TCC Podcast #353: Stepping into the Spotlight with Lindsay Hyatt

On the 353rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Lindsay Hyatt joins the show to talk about how to make strategic pivots in your business and step into the spotlight with confidence. Lindsay is a copywriter and empowerment coach who helps her clients build a stand-out personal brand. Before she built her business, she worked in radio ads and healthcare marketing, and she was a 5th-grade teacher before jumping ship to start her own blog, so she knows a thing or two about making big pivots. Listen in to find out: How do you know when it’s time to pivot in your business… or life? The steps Lindsay took to meet her salary within a couple of months.  How to create a writing habit and build your portfolio.  The benefits of setting aside your pride and putting yourself out there.  What’s the key to building a personal brand? Her Instagram philosophy for growth and building an audience.  What to do when it’s hard to show up on social media.  General content pillars vs rigid content calendar – which one is for you? How to stand out on LinkedIn.  Why she chose to niche horizontally vs vertically. The reality of creating a new arm in your business.  How to grow your visibility with intention and mindset.  Want to gain clarity and perspective? Follow this step. Why she started a podcast and how it’s shifting her business.  What happens when we challenge our beliefs? The benefits of creating an alter ego and stepping into the spotlight.  How Rob’s email was the tough love she (and we) all needed to hear.  Hit that play button or check out the transcript below.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the  show: The Accelerator waitlist The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Lindsay's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM AI for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  There's a saying that gets thrown around occasionally in the business world that goes something like this: We overestimate what we can get done in a day and we underestimate what we can accomplish in a year, which is probably why we often feel like we don't get much done as we work through our days. But when we look back to where we were last year or the year before, we are amazed at some of the changes that we've seen and experienced. Hi, this is Rob Marsh. Kira Hug:  And I'm Kira Hug. Rob Marsh:  And we are the founders and hosts of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Our guest for today's episode is copywriter and copy coach Lindsay Hyatt. Over the past two years, Lindsay has experienced some big changes in her business. As we chatted with her, she shared a few of the things that she's done that made all of the difference: activities like showing up regularly on social media, creating personal connections with their network, and exploring new opportunities for serving her clients. They're small things, but they produce really big results. In short, she puts in the reps, so stick around to hear what she has to share about her business. Kira Hug: But first, this episode is sponsored by The Copywriter Accelerator, which is our signature business building program that we are running in the fall for four months in the fall. And Lindsay actually is an alumni member of that program, so she'll speak to a little bit of that program and the benefits, and you can hear from this conversation how it's helped her in her business. If you have any interest in learning more about that program and the eight-part framework we work through in that program that will help build the foundation of your business, you can learn more at our wait list page, which is at thecopywriterclub.com/accelerator-waitlist. We'll link to it in the show notes so you can jump over there and get your name on the list if you want to explore that program with us this fall. Let's kick off our episode with Lindsay Hyatt. Lindsay Hyatt:  Well, I have a winding road, but it started with copywriting, which I feel like not many copywriters say. So I started as a copywriter in radio, which was my first job out of college, and I wrote radio commercials for four different stations, all completely different genres. So that was the beginning of learning about brand voice for me. And I love that. And then from there I kind of got deeper into marketing as a whole and learning about creating campaigns and launching campaigns for different industries. So at the time I was actually in healthcare marketing, which is a whole different game. I really love the creativity part of it, but what I didn't love right off the bat was feeling like I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't really have a lot of guidance in the first few jobs that I had. So I actually had, unfortunately, some bad work environment experiences that really molded the early parts of my career in marketing and it made me run in the other direction. So I actually took a break from marketing to pursue the other nagging interests that I had, which was education. And I had moved to Michigan with my now husband who's from there. And while I was there, I went to the University of Michigan to get my graduate degree in education, and I became a fifth grade teacher, which seems completely out of the blue, but it was kind of one of those things that I thought I could go in this direction or I could go in that direction, and I went in the direction of the creative route. So this kind of gave me a chance to explore what does life look like as an educator. I loved working with the kids. Fifth graders are super weird, but really cute still. It's a really good combination. But after a few years of doing that, the market for finding a great job in education and at the elementary level was difficult. So I had already started to think like, "Oh, I don't know if I want to continue on this route, clawing my way into a great public school classroom. Maybe in five to seven years time I was already feeling that draw to get back to my creative roots." So actually, while I was teaching in Michigan, I launched a blog that kind of became my touchstone to keeping that creative flow alive. I called it The Daily Sampler, and I called it that because I wanted to set the stage for myself to write every single day, which was quite the task. But for the first year, I wrote in that blog every day and I wrote about nothing important. I didn't write about politics or education. I wrote about the Oscars. I wrote about movies and music and cocktails, just anything that was fun for me. And it actually had a pretty good following. It was a way for me to keep in touch with my friends and family and network back in Buffalo, New York where I'm from. And it also opened up doors for me to meet people all over the world. Fun, quick story: I was actually in Italy for a small amount of time with my husband who was doing archeology. That's a long story. But people came up to me at a cafe and asked if I was the writer of The Daily Sampler because I was writing about my time in Italy. So it was a really fun time and it allowed me to improve my writing skills and keep that creative flow going even when I was working hard with kids and doing the educator thing. So eventually I moved back home to Buffalo and I jumped back into marketing. I had a few more jobs where I felt like there was another work environment situation that was really tough, and it really started to have me question everything that I thought about working in corporate America. Like, is this all there is? Is it just hopefully you do work you're really passionate about and hopefully the people are nice and hopefully you are look forward to work, and if not, you just kind of get through it? And I just thought, this can't be it. I started to think about what if I had my own business, but I just never saw how. I just never saw that it could be a reality. I don't have entrepreneurs in my life that I could pull from experience. So I've kept going and I thought maybe someday. Maybe when I've paid my dues and maybe when I'm in my mid-career and things feel more stable, I will explore that. So fast-forward to the pandemic, I was about to have my second daughter and I told my husband, "I don't want to go back to this job that I'm at. It just does nothing for me. It's not meeting any kind of creative expectations that I had, and I just want to see if this could be a possibility. Or I'll have to get another job when I returned from maternity leave." I had my daughter, and two weeks later, the world shut down. And because of that, it shifted everything for us. My husband lost his job during that time, I was on maternity leave, so we were freaking out a little bit. But that is when I started to freelance again on the side of my nine-to-five once I returned from maternity leave and I started writing. And I was immediately transported back to why I love to do it, how good it felt, how good it felt just to be creative. At the time I was writing for clients in HVAC systems. It wasn't really juicy, interesting stuff. I was just thrilled to be writing again and to work directly with a client and feel like I was able to help them directly. So after some time I realized I might be able to match my salary if I can focus on it. I had two retainer clients at the time. If I could just bring on one more, if I had the time to do that, because I was working nights and weekends on the side of my nine-to-five, I think I could do this. We worked it out, convinced the husband, he's been very supportive ever since, and I made the leap in 2021. I launched my business Lindsay Hyatt Co. full-time. And within a month or two, I matched my salary and I thought, "Why didn't I do this earlier?" I mean, it was a winding road to get there,