Hello and welcome to Sunday Morning Worship Services at the Church of Word Press. Thanks for getting up early this morning. Appreciate it. We'll try to make it worth your while. I am Tom Todorisi and I actually started out as a designer because I've always loved good design and I'm grateful that most companies understand the importance of a good professionally designed website and they're willing to pay for it. Not all, but most. And as designers tend to do, I've trolled around online looking at awesome websites for inspiration. But when I started looking closer I noticed something interesting. A lot of those professionally designed websites were filled with weak, even amateurish writing. Clearly, more thought was put into the colors and fonts than into the company's core messages. And that seems surprising to me because as much as a clean distinctive web design can help visually define the brand, I can't say I've ever responded or bought the company's product because I like their website design. On the other hand, it feels funny to admit that I have responded and bought stuff from ugly websites. You probably have, too. So I'm not sure I find this kind of curious, but it got me thinking. So if people are shopping online for things like jewelry, clothing, or photography, it's really the pretty images of beautiful things that help entice people and move the sale along. But most of our companies and most of the sites we work on, for example business services, don't have pretty products to show. So I asked what is strategically that helps engage people, helps them look around, click around, and eventually to buy. The answer seemed to be, it's the written word. And that's when I decided to become a copywriter. Which of course brought up all kinds of other issues. I mean, how do we really engage people? How do we actively sell these days without sounding salesy? And how do we engage people with a notoriously short attention span? And how do we stand out from competitors who pretty much sell the same thing? And these are challenges, yes, but there's some of the challenges we'll talk about today. But first I want to make a distinction between web copy on our homepage and our product and service pages versus web content on our blog posts and white papers. For our purposes, copy is for selling to people and content is for educating them. Generally speaking, and today we'll focus on writing web copy from three angles. The strategy, the pages, and the process. With business websites I've found that even more important than the actual wording is the strategy behind those words. And the first big picture strategy issue to consider is do we want a website for our company or do we want a website for our customers? Put another way, do we want a corporate style website that talks mostly about our firm and our vision or do we want an active marketing website to drive engagement, responses, leads, and sales? So let's read a slightly exaggerated example of the first one. With corporate websites sometimes we seem to think that this kind of stuff will impress people. It's an approach that focuses on what the seller supposedly thinks. It's all about we and our and us. But a true marketing website approaches things more from the buyer's perspective. It means digging deeper to understand what the customer is really trying to achieve and looking closer at their universe of perceived needs, unspoken needs, influence constraints, beliefs, and feelings. A good marketing website starts there. Now is that company more likely to make a genuine connection if they boast about what they're proud of or if they dig into what the customer is proud of? Okay. The inward-focused approach I find can be common when companies write their own web copy. But here's the thing, from the visitor's perspective, their own company isn't nearly as important. Well, that company is not nearly as important as their own child by an enormous margin. So start there. I've noticed that even a lot of designer websites focus on what they've done in the past versus what their customers are trying to achieve in the future. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about our companies and our capabilities on our website. Of course we should. But it might be more effective if we start with what the customer is trying to achieve and then lead them to our product as the perfect solution. So let's say we have a residential real estate company and we develop some kind of technical innovation. Okay. And that's great. But maybe our technology advantage shouldn't be the main thing. Maybe make the customer benefit the main thing and then use our technology advantage to support that claim. Okay. So it's not just about what we offer. It's more about what you can have. Simply understanding that difference can bring our website copy to the next level. Another approach is to create a single benefit statement that covers both what we offer and what you can have. Here's the marketing paradox. Remember a company and its products are only relevant through the lens of the buyer's own perceived needs. But here's the thing. As business owners, as company employees, as company insiders, we naturally carry an insider's perspective and set of assumptions which can actually be a handicap when we're talking to outsiders or visitors. So part of our challenge as marketers is to go beyond how we see ourselves and even how we see our customers and refocus on how buyers see themselves. What was the situation that led to their online search for a solution? How do they see the various options out there? What questions are they stuck on? If that's where they're starting, that's what we need to start. Now strategically, there's one marketing question that every company must answer before starting any new website. Unfortunately, since that question is almost never asked, a lot of sites go spinning off in the wrong direction. And here it is. Are we mostly selling the idea of our product to people who hadn't considered it? Or are we mostly selling competitively to other companies, to buyers who are actively shopping? For example, the first company to develop collaboration software was selling the idea of online collaboration. But now there are a lot of similar products online and they're all competing by pointing out their own competitive advantages. So why is this important? Let's say we have a professional landscaping business and our homepage might try to sell hard-working homeowners on the idea of professional landscaping. Well, that's kind of fun, but here's the problem. The people you're trying to convince here, do-it-yourselfers who do their own planning and gardening, aren't online looking for professional landscapers. So they have no reason to ever land on your site. So who exactly are we talking to here? Chances are the people who are Googling Atlanta landscapers are higher income homeowners who are already convinced of the benefits of having a professional landscaper and are online searching to compare the various providers, right? So that's why it would be important to offer some kind of competitive advantage or unique approach to set us apart from the pack. So let's say we ask questions, jot down some notes, and it turns out that the head of the company is a master landscaper. So that might be a differentiator. But the problem with that is it's still about the company. How do we make this about the customer? What's the advantage to the homeowner? So how about this? Okay, so that's better. But let's keep going and take a closer look at homeowners who pay for landscaping, and we might find that they tend to drool over the pictures in home and garden magazines that let's us take things a step further. