Letters from Lori

Lessons on life, business, and the beauty of the solopreneur journey.

My week was blissful. Relaxed, non-hurried, no hustle. It took me a long time to get to this place. Once an entrepreneur with multiple businesses, today, I choose the life of a solopreneur.

No obligations or expectations of others. No permission needed, or required to be given.

Just me, my computer, and a couple of cats.

Here's what happened this week.

My Biggest Ebook Month Ever

If you had told me in early 2025, that I was about to launch a publishing company, consisting heavily of PDF guides, I would have told you that you were crazy.

After all, ebooks are so 2010 right? And since everyone can use AI to learn exactly what they need, why would they want an ebook?

Because they want YOU. They want your experience, your thoughts, your wisdom packaged neatly in the words you say, in the way only you can say them.

That's why they follow you. My best seller last month?

Claude 101

Want to know my secret to selling thousands of dollars worth of ebooks in a month without running ads? YouTube! I linked my store to my YouTube Channel. Every time someone watches a video, they see my ebooks alongside it.

Lead Magnets

Funny. The same idea applies to another strategy working well for me. Lead magnets. But email is dead right? Far from it! Offer an item for free on your strongest traffic assets, and watch those subscribers stack. Then, it's up to you to deliver a great product, and if you like, launch an email sequence.

I generate traffic from Pinterest, AI/Google search to my blog, Substack, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Youtube and so on.

From there, I offer an item of value, and the "Raise Your Hand" framework is launched!

Here's a short video on the idea.

​

The Paid Newsletter

I guess you can say that I'm officially obsessed now. I'm down the paid newsletter rabbit hole! I started a Substack newsletter because my Ballen Academy coaching clients were starting to dabble over there.

I dabbled. I got bored. A gut instinct told me to dabble again. I dabbled with notes, went viral, became a best seller 4-months later.

And there it was, a four-figure per month raise! And now, I'm hooked. I'm binging on all of the best practices for paid newsletters.

If you have a thought, an opinion, a hobby, a life situation, a business, a career, a rant, a phase in life: you can probably monetize it on Substack.

Find me on Substack

On a Personal Note

I took another solo trip this month. I wanted to visit my youngest daughter in LA. She recently graduated college and started a new career in animation there.

When I visit, I like to add a few days and stay at a beach resort nearby. This time, I visited Rancho Palos Verdes and stayed at Terranea. 102 oceanfront acres of total bliss.

I enjoyed the walking trails, the restaurants, and spent a nice day in the spa.

I'm divorced, and an empty nester. While I enjoy traveling with others, I've learned that I need to be OK with taking adventures on my own too.

I've learned to love them. I have truly enjoyed getting to know ME. Not the wife, not the boss, not the Mom, the daughter, the sister, or the public figure.

Me. ❤️

Real Estate Business

Some of you have followed me for years because of the education I have provided to real estate agents. I took a bit of a hiatus to work on my content creator and coaching business, but am excited to report that I'm back, working on my real estate website.

That means, I'll have more education on that soon! Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, if you want to build alongside me, reach out to my brothers Jeff and Paul Helvin to get your WordPress real estate website. (They do blog and business sites too!)

Get Your Real Estate Website

note: i do have affiliate relationship with Jeff & Paul that benefits me at no extra cost to you. I founded the company, but they own and operate it today.

Ballen Academy

We just wrapped a coaching call, and it turned into one of my favorites. I planned to talk lead magnets. We ended up covering the whole money machine.How I build a lead magnet from my own YouTube analytics instead of guessing.

The email funnel I built with Claude as my assistant, that became the lead magnet itself. First lead came in minutes after the form went live.Why I moved to a new email platform and watched my sales go up.

The one thing I now check before I pick any platform.

How to choose a niche you can actually stick with, and why chasing three at once quietly kills all three.

My four-step funnel, from free magnet to coaching, and the ebooks that added several thousand a month to my business last quarter almost overnight.Every bit of that call is recorded and waiting inside Ballen Academy.

When you join, you get this playback plus a full year of call playbacks, the resource library, training videos, my AI prompts, the ebook library, the private group, and 2 to 3 live group calls with me every month.The people in that room are building.

Come Grow with Us

Ballen Academy

We just wrapped a coaching call, and it turned into one of my favorites. I planned to talk lead magnets. We ended up covering the whole money machine.How I build a lead magnet from my own YouTube analytics instead of guessing.

The email funnel I built with Claude as my assistant, that became the lead magnet itself. First lead came in minutes after the form went live.Why I moved to a new email platform and watched my sales go up.

The one thing I now check before I pick any platform.

How to choose a niche you can actually stick with, and why chasing three at once quietly kills all three.

My four-step funnel, from free magnet to coaching, and the ebooks that added several thousand a month to my business last quarter almost overnight.Every bit of that call is recorded and waiting inside Ballen Academy.

When you join, you get this playback plus a full year of call playbacks, the resource library, training videos, my AI prompts, the ebook library, the private group, and 2 to 3 live group calls with me every month.The people in that room are building.

Come Grow with Us

From the Library