This week I am sitting down with Carly Ottaway, the owner and CEO of Web of Words, a boutique agency dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses and expand their impact. Carly is a journalist turned copywriter turned agency owner, but this is really just a portion of who she truly is, despite the massive impact she is making on the world.
Our conversation is about the power of your voice and sharing your story. Storytelling is something we often think of as something we only do around the campfire or with our kids before bed, but storytelling is so much more than that.
It’s so much more powerful and so often completely underutilized.
Storytelling is a way to communicate, captivate and connect with other humans.
This is something that Carly teaches her entrepreneurial clients, but also is a big part of the way that she lives her life. She shares her voice, her story, her vulnerability, her triumphs, and all the feels in between.
Our stories are a form of sacred connection — something we can and should use personally and professionally.
In this episode, Carly talks about the evolution of her life and her story and her ability and desire to speak it into the world.
She also shares how it has led her from a place to control all the things, which I think is something that *we all* can relate to, to letting go, trusting and surrendering to the flow of life.
I felt deeply moved by this conversation. I sense that it is very important that we not only share who we are in our messiness and our becoming, but also in our success, our abundance and our expansion.
This episode feels very timely and lucky for us, Carly does not hold back with her story and her wisdom.
In this episode:
- How Carly started her agency and her journey from being an employee to leaning into freelance work.
- Carly’s experience through the pandemic, including growing her business with her husband, birthing her second child, having their house burn down, and finding their community to lean on.
- Her transformation from ‘Carly the Copywriter’ to ‘Carly the Agency Leader.’
- The benefits and struggles of working with your spouse.
- The power of the “about you” page on your website, from a copywriting and storytelling perspective.
- How to find the balance between our personality being intertwined with our business, and how we can use this to sell.
- Personal branding and putting a face to a brand.
- Not being afraid to share your story fully and show up messy/authentic.
- Surrendering to the word surrender.
- How Carly has navigated motherhood and entrepreneurship.
Quotes:
- “We will figure it out. We always do.”
- “People remember how you make them feel.”
- “People want to work with people that they like, know and trust.”
- “Storytelling is about connection.”
- “We are not here to work with anyone and everyone. We are not here to serve anyone and everyone.”
- “Surrendering doesn’t mean not doing anything. Surrendering is about taking that best next step and trusting and believing.”
- “I had to just trust that we will get where we need to be.”
- “Get comfortable with getting uncomfortable with ourselves.”
- “It is important to carve the path that is right for you.”
- “Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is have an inner circle and speak to them.”
- “I can only control what I can control.”
- “Even if it does not come natural to you, it does not mean that you can’t be successful with it.
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Carly’s bio:
Carly Ottaway is the owner and CEO of Web of Words, a boutique agency dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses and expand their impact. As a journalist-turned-copywriter, she gets fired up about helping women use their voice, share their story, and change people’s lives.
Carly is also a published author, and her writing has been published in national publications, including Maclean’s, Canadian Business and Zoomer Magazine. When she’s not typing away at her keyboard, you can find her exploring the great outdoors with her kids, her Portuguese Water Dog and her husband/business partner, Luke.