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. The headline has a strong emotional appeal to the sensibilities of that homeowner and then in the subhead, we tie that to a logical reason where we're the right ones for the job. So the point here is that unless you have a totally unique product to sell to that market or all your visitors already know you, then online marketing is mostly a competitive arena where we need to differentiate ourselves to stand out. And to do that in a meaningful way starts with asking questions, not just about the company, but about the customer. Here we do see a benefit, but we can't quite tell what the company is selling. This actually happens a lot. Job one for the top of the home page is to quickly make clear what we offer and maybe also who it's for so people know they're in the right place. Job two is to offer a unique approach that gives the buyers themselves an advantage. Okay, because we don't stand for something, message is simply we exist. Here are a few other ideas to help you. Web page copy hit its target. You can paint pictures with words including how that person is going to feel after they make the right choice. Plus it's not always about selling to people, it can be about empowering them to do something. And also we want to show them what obstacles are standing in their way so that we can show that we can solve that. In this case it's just a perception that getting certified will take too long. So this is more likely to connect because it's about that person stuck in their career looking for a solution. It's less likely to connect if we just make it about the college and their program. If we're trying to solve a problem for people we might first want to tap into their pain. If we're helping them achieve something it's about what we can help them gain. Here we address pain in the headline and gain in the subhead. So if we're marketing a product of service here's what I think it comes down to in the real world. And your copy show that folks that the things that are important to them are important to you too and that creates a bond and a cultural fit. I also see a lot of companies emphasizing that they've been in business and it's okay to mention somewhere we have seven years experience in web design but everyone has experience so is that really a compelling reason to use you? I also see headlines today like where are developers and we're passionate about what we do. I love the idea of that but I also love to know exactly how your passion is going to help me shine if I hire you. In any case we've been focusing a lot on that main homepage headline and banner because if we don't grab their attention with that we're not giving folks a reason to read any further. Now we'll go through the pages of a website one by one and with some rapid-fire copy tips and ideas that you may not have thought of. Now we generally plan a site based on three layers. The homepage is layer one with brief intros to the company's products, approaches and benefits. Layer two is mostly product and service pages and then layer three if needed can be pages that get deeper into topic details. Four readers are interested in digging that far. Home page, overall large blocks of text on home pages these days tends to scare people away so let's think in terms of smaller blocks of text 10, 15, 25, 50 words with headlines for each. In this limited amount of space there's really no room for fluff or wasted words. In fact every phrase should plant a seed drawing people closer to their own conclusion that our offerings are their best option and so the whole point of the exercise of course is to build temptation so that they want what we've got. Two, our homepage intros and highlights should mostly be aimed at first-time visitors and early-stage buyers, layer one. Prominent and enticing links can take them to full topic pages, layer two. Number three, for buyers who are just starting out there's probably an emotional component to their goal-seeking. So let's reflect those sensibilities by maybe offering some empathy and making an emotional connection. Four, your new visitors are generally start out by visually scanning your page. They will read prominent headlines but may or may not read your text. So let's make sure we put our most important benefits in those headlines for what I call a scanner-first approach. With those short attention spans today we want to play our best cards right up front where they can't be missed. In five, you probably have a call-to-action button but people may not be quite ready to buy so adding a second button in the header or just below it gives them another option. It can lead to what you might call a find out more page which can take various forms. This second layer page is kind of a next step for readers on your homepage. Use this page to expand on some of the themes on your homepage. Maybe tap into the most common issues or questions drawing people to the next step of working with us. And also maybe offer objective tips, ideas, insights here to help folks get closer to their goal. Because to be authentic, to build trust we can't just try to sell. We have to genuinely try to help. Good point. Product and service pages. There's an interesting trend for product and service pages to look just like home pages because when people are doing a search this may be the first page they land on and it's just more engaging than an ordinary WordPress text page. Next we said that early stage buyers tend to respond to the emotional aspects of a possible purchase. But if they're digging into second and third layer they probably shift it into logic mode comparing details for making a final decision. So let's mirror that with logical arguments and competitive advantages. And third, in this talking about our services we may also list the common problems or frustrations out there because if you address the issue they happen to be having and they'll love it that someone understands them. And finally since scanners often read headlines but not text consider the importance of subheads. These are secondary headlines to help bridge the gap between headline and text to help draw the reader's eye in. Blog posts. Overall our blog posts should not be promoting our company or our service but I think it's okay to maybe educate folks on the general benefits of the types of solutions we offer. For example cloud backups versus hard drive backups. But separately at the bottom in a box or in a bold font maybe include a set institute on how our product relates to the issues discussed in the blog post and maybe include a link to a product page to get more marketing value out of your blogging efforts. And finally when choosing blog topics don't write for do-it-yourselfers or your peers but rather about the issues faced by people or organizations that buy products or services like yours. Make sense? Likewise I don't think people go to our about page to read about how wonderful we think we are. Instead let's do a few things here maybe