TCC Podcast #40: What “A-listers” Have in Common with Kim Krause Schwalm

Kim Krause Schwalm joins Rob and Kira to share her thoughts and advice about copywriting. She also talks about how she went from successful marketing director to control-beating copywriter in less than two years. It’s a great story. Along the way she shared her thoughts about: •  climbing the copywriter ladder (and why it’s so lucrative) •  how to stay in control of your writing process •  the copywriting lessons she (re)learned from Parris Lampropolous and Clayton Makepeace • the one thing all A-list copywriters have in common • and why you might not want Kim to make your next lasagna It’s another great interview and look into how a fantastic copywriter runs her business. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Clayton Makepeace interview with Kim Boardroom Gary Bencivenga Jim Rutz Healthy Directions Ted Nicholas Kim’s L.A. Bootcamp David Deutsch Brian Kurtz Clayton Makepeace Parris Lampropolous Advanced Bionutritionals The Girls Club KimSchwalm.com TheMarketingSuperPower.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 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 40 as we chat with A-list copywriter Kim Krause Schwalm about writing effective direct response controls, what steps other writers can take now to get a control beater, writing in the health and finance niches, and her ongoing efforts to help other women succeed in the business. Kira: Hi, Kim. Hi, Rob. Welcome. Rob: Kira, Kim. It’s good to talk to you guys. Kim: Hey, it’s great to be here. Rob: Kim, we are so excited to have you here, partly because I’ve known about you for several years. I think I remember reading an interview that Clayton Makepeace did with you a number of years ago, and I’ve followed your career and I know Kira and you have connected recently as well. We’re thrilled to be able to talk with you, but I think where we’d really like to get started is just your story, how you got into copywriting. Kim: I didn’t know copywriting existed as a profession until I was working in marketing for a major publishing company called Philips Publishing. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but for many years it was considered one of the powerhouse direct response marketing companies. In fact, it was bigger than Agora at the time. It was up there with Boardroom and Rodale and other major companies in terms of working with the very top-level copywriters, the ones that we all consider legends like Gary Bencivenga, Jim Rutz, Clayton Makepeace, et cetera. I went to work for them back in 1992, which seems like an eternity ago. I actually had had marketing management and brand management experiences with other companies. I had an MBA in marketing and I was just full-bore marketing, but I always could write copy. It was always one of the many hats I wore in different jobs. It was the same story at Philips, but at Philips it was one of these things that was really valued because so much of their business was built on strong copy. A lot of my different roles, I would write copy as well as direct marketing efforts. I ended up, after being there just a short while, I was asked to help them launch their supplement business, to promote supplements formulated by Dr. Julian Whitaker. I helped launch and run that company, which is called Healthy Directions, and you may have heard of it, and grew that to a $23 million business within three years. Worked in some other parts of the company, but after a while I realized I’ve always enjoyed copywriting, seeing the kind of lifestyle and income potential that the A-level freelance copywriters enjoyed, and that’s when I became intrigued about it. When I was pregnant with my first child I started thinking about it even more. Went back to work after having him and then after about six or seven months decided to take the leap and become a freelance copywriter. That was about 19 years ago. Kira: Wow. When you took that leap, what did it look like immediately? Did you have jobs, gigs, lined up or were you starting from scratch? Kim: I had really the best possible situation. There was a supplement company in my area. I knew the person who owned it. He hired me into a retainer arrangement, which was going to guarantee me basically about 90% of my salary that I was leaving, but it was only going to take about half of my time. Kira: Wow. Kim: I was able to bring on other clients. This is why I was able to walk out of a $100,000-a-year salary job in 1998 and keep my full-time nanny and just start full speed. Had my one client. He referred me to a few others, and before I knew it, the first year I made 50% more. Kira: Wow. Rob: Wow. Did you start out with immediate successes from the stuff that you were writing? Did you have immediate control beaters, or did you take time to learn the business and figure out what you were doing in order to get to that level? Kim: Definitely the latter. I mean, like anyone, I had to climb the copywriting ladder from the bottom. I did not start off writing those 24-page magalogs with royalty potential that I knew I eventually wanted to get to. I had never written something like that as an in-house marketing person. The type of things that I was good at or had experience with were inserts that rode along with newsletters or other types of back-end mailings. Smaller type promotions, renewal inserts for publishers, that kind of thing. That’s how I mostly filled my schedule. For the supplement client I was working with I was doing more than just copywriting. I was also doing marketing consulting, but I was writing catalog copy. I was writing renewals. I was writing all sorts of smaller type things for other clients, including the company that I left, which is, P.S., always stay on good terms if you do take the leap and leave a company ... After I’d been out for about a year or so they became by far my biggest client. Yeah, I had to write a lot of smaller ... It was all flat fee the first couple years. I eventually was able to convince one of my clients, who was ... He had a very small company promoting videos and books and that kind of thing, and he was actually writing his own direct mail letters. They were actually pretty good. He actually studied with Ted Nicholas, was one of his students. His copy wasn’t bad at all. It was quite good. What I did was I convinced this client, after I’d been working with him for maybe a year or so, that “Hey, maybe you should try a magalog. They’re really working well in the health space, and you’ve never done one, and I can write one for you, and blah blah blah.” I convinced him to let me write my first magalog, which he paid me actually a decent amount of money. It’s a fraction of what I charge now, but I got paid to write it. There was no royalty or anything, but it was like, “Hey, I’m going to do this and I’m going to get my first real sample as a magalog.” I wrote it for him. I probably should pull it out. I haven’t looked at it probably in ten years. It would probably make me shudder to look at it, but it wasn’t terrible. I think it did okay for him. More importantly, I had a printed magalog control that I could show somebody. Sure enough, I don’t know how ... It was maybe a few months later or ... I got a call from a supplement company down in Florida that somebody had referred me to, and he asked, “Hey, have you written magalogs? Can I see a sample? What do you charge?” I sent him the sample. I asked for actually a pretty comparable going rate. It was not rock bottom by any means. It was about triple what I had charged to write this first one, and it had royalty potential. He hired me to write a supplement magalog. That’s basically how I got that door opened. Rob: From the launch of your career as a copywriter until that point, it sounds like that was about eight years? Kim: No, I would say ... I’d have to go back and look at my timeline, but I would say that was just probably a few ... Just within the first two years. Kira: Kim, I would love to hear more about the copywriter ladder, because it’s such a great visual and I think ... Especially for new copywriters. They can’t totally see all of the rungs that they need to climb in order to successfully climb this ladder the way you have. Can you just explain how it works and why it works? Yeah, let’s just start there. Kim: It’s just like any kind of career. You’re not going to just jump out of college, “I’ve got my bachelor’s degree,” and someone’s not going to hire you for a $100,000 a year director of marketing job. You’re going to have to start maybe as a marketing assistant and do a bunch of schlep work and then you’re going to maybe, hopefully, soon get promoted to marketing manager, et cetera. We’re all familiar with the concept of climbing the corporate ladder. It’s kind of the same thing with copy. It’s a really challenging assignment to write a longform promo. A lot of people ... Probably not everybody in your audience, but a lot of people out there keep hearing about all the huge opportunity with royalties and with this type of longform copy, which is ... It’s all true. There’s definitely a lot of opportunity. The reason why there’s so much opportunity, and the reason why it’s lucrative, is because very few people can really do it well.