Scaling in the Near Term

On the 298th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Avi Webb joins the show. Avi is a copywriter who specializes in naming businesses and offers (not an easy task). Is there a method to the madness? Avi spills his secrets to his research and creativity processes, and how you can tap into the naming market. Check out the goods: Avi’s transition from creative writing to persuasive writing. Why is there a lack of emphasis on copy? Are there any advantages to design vs copy first? How design and copy are two separate languages and how to navigate both. The better way to work with designers, so each vision can come to life. What kind of communication needs to happen between designers and copywriters? How Avi became the name guy. Do you have to love everything about copy? How to find your unique, comfy, copywriting chair. Is there a method to charging for taglines and names and how are you supposed to communicate the value? Avi’s naming process – What happens before the verdict is decided? What mistakes do people make in the naming process? When should you use your name vs a business name? How to stay creative and continue to tap into your creativity. The key to developing your own unique perspective. Avi’s lead generation process for his signature naming offer. Tune into the episode to learn how you can improve your own naming process. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Accelerator Waitlist The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Avi's website How Much Money Can an Author Expect to Make on Their Book? Blog The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM Episode 1 Episode 154 Don't Call It That by Eli Altman   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Have you ever been hired to name a product, or a service, or a business. Naming is one of the most fun kinds of projects that you can work on and also one of the most difficult, because so much depends on getting things right. Does the name you come up with describe the product or what it does? Is it desirable? Is it easy to say, or spell, or remember? Is the URL available? Is the trademark available? Is it too close to a name or a term that your competitor uses? Naming is hard. So we invited copywriter Avi Webb to join us for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast to talk about his process for naming and what we need to think about if we're going to make naming a part of our business services. Kira Hug:  This episode of the podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Accelerator. That is our program designed to give you the blueprint, structure, coaching, direction, and community you need to accelerate your business growth in four months. So you can go from feeling like an overwhelmed freelancer to a fully booked business owner. We're actually opening this program, The Copywriter Accelerator, for new members next month. And if you have any interest at all, just jump on the waitlist to be the first to hear all the information about the program when we open it up in August. So to do that, just go to the show notes and check out the link for the wait list. Rob Marsh:  Or you can go to thecopywriteraccelerator.com. Now let's jump into our interview with Avi and find out how he became a copywriter. Avi Webb:  How I ended up as a copywriter is, I don't know, that interesting. About when I left school a friend of mine was involved with a children's museum that was just rising in Brooklyn.  Kira maybe you know the area on Eastern Parkway, the Jewish Children's Museum in Crown Heights? And they were just opening then and looking for a creative team. He knew me from camp. I had been involved in writing plays and songs and sort of the creative writing kind of guy, and pulled me in to see if I could be helpful. "So, what do you do?" I said, "Writing." I don't know why exactly that time, but that really became the first time that I wrote to persuade. Although I couldn't have put it in those few words at the time. They were looking for sales, content and collateral, they were looking for membership type stuff. And different from the things I had been doing, which was like I said, creative type of writing to be enjoyed. That was the first time that I got the importance of writing things to compel and to persuade. And so, from there, I sort of kept going. Rob Marsh:  So, you were doing creative writing, like stories, poetry, that kind of stuff before? Avi Webb:  Yeah, a little bit of poetry and plays and story and song lyric type things. Not professionally. This was kind of as a teenager and as a counselor, that type of thing. So it's like someone asked me where my creative experience is. That's what I reached for it. It wasn't so intentional. Rob Marsh:  Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And then, as you started writing copy for this client, what did you do to figure all of this stuff out? Because obviously you hadn't been thinking of yourself as a copywriter or even advertising yourself as a copywriter, you were just sort of helping out. How did you turn that corner and really turn yourself into a copywriter? Avi Webb:  Yeah, not only was I not calling myself, I didn't know the term. Probably three or four years into being a copywriter I didn't know what the job title was. They had very specific needs, which sort of worked the backward way of some clients where they're like, "I need something to, just write something." And then the copywriter needs to say, "Well, what do you need to do?" And sort of dig into all those things. At that point, they were a brand new museum, and they were looking for somebody to write collateral that was going to get people in the door. So it was a pretty straightforward first assignment. Like a tri-fold brochure that was going to be left around different parts of New York, sent around to the public school system, just various things like that. They had a very clear goal and a very clear need. So, asking questions of those people, then I guess intuitively, I started to ask what people that were going to be reading this wanted to know and what would compel them to join it. But I didn't have a very clear process or understanding of where to be looking for those things. Kira Hug:  So, let's say I start my own museum, which would be pretty fun. What would you recommend for me if I want to attract people, and get people in the door? Based on your experience, what worked? Avi Webb:  I think you probably have a good sense of where I would go with that answer. Really, really every single experience and every type of potential visitor and every time is going to have a different message and different way to go about that. In this case I had mentioned that I was involved with the Jewish Children's Museum. There's a backstory to that, some list of very familiar, that there was a Jewish student who was killed on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994 for being Jewish. There was a gunman who pulled up alongside a van load of Yeshiva students and opened fire on them, and Harry Halverson was killed then, and his mother was the one who spearheaded this museum to teach. Really a big motivation of hers I think was to teach the public school system or to just engage the public school system with the Jewish community in New York to sort of create this familiarity, and in that way get people to understand each other a little bit better. So, a big goal for them was to speak to public school students who weren't necessarily driven to understand the nuances of Jewish culture. So it was just kind of to engage with culture that is different from themselves. I guess my long-winded answer to you is how I would go about pushing your eventual museum is to understand the motivation of why you built it. What people might be interested about it. Individuals, groups of people who might be interested in coming toward it. And finding how to create a compelling and concise message to get them interested. Rob Marsh:  I want to curate the museum of Kira. All the stuff that goes in. Like the cheerleading outfit and the old retainer that she would have had. Kira Hug:  I got rejected from cheerleading. There's no cheerleading outfit. Avi Webb:  Yeah. I'm not that surprised here that you reach for that particular example, because I think there's a lot that you can probably put into a museum of Kira. Rob Marsh:  All the costumes. This is a future project for us, I think. Kira Hug:  Yes, another project. Rob Marsh:  We might need some help with… Kira Hug:  Another project. Rob Marsh:  So Avi, so as you were working then with the museum and sort of figuring out the copywriter stuff, how did you go from that to now finding additional clients or the next job? Build that career ladder for us. Avi Webb:  So, the bulk of my copywriting career happened right after that, in that I created a role in that museum called staff writer. And it was sort of PR plus marketing and a mix of it all. And at the point that that, I felt I had grown out of that or maybe they felt I had grown out, I don't remember exactly. There was a boutique agency here in Brooklyn as well that was looking more specifically for a copywriter. They were really design-heavy, but they knew they needed somebody who can create the actual strategic language for what they were doing. And so that's where I took my next job. And I was there for about nine years as kind of the Jack of all copy. I did really all print ads and packaging copy and shipping email receipts. And just really anything that our clients came to us with that was related to language came onto my plate. And so I cut my teeth on that and really enjoyed it. Kira Hug:  So can I get a timeline here? Because I need to just put all of this into context. What years were you working at this agency?