in different sections of our about page. First let's reinforce what it is in Excel who would benefits and our overall approach to helping customers rather than an inward focused mission statement. Plus maybe a bit about the nature structure and size of our firm. Short version. Next let's take the opportunity to tell our story. Not a detailed company history but rather what was some of the insights or lessons that we've gained in the course of our professional development and what were some of the episodes and obstacles that helped us acquire them. The more human your story the more other humans can relate to it. Finally we can have a separate section that lists relevant awards, badges, credentials and advanced degrees. If you're doing a bio page on each employee rather than a detailed resume let the personality show through. Two things on our contact page. One make sure people don't feel like they're going to be obligated or pressured if they give up their personal info. This will make them hesitate so keep your copy here friendly, helpful and low commitment. Second they're more likely to call or fill out your form if you let them know up front what next steps they can expect. This is more important than you might think. My recommendation on testimonial pages is to not have them. Instead pull out the very best bits and sprinkle them around our other pages and at least a medium sized font where people might actually see them. The best quotes relate to common customer issues and how we help solve them rather than just general accolades about what a wonderful company this is. That way we're letting our customers speak out in a way that does some of the selling for us. For the last part of our program ladies and gents we're going to talk about the copywriting process. It starts with what's called discovery or gathering information and that generally starts with the web writer interviewing the company owner or other key players about their company and what they want to achieve. A good writer digs deeper and asks questions that have never been asked before. Also I might ask the same question in different ways to get past the superficial answers and the first thing off the top of their head. If the company says they offer good customer service well don't stop there asking them to be more specific and you might come up with a meaningful nugget that you can get upon. So be a detective and try to follow different lines of inquiry when asking clients questions I might ask them to answer from their customer's point of view. I'll ask when customers are happy what are some of the things they say or even better if they choose not to buy from you or not to buy at all what might be some of the reasons. Ask what are the buyers most common obstacles, questions and concerns and issues so we can address those up front in our web copy. Is there any way this product saves time or money? Be good to know. Ask about competitors including their strengths and weaknesses and maybe we can find an advantage or a niche or even an unmet need. So you see how writing web copy isn't just explaining what our company offers it's the expression of a strategy and that strategy starts with meaningful connections between the company's strengths and what people out there are thinking, feeling and wanting. By the way I like to interview a company manager and a sales or customer service employee together because it's that employee who really deals every day with those customers issues and questions. Now more often than not when someone stands to start writing a web copy they open a document with a word or a new page and wordpress and they start typing. You know what? That's not the way to do it. Why? Because the actual writing isn't the first step it's the last step. What we first want to do is review our notes to see if any patterns emerge from that interview and next for each page or section of copy let's create a separate word document then let's rewrite all our notes but this time drop each of those benefit points into the appropriate word doc. When you finish you'll have several documents each containing notes for that appropriate web page. So don't worry about final wording yet but think about the connections you can make between the company's advantages and delighted customers. Then after we've categorized the points the next step is to prioritize those benefit points in each of our word docs. Okay? What's the most important point on that page maybe mark it as an A second most important would be a C B other points could be C's. Okay? Also consider where you might just delete your lowest rank points to not distract from your strongest material. Now we're finally ready to start the actual writing. First for each web page the most important point or benefit can be expressed in the made headline. The second most important point should make it into a subhead. The text would include a support for those points as well as other items from your list. So if we do it right we should end up with a lean initial copy draft that is strategically on target. That generally doesn't happen when we're just writing off the top of our head. Next we go back and see what we can improve or polish our copy. Can a certain point be made more clearly or more succinctly brevity is more important than it's ever been. No longer sentences or real long paragraphs. Our first sentence should intrigue people to read further. A vague or obvious opening line and you could lose them right there. And for our last line sometimes I like to circle around to that emotional connection to set up the call to action that follows. Next use a active voice starting some sentences with the word you or an implied you for example get unlimited online backups versus we offer unlimited online backups. And remember that smart people today will respond to specific benefits rather than vague promises or claims. Finally let's keep the tone of our writing friendly and authentic and informal as if we were having a conversation with that particular reader and an authoritative corporate voice which actually tends to create distance between the company and the visitor. We haven't focused on the SEO aspects of web writing so far but everything you read about SEO today starts by appealing to humans rather than search engines because well written engaging copy will get people to read, click, share and come back again and that's Google's algorithms. Plus adding third layer topic detail pages over time as well as blog posts makes Google happy and gives us opportunities to add more keywords one or two per page use several kinds of lines and text. To attract ready to buy shoppers we want to focus on more specific what they call long tail keyword phrases rather than broad single words and if your primary keyword simply doesn't work in your main H1 headline as is often the case when we're writing for humans then use it in your H2 subhead but don't over do it with keywords otherwise we end up with unreadable silliness like this. Okay one last section let's finish up now if you're thinking of writing copy for your own site but this seems like a lot of steps and you just you know feel like you just too close to it well you know that's why there are professional writers or if you're designing a site for a client and you want professional written copy to go with your professional design