Beverage preferences and morning rituals

This is 369th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. And today Kira and Rob talk in depth about writing sales pages. They share their formulas for writing, how they landed their first sales page assignments, and the best ways to improve your skills when it comes to writing sales pages. You definitely don't want to miss this episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.     Full Transcript: As content writers and copywriters gain experience and work on different types of projects, many of them express interest in doing less content work like blog posts and more sales copy work. There are a lot of reasons for this. One big reason is that sales pages are closely tied to the sale of the product or service you are writing about, so it’s easier to justify charging higher prices for the work you do. The sales page leads directly to the sale, where a blog post or case study may be a couple of steps away. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder, Kira Hug and I are talking about sales pages. How we approach them. The research we do. The formulas we use to write them. And our secrets for making sure they work as promised. If you write sales copy or want to write sales pages in the future, you may want to stick around for this one. But first, this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is brought to you by The Copywriter Underground. It is truly the best membership for copywriters and content writers… let me just give you an idea of what you get for $87 a month… first there’s a monthly group coaching call with Kira and me where you can get answers to your questions, advice for overcoming any business or client or writing challenge you have. There are weekly copy critiques where we give you feedback on your copy or content. There are regular training sessions on different copy techniques and business practices designed to help you get better. And we’re adding a new monthly AI tool review where we share a new AI tool or a technique or prompt you can do with AI get more done. That’s on top of the massive library of training and templates. And the community is full of copywriters ready to help you with just about anything… including sharing leads from time to time. Find out more at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu And with that, let’s go to our discussion for some of what we’ve learned over the past few weeks. Kira Hug:  Well I think it's exciting that we are talking together twice in a row back to back. We've never done that on this podcast. Usually it's like 1 podcast for the 2 of us and then maybe ten later we get back on together. Rob Marsh:  Yeah, it's definitely been a while, if it has happened at all. I'd have to go back through… I mean it's probably because you and I talk to each other a lot, but we don't record those and share those as podcasts. So. Kira Hug:  This is the first. It's never happened.  Rob Marsh:  Maybe we're opening up the doors a little bit to some of our personal conversations here, I don't know, but hopefully people will enjoy what we have to share today. Kira Hug:  Well, it's also snowing here in Maine. It's the first snow of the season. Okay it slowed down. It stopped, but it was snowing all morning. It's absolutely beautiful and it put me in such a good mood, like you just can't bring me down right now. Rob Marsh:  Do you have a blanket and hot chocolate anything by the fire? Kira Hug:  I've been I've been making stew and just drinking hot water. And I'm so ready for the holidays I just drink hot water…  Rob Marsh:  Wait… You're drinking hot water, like not tea? Kira Hug:  I just drink hot water. So I stopped drinking caffeine since London when I got sick because I felt awful anyway. So anytime I get sick, I'm like, “Well I may as well cut out some of my vices because I already feel awful.” So I'm not drinking caffeine. And I drink a good amount of caffeine. So now I just drink hot water throughout the day with chia seeds which gives you some energy. Rob Marsh:  Ah, sure I haven't tried that. I mean I'm not I'm not criticizing it, it's different. So yeah, giving up caffeine like that's my one vice and that would be—I don't know—I have done it before you know where I've gone months or whatever. Kira Hug:  That's hard. Rob Marsh:  I know I can do it, but I also just like having a Coke Zero. It's kind of my treat during the day.  