How to Use Marketing Psychology to Speed Your Launch

We’re bringing Brittany McBean back for the 343rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. It’s been 3 years since Brittany’s been on the show and a lot of has changed for her and her business. From highs and lows of building a 6-figure business, she’s completely transparent in her journey and how other copywriters can use her wisdom to grow their own business. Here’s how the conversation goes:  Why Brittany works on long projects and what it does for her client retention.  The benefits of having a highly-automated inquiry process.  Why she’s not looking for a 500k year but this instead.  The raw and real downsides of business.  Her hiring process – why you need to know what you need and how to hire based on two specific criteria.  The imposter complex pops up even for high-level copywriters? What is a malleable role and how can it fit into your business (with boundaries)? How to be a better leader to your team when things are falling off track. Her process for letting someone go. Why your role changes as you grow into your business as CEO.  How to have humanizing and empathetic conversations with your team. What’s working in the marketing world today and what needs to change? Is your audience jaded?  How to create shifts in your messaging to position yourself as the answer.  What’s the deal with urgency and scarcity? Her process for strategy and writing copy.  What’s the hierarchy of messaging? How to get fewer revisions on the final copy.  How belief can hold you back for far too long.  Tune into the episode by hitting play or checking out the transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the  show: The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Brittany's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM AI for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast Brittany's first episode Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Growth and change are a natural part of starting and building a business. And sometimes it all goes smoothly, other times it can be a little bit painful. But, ultimately we have to figure this stuff out in order to succeed as copywriters and as business owners. Our guest for today's episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is returning once again to share what she's learned as she's built her copywriting agency and helped dozens of high-end clients build their businesses too. Strategist and copywriter, Brittany McBean is here to share what's happened to her business over the last couple of years, why she hit pause on her YouTube channel, the struggles of managing employees, mental health, and a lot more. It's another great interview that you're definitely going to want to stick around for. Kira Hug:  But, before we jump into the interview, this podcast is sponsored by the Copywriter Think Tank. That's our mastermind for copywriters, content writers, strategists, marketers, you name it. If you're a creative and you're building a service-based business and creating scalable offers or products, new podcast, you will be a good fit in this room. Brittany McBean, today's guest is a Think Tank alumni member, so we were lucky enough to work with her in the Think Tank. And we do have a retreat coming up in our Think Tank. It's a virtual retreat coming up June 1st and 2nd. So, if you would like to be a part of that virtual retreat and meet our entire Think Tank crew, it's not too late. You can reach out to us and we can chat about whether or not the Think Tank makes sense for you. One thing I feel like we don't typically talk about when we talk about the Think Tank, Rob, is what new members can expect when they join, and how we help them immediately over the first month. And so, I thought we could just touch on that real quick, because I feel like it's always mysterious when you join a mastermind, kind of like what's actually going to happen when you get in and walk into the room. So, Rob, what do you feel like works well for new members when they join us that maybe they don't know or expect? Rob Marsh:  Well, a lot of masterminds, it's just a group of people that get together and talk and share ideas or whatever. But, we've combined a mastermind with coaching. And so, we start out with two pretty intensive calls where we help everyone set goals. And it's not the simple, how much do you want to make? Move on, what do you want to do with your business? We go really deep and we challenge each person who joins the Think Tank to think bigger, to think differently about their business. And then, we sit down with them and really scope out how they can achieve one of these big goals that they've set. We come up with a strategy for achieving it. We identify things that might get in the way. How they might move forward, really to set them up for a big success, hopefully in the first few months that they're with us. And then, we can repeat that process over and over, over the year or two or three that they're in the Think Tank to help them continue to keep growing their businesses. So, we look for some wins pretty fast, because we want to make sure that everybody who joins is really seeing the changes, the growth that they want. Kira Hug:  And that looks like, typically three different sessions with the two of us, with at least one of us on those sessions helping you figure out the vision for your business, the next stage of your business. And then, creating a focus map that will help you get there, and achieve that aspiration that you set for yourself over the next three to six months. And so, those are three really valuable sessions that I think surprise and delight many of our members. And so, that's something that could help you if you feel like you're not sure about what you're doing next, or maybe you do have a clear vision but you're not sure how to get there and how to get out of your own way, or deal with those obstacles. So, if that's the kind of thing that sounds like it might be helpful to you and you're excited to participate in the virtual retreat and possibly even join us at some of the upcoming in-person retreats, you can learn more at thecopywriterthinktank.com. And I said the, but it's actually copywriterthinktank.com. That's the kind of thing we help copywriters do in the Think Tank. So, if this sounds of interest to you, you can find out more at copywriterthinktank.com. Let's get into our episode with Brittany. Rob Marsh:  Brit, tell us what you've been doing since the last time you were on the podcast. What's been going on? Brittany McBean:  Oh, a lot. Last time I was here, I thought I knew everything. Kira Hug:  I thought you did too. Rob Marsh:  But, we've got you back, because now you do know everything and we can correct everything that we talked about before that was wrong. Brittany McBean:  No, talking to you feels like Neil deGrasse Tyson asking a five-year-old like why bubbles are great. Rob Marsh:  I can't think of a more incorrect analogy that I've ever heard in my life, but whatever. Kira Hug:  But, it's a fun one. I like that one. It's really fun. Brittany McBean:  I think all of your, or a large majority of your listeners have experienced just the wild up and down of the last two years were we thought we were in a recession, but then actually it turned out we were in this boom that all the money was coming in, but then we were actually really burnt out, because we were doing all of this work for all the money, and then the actual recession hit and now a carton of eggs is the same price as Alexis, and oh, by the way, there's AI. And so, I've just been riding the rollercoaster and the ups and the downs, and we've grown our team, and then shrunk the team, and then grown the team, and then shrunk the team. And launched some new products, and then went a little bit heavier on client work and heavier on products, and just ebbs and flows in all of it. It’s exactly the same. Rob Marsh:  It's been crazy for sure. Kira Hug:  Well, let's talk about how you have managed the rollercoaster that you just described. How do you approach it knowing that there's constant change, ups and downs to make strategic decisions about the business and know when to grow, when to shrink? Brittany McBean:  I think one thing I'm realizing now that things have slowed down is, pausing and looking back and realizing that a lot of decisions weren't massively strategic. There was a lot of intentionality and thought behind them, but because things were growing really fast, there was a lot of, in the moment like, let's just do this thing. And it doesn't mean that everything was done last minute and in a panic, or just reactionary, but there wasn't a lot of, I want to do this thing, and then a year later let's make it happen. It was like, let's make a project plan and in 12 weeks make this happen kind of thing. And now I get to have that really strategic, what do I want this to be? Does anything need to massively shift or change? I think that there's, the thing that I've always been the most intentional about and strategic about is how we work with our clients. Because, I think that that's a thing that since I started doing and have, I'm still doing and every single time we've been able to look back and say, what could we do differently? What can we do differently? How can we optimize? What can we tweak? Is there anything that needs to change? Can we add, can we, by subtraction? So, I think that's always been where the most thought and intentionality has been, but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a deep level of intentionality elsewhere when it comes to hiring, or when it comes to teaching, or products, or the program that I mentor other copywriters or anything like that. But,