that's where there are copy writers. Plus of course if you're a designer you know that waiting for the client to cough up their copy and content can bog down the entire project as important as this is clients struggle because they're not writers anymore than their designers right but when you do choose a copy writer remember that conversion optimized marketing writing is a specialty among writers so it's very different than say log writing. Anyway we start with an initial talk and a decision over the project scope so the writer can do a cost estimate. If the web design firm is bringing in a writer that writer can either work directly with the client and be paid by the client or the writer can be part of the dev team and be paid through the agency in that case copy writing will be a line item in the web design companies initial website proposal to generally the writer does the writing first as they determine the sections of copy needed to convey the right series of messages and then the designers design around that or the designers can design first and the writer writes to fit the various copy sections though letting the message drive the design really makes a lot more sense if we're trying to build a persuasive case for something. We talked about the interview there if you find that the writer only asks questions about the company and not about their customers for their time and find another writer. A good writer will dig deeper and make a stronger connections rather than simply parroting back whatever the business owner says just in nice awards. Five if you have a limited budget consider having the writer just write the home page and other prominent sections of the site and finally once the writer has completed their first draft of copy the client of course will have a chance to review it and suggest revisions if something seems misleading or certain wording doesn't seem to ring true in their industry and other than minor word changes it's probably best if the client doesn't try to rewrite the copy themselves but rather explain to the writer the reason for the change and the writer of course will submit one or more additional drafts of copy until the client is happy and signs off with the final approval. In the case if you're hiring a writer the fact that we're aware of some of the issues we talked about today will make you a better point person for that copywriter. My smart colleague Kathy Drewen the main organizer here at WordCamp offered this interesting insight. Hopefully today we can agree that the visual part of a website will certainly super important takes the reader and the company only half the way there. Earlier asked three questions how do we proactively sell these days without sending salesy? Well by honestly focusing on what the customer is trying to achieve rather than just what the company thinks of themselves. Next, how do we engage an online audience with a notoriously short attention span? Well by putting important benefits in intriguing headlines in our first approach to a layered website. And then finally how do we stand out among competitors who pretty much sell the same thing? Well by zeroing in on that one main benefit approach or insight that shows that we understand our buyers better than anyone else. Anyway I want you to do me a favor next time you look at a new website and say well that's a good site I want you to stop and look closer and ask well is it actually a smart business website optimized to engage people in an illicit response or is it simply just a nice looking website design? So separate the strategy from the aesthetics when you judge your new site and you will learn some very useful and interesting things. In the meantime you can jot down your URL here for slides and a phone little e-book and if you have questions later on copywriting come up for a card. Anyway I know that was a lot to throw at you but thanks for sticking with it. Luckily for you that's all I got. Any questions? Yes. Blogging mostly focuses on the topic that you're blogging about whereas a marketing writer is focusing on the audience and is doing some research doing some thinking asking some questions about where that audience is starting so it starts with just a totally different approach and rather than just coming up with information about a topic it's more from outside looking in. What type of? What type of both? Generally you've got a copy for the front pages of your site and you want a marketing copywriter but if you're looking for somebody to do blogging then a content writer. There are some people that can handle both but they really are two different types of writing. Somebody writing a sales page would be a marketing copywriter and there are some differences if it's a landing page from an email campaign you want to connect the two and brevity is really important on a sales page and you want to drive them as closely as possible to responding. Well both kinds of writers today should be able to do SEO writing and for some companies SEO is part of the strategy for some companies it's not and if it's not I would say don't do it just for its own sake because the more you focus on search engines you've got to pull away a little bit from humans but that is part of the writer's challenge is to try to integrate both. Long tail keywords that would be instead of like a broad term might be slippers. If you're searching for slippers whereas a long tail phrase might be pink bunny slippers so that is more specific the person who's looking for slippers is just kind of looking around but somebody who's searching for pink bunny slippers is probably what they're looking for and are probably closer to buying than the person who just wants to see what's out there in slippers. Probably it's a fair question no we shouldn't make them up but we can edit them because very often you'll end up with maybe a paragraph but like I said we want to pull out just the very best parts of it because again short attention spans people aren't going to read through a paragraph but if I can get that quote down to seven or nine words and put it in a big font people will read it. That's what we're looking for and also if the client is going to be asking their customers for testimonials maybe we can prompt them to get them to focus on some specific problem that customer was having and then how we help solve it is just more useful than some testimonials that are just very broad David? Good point excellent point Right Right Yeah I wouldn't include the testimonial without a full name of attribution and it's also a good idea to shoot an email to the person who gave that testimonial and show them the edited version and say is this okay? Okay Which is why there's kind of a movement away from on-site testimonials and rather having links to actual review sites that you can't scan quite as easily I think it helps to break it up a little bit with just totally different sections whether it's separated by a line or maybe different color boxes or even think about how today's home page is structured and you've got different physical layers of information and that way it's not all crammed together and it's just more easy to read if you've got separate sections and that way you can separate what you do from your story and it doesn't all run together Yeah I think so and how you do that is up to the design or some