TCC Podcast #182: Business Game-Changers with Rachael Pilcher

SaaS Copywriter Rachael Pilcher is our guest for the 182nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We've had a front row seat over the past year as Rachael has made dramatic changes to her business and stepped up as an expert in the SaaS space. So we wanted to ask her about: •  how she went from travel blogging to SaaS copywriting •  what she did to find her first clients—it started with job boards •  what she learned running a “little shop” and why she sold it •  why she niched into SaaS and the clients she works with today •  the process she went through to choose her niche •  what she did to transition from blogger to fully booked copywriter •  her processes from start to finish on a project •  what she looks for in clients she takes (and those she rejects) •  her new website and the process she went through to get where she is •  Rachael’s SNACKS framework and how she uses it •  the resources she’s used to improve her skills and grow her business •  value-based pricing and price anchoring •  the biggest mistake she made in her business •  why she hangs out where other copywriters DON’T hang out •  how she works and avoids the temptation of site seeing while traveling •  what Rachael is doing in 2020 This is a good one. To hear it, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Or subscribe with your favorite podcast app (don't forget to leave a review).   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Josh Garofalo Joel Klettke Joanna Wiebe Rachael's website Copywriter Think Tank Nigel Stevens 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 Accelerator, the 12-week program for copywriters who want to learn the business skills they need to succeed. Learn more at thecopywriteraccelerator.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 182 as we chat with SaaS copywriter Rachael Pilcher about working with software clients, the investments she's made in her business that have paid off, what she learned from her brick and mortar businesses, and what it's like to work and travel for months at a time. Kira:  Welcome, Rachael. Rob:   Hey, Rachael. Rachael:      Nice to be here. Thank you for having me on. Kira:  Great to have you here. It's great to have you in a time zone near me, selfishly. I just feel like you're near me finally because you're traveling all over the place, which I know we'll talk about. But yeah, we've just really enjoyed getting to know you through the Think Tank over the last year and I just feel like you're one of those people that is always, you're just cool. You're just always cool. When we're not around you at the Think Tank, we're all talking about just how you live a very cool life and you've done very well in your business and built this really interesting brand that stands out. I mean, you've done it in a short period of time. Kira:  We're going to talk about the cool factor today, but let's kick it off with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter? Rachael:      Well, it was kind of accidentally, actually. I had sold my business and I'd sold my classic car as well, so I had quite a bit of money saved up and I just wanted to travel because I hadn't really done that. So travel, travel, travel, and then obviously started running out of money. So it's like, what can I do to keep traveling and also have some money coming in? I think I just Googled and Googled and I came across... It was actually Nomadic Matt's traveling blog course, embarrassingly enough. And so I took that and that was actually really good, and it tells you how to set up a WordPress website, how to find clients and things like that. It didn't end up being travel writing, but the more I got into that scene and found that I could actually get paid for writing, I sort of stumbled across the Facebook group and you guys, and it went from there. Yeah. Rob:   So how did you find your first clients, Rachael, as you set up your website and got going? What did you do to find clients as you were kicking off? Rachael:      I set up a really, really crappy website on WordPress and then I think I went through... ProBlogger job board was the first job I got and it was an $80 US post. Can't remember what it was about. Something to do with kids and business or something. It was a bit random but they gave me the job, and then I got another one off the same board which was just marketing stuff. It kind of snowballed from there quite quickly. Kira:  So when did you get into copy? Just time wise. You were traveling, you ran out of money and you're like, ‘Cool, copywriting, I'm going to do it.’ What year was that roughly? Rachael:      That was kind of the end of 2016, 2017. I'm not sure. But I wasn't taking it seriously. It was just a bit coming in here and there. I wasn't sure it was anything I could make a proper living out of at that time. Kira:  Okay. All right, great. I'd love to hear about pre copywriting, running your brick and mortar businesses. Can you tell us more about like, what did those businesses look like? What did you learn? What lessons did you learn from that time running that business? Rachael:      Okay, so this is my little shop. I always wanted a shop or something as a kid. Just play shop and have your own little store that you open in the morning next to a cafe so you can just pop next door and have coffee. It was all this nice little dream and I kind of achieved that, but it didn't look like that. It was actually really stressful. Juggling finances, they're really, really lean days. That was quite difficult to get through and just to make a living on that and pay all the shop overheads and everything. I sold mostly summer clothing because it was a 1950s themed store and apparently in the 1950s there was no winter back then. It was all summer dresses and parasols and blouses. So yeah, there were definitely difficult times there, but it taught me a lot about how to sell to different types of people. Selling nicely and authentically, not being pushy about things, even when money was tight. That told me how to market effectively as well because Facebook wasn't really a thing when I started. So I was on the street pasting up flyers and using emails to people that I knew and just advertising in street magazines, things like that. Just really trying to get creative with how I marketed and how I got people to come to the shop, which was a bit out of the city as well. Rob:   Was there anything that happened that was a catalyst for deciding to move on and to sell the shop, or was it just that you wanted to travel? Rachael:      I'd been doing it for about 10 years. By the time I decided to sell it, I had the shop... Well, I had two shops actually. That was about four years between both shops and I was just feeling burnt out. I didn't want to see any more polka dots or cherry prints again. I was going crazy. So yeah, it was just time to go, and one of my lovely customers really wanted to buy it so it was the perfect time to leave it. Kira:  Okay. So then from end of 2016 roughly, starting the copywriting career, where are you today? Can you just give us an idea of what your business looks like today, who you work with, what type of projects you work on? Rachael:      Okay. So I'm fully committed to the SaaS industry at the moment. I think that was a really good move for me to just niche down into that. It's quite scary feeling just committing to one industry, but it's a really wide industry and I think there's room to sub-niche further because SaaS covers absolutely everything you can think of now. There's just so many products and I think there's a good fit for anyone, no matter what you're doing. There'll be something that you can find that you like within that SaaS model. So yeah, I'm just doing that and a bit of B2B work and some agency work and it's all going really well. I used to work a lot with the startups, but I'm finding myself going for more established funded companies now, which I'm liking a bit better. Rob:   So as I listened to you answer that question saying everything's going really well now, but it seems like starting out with a couple of posts from ProBlogger or job boards to where you are now, there's been quite a transition. Will you talk a little bit about that? Rachael:      Yeah, it's been really patchy and I think a lot of that was hating my website and I didn't really want to show any clients that because I was really embarrassed about it. And it was kind of patch and it didn't really tell them who I was or exactly what I did or what my process was. So I always had trouble communicating that to clients I wanted to work with. So once I had that more solidified in my own mind, I put that down in my website and then communicated to them a bit easier. Otherwise I just found myself floundering on sales calls, losing projects, and just scraping for work and it was a bit difficult. Kira:  So when you look at that transition stage from just getting started to where you are today, what were some of the pivotal moves during that time? It definitely sounds like launching your new website and brand, which we'll talk about, but what else did you do? Niching was another one you mentioned. What else did you do during that time that really helped you move forward? Rachael:      I think I really just started to ethically follow people that were ahead of me in the SaaS industry so I could see how they were working and what their processes were,