TCC Podcast #198: Working at a Copywriting Agency with Sam Pollen

Copywriter and Creative Director Sam Pollen is our guest for the 198th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Sam works in-house at an agency focused entirely on copy—there are no designers—which might be a dream for a lot of copywriters. We asked Sam about the differences between the freelance world and the work his team does. Here’s an idea of what we covered during the interview: •   how Sam went from zoology student to copywriter and creative director •   why Sam prefers to work in-house and leaves the freelancing to others •   how he works with other writers in his role as a CD •   the creative process at agencies and how everyone works together •   how they work with designers and hand off copy to the design team •   this skills and training a copywriter might need to be a creative director •   Sam’s writing process and how he generates ideas for each assignment •   asking “stupid questions” to truly understand the products we sell •   how asking the questions that aren’t in the brief leads to a big idea •   what’s involved in the process of naming •   how Sam and his agency present work to their clients •   the challenges of working on brand voice and brand guides •   writing luxury copy and the different approaches to a variety of products •   why he wrote a book about a boy with anorexia Sam’s story and advice are worth a listen. To hear what he told us, scroll down and click the play button. Or read a transcript a little farther down the page. And if you never want to miss an episode subscribe to the podcast with your podcast app, then leave a review.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Reed Words Sam's Twitter Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob:   This episode is brought to you by The Copywriter Underground, the place to connect with hundreds of smart copywriters who share ideas and strategies to help you master marketing, mindset, and copywriting in your business. Learn more at thecopywriterunderground.com. 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 198 as we chat with copywriter and creative director Sam Pollen about working at an agency that's focused on great copy, what it takes to build a verbal identity, his biggest struggle as a creative and as a copywriter, and why he wrote a book about anorexia. Kira:   Welcome, Sam. Rob:   Hey, Sam. Sam Pollen:   Thanks very much for having me, guys. Kira:   Yeah, we're excited to have you today and let's just start this conversation with how you ended up as a creative director. What was that story? Sam Pollen:   I think the story for me is probably the story similar for a lot of people in that position in that I just worked my way up, basically. I did a degree in natural sciences, so zoology and psychology, of all things, so not really related to what I do now at all. Then I worked in photography for a little bit, and then I worked in marketing and sort of fell into copywriting. So copywriting was not a deliberate choice for me, but it was something that I did some of in a marketing job and found out I was good at or good enough at. And then honed my skills and developed and found that that was something I found interesting and had some talent for, and so went from there. About five, six years ago, I had started working with my now boss, Mike Reed, who set up the agency I work for, it's called Reed Words. I was initially hired just to write a sort of, he was starting to build an agency and then we have grown from that point. We have a team of writers and I'm the deputy creative director. I direct other people's work as well as it's still doing quite a bit of writing in my own. Writing that I've done as well as writing and directing from other people. Rob:   Sam, most of the people that we talk to on the podcast are in the freelance world. And your career, seems to be a little bit different. Like you've worked in house and in agencies, primarily. Will you talk a little bit about what it takes to find a job as a copywriter in those kinds of environments? Sam Pollen:   Yeah. The first thing I'd say is that, I have been in house all of my career basically, and the primary reason for that is because I have a huge amount of respect to people who are freelancers. I'm not sure I have the personality for it. And maybe I'm just a little bit scared of it. I worked in house in kind of marketing and just little general marketing role and then in a small company that was actually a design agency and then more and more specialized in writing. I think it brings a different set of challenges, right? There's obviously the financial picture is slightly different. There are some things that are better and there are some things that are worse. And I think there is a kind of different maybe temperamental thing as well. As an in house member of any kind of company, you have all of the good and bad the goes along with being part of a company. You have upon the contract and good things like that, but you also have more process and HR and headaches and things to deal with like that. I think it's a mixed bag. I like the simplicity of it. I like not having to worry about when my work is coming from as much. I can focus on the writing and that's been a really good thing to me. Most of my job is, I don't do a vast amount of kind of new business sort of things. I mainly focus on writing and making the writing really good for myself and for the other rights as I work with. And that's really nice thing, but that's the privileged positions being I realize. The grass is kind of always greener. I'm sure when people who've moved between freelance and staff roles kind of look at the other one, like, "It was really nice to be able to pick my own hours," or they go, "It was really nice to be able to say this isn't my problem at the end of the day." And there is good and bad in both of those roles. I am happy where I am for now. Kira:   I like the idea of saying, "This isn't my problem." And passing it on to someone else. I think that's always appealing. I would like to hear more about how you work with other writers and your role. A couple of questions come to mind, like how can we be better at mentoring and copy chiefing, other writers, especially a lot of freelance writers are growing micro agencies and adding subcontractors to their team, but we often feel like we're not doing this as well as we could be. Sam Pollen:   I think last thing to say would be everyone feels like they're not doing it right. If you are a conscientious leader, and if you are in a position where you are managing other people and you're giving them creative feedback, you are always worried about getting it wrong or kind of not giving them enough or maybe guiding them too much. I worry a lot about because I do a mixture of writing myself and directing other people, I worry that I'm being kind of too prescriptive and you have to check yourself about what is about me approaching something a certain way, because that's the way I do it. And what is about what's right for the job and what's right for the client and what's right for the project. And balancing those two is kind of an ongoing process itself. Checking, getting an external person. I'm lucky enough to work in an agency, so I can ask someone else's opinion, if they're not part of that relationship and not part of that projects. That can be really useful. But yeah, it's an ongoing process. I think you need to really be thinking about reigning in and letting people make mistakes and letting people learn through their mistakes. Because I think we all know as copywriters, that's how we've got better through our careers. And helping someone else do that is a very rewarding thing today is also really challenging thing to do. It's not easy and I think you can be a really great copywriter and not be any good at that. And that's okay. But I think knowing what you're good at is a really powerful thing. Rob:   Sam, will you talk a little bit about the creative process that your agency? Much of the work that I do is oftentimes alone in my office. I miss my agency days and the back and forth, the creativity that can happen from that. So will you just tell us a little about that creative process where you work? Sam Pollen:   Yeah, absolutely. Worth saying at the time of recording, it's obviously a little bit strange because we're all working from homes. Normally we are in an agency in London and there were about 10 people in our team. It's only a little office, a little agency, we all by and large, not fully, but in that office day to day. Occasionally we are onsite with clients or working from home or things like that. But basically, we're all there day to day. In terms of how it works. I think copywriting agency, there aren't that many of us around, but there are a few of us. And I think it should be interesting because for some kinds of projects, it makes sense to replicate the kind of format of a design agency or kind of advertising agency. And I think that's how lots of copywriting agencies structure themselves. So they will have a creative director who is who's reviewing work that writers create and kind of signing it off. And then that goes out to the client. In the kind of classic design agency model. Actually, I think for writing projects that often doesn't make sense and you need a kind of more flexible model that is maybe more like the tech world. But it's more about people being more self-guided.