of it could be in a sidebar if you've got sidebars Right The home page and then what I'll do is the intro the subhead on product pages and then the closing which leads to a call to action so that way the most prominent parts of the site have some marketing and then the client fills out the rest which sometimes cannot be a bad idea if it's highly technical and it would just take so long for the writer to get up to speed on the high level of technology the client is talking to their own customers That's the designer's job Every writer is going to handle that differently some do it by page some will do it quote the entire site but it's going to take at least a few hundred dollars at least to do the home page and the discovery because even if the writer is just writing the home page they still have to go to the discovery process to make sure they're saying the right thing so usually even on a reduced project it's still going to be a little bit higher and then additional pages are going to be a little bit less between 500 and a thousand the discovery process well I don't generally need to explain the process to them I'll just tell them I'm going to ask you some questions and then basically it's my job to ask the right questions and then to take those answers and to do something useful for them and to know what I get out of that interview that is useful and what is not because very often I don't start getting the good stuff until the second hour of the interview and there are some writers who won't go that far they say okay this is what you want to say that's what I'll write well what's that really worth because you need somebody who sees it from the point of view of somebody who's not the company owner that conversation with a client is probably the first step that's a good point here's 50 pictures of my own products here's one so great sure that's a really good point it's hard for anyone to separate ourselves from our own point of view so you kind of have to hold them through that a little bit and you might ask them questions and they might hesitate on that a little bit but you kind of have to explain to them yeah because they figure it's my site it should be all about me well that's fine and I find that even though companies start I guess it's time well I guess the word cam train reached the station so thank you you


Hey guys, thank you so much for joining me. It's Monica You know, I wanted very much to have a video I did a video like three four days ago I posted it and I wanted very much to have another video go up Saturday morning, but I've just been My sister and I and my husband and her husband.  My mom and dad Built the house in the early 60s. We moved in I think 1961 and They they never moved and I know I probably mentioned before that there was a lot of stuff after my dad passed My mom went through some of it, but oh la la unbelievable the amount of stuff that we're going through so We've been just and that's so It's so sad because you know, you collect you have things that mean something to you and then One day you're gone and people look at it and they go, what is this? You know, where is this from or? You know, what is the significance? Is there a story behind that and these are things you don't know? I mean I know a lot about my parents because Jay and I would drive them and bring them and pick them up and go places and They'd sit in the back seat and we would talk So I know a lot, but there was so many different things that we found like I get I've got I don't know a huge box of Photos that I still have to go through a lot of the photos are really old They're black and white and some of the photos. I don't recognize any other people, you know on them and But I know they were all special to my mom and dad, right? I just don't know who they are and I don't know what the back story is and what the relationships are and stuff like that and I found Tons of letters written in German, right? Letters that relatives from Germany sent to my parents Bibles all in German so many So many Momentals so many things that my dad had in a draw that he was saving, you know Yes, I could understand newspaper clippings of you know big important events that happen in the world But there were so many other things that I just didn't know about or you know Didn't couldn't really make the connection and it just made me think to Jay. I said, you know I think we need to and I know people say this all the time, right? We need to plan For that day when we have to get rid of everything for us It's gonna come quicker because the goal has been to try we want to sell the house I'd love to sell it this year, but I don't think that's gonna happen but um Yeah, yet we've been downsizing in the sense.  So I guess that's the savings grace But just been so busy and and so I think until we get my mom's house all situated We're going to put that on the market, but until we get that all situated I can't guarantee my videos are going to be consistent I hope they are, you know, I hope they are I really want to get back on track because There's a lot of things happening that I really want to share with you and there's There's thoughts and plans and things that are going through my mind that I also want to share So in this particular video because I want to get this Probably not even edit it because I tend to not edit much lately Uploaded and so that you can see it sunday Um, what is sunday? Is it may 6th or something? Um, the coronation was today But the reason I want that is I wanted to just let you know because I know mother's day is coming And I don't have a mother Anymore to buy for and that sounds so weird but my mother When you know, my mother used to think it goes a little bit on the netty side because I did so much skincare But then she really started to get into it and she said, you know, your skin looks really good Or she would give me a compliment. My mother was never one to give me a huge amount of compliments But and I would tell her about some of the things that I was doing and thinking about and before I went away on the trip. I knew I was going to be trying That the led mask that I had talked about candy way Um, I knew I was going to be getting this and I knew I was going to be trying it So I had mentioned it to my mother and it was showing her pictures and my mother was going That's insane. That's crazy. And then it was telling her The benefits of led masks, right the just the benefits alone and she was like Maybe I should try that and I laughed and I said, you know what mom?  I don't think it's ever too old To start to take care of yourself your skin or something like that and my mother's a super super proud woman I know she would have been all over this.  