TED: This is the MultiPod and I'm your co host for today. My name is Ted and I'm joined by Hannah Cattouse.
It's called Connect and Convert, How to Write an About Page that Gets Results. So we'll chat a bit about that too, because I'm looking forward to it, and it sounds like something that's going to be very, very useful. But first off, what part of Belize do you live in?
TED: Uh huh. Okay. Interesting. Well, I haven't been there to Belize or Corozal, but, uh, my dad actually used to spend winters for like six or eight years or something. Just past Corozal, there's a community called Consejo.
HANNAH: Probably. Yeah. We may have met. I don't know.
HANNAH: Just in Belize. Yeah. So after I did the construction thing, I did that for a couple of years and then I resigned and then I was looking for work that would give me more flexibility.
HANNAH: Just before lockdown, because I think I got my last tour in March 2020 or something. And then it was, it was after that, Lockdown, like started in Belize. So that was fun. I really liked doing tours. I realized that I like creating experiences for people. That's kind of one, the one thing I realized, the common element in all of these disjointed industries is me is, you know, that I worked in them, but I realized that the thing that I enjoyed in all of them.
Are you still a tour guide? And I was so close to being like, let me go and renew my license so I can see you. But the fact that those people, you know, reached out to me and they had a memorable experience with me is something that I really treasure, you know, so, so, yeah.
It's like you're traveling vicariously through them and you get to like help them have a great experience and really something to take home. It's a great position to be in.
tour to do because I love the zoo and I love the zoo specifically because the zoo here in Belize, it wasn't a thing where they're like, okay, we're going to make a zoo. Let's go capture these animals. That's not what happened decades ago. They were doing a documentary here about animals in Belize and the animals that they documented were injured and, you know, couldn't survive in the wild.
So that's why I love the zoo. And it's not. Like, concrete, steel, bars, enclosures, like that. It's not that. What they did was they carved a path through the forest and paved it. So when you go into the zoo, you're walking through basically, um, a part of the forest. It just so happens that it's paved and they have the animals enclosures on both sides of the path and the enclosures are like very huge.
Is there anything to see or do in the actual capital city, Belmopan?
So for me, for example, if I wanted to visit One of the other Mayan temples that's in the Cayo, that's further in the Cayo district. It would take me like two and a half to three hours to get there as opposed to if I was in Belumpan, it would probably take just an hour to get there. You know, from where I live, from going from here to Plasencia, it takes like three and a half hours.
I got annoyed because I said to myself, half the things that I'm learning in this course, I should have learned in school growing up. Like we didn't learn all of these things in depth. To the extent that I felt we were in this course to be able to appreciate, you know, our diverse ecosystems and animals and all of these things.
And so like my goal was to start a company that would cater tours to locals and I tried to put my prices as low as I possibly could. But in doing so, I learned why tours were so expensive here. It's just because like gas is so, everything's so expensive. Gas is expensive. And so to be able to cater tours to locals would have taken more time.
HANNAH: yeah, so I think, you know, you see that in every country and it's here too, especially since Belize is a former British colony. So we have that, you know, colonization, history, past, my descendants were slaves.
So they used to extract a tree from here. The Spanish used to extract a tree from here called Logwood. And, um, they would take that back to Spain and they would extract a dye from it that they'd use to dye clothes. Well, it just so happened that en route to Spain, British pirates would start robbing the Spanish ships.
HANNAH: And we're also considered Caribbean, which some people might disagree with. I actually saw some people talking about it online, apparently it's a big thing. But the reason why we can also be considered Caribbean is that we have the same history that other Caribbean countries have.
Cause, and especially for me personally, I don't speak Spanish. A lot of people here do. We have an ethnic group called the Mestizos and what they, they are, their cultural, like heritage is their descendants from the Mayans and Spanish that came here in this area. But a lot of us here, like even a lot of our music.
I, um, so like to the south, you have bigger Mayan communities. So in, uh, for example, in the Toledo district would mainly where that's where we have a bigger community of Mayan people and they speak, there's Keche Maya and Mopan Maya.
But yeah, so you have a mestizo culture, the Mayan culture. Then people like me that look like me that we call Creole and or varying shades of brown. because of our British Afro heritage. And then you have the Garifuna culture who are descendants of the Arawaks from the island of St. Vincent. That's a whole other story.
HANNAH: Yeah. And so what, cause what happened was when the, um, African slaves revolted, they like expelled them and cast them off on this island that they thought no one lived on.
