TCC Podcast #389: Building a Copy Business Slowly with Kim Kiel

You've heard the saying: slow and steady wins the race. Well, that's exactly the approach our guest for the 389th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast built her business. Today we're talking with copywriter Kim Kiel about getting better month and month, and year after year—and not getting caught up in the hustle. And we covered a lot more. You'll want to tune in for this one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Stuff to check out: The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: I love stories about copywriters and other freelancers who find amazing success right out of the gate. They’re working with great, high-paying clients on big assignments almost from day one. Those stories illustrate what’s possible to those of us who are just beginning the journey. But, those are the exceptions that prove the rule. Very few copywriters hit a home run on their first at bat, or even their second or third. For them, slow and steady wins the race. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder, Kira Hug, and I interviewed copywriter and brand voice expert Kim Kiel. Kim’s business growth is the perfect example of the slow and steady copywriter business—getting a bit better every year by charging a bit more, upleveling clients as she gained experience and not getting caught up in the rush to hustle. We talked to Kim about that as well as her unicorn client, her take on the nine word email and why she always follows up every pitch. But before we get to that, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for long, you’ve no doubt noticed a recurring theme… how do copywriters and content writers find clients TODAY. Shortly after we launched The Copywriter Club, we created a special report with a bunch of ideas for finding clients and shared it with the world. I recently took a week to rework and revise that report… it now includes more than 21 different ideas for finding clients… some of which you can use today and possibly attract a client in the next 24 hours. Some of the other ideas will take longer to bring in clients. But they all work. We’ve either used them ourselves, or know other successful copywriters who have used each one of these ideas. And we want to give you this report for free. This isn’t a one page pdf that will get lost in your downloads folder. It’s comprehensive… 36 idea filled pages… including the 4 mistakes you can’t afford to make when looking for clients—if you make them, clients will not work with you. It also includes more than 21 ways to find clients, several templates for reaching out to clients, and finally the five things you need to do to improve your odds of landing a client. If you want a copy of this report, visit thecopywriterclub.com/findaclient — find a client is all one word. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Kim. Kira Hug: All right, Kim, let's kick off with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter? Kim Kiel: Well, uh, I got us to tell you, I'm having kind of like a full circle moment because it was about five or six years ago that I was in my kitchen, you know, but bubbling around doing whatever I had to do and listening to The Copywriter Club Podcast and hearing Joel Kletcke, Tarzan Kay, early Justin Blackman talking about this field of copywriting and how they had some really good successes. And it was right around that time that I was needing to find another way to work because I had a day job. In the nonprofit sector, I worked in charity for a couple of decades as a fundraiser, fundraising copywriter, front line communications. And that sort of daily commute and the schedule with the kids, school schedules wasn't working anymore. And so I needed to make a shift. And so I discovered the Copywriter Club at the same time as I kind of discovered this whole online world of business. The people I heard speaking on your podcast gave me a lot of hope and possibility. And for me to be sitting here now recording on this podcast, like I feel like I've made it, like I'm having my little Sally Field moment. So that's sort of a very… Rob Marsh: It's really nice of you to say, and it's just really gratifying to hear that. Like, you're not the first person to say it. It makes us feel good. So thank you for saying that, even though you didn't have to. Kim Kiel: Well, it's 100% true. Rob Marsh: Okay, well, yeah, let's talk about how you took that early desire and turned it into a functioning business. Kim Kiel: Sure. So after I discovered this whole online world of business and I discovered the field of copywriting, which I had already been doing, but I didn't know that's what you called it. Then I decided to go all in on it and I quit my day job and my first client was actually that employer. So that was sort of how I made the shift from working a day job into becoming a freelancer and becoming self-employed. And as I opened up more time in my calendar, I leveraged some of my older relationships, they would hire me to do smaller projects. And then I joined some different communities.  So I joined Copy School. I joined your community, The Copywriter Underground. I joined B-School. And in there, I found all these other online entrepreneurs who are doing stuff. And I both used them for inspiration, but also many of them became my clients. And so when I was in those other communities learning about online business, joining masterminds, those other women would actually hire me to write for them because I was one of the only copywriters in the group. But even though I had like a decade and a half of experience writing, I still had so much self doubt, still questioned whether I could actually do this thing called copywriting. So joining some of the copywriter programs really gave me the confidence that I needed and maybe a little badge to make me feel like, okay, yeah, I can do this. And made me feel more comfortable when people would come to me. I could speak confidently that I knew what I was talking about. Kira Hug: Okay, so many questions for you. Let's start with leveraging older relationships, which seems obvious, but that's something I feel like is still untapped for many of us. I even feel like it's untapped for me. I have a lot of relationships, and how often am I going back and leveraging or warming them up? What does that look like for you, and what does it look like today if it's changed? Kim Kiel: Yeah, so I still generally have a long follow-up game. In the beginning, it was sort of reaching out to my personal networks and saying, hey, I'm quitting my job. I'm becoming a copywriter. This is what a copywriter is, because nobody at that time knew what a copywriter was. AI has kind of changed that a bit. And as I reached out to those people, they would know people, and they'd be able to make referrals to me. I got a lot of referrals from people within the copywriting community who would throw me the odd contract, and even if I didn't land it right away, I would still follow up a couple weeks later, a couple months later, even a year later, just kind of like a, hey, how's it going? And that is something that I still do today with my past clients and with people who I've had sales calls like a year and a half ago, they will come back. And it's that sort of constantly staying on their radar that I think has really helped me to get repeat business and to get additional referrals because as they are going about their business, they see your name pop up in the inbox and they know somebody in their community is looking for a copywriter. They will connect me to that person. So it's that sort of gentle, hey, how's it going, thinking about you, and it always seems to work out. Rob Marsh: And like Kira said, I think this is really untapped for a lot of us. And so I kind of want to probe here just a little bit. As you were going out on your own, that first, your former employer that became your client, what did that conversation look like? And I'm almost asking you here for a script, because I'm thinking there have got to be other people listening who are thinking, well, I could turn my employer into my first client if I went out. So tell us. How did you approach your boss or whoever you needed to talk to and what did that conversation sound like? Kim Kiel: Well, I guess I was pretty lucky because they didn't want to lose me. I had to quit to accommodate my family's needs at the time. And they said, how can we keep you? What can we do to keep you? And I was able to then create a smaller package or carved off a part of my job that I really liked and I knew I could do remotely. And I said, well, how about I just manage all the grants, the grant fundraising grants, as opposed to doing all of the other fundraising that I was doing at the time. And so by saying like, I can do this portion for you, and I'll just slot right in, I'll keep working on it. And it was attractive to them because A, they had already known me, they knew how well I worked, they knew I would be able to deliver. And so it was honestly an easy yes for them. If I were to do it again, I, I have made similar pitches to employers in the past, like say where I wanted to move and work remotely. This was pre-pandemic, like 10, 15 years ago. But it's still coming to them with a solution fully mapped out and say, these are the things that I'm going to do for you. This is what it's going to cost. I can work remotely. I can do this totally independent. And I'll just keep this going for you. So I think it's identifying a need and showing how you can just slot right into their team without it being more headache and more money for them. Kira Hug: Yeah, I think that's the key is the solution piece, like whether it's a warm relationship or cold relationship,