I let her use my favorite concealer from fiera and I'll talk a little bit about that in a bit But she loved it. She loved it. So anyways I want to mention candy way because mother's day is coming up and for those of you that might want to treat yourself Or treat someone else, you know, this this is perfect, especially for those of you that are saying canada So um candy way is that red light therapy mask that I showed you In my my last video and I know like mary ellen I um hot and flashy angie. I think dr. Dr There's a whole bunch of people that talk about led masks that Love them and I think hot and flashy angie did a great review on a number of them But anyways candy way reached out to me Oh gosh, I can't remember. It was it was before I went away and And I was fascinated because I have been really loving The little red light masks that I have used or I have the trophy skin that I used to lay on And I put it on remember the trophy skin one. I have that one and lately I was just using it Very haphazardly because you have to set it up It's not something that was super convenient that I could pack up or that I could keep by my bedside You have to be in a certain position to you know do the arm and all that So anyways when I got um a message from Nicole from candy way And said would you be interested in trying this they had watched my videos? And I think I mentioned a lot of people say we watch your videos And we'd like you to try this and half of them don't really watch your videos, you know Or they might watch a minute, you know But she was mentioning things that I talked about that made me realize she's watching more than just one Minute of a video and more than just one video But anyway, she she reached out and I was fascinated. I went and I looked up the company I tried to find some information about the company and I realized that There they are a very small family-run company and I loved that whole attitude about it I love I love someone that's an entrepreneur that wants to start that wants to do something and break in to say Maybe a bigger industry or whatever So I have always respected the small business people because I'm a small business owner So I've always respected that And when I started to read about this husband and wife, and I think one of their friends they're their owners And I started to read about their ideas and their thoughts and the fact that they the scientists that actually Did the candy way mask is the exact same scientist that has done many of the others So the specs are identical to most of the Other masks not all but at least to one that is super popular that a lot of people talk about It's identical on the same amount of led wavelengths The same amount of leds itself the weight is the same the application process is the same The warranty is the same Many of that is the same now The the big difference I think on this most of them will say that they're FDA cleared Or they have those certifications, etc. Us one. I think at this point in time It's one of the only led masks that actually are cleared by Or they have a um health canada certification So I thought that was super impressive And like a lot of the other masks that are coming out now. They're they're more portable They're they're just very very flexible. I think you know, I showed you this what I do And you can charge this I haven't charged it since I got it and I've used this Four days in a row And then I stopped for two and then I start up again Now the way I've been using this I have this by my bedside So when I get up in the morning, I go to the bathroom I might just quickly put water on my face. I go back to bed and make sure my face is dry I position this on You know, put the strap on and and and I just position it on and then I just hit this button And it goes on for 10 minutes. All you have to do is hold the button It turns on you see you've got the lights on You know, and you just keep it on for 10 minutes. It shuts off on its own So I put it on I lie there in bed with it on every morning I tend to fall asleep, which is fine. I really like it, you know that way I love it. So let me just tell you a little bit more about this This is not going to be a full long-term review because I've only used it a short period of time But the one thing that is super cool in the amount of time that I've used it I've actually seen a difference and you know what I've seen a difference in So I have been trying to lose weight I know we all have right, but I have been trying to lose weight and I have actually been trying to lose weight since Thanksgiving I started really really seriously trying to watch what I eat on Thanksgiving But my whole goal was I wanted to lose weight Slowly because I didn't want to have to compromise between my rear end and my face everything Especially at a certain age when you lose weight Your face sinks your you you get so super wrinkly and I was so worried about You know, yeah, maybe my butt will look better But my face will look worse because it's going to look thin and drawn and and all of that stuff So my goal was to try to lose weight very slowly and even though slow is Not as motivation as if you see weight come piling off, you know, obviously then you go This is you know doing I'm working. I'm doing this or that but anyways I I've lost some weight since that time frame And not not only have I lost a little bit of weight I've lost more inches because I've increased more my activity. I'm walking more I try to get on my my exercise bike a little bit more and of course bike riding season is coming up So I mean I'm hopeful so when when I started my weight loss And a few other things going on in my life. I was really worried about my skin You guys know that I do a collagen supplement I've been doing that for many years now I still do that every morning put my collagen in my coffee cup But I really believed I needed to have something to be super preventative To really kind of make make and maybe help that collagen work better Right because that's what red light therapy is it it kind of goes deep into the layers of your skin It kind of helps with collagen production And then if your skin Thickens up and you are a person like me That has a lot of red veins that you see because you see them more Because my skin is thinner, but when something like this And partnered with my collagen and all that when my skin starts to slowly thicken Which is what this is doing for me anyways Then the veins are Lower in your skin. I don't know if I'm explaining it right. Dr. Dre had a video on it Um, and I'll try to find that video because she really explained it really well So I that was one of the first things I noticed almost within a few days of using this I got up in the morning And you know, usually I look at my my my face and I'm like I put I put eye patches on every morning I sleep with a frowny. So I got up in the morning. I was getting ready to do my eye patches I still had my frowny on and I was looking And I said Wow, my veins You know seemed lighter to me And I think and is this just wishful thinking and it might have been I don't know But I kept looking and I said holy moly. I really think that Because this is really helping to boost up my collagen Uh production, I really think that it's somehow and I don't quite get it yet, but somehow it is fading My veins slightly or I shouldn't even say slightly I don't I don't want to get too excited because it really is more than slightly But you know, it's still early on so I'm not going to say that but anyways I love that mask. I love that mask. I love the story of the brand candy. I I really do I think I love candy way. I love the fact that they are a small company I love the fact that they really seem to care About a number one one of their influencers somebody that's going to do they wanted to have a review But they seem to really care in in general About their customers. So cool. But let me just show you I'm going to show you the box I'm going to put a couple of photos in