HANNAH: so the part of Belize that they landed is called Stan Creek. So, so there's, there are, um, big Garifuna communities in Stan Creek and there are others also in Honduras and Nicaragua. And I think also maybe some parts of Guatemala as well.
HANNAH: Yeah. So when I was working as a tour guide, I. It got kind of complicated to work independently as a freelance tour guide. And so there are some things happening with my sister teaching online too. And, um, we're trying to figure out how to get her paid because that's the thing with Belize, common e payment solutions, like PayPal doesn't work here.
But anyways, um, while working with them, they got a business coach that was, uh, helping them to learn how to network on LinkedIn and get leads for their business on LinkedIn. And so I was the only virtual assistant on the team that they included in those meetings. And if you can't tell by now, I'm very extroverted, so, so being on LinkedIn and just letting curiosity lead the way, led to networking with a lot of people and eventually what happened was I met someone that was looking for work in a workshop that I did.
So I had like this light bulb moment. I was like, Hey, I have this idea. What if I interview you and then. I would write your LinkedIn bio for you, and I'll make sure that, like, it's a combination of your professional life, but also you as a person, so that maybe it can stand out more to hiring managers, so that you're not just some other person.
HANNAH: and so that's how I got started at exploring writing and copywriting, which I find kind of fascinating because I've always been a writer. I've been writing poems since I was like 10, you know, and I have books and books that I've written poetry in and I remember when I was a teenager, a family friend told me, he was like, you know, you're gonna like do really great things with your writing.
HANNAH: that's what I thought. I'm like, ah, I'm not that formal and stuff. So I don't think that's ever going to happen. And then like years later, I happened to just tumble into writing. So that's how I got into copywriting.
And I was like, what? I can get paid to do these things and talk to people?
TED: Yeah. Well, let's talk about that. So this workshop's coming up July 13th, 2024. If everyone listening, if that date has not passed, then we hope you can pop in in the Puttyverse course and tell us about what we're going to learn.
still making it about the people that you need to connect with. And that's the main thing, right? And too, I feel like being a multi part is another layer of complexity that's added to writing about yourself because it's like, I do all the things,
That pushes them to look for your solution and understanding all of these little things about what went into their decision making will help you to trim your story
And then he went on to discuss how you go about leading people, and he's like, for you to lead people, you have to trust you. And for them to trust you, you have to be relatable. And for you to be relatable, for them to find you relatable, you have to be vulnerable. So when I saw that, and also reflecting on the different things I learned about copywriting and human psychology and All of that.
something from their website, you know, and. Maybe some people might feel like, well, that kind of sounds a bit manipulative, but it's, it's not being manipulative. It's more strategic communication because how many times have we been on a website where we were confused and weren't sure what they were spelling?
HANNAH: In a lot of cases, I've actually seen that and it makes sense, especially I believe for like service based businesses, especially where you're the only person.
TED: Yeah.
HANNAH: I think like everyone else, I heard Emilie's TED talk. Yeah, it was a couple years ago. I remember I got home and it was, The radio station in Belize City where we're living at the time, they were playing her TED talk and I found myself listening to it more actively. And I was like, Oh, this kind of sounds like me.
Maybe they keep going for a while. Maybe they last, you know, a few weeks, a few months, but, uh, it's a great thing. One of the great things about Puttyverse is we can do whatever we want and we can, we're not locked into any one thing. We can always change and adapt quite easily.
TED: Cool. So we're now, I know people can find you on LinkedIn. We'll add that to our notes here. I've just sent you a connection request, so you'll see that. Do you have any other places or websites or anything else you'd like to point people to?
people can work online and, and figure out payment, getting paid and things like that. So I have a website called BelizeRemoteWorkers. com. And I hope to, at some point, be able to grow to the point where it's not just helping people to work online, but I can also connect them to people that might want to outsource processes in their business.
That's, okay. I think it'd be a million or something, but yeah, you're right. According to 2022, 405, 000. Huh. All right, but still, you know, people want to work online, remote work and all the rest. But yeah, even with the population like, you know, 400, 000, There's still going to be the demand there for sure of people who need that information, right?
And there's, there's people listening and we say hello to all of our listeners, but it's not an enormous amount. You know, it's very casual, relaxed environment. So, uh, anyone listening, you can reach out to me through the Puttyverse for sure. If you're interested in coming on the show. We'd love to learn the stories of everyone who's a member of the group and perhaps have specific topics like we had today, like Belize and your workshop.