The Importance of Weaving in Your Business

Nikita Morell is our guest for the 136th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We’ve known Nikita for a while now and given the success she’s had, it's a shame we haven’t had her on the podcast before now. Nikita has found a lot of success by niching her business and delivering exactly what her ideal clients need. We talked to her about: •  how she went from selling bread to selling ads to writing copy •  her accidental sales pitch that saved her sales job •  how a job in marketing taught her skills that she uses as a copywriter •  why she chose her niche—working only with architects and the impact on her biz •  how she changed her business to accommodate having a baby •  what she does to find clients—she’s a “prospecting nerd” •  what she did to raise her rates adding thousands of dollars to every project •  how she thinks about her brand and why she takes her brand seriously •  the marketing pieces she is using in her prospecting process •  how she makes her cold emails feel like warm emails •  this mistakes she’s made along the way—it hasn’t all been smooth sailing •  what she does to get a lot of “busy work” done and still avoid burnout •  the things she has done that have made the biggest difference in her business We also asked Nikita about working with subcontractors, creating a “pretty” framework to show how her process works and why she spends a lot of time with a Japanese floor loom. Nikita shares a lot of advice worth listening to in this episode. To hear it, click the play button below or find it on your favorite podcast app. Readers can scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Seth Godin The Copywriter Think Tank Mel Abraham Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob:   This podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground. Kira:   It's our new membership, designed for you, to help you attract more clients, and hit 10k a month, consistently. Rob:   For more information, or to sign up, go to thecopywriterunderground.com. Kira:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob:   You're invited to join the club for episode 136, as we chat with copywriter Nikita Morell about helping architects with copy and marketing strategy, her approach to choosing a niche and then narrowing it even further, why she created a framework for her process, and the role weaving plays in her life and business. Kira:   Welcome Nikita. Rob:   Hey Nikita. Nikita:            Thank you, hi. Kira:   Yeah, we're excited to have you here. You are one of our members of our Think Tank, so we've been able to witness your business growth, and we're really excited to share what's working, because so much is working for you in your business. So let's just kick this off with your story. Kira:   How did you end up as a copywriter? Nikita:            So, I started in corporate marketing for L'Oreal and George Weston Foods, which is Australia's biggest bread brand, and I quite quickly realized this corporate life just wasn't for me. I think it was just all the layers and I just wasn't that great at taking direction. And it was round about this time I was earning a full time salary, so I was frequenting lots of bars and different restaurants, and after a night out, my friends would come back and comment on the food, or the music, or the cute boy sitting on the bar stool, and I would be looking at the copper lights, or the timber joinery; and I think it was about this time I just became obsessed with everything design related. I signed up to an interior design diploma, and did that as a hobby, and learned how to draft, and draw floor plans, with no intention of becoming an interior designer, just to learn and immerse myself in that world. And, yeah, it was round about this time I thought, you know, there has to be a way to marry marketing and communications with design and architecture. And I still remember the time, I was sitting there reading a commercial architecture magazine, and I though, aha this is it, I just need to work for this one magazine. And so, fast forward six months, I honestly just stalked, politely, stalked this magazine. I rang them pretty much every week, I just said, can I please meet you? Are there any job openings? And didn't get much back, and then I think finally, just they thought, we just need to get this girl in; just meet her and just see what she's about. And I went in, and they said look, we don't have any positions in the editorial team, because I had been doing a lot of writing, I had created my own design blog called Distracted By Design, and writing for some New York based design blogs as well; and they said, there's nothing in the editorial team, there's nothing in the marketing team, all we have is a media executive position. And before she had even time to tell me what the position was about, I said, yup, fine, sign me up, when can I start? So, a month later I went into the job and said, I'm here for the media exec, and they said, yup, you're just sitting over there with the sales team. And I just looked at her and said, oh no no, there must be some sort of mistake, I'm not here for sales. And she said, yeah, that's just a fancy name to what we call sales, and I just went white. I'm brown in color, and I just lost all my color and just thought, I don't know how to sell. I've never, ever, sold anything. And so I sat down, and I think six months I just really sucked at this. I would go in, meet all these furniture designers with the goal of selling ad space in this magazine, and I would meet with furniture designers, and there's tapware, all these different types of amazing people, but I would go in there, just blurt out my sales pitch, be like, do you want to buy anything? Here's some magazine space, here are the costs, thank you, bye. And never, ever, got one sale. Now I had targets to meet, right? So I think they had their eyes on me, and they thought, oh gosh, what have we done? And so I wrote out my resignation later, and I thought, this is just not for me. And so I think this was about nine months in, and I had it in my handbag, and I thought, tomorrow I'm just going to go resign; but I had a meeting booked. And I thought, I'll go to this meeting, who cares, doesn't matter what happens. But I still remember, I walked in and it was this man, and he was a timber. He made this beautiful timber furniture, and I just spoke to him. I just chatted to him for an hour and a half, I asked him questions about how he started, and he took me through his workshop, and I just was blown away by his story. And I just thought, oh, you know what, your story needs to be in our magazine. And without even realizing it, I was obviously selling a solution to his problem, and I was gaining his trust, and I was creating that personal connection. And I didn't even take my magazine out of my bag to, or I didn't even mention the ad space, but I came back to my desk an hour or two later and he said, Nikita, I want to by 12 months of advertising space, and that was my biggest sale. And I thought, okay, I’m just not going to resign today, maybe I'll give it another week. And I guess the rest is history, I think I stayed there for another 18 months, and became their highest revenue earner in the company, and a year after that I just went to an architecture firm, just to get experience on the architecture side, because I'd done the publishing, selling, as a communications manager. And that’s where my copywriting journey began. So I wrote newsletters, and about pages, and bios, for this one big significant architecture company here in Sidney, and I though, you know, if I can help these guys do this, why can't I just help more people? So, I did a course in copywriting and that's where I took the leap of faith and started my own business. Rob:   I love it. There's so many different things here that led up to you being a copywriter, so can we talk a little bit about what you did as a marketing person, the role you had as a marketer, and then of course the stuff you were talking about in sales, how that all added up to copywriting as a career choice? Nikita:            Yeah, so exactly. So marketing, a lot of what I was doing was that consumer insight, so I would go, especially at the bread company, I would go into the grocery store for two days at a time and just watch people shop bread. So I'd see how they scan the shelf, whether they squeezed the loaf or choose the loaf behind, so it was, I guess, watching and observing a lot of, yeah, consumer insights. And with that, learning about brand strategy. So understanding your tone of voice, your brand values, and all those kind of essential marketing foundation components, and then, yeah, as you said, naturally fell into selling, which I learned at the end of the day is just all about trust. It's just getting someone's trust, and then it just makes the sale so much easier. And then those two things combined, I think, it just, copywriting was a natural progression. I mean, now I look back and I'm always drawing upon my sales knowledge, always drawing upon my marketing knowledge. It was almost like the third piece of the puzzle, and it just made sense to combine those two skills into copywriting. And I'm definitely still learning the art and craft of copywriting, but I think having those two things has definitely helped me. Kira:   And can you talk about, timeline wise, when did you go out on your own in your business? Nikita:            So it was about two and a half, nearly three years ago,