines and guardrails and rules and seat belts and headlights and so on, in place Europe's ahead of us on this stuff to a great extent, but we'll we'll start going there. I suspect more in more in the US because, you know, we can't we can't leave everyone's noggin in the wild wild west with absolutely no rules. Are we all end up just stupid? Yeah. It doesn't doesn't pencil out the long run? Well, what a delight to talk with you any parting advice for people? Like who's who's your target? Who's your target, you know, client that becomes, you know, 20 201 on your list that you can really help with their business?
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah, I love working with coaches, speakers and authors. Okay, how people who they they know who they're about, they know who they want to serve are usually the face of the company. And I'm going to their personal brand. Yep. And they are either using email and not getting the results they want. Or they're not using email, because they're like, I just don't even know how or what. Yeah.
Matthew Dunn
So now you get to now you'll get to follow your own advice. launching your blog. Yeah. With with a heck of a head start because you've got a list you've invested in for a long time.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yes, yeah. Absolutely. excited about that. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. I think it'll be a lot of fun. It's fun to do something different for yourself out there in a different way.
Matthew Dunn
Yeah, yeah. True. I had I had Janet Tiffany, on as a guest Oh, I think a couple months ago and she had just launched. She just launched the book that she spent a good couple of years writing and she said some of the things Things that you did about the process of writing and seeing, like search, I already had all this stuff. You know, I kind of knew all this stuff. But then, as we talked about emotional, but I did sit in hammock and outline or sometimes right and sometimes type and yeah, so it externalizing anything takes work takes discipline to get it done.
LeeAnn Marie Webster
Yeah. And it also takes, I think one of the bigger things for me, and my, my website was really more tapped into this part of the process. But the was really just being like, Okay, I'm gonna do this, I'm going to draw my line in the sand, you know, I'm going to like this is I'm gonna stand for this. And, you know, so you know, putting a book out there or website out there, or even in a micro level, putting an email out there is taking a stand for something and and saying, This is what I believe. And I think it's important enough that I'm going to put it out there for somebody to consume. And sometimes I think, you know, women, especially if it takes us a little bit to kind of own that and say, like, yes, I'm willing to do this, and I don't care what other people think. And I don't care what they say, and I don't care if it's perfect, but I'm just going to go do it anyway.
Matthew Dunn
Good for you. Good for you. And yeah, and you're willing, you know, getting anything, and I agree it's harder for women, but getting getting anything and actually committing it. Not just committing to having it out there. But committing to say, That's mine. I did that. I wanted to do that. I'm responsible for it. Yeah, it's it's a it's a big step. I think it really pays off in the long run to, I think, you know, committed content or something like that. Hmm. Well, I like that. Great. That's a good phrase, Miguel, we just came up with that. Let's write it down. We're nearing the top of the hour and ask for a half an hour. So thank you for hanging in there continuing to talk with me. What a pleasure. This is so much fun. Well, we'll wrap it up. My guest today has been Leanne Marie Webster, who a quick Google search will lead you to on LinkedIn and elsewhere. Leanne, thanks so much for the time. Thank you. We're out.