TCC Podcast #351: Building an Authentic Business with Jess Kelly

Jess Kelly is our guest on the 351st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. She is a copywriter who helps conscientious brands build authentic and true-to-them businesses through brand and marketing strategies. From shifts in careers and misdiagnoses, Jess’s journey highlights the benefits of personal growth and becoming different and new versions of yourself along the way. Listen to the episode to find out: Why Jess dropped out of journalism.  Experimentation vs expectation – why does it matter?  The permission slip you need to give yourself – like yesterday.  How she fell into copywriting and her career paths to get there.  The 10-minute call that landed her inside of The Copywriter Accelerator.  What’s the secret to building better interview skills?  Why you need to start showing up and how it’s going to pay off.  The diagnoses that helped Jess make sense of her identity and experience.  How to connect with more people in your network.  What kinds of relationships should we really be building?  The best thing about becoming a new version of yourself.  Tune into the episode by hitting play or checking out the transcript below.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the  show: The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Jess's website  The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM AI for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Connecting with others and creating a relationship with the people around you is a critical part of building a sustainable copywriting business. If you're not connecting regularly with people that you might work with someday, you will eventually run out of clients. To talk about how we don't let that happen to you, and speaking of creating connections and relationships, hi, we're Rob Marsh and Kira Hug, the hosts of the Copywriter Club Podcast. And Kira, I'm pretty sure that's the very first time we've ever said our names in the intro. Kira Hug:  Yeah, I'm, Kira Hug. It feels good to finally share that with the world. Why did it take us so long? Rob Marsh:  350 episodes and we've been hiding back there. But now that we've established this relationship, we're thrilled to introduce our guest for this episode, who is copywriter, Jess Kelly. And Jess shared how she discovered copywriting, how neurodiversity impacts how she works and sees the world, and what she does to connect with others in this interview. It's an activity that attracts new clients to her business and an idea that we can all steal or borrow and use in our own businesses. Stick around to hear what Jess shared. Kira Hug:  But first, this episode is sponsored by the Copywriter Accelerator, which is our business building system that we put together for copywriters and content writers like you to figure out how to put the foundation of your business together so that you know how to attract the right clients. You know what to focus on in your business. You have your positioning dialed in, so what makes you different from every other writer out there. Your signature package and even a starter package that you can sell and introduce to the world. You've nailed down your pricing, you know how to show up and where to show up to build your visibility and so much more. And so it's really everything you need to run and grow a copywriting business. And it's all one program, so you get all of it bundled together, and Rob and I walk you through the entire program along with an incredible group of generous writers who will do it alongside you. So we're kicking that off in just a few weeks. And if you have any interest or you've heard about it before and you want to learn more about the Copywriter Accelerator, you can learn more at thecopywriteraccelerator.com and sign up there to get on the waitlist if you want to receive updates when we do officially open the doors to it. Okay, let's kick off our episode with Jess Kelly. Jess, so excited to have you here. And I know I personally can't wait to hear your story. So how did you end up as a copywriter? Jess Kelly:  I stumbled into copywriting when I went to journalism right out of high school and very quickly left. I did not like the way reporting was done, it felt like there was a lot of bias and the way they were training us, it looked like they were basically training us to incorporate bias and skewed sort of news, it didn't feel good. And then I didn't want to be an observer. They told me I had to be an observer, not a participant. It didn't feel good, but I'm a writer, and so they also told me if I wrote novels, I would starve. And so I ended up in food service and fast-forward, I trained as a nurse, but I have a wimpy immune system. So that was a no go. But I learned a lot there about interacting with people and creating that rapport and being able to talk to them about really deep and personal things, but at the same time as making them feel comfortable and at ease sharing those things with me. So interviewing and health teaching were a big part of my training as a nurse, and I get to use those a lot today. And so then mostly food service. And then the pandemic happened and I was managing this cafe and I loved it. I really did. And I adored my boss. She has a home in The Bahamas, so in the winter she would go off to the Bahamas and I would hold down the fort and I really loved it. During the pandemic, this became very intense. She's off in the Bahamas and I'm here handling staff and open, closed, order the food because we're going to be open again. Oh wait, no, we're not, everything's spoiled. And I just realized I was running someone else's business, and as much as I loved her, and I loved the cafe, and I loved the opportunity, the pandemic just really revealed that it was a really unstable place to be. And so I started looking into writing, making money as a writer again. And I was thinking I was going to freelance write for children's magazines because I digest complicated stuff into easy to access. And so I got into a writer's group, Write Your Way to Freedom in 30 Days or something like that. There's little activities to do once a day for 30 days. And we get partway through and we did an interview with a copywriter, Jacob McMillen, and I was like, oh, copywriting. I didn't really realize this was a thing because when I was going into journalism out of high school, marketing was not like, I didn't even consider it because that was very, again, I was a young idealist and that was just, marketing was evil. And so I was listening to this interview where Jacob was talking about copywriting, and he's talking about how the tone, it's having a conversation with the reader. And I was like, oh, because when I'm trying to plan to write articles, you have to edit that out. And my natural tone is very conversational. So I was like, oh, this could be the thing, this might be the best fit. And so I got on his email list and started, and I think I opened two of them. It was in November. I was not that serious about it. And I happened to, in November, open an email from him that was like, "Hey, this is the best deal in copywriting this month. I won't even sell you my course because it's not as valuable as this thing. So here's the link to the reading that we were talking about it, go check this out." And so I watched this replay on YouTube around Black Friday in November 2021, and there was eight or more, eight, 12. There's a bunch of copywriters who had contributed products and courses to this bundle. And I guess I didn't know at the time they were in this affiliate contest. And so it seemed like a really great entry point. Here I was going to get these 16 different products and exposure to 16 different people and companies that were doing this. And Copywriter Club was one of the products, I think it was recordings of one of the IRLs. And so I got into this bundle of stuff. I didn't actually buy it through Jacob's link because I started getting on the email lists of the other copywriters that were there. And we say, what we do is we're like, hey, hit reply. And so I did, and I started to build a relationship with Lorrie Morgan because when I hit reply, she replied back to me and we just really hit it off. So then when I realized that it was an affiliate contest, I sent Jacob a message. I was like, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I went ahead and bought it through somebody else." Kira Hug:  It's like, you are banished from the list. Jess Kelly:  But I was like, I really do want your program, because his bonus was, you get his program or whatever. And he was like, "No, I get it." Because he didn't reply his initial welcome sequence where I hit reply and said, hey, this is who I am and stuff. And so he thought it was funny and everything, and I did buy his course. And so everything is good. But that's when I realized that building relationships just becomes really natural to me because it's a really authentic thing. And so I started exploring some of those products and stuff, and I was getting Copywriter Club emails because now I'm on the Copywriter Club email list. And I loved, it's very me. And I kept telling myself, I've already spent on this bundle and I have so many things inside this bundle that I still have to explore it. And I'm not yet a professional copywriter. I'm not yet making money like this. But you guys were talking about the Accelerator. And so it was like, that would be such a good thing, but probably maybe a little bit in the future because I didn't have anything really to accelerate. But you guys do this really amazing thing where just before the doors closed, you're like, hey, get on a 10 call with one of us. And so I hopped, I was like, all right,