here. This came super well packed to have all the adapters So if I if I go to Europe, I've got you know, a few different adapters here I can plug in so I can charge the unit. It says that you don't need to charge it. I forgot how many hours but It I haven't charged it yet and I've used it Has it been two weeks now? It's only a shop every time but I've used it four days on two days off I've really five days on two days off is what I'm doing right now I know I'm probably just supposed to be doing four But anyways, they also have the little eye thing that you can put into your mask if you're worried about your eyes So far I haven't had any issues with it And then I just love this little travel bag that you can put in so you can put it in there You can keep it like I say I just I love that it's flexible if you want and they don't have one yet Um, but if you ever wanted to do your neck and your chest, this would work perfectly for that too I also think I could sit it on my hair So anyways candy way The mask was created by the same scientists who do who has created The most largest I think led mask out there They've all the same specs that they have the same medical grade silicone all the clinicals all the certifications Everything is almost identical Um, but candy way also has the canadian of the health canadian certification certification Which at the time of of this, I don't know whether anyone else had it or not They offer the two-year warranty and then of course the one on the on the unit at the charger unit They're a small family run business and they say that their customer service is their priority and I'll tell you so far I would definitely agree with that. They also say they're available to answer any questions Any anyone has it all? Nicola herself has like 17 years experience in skin care in the natural skin care industry And she is more than willing to talk to any one of you if you want to set up a consultation with her Talk to her about your skin your issue. She's more than willing to do that So I think it's just gonna it's a real awesome. I think option I've got an affiliate link. If you click my link, I'd be forever grateful Um, there are some benefits for me. I um They probably send me more free products who knows but The more I can do this the better it is for the channel as well And I the affiliate link there's a discount. I believe if you use the code monica I have to really get into it. I'm not I'm not really good on all the affiliate stuff, you know, because it goes over my head I don't know if I get a few pennies off of a sale or what I think so but I'll have to look into that But anyways, it is it's a super I think awesome opportunity For all of you To try a product and I kid you not because you guys know right if I'm excited about something I'm gonna tell you Even though it hasn't been six months. I'm excited about it So I'm super excited about this I had received from fear of cosmetics and I know that you guys know that I love fear of cosmetics I use their concealer I sometimes that's all I use on my face a little bit of concealer to try to cover my most surgery scar that I have here And I was using some of the concealer to cover my veins And some people use the concealer as their foundation if you don't wear a lot of foundation The way the concealer works is you warm it up in your hands, then you just can dab it on It's it's kind of sinks into your skin. It's amazing. How how wonderful it works Everything I've tried from them. I really like I have their neck cream. I have their face cream I have their concealer as I said and I then requested through the octally through skippers network To try their new and I think this is really Awesome. I have both the eye cream and the face So this is what I'm going to pronounce it as Back cola back cola back a lot And back cola if I'm pronouncing it correct Is sort of a retinol Alternative it is perfect for somebody who You know has sensitive skin Or who wants to get on a retinol platform or products, but The sometimes they just have reactions So this the face cream Is heavenly. Let me just show you the face cream is really really nice. I don't even want to I have a I hurt my hand so I have a real bad mark on my hand But I don't know if you can see it. It's like creamy It absorbs into your skin so super nice And it absorbs in and it plays nice So you can wear this and the cool thing about this is you can put this on in the morning if you want Or in the evening right because it it it has no bad reactions to anything including the sun So it has a lot less side effects than retinol Which is really nice. It has a ton of research and testing They say it's absolutely perfect for somebody who wants to get on an anti aging routine But doesn't want all the side effects wants to be able to use something during the day Or in the evening because you can wear this during the day you can go out During the day with this on so Really really nice. I ended up and oftentimes there's a sale So I know I'm talking about the face cream because that was the first one that I got was the facial treatment I've been using it I use retinol as you all know So I've been using this on the off days So I don't I don't use it every day but on the off days But I've also been able to use it in the morning now the things that I haven't been able to do is I have to be very careful under my eyes So I am loving the fact that fiera cosmetics again gifted to me sent complimentary from fiera And this is the actual facial treatment. They often have sales, right? I think there's a 15 off cue point sometimes you can get two for one There's a ton of sales all the time on these products If you have not tried the concealer guys, you need to try the concealer. I Love the concealer. I'm turning my page here Um, and then I have the firming eye cream So I have both the facial and the firming eye cream really really Beautiful beautiful products the eye cream.  I really love talking about skin care and and things like that and and beings and I know age is just sometimes in your brain because if you feel old you'll be old You'll think old, but I don't feel old So most of the time sometimes when I make some pains, I feel old, but I don't feel old And I just think this is like an awesome product. I really love fiera And their eye cream is Is really really awesome I requested them to send me another thing of their vitamin c because I I love their vitamin c I haven't got it yet, but I did request that but both of these were said to be complimentary from skeapers Network from fiera via skeapers.  