You Might Not Be the Smartest Person in the Room

Copywriter Abbey Woodcock stops by The Copywriter Club Podcast studio to share how she went from being a single mom and journalist struggling to make ends meet to a highly paid copywriter specializing in complex launch sequences. And she shares a few of the hard-won lessons along the way. Things like: •  when you should absolutely NOT buy that course or coaching program •  the #1 thing she learned working for Ramit Sethi •  how she writes sales pages that make customers think she is reading their minds •  the “table stakes” principle for delivering solid copy •  what she does to make sure she’s not the smartest person in the room (even if she is) •  the surprising thought Abbey has on every single project she works on •  why and how she set up systems for her business •  how you can get to the point where you can work on large launch projects, and •  the worst things she sees going on in the copywriting world today As we were wrapping up the interview, Abbey saved the best for last, sharing the story of how Ramit Sethi was willing to test her ideas—even though his gut said she was wrong and it would cost him thousands of dollars. You’ll want to hear this, and the rest of the interview. To do it, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Brian Kurtz Ramit Sethi Narnia The controversial article PLF InfusionSoft Thebusinessofcopy.com Onlifeandwriting.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira: What if you could you 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 44, as we chat with copywriter Abbey Woodcock about her journey from struggling single mom to her place on the A-List. Creating systems for your copywriting business, finding the right voice for your clients, and what she thinks of the gurus who say you should sacrifice everything to invest in your business. Kira: Hi, Abbey. Hey, Rob. How’s it going? Abbey: Awesome. Rob: Hey, guys. Abbey: Super excited to be here. Kira: Welcome. Well, before we start recording, I think Rob mentioned that he’s been stalking you and aware of you for the past year. I really started paying attention to you when I met you in March at Bryan Kurtz’s Titans Master Class. You gave a presentation to the group about helping creatives build systems. Abbey: Right. Kira: Which was spoke to me as a creative who just sucks at systems. With your business partner, you’ve figured out how to make it work. I know we’re going to dive into that and a lot of other things, our topics today. To start, Abbey, let’s start with your story. I know you mentioned that it’s not a rags to riches story. But let’s dive into how you got into copywriting. Abbey: Yeah. Sure. I always say that my copywriting journey started in seventh grade because I wrote a 30-page letter to a boy in seventh grade to ask him to the school dance. That was my first long-form fields letter. Rob: Did it convert? Abbey: No. No, zero convert on that one. Kira: 30 pages? Abbey: Yeah, 30 pages. Kira: 30 pages were necessary, okay. Got it. Rob: That gives a little bit of context for what we’re going to ask about Ramit and what you’ve done for him, because 30 pages is short for some of the stuff he does. Abbey: Yeah. Absolutely, I was prepping many years ago for that job. Then I graduated high school, which was exciting. My goal was to actually go into journalism. I did that, but the thing about being a reporter is it’s very long hours and very little pay. Right out of college I got a job as a production editor and a reporter for a newspaper. That is the story that you guys had read. At that time in my life, I had no money. I had two really young children. My two children are 15 months apart. They were both under two years old. Kira: Oh my gosh. Abbey: It was a really tough time financially for me. I was working crazy hours and trying to figure out all this, being a new mom. It was really difficult for a while. We’re talking having rent payments not happen and services shut off, cell phone and cable and all that. After that I went into corporate marketing. Not because I wanted to be a marketing director necessarily, but it was better pay and better hours. I had to prioritize with my family. That’s how I discovered this whole world of copywriting, was through working in marketing and I discovered that copywriting was what I really loved to do. About two years after that is when I discovered this whole online world that we seem to find ourselves in, Narnia as I call it and ended up on Ramit Sethi’s team being a copywriter. That’s my story, and after a couple years with Ramit I went freelance and that’s where I am now. Rob: That’s awesome. I definitely want to hear more about your experiences with Ramit because I think so many of us are familiar with the long emails and the incredibly long sales pages that he uses to sell his product. Before we do that, I want to jump to this blog post or article that you wrote recently about investing in your business. You went off, you got a little energized about people who suggest that if you’re not investing in your business and spending thousands of dollars on courses or coaching or training, that you aren’t serious about what you’re doing. Can we talk a little bit about that and the message you were trying to send with that? Abbey: Absolutely. Rob: Flag in the mountainside or whatever you call it. Abbey: It kind of turned into that. I wrote it on a whim after I saw a Facebook comment on one of the ... Having these mini Facebook, free Facebook groups for the launches has turned into this trend and I saw one of these big launches has turned into this trend and I saw one of these big launches that was happening and I was looking at the comments in the Facebook group. I always am curious at how the support team is answering questions in the Facebook group. Really, it’s like watching customer service chat live, right? Kira: Right. Abbey: I saw one of these comments that somebody had said along the lines of, “I really can’t afford this course, it’s $2,000.” The support staff was like, “Well, you can’t afford not to invest.” We all know the rigamarole of, “Use your credit card.” And “We have payment plans.” I realized after working with a variety of different types of people. I’m a launch junkie, so I watch all these launches really closely. I don’t think a lot of people understand what it’s really like to broke. There’s a time to invest $2,000 in your business. I’m not saying anything about that you shouldn’t take $2,000 courses or that $2,000 courses re too expensive. In the last year in my business, I’ve spent over $25,000 on courses and Master Minds and events, but I’m at the place where I can do that now. 10 years ago, the story I was telling you about when I was a newspaper reporter just figuring out how to start a business or what I wanted to do. Investing $2,000 would have crippled me. Number one, I didn’t have $2,000, but if I maxed out my credit card that was the only thing I had if the car broke down or if the kids got sick. It just really upset me that people put this pressure on other people that, “You need to invest in yourself.” While I agree with that, it comes in stages. You have to take baby steps if that’s where you are in your life, that you’re not in a place where you have $2,000 that you can invest in your business, that’s okay. People need to understand. We as copywriters and marketers need to understand that the hard sell is not always appropriate. Sometimes it’s bad for your customer. It’s bad for your business. It puts everybody in a really uncomfortable position. I wrote this post and it turned into this. I don’t want to say it went viral, because it wasn’t that crazy. Kira: It kind of did. Abbey: It’s definitely the most popular, most commented post that I’d ever had because I think so many people related to it. I think the people at the top with these successful businesses doing these multimillion dollar launches, some of them have really lost touch to what it’s like to not have $100 in your bank account for example. Rob: What we saw in our group in the comments. There were a few people who were like, “Right on. This is perfect.” Then it seemed like there were a few people out there saying, “It’s not okay to charge anything, people should be giving this away for free.” That’s not what she was saying. Kira: Did they say that? I missed that comment. Rob: There were one or two people who are thinking these people who sell things for $2,000 or more are ripping us all off and really not thinking, “Well, no, that’s not exactly right. That’s not the message.” Abbey: No. That was unique to your group actually. I had a lot of comments and emails about that about, “Yeah. You’re right. These people that are selling $2,000 courses are unethical. You should always have a $97 product.” I’m like, no. We’re in Bryan Kurtz’s group together. I invested $15,000 into that group and I’ve gotten 10X ROI on that.” Having a $10,000 product or a $2,000 product is not a bad thing. It’s just understanding who you’re marketing that $2,000 product to, because the person that should be purchasing a $2,000 product is not the person whose cable is going to get shut off next month if they don’t pay the bill or whose rent is two months behind.