TCC Podcast #163: Accomplishing Bigger Goals with Sarah Henson

Email copywriter Sarah Henson is our guest for the 163rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We first met Sarah a couple of years ago (at a copywriter conference) and have seen her make big changes in her business in the past year as a member of The Copywriter Think Tank. We asked Sarah about her successes, her struggles and how she's pushed herself to accomplish more—even as she's faced some big challenges in her life and business. We talked about: •  Sarah's career path from actress to coach to email tech to copywriter •  her experience as an actress and how it helps her as a writer •  the “method actor” approach to understanding customers •  owning the title of copywriter and how she made the switch •  how she chose her niche (or how it chose her) •  some of the hurdles Sarah’s overcome on her way to the next level •  the big goals she’s set and what she wants to accomplish next •  what keeps her going especially when she struggles to make things work •  the mindset shift she’s experienced over the past 10 months •  a breakdown of the work she did to hit $11K in a single month •  comparison-itis and how Sarah has made sure it won’t hold her back •  struggles with balance and how to fit it all in •  the difference a community or mastermind can make in business •  what she’s building in her business right now To get this one in your ear holes, click the play button below. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And to read a full transcript,  scroll down the page a bit.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts and 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 Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira:   You're invited to join the club for episode 163 as we chat with email strategist and e-commerce copywriter, Sarah Henson, about the struggle of freelancing and having her biggest revenue month ever, building an effective email strategy, what she's done to take her business to the next level, and how her past life as an actor has made her a better copywriter. Welcome, Sarah. Sarah:            Hey. Rob:   Hi, Sarah. Sarah:            Hey there. Kira:   Great to have you here. Sarah. Let's just kick this off with your story. How did you end up in e-commerce and as an email strategist and a copywriter? Sarah:            Well, it's kind of a convoluted story, which I think pretty much everybody who's been on your podcast says it's been a bit of a weaving tale, but to me, yeah, you touched on it, that I was an actress for about 12 years. And when I say actress, it's not like I was super famous or anything like that. I was in the trenches, doing all of the auditions here, there and everywhere, getting gigs every now and again, but for 12 years, I was constantly going towards my goal and always getting little jobs here and there that just kept me going and kept me fueled all the time. But then, as I got into my 30s, things started to change, and my priorities changed. I met someone and we ended up getting married and having children and the life of an actor going for auditions all the time and being available for tours and gigs and things like that is not really conducive to life as a mother, so I decided that it was high time that I had to kind of switch gears. And I actually ended up starting my own actors’ agency, because I knew a lot of what goes on in the industry and how it works and everything. And I thought I could be really helpful to help other actors to get work. So, I started an agency. I ran that for about three years. And that was mildly successful. But I kind of, I think it was necessary for me to be able to kind of segue from acting, which was my passion, and I still have a little bit of a yearning deep down when I watch some stuff on TV and in the movies that was like, oh, that could have been me. But it was a way for me to let go of that big dream that I had of winning an Oscar one day and so I actually got to see a little bit more of the other side of the business, which wasn't quite as pretty.  So, it allowed me to let go of that dream. And then after, I decided to close the business down because it just wasn't generating the revenue that I wanted. I kind of switched gears again, did a business degree. And then I found the online world, which for many people is kind of like a rabbit hole, where you go down and you find there's so many different things that you can do and the possibilities of what online business can actually bring you. And I ended up going into coaching. I'd never coached before. I'd never done any coach training, but I kind of bought into this idea that anybody could be a coach. And I thought that with all my acting training and the fact that I've been so resilient and always going for my dreams and never giving up was something that not a lot of my peers had about them. And I knew that that was something special that I had that I was able to kind of just keep going no matter what. And I thought that that was something that I could bring to the table as a coach, and I mean well, I say I worked as a coach for about a year. I had that business for about a year. But for some reason, I just couldn't get it going. I couldn't get consistent clients or anything. I had a few clients here and there but it really wasn't where my strengths lie. So again, it was a case of, okay, switching gears. What can I do, what can I double down on that I knew I'm good at. And during the time of actually setting up my coaching business, I'm quite a techie person. So I ended up going into virtual assistance work and helping people with their technical side of things. And that kind of led me to, ended up setting up a lot of people's email systems and then I don't even know how it happened. But some of my clients were just asking, ‘Can you just put together an email for me? I just want to say this, that and the other.’ And suddenly I started writing emails to people and because of my acting training, I could replicate their voice as well. So I was able to kind of match what they were saying in a lot of their social media posts and write emails that then guided the two, either social media posts or sales pages and things like that. And that's kind of how it all came about. And it was about 18 months ago that I was like, okay copywriting, this is the thing, this is the thing for me. And that's where it kind of like started from there really, about 18 months ago, that's when I declared and held up my flag that I am a copywriter. And then from that point on, it's kind of evolved. And now I'm into strategy as well. So that's how I got to where I am today. Rob:   That is a winding path. A lot of turns here and there. Sarah:            Yeah. Rob:   I'm really curious, Sarah, about your training as an actor and how that has impacted what you do as a copywriter. Can you talk a little bit about the things that you learned and did as an actor and how that either effect client and how you're dealing with the client or the work that you do or the voices that you echo. Sarah:            Yeah, sure. I mean, over time, as I've transitioned through all these things, the acting part of me has always been at my core, and I saw a lot of similarities into doing the research on ideal clients and prospects and things like that was very much like stepping into role as a character, the research that you have to do when you take on a new character because a lot of the times, if you got a script, you don't get the backstory of the character. So it's not a case of just making up. You have to kind of make executive decisions about what that character could possibly have done to get them to where they are today. And so it's very similar to actually putting on someone else's clothes and actually stepping into that role. And that actually comes into play when you're looking at, like for a client of mine, their prospects who I'm writing and my clients work for but also stepping into the role of my clients as well because then I have to also embody who they are to be able to replicate their voice and do that. So it's kind of like a two fold system of actually stepping into both roles and doing all the research behind that to actually get to, like in a character understanding what motivates a character to do something, their behaviors and why they do stuff. It's all very similar in copywriting. And that's how I kind of use that skill in my writing and in the strategy as well. And it is not something that I can say it's like a one, two, three step system. It's kind of like an innate thing that just kind of comes to me. And it's not something that... this is one of the things I was thinking. If I were to ever teach on this, how would I package that and I'm still working through how I can actually systemize that and say this is how it's done. So I'm still working on that point. Kira:   Because when you actually do this, you're stepping into the characters, like you're feeling the characters right? I mean, you become the characters. Is that safe to say? Sarah:            Well yeah, definitely. I mean a lot of the time, if you had like a little camera in my office, well it's actually my sun room of my house, watching me as I write, sometimes I actually just, I have to close my eyes and imagine myself in this situation and this is one of the things that the type of acting training that I did, it was in the Meisner technique, which not a lot of people have heard of, but I call it. It's kind of a method acting,