I said, absolutely I got the foundation And I put it on the first day I had to wash it off immediately and I said, okay, so it's not playing good with my sunblock Um, then I tried it on bare skin that weekend when I wasn't going out and it it it just it was not good It was not a pretty picture. So I wrote them. I said, I don't like your foundation. I'm sorry You know and so I'm not going to not going to review it. But You know fiera has not disappointed me at all in any of their products I really really like their products. So I know this might sound like an infomercial for you guys, right and Um, you know, maybe it is in a way But I'm I'm just super super thrilled with my candy weight led mask I just real and I love the customer support the support I'm getting from the owners of the company Just I just think that's awesome in fiera. I love every product. I've tried as there's I'm a fiera freak for sure. So The other thing I wanted to mention, this is probably getting way too long Um, but the other thing I wanted to mention is in one of my previous videos I talked about the fact that I was doing a mammogram And I had mixed results on the mammogram. I had to go for a biopsy So all I'm going to tell you guys is that you need to regularly regularly go for your mammograms If you if insurance doesn't cover it if you can't afford it They'll always do payment plans. There's always a resource out there, but don't skip your mammogram I skipped almost two years because of covet One year it was cancelled and then I never rescheduled it and I think the second year I don't know. Maybe it was a year and a half beyond when I should have had my mammogram and um It's too important. It's too important. You have to be your own advocate, you know, if if there's an issue there's anything Turning the other cheek isn't going to make it go away. Take the thing. So my mammogram the second mammogram Came back saying I needed to have a biopsy and I was supposed to have the biopsy when I came home Then my mother passed away that week and it was like just a nightmare I ended up having the biopsy the week after and Good news and bad news, you know, I don't have cancer But I have that atypical Lobular or whatever it is. It's a pre-cancer Bad news is I have to have surgery. So I don't know when that's going to happen I'm going to be meeting with my doctor on the 18th my surgeon and we'll probably schedule it after that But the good news for me Is they caught it early. It's early and You know, the bad news is I'm going to have to go through some sort of uh, probably a lumpectomy I don't know until I see them exactly how much um, maybe more. I don't know but I'll find that out on the 18th and um, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers I'm sure everything will be fine.  Anyways guys, thank you all so much. I'm going to try to have a video up for next weekend I don't know if it's going to work yet. You should see this tomorrow. I think may 6th Hey, did you watch the coronation? Oh my gosh, I did. I think maybe I'll talk about the coronation in my next video Prince Charles, I'm King Charles the third Queen Camilla Camilla Camala Camilla Queen Camilla I couldn't help thinking of princess Diana throughout the whole thing And it was really hard for me to see harry In the back, you know, not in the back but rose back, but that was his choice, right? He chose that path to leave But it was hard to see because you really want to see harry and william together And catherine looked gorgeous and Um In the little little prince george, you know whole going down that was really awesome And then of course the two other children princess charlotte and prince louis Um, I just yeah, I just love all that stuff and my mother did too You know, she would always talk about all that so Anyways, I'm going to sign off because otherwise it's going to be an hour long


The people in the small communities of Western Massachusetts have been struggling for years now to join the rest of the Commonwealth and the rest of the country in having access to high-speed internet service, broadband we call it, and this service is really become quite a necessity for people. If you need to do computer work either for school or for your job, or if you want to look up a recipe or you want to read newspapers online, you want to do research online, using dial-up as is the case in so many of our small communities really takes an enormous amount of time and patience and it's just not fair to those people not to have access to the most modern of technology because they then fall behind and their communities fall behind other places and so we in Western Massachusetts and the legislative delegation have been working for close to eight years now to try to bring high-speed internet into every home in Western Massachusetts and they were about 34 communities that had absolutely no access and dozens of additional communities where you had large pockets of people who had no access. Well happily after trying to work with Verizon and some of the other providers over time we finally got at least Verizon to commit some resources, $20 million a couple of years ago to bring high-speed internet into pockets of some of the communities that were totally unserved and improved service in some of the communities that were only partially served but that still left lots of people uncovered and a couple of years ago with the help of Governor Patrick and with the Western Massachusetts legislative delegation joining forces with some people in Blackstone Valley in Worcester County area and even some people out on the Cape that were trying to still get access we were able to secure passage of a piece of legislation to provide $40 million in funding to help solve this problem and we also formed the Massachusetts Broadband Institute which was a state quasi-public agency that would receive this money and work with communities and providers to seek universal coverage here in Massachusetts. Happily the federal government also a couple of years ago announced that they were going to provide some funding for this very same problem and so Massachusetts has now applied twice the first time the project for Western Massachusetts was not funded but happily the second time it was funded and so now between state funds and federal funds we have 72 million dollars that are being deployed right now to bring a high-speed internet into Western Massachusetts in those communities that receive little or no service and what this involves is erecting 30,000 telephone poles or utility poles on which they can hang wires and it's called the middle mile project and basically we're going to bring the wires and the poles to all parts of Western Massachusetts that require it in order to get access even as the Mass Broadband Institute and the communities around Western Mass are working with the local communities to come up with deals, configurations, various approaches that the private providers will be able to tap into and be able to provide the service. One of the major projects going on in the region is really homegrown it's called Wired West and through that dozens of communities are voting in their local town meetings to join Wired West. Wired West's goal is to create a totally locally controlled distribution network and system that can tie into that middle mile project and be able to deliver services at an affordable rate to people in the communities in Western Massachusetts who are now either not served or underserved. So we have a couple more years of work yet ahead of us 2014 is the target year for us to have everybody covered in one way or another either through cell service, through wire service, through Wired West or through other private providers. So we are finally making significant progress and we're hopeful that soon all of the residents of Western Massachusetts and all of the communities of Western Massachusetts will have access to the high-speed internet that they need in order to be effective in their employment, to serve their friends and neighbors, to serve their communities and for the children to have that kind of support and service for their education.