Kira Hug:  Yeah, it's hard because I enjoy drinking a latte or coffee or tea. I enjoy that process, the ritual. I enjoy going to coffee shops. But also you can go to coffee shops and get a decaf. So that's why I'm drinking hot water. I'm trying to stay hydrated. Rob Marsh:  Awesome! Well I mean it's funny you mentioned that because as we were putting together a few ideas of what we should talk about today, I put in 3 questions that are warm up questions—getting to know Rob and kia questions. I pulled them from an email newsletter that I just found recently called Content Prompt. It's a substack and it's a really useful tool if you write daily emails. It lists a bunch of stuff, like what happened on this day in history, or what this day is like National Taco Day or whatever, and then it also has a bunch of questions you can ask yourself. It's for anybody who writes newsletters and who might find themselves really struggling with that. So I just pulled a couple questions and one of those questions was: “Do you have a ritual to start your day?” And talking about drinking hot water is that a ritual? Kira Hug:  I gave away the whole ritual. That's all it is. Why don't we kick off with you and your morning ritual. Rob Marsh:  Yeah, so my normal ritual is: I get up at 5 and I go for a run. And a couple of days a week I don't go for a run, I'll get up and lift weights. I'm not like a huge heavy weight lifter. But just want to kind of stretch my muscles and keep them strong. Haven't done that since London because as I shared on last week's podcast, I've hurt my neck. So I've been doing some physical therapy to get back to health where moving my body or running won't send shocks of pain down my spine.  But my normal ritual is to get up and exercise. Then I shower, dress, and try to read a little bit before I start work. That's usually what happens and I'm hoping to get back to that soon, because I definitely miss it when I wake up an hour later because I'm not getting up to run and it's just different. I miss the exercise.  Kira Hug:  Wait… you shower a shower every morning? I don't shower every shower every morning. Rob Marsh:  Yes of course. I don't want to stink. Otherwise I would stink especially because I run an exercise first thing in the morning. So yeah I don't want to  sweat and not smell good.  Kira Hug:  Okay, that's fair. I run a lot but I just don't really care if I stink. Rob Marsh:  Okay, so showering isn't your morning ritual. What is your morning ritual? Kira Hug:   So my morning ritual shifts frequently because of the little ones that inhabit my house. For a while I was waking up at three thirty A.M. Since August which was intense, which probably. Is why in our previous podcast I talked about burnout and getting sick, Since then I have shifted the time because I'm trying to be less pushy and militant with myself and I'm trying to be slightly more gentle and kind to myself. So I have pushed my time from three thirty to Four forty five A.M. maybe 5 A.M. Then there are days where I'm like, if I want to sleep until the kids get up around six fifteen, I'll do that. So I'm listening to my body a little bit more. But once I get up, I get my hot water from the kitchen with my chia seeds and Apple cider vinegar and I go into my library (my kids call it the TV room) and I yplop myself on the sofa with big blankets because it's cold here in Maine. And set the fire stove on to get the fire going and I meditate for 4 minutes because 4 minutes seems to be a right amount of time where I'm like, okay I'm all right? That's enough. I think I'm done. Then I start my deep work time which usually involves writing or thinking or working on a big project that I need some brain power that I can't typically do in the afternoon. And I get a little bit of time before and my kids get up —they get up so early now. That's why I was getting up at 3:30, because there's just not as much time in the mornings as before. Like the family routine and the family rituals start. But I get a little bit of time. So I'm happy if I get anything before everybody else wakes up and then we start that routine to get all the kids out of the house. The last one, Homer, is out of the house by 8:30 and then I start my workday. Rob Marsh:  So when you say you write as part of that, is it like morning pages or journaling or thinking about business emails? What are you writing? Kira Hug:   I would like to say it's journaling—and I will say that I have started journaling in the last week because I was so inspired by John Biakovic and who was a guest presenter at London IRL. He journals all the time. He told us, “I write down everything that happens and then I always have content.” That's why he's able to write a daily newsletter. And I was so inspired by that. I'm so hungry for that. I'm also forgetting so many details in my life that I want to capture so the goal is to ease into that. But no, what I do now is usually like… what email do I need to write for The Copywriter Club? Kr do I need to write copy for my clients? That all happens in the morning or I can't really fit it in elsewhere throughout the day. Rob Marsh:  Okay, that makes sense. I should do more writing as part of my ritual. But right now, it's mostly exercise and a little bit of reading. I forgot to mention before I go run, I usually sit in my chair that's here in my office, and spend 2 or 3 minutes just kind of meditating.