TCC Podcast #62: The ins and outs of creating a micro-agency with Jamie Jensen

For the 62nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob brought former screenwriter, movie producer and copywriter Jamie Jensen into the studio to talk all about her copy business. She shares the good and the bad and why she decided to shut down her agency just as it was really taking off. We also talked about: •  how her dad unknowingly put her on the path to copywriting as a kid •  why she left Hollywood to make her own movie, then jumped to copywriting •  what she did early on to attract clients to her business (her no-strategy strategy) •  how she developed a unique brand voice (Hollywood helped) •  the systems and processes she used to connect with her customers •  the place honesty and enthusiasm plays in attracting clients to her •  why she decided to grow a micro-agency instead of staying a sole proprietor •  the challenges the come with running an agency—she shares the dark side We also asked Jamie about what she’s doing today, the course she just created and launched, and her one word tip for course creators. Lots of laughter in this one and some painful lessons. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Hannah Has a Ho Phase Uncage Your Business Heather Dominick Story School Your Hot Copy 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 can 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 62 as we chat with copywriter, filmmaker, and storyteller Jamie Jensen, about going from Hollywood to hot copy, the importance of storytelling when it comes to writing copy with personality, working with a team of writers, the ins and outs of creating courses, and how making a movie made her a better copywriter. Kira: Jamie, welcome! Jamie: Thank you! Thank you so much for having me! Rob: It’s great to have you, yes! Kira: Yeah! You were on our list early on as someone that we wanted on the show and it’s nice to have a fellow New Yorker on the show, as well! So a great place to start is, you know, you went from Hollywood to hot copy. So we want to know, how did you even get into copywriting? Jamie: Sure! Well, what’s interesting is for me, for my story, is that my dad was an entrepreneur, so I actually grew up with a lot of like, copywriting things around me already, meaning, not just like, from the sales perspective of reading books about sales and marketing and all of that stuff, like, they were always around the house because my dad was marketing his own business, and doing things like buying domain names up and coming up with catchy things that he wanted to trademark for his business. And even like, direct mail was still a big thing then, so I would even help him like, review mailers that he was sending out to his physical mailing list, because that was a thing, you know? And so I actually grew up exposed to a lot of that to begin with, and the way that I made the transition from Hollywood to hot copy was I had made a film. So you know, I left Hollywood, I’d kind of had enough, came back to New York City where I’m from, and my producing partner and I decided at the time that we were going to just make our own film. So I had already written the script and she had been working on it as a producer and we decided like, you know what? Forget guys, by the way, because at this point we had both had a lot of negative experiences with men in the entertainment industry; we were like, we’re going to shoot this movie—no offense, Rob— Rob: Well, I was going to say, it’s not like men in the entertainment industry have a bad name or anything... Jamie: I mean... no! They’re so respectful to women! Have you watched the news lately? (laughs) It’s so great! So, we were like we’re going to make our movie ourselves, we’re going to have a fully female crew, it’s going to be amazing, so we did and that was amazing. And ultimately, it ended up being digitally distributed, so we got a digital distribution deal with one of the digital distribution companies and that really taught me a lot about like, digital marketing and you know, we had started working with this one consultant... who... I don’t think that it was very helpful actually, when we worked with them, but we just had to figure so much out about like, okay, well, we’re going to be on iTunes, and what does that mean, and how do we launch? Just all of the things that come with like, launching a piece of content digitally that weren’t things that we necessarily thought about or had learned in grad school with producing, because we had learned like, the business of the entertainment industry. And so, kind of making that transition and having to think through the marketing process like, even just putting my head into it kind of got me more thinking about you know, digital marketing and like, what room there is for different types of content on the internet and what the value of content on the internet is and how it all works and where those things cross over. I had to write copy, we had to write copy for our film. We had to write like, descriptions, and we had to create a website, and it’s funny looking back now, now that I know what I know, also if I could go back in time, what I would do differently with that as well. But just figuring out that process kind of got me into thinking about like, just writing other types of things for hire. Kira: Interesting, and so, what would you do differently if you looked back on that time when you were marketing your movie? Jamie: I mean, the website wasn’t very awesome. (laughs) Kira: Can we see it? Is it something that we can find? Jamie: It’s not! We actually like, gave up, we shut down; we still have the domain, but we shut down the website about a year ago and the movie is still on iTunes and it’s - so you can go and watch the trailer, it’s around, but the website is not still live. It’s just looking back now, I think we could’ve had a lot of fun marketing the movie and kind of developing more of an audience for it before we released it, you know, and obviously foresight is 20/20, but we were so focused on creating the project and that was so much investment and so much work and time and energy that I don’t know that it would’ve been possible to do more, but I wish that we would have. You know? Rob: We’re going to link to like, the IMDB page, so that everyone can see your movie. Kira: Yes. Jamie: Okay! Sure! (laughs) Kira: What is it called? Jamie: It’s called Hannah Has a Ho-Phase. Kira: Oh! Right, okay. So, you realize that there’s other opportunities for copywriting, marketing opportunities; how did that turn into your business? Is there a rough year you can give us because I want to dig into those early days in your business. Jamie: So, I had actually, there were a few different ways that I had kind of, ran around and ended up—Hot Copy became a business. And so, initially, when I decided to branch out and start my own business, I was interested in copy. Because I was doing it for free for people already, like I had friends that I went to high school with who were creative entrepreneurs and they were starting their own businesses and they were coming to me to help them with their about pages and they were coming to me to help them with their website copy. And so, I wasn’t even considering that that was something that people could pay me for, it was just the person people came to for that. That was a hint that like, you know when like a guy is interested in a girl, and it’s really obvious to everyone but the girl? It’s like, that was my relationship with copy in the beginning. It was like, oh yeah, totally, like this is so the thing that I do, but total unawareness around the fact that it’s a valuable service to offer someone, so I actually, when I first branched out into having a business, I was excited about coaching writers and working with writers, particularly after leaving Hollywood and developing more of what I consider life-balance for myself as a writer. So I was excited to work with other writers who were doing time in Hollywood and help them kind of design more of a lifestyle that was healthy and look at other streams of income that they could be creating for themselves while they were kind of waiting for their projects to pop, essentially. So, that was kind of when I first started my business, I want to say that was like 2012. That was what I intended on doing. What’s funny is, that’s ultimately what my agency ended up becoming anyway. So, that was what I intended on doing and I did coach a handful of writers in the beginning and it was only through like six straight months of considering building a business and not really going full time and figuring it out and then it dawned on me that I was writing copy for free. And writing my own copy as I was building my own business and realizing like, oh, this is the thing that I actually want to be doing that feels really good and exciting. Rob: So Jamie, I think a lot of copywriters would be very envious to hear that projects were just falling into your lap, almost, but you must’ve been doing something to draw attention to what you were writing or the clients that you were working with that brought in additional clients, so you know, what was it that you were doing that was attracting them to you? Jamie: Well, I didn’t fully open up shop.