TCC Podcast #392: High Margin Business that’s Fun to Run with Ian Stanley

When it comes down to it, the thing most copywriters want to build is a business that is high-margin (it makes money) and fun to run (it's enjoyable). But achieving that goal is harder it appears. So we invited Ian Stanley to join us for the 392nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We asked Ian about how he did it—created a business that is profitable and fun. We also asked him about sales coaching, breaking up his partnership, his approach to email and his new comedy special. To hear what Ian had to share, 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: How do you create a high-margin company that is fun to run? That’s pretty much the goal we all share… earn enough money for the lifestyle we want—however you define that—that’s the high margin part. And enjoy life doing whatever it is you do, from work to whatever you do in your personal time—that’s the fun to run part. 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, entrepreneur and comedian Ian Stanley. This is actually Ian’s second appearance on the podcast, so we caught up on how his business has changed in the past couple of years. And as we talked about that, we asked Ian about sales training, breaking up a partnership, commedy and buidling a company that makes money and is fun to run. One caution about this episode, Ian likes to swear. We’ve cut most of that out of the interview in order not to offend the censors at Apple who like to put an explicit label on anything rated higher than PG. But if we missed any, we apologize. That’s just who Ian is and how he shows up.   One other thing before we get to the interview… you’ve heard me talk about the copywriter underground and what it includes. If you’ve been thinking about joining this amazing community, let me give you two reasons to jump in now. During the month of May we have two incredible bonuses for members. The first is a limited time Client Emails Masterclass with Michal Eisik. Michal launched her business after completing the copywriter accelerator and think tank, and will be sharing this usually-paid masterclass with members of the underground… but only for one week in May. And we have a second bonus… it’s the strategic plan that copywriter Daniel Throssell used to make his client’s book a best seller in Australia. It works for non-book products too. Daniel has only shared this plan one time… to paid subscribers to his newsletter. It’s not currently available anywhere. But he offered to give it—completely free of charge—to members of The Copywriter Undergound. And like the Client Emails Masterclass, this member exclusive is only available for one week during the month of May in The Underground. If you’ve been thinking of joining, these are two very good reasons to jump in now—if you were to purchase either one of these bonuses sepearately, you’d pay more than what you pay to join The Underground for a single month. And I haven’t even mentioned all the other training, coaching, and community stuff that comes along with these two bonuses. Visit thecopywriterclub.com/tcu to claim your free bonuses now. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Ian. Kira Hug: All right, Ian, let's jump in, not with your story, because we know part of your story from our last interview, but let's just start with changes, at least one change you've made over the last four years. Maybe we talked to you four years ago, Rob, do you know? We'll say four years ago. Ian Stanley: Something like that. Kira Hug: Over four years ago. Rob Marsh: I mean, it was definitely, it was what? Episode 208. So it's closing in on four years anyways. Kira Hug: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So what is one big change you've made to your business since we last chatted? Ian Stanley: To my business? I feel like little businesses like this change constantly. So honestly, the biggest change that's happened is my business partner and I, so basically I was living in LA. I'd gone there to pursue standup. And then this COVID thing happened and stand up itself was, you know, in question. Cancel culture was at its absolute peak. I had a guy tell me that I was, I said in an ad, I said, I'm a white man. Not exactly. And he said, you can't say that. And I went, I, what do you mean? That's a fact. What am I supposed to say? Um, and that's when I was like, Jesus, this is getting bad. While I was in LA watching nonviolent protests, violently, uh, protest from my actual window. Um, and so I was like, I gotta get out of here. So I left LA and I mean, it sounds weird to say now, cause I feel like standup is almost bigger than ever in certain ways. Um, But it died off for a while there. And I think that the worse the world is, the more important stand up is. Because it's just funnier in ways, too, because things are so insane. It's easy to write material when the world itself is a ridiculous place full of people getting mad at white men that say that they're white. So I moved to Idaho and said, OK, I'm going to focus on business now for the next little while here, because There's no standup. And so my business partner and I went hard into like, let's build a big business. Let's do this whole thing. So we ended up with, you know, selling high ticket stuff over the phone. We had, you know, six or seven phone sales people. We were running a bunch of traffic on YouTube.  I was coaching the sales team, which I'm very good at, but I despise. It's basically like being a therapist. And basically if one of your phone sales people,, if his wife says something mean that morning or he doesn't sleep right, you lose money, you know, and, and you realize that like every, or they just have one bad call or whatever. And it was just not for me. So, uh, And I know this is a slightly longer story than you may have asked for, but it's a pretty relevant one, I think. So last March, about a year ago, my business partner and I had been watching The Office for the, I don't know, sixth time all the way through. And I had this thought, what would happen if we were in an office for eight hours a day? Like, how much would we actually get done? How good would that be? And so we had rented this house we called The Hoffice. So it was just like a home office that two of our employees lived in and that we would work at. So we did this. I was like, let's just try it for a week.  So we go in Monday. We had a great time. I'm like, oh my God, we got so much done. This was really cool. We go in Tuesday. And by the end of Tuesday, I'm like, this is perhaps the worst thing I've ever experienced. I hate this. I hate this so much. And because and there's only like seven of us, but they'll ask me questions, ask Kim questions, who is my business partner and you don't get anything done. And I went home and I was like the most tired I've ever been. And I understand that for anybody here, they can make Europe pathetic. How can you not work one eight hour day? I don't, I've never had—the closest thing I had to a real job—I would be there for like five to six hours and I was writing copy and I would, you know, I figured out my schedule in a way that worked for me. And I was just so exhausted and depleted and annoyed. And I just, I was like, there's something's wrong. Like, this is not right. And the phone sales is such a nightmare. I would recommend most people, if you want to do a high ticket phone sales program, just understand that either you will be miserable for an extended period of time, and then And then you maybe will have a sales manager who will do it for you. And then they'll probably quit. And then you'll lose all your money. And I wasn't actually miserable. I'm a very happy person. So it's very relative. But for me, having to do one hour of coaching calls a day is like a non-negotiable. I can't do it. I just can't do that part of it. And so that night, I was just like, something's got to change. And I was so tired. It was like my bones we're giving up.  And I was just thinking like, someone's got to change here. And I wrote out this plan for how my business partner and I could split up the business and we could stop doing phone sales. And I  had all this energy, like a huge burst of energy at like nine at night, just like, Holy, this could be it. This could work. But then I'm like, Oh my God, I got to tell my business partner that I don't want to do this anymore. And we're best friends. And so the next day we go to the office at the end of my K let's, uh, Let's go get a drink. And we go get a drink. And I'm like, hey, man, I don't want to do this anymore in this way. And he's like, oh, my God, me neither. That's so exciting.  And so we basically just realized that because we were doing a few hundred grand a month and but the margins are never that like, you keep growing and you're like, why don't we have more money? Like, I'm making less money working six to eight hours a day sometimes than I was making when I was working an hour or two a day and had all this free time for these other things and didn't have all these people to manage. And so we figured out this breakup plan and he took the email list management agency and I took back the company and it was glorious. Beautiful. And so since May of last year, so nearly a year now, I've been running it on my own again. It's been super easy and fun and profitable. And then I recorded my first comedy special in November. I released it five days ago. It premiered. And so that's a huge, that's like, you know, as a comic, that's kind of what you work towards. After taking basically a couple years off from LA to move here and not really having places to perform, it's a completely changed trajectory.