TCC Podcast #41: The Pivot Method for Copywriters with Jenny Blake

Author, coach and career change expert, Jenny Blake, joins Rob and Kira in The Copywriter Club Podcast studio this week to talk about why she organizes her book shelf by color : ). We also talk about her book, Pivot: The Only Move that Matters is Your Next One. But this isn’t just a pitch for Jenny’s book. She walked us through the process but also talked about: •  How to figure out your strengths then determine where you want to be a year from now •  How to scan the horizon for opportunities, people, and skills that might take you to the next level •  How to experiment with your pivots to eliminate risk and find things that work •  How to deal with your inner CFO who says, “you’re out of your mind” to try something new or different •  The “Do, Drop or Delegate” formula for staying engaged in your work •  Why you should create scalable streams of income as part of your business, and •  How to build a platform so you get noticed If you’re thinking about changing careers to become a copywriter, or want to explore a new niche, or simply want to make sure you’re on the right career track, this episode is a must listen. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Life After College Pivot Pivot Method Tool Kit Momentum Actionable Communications SquareSpace She Can Coterie Powerbars Stand Out by Dorie Clark Harvard Business Review Fast Company Forbes Huffington Post Medium Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port David Moldawer Ramit Sethi Marie Forleo Daily Rituals by Mason Currey Delegation Ninja (use the code TCC to save $100 or just click here) Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Rob: 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 Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 41, as we chat with author and career strategist Jenny Blake about her Pivot Method and what it means for copywriters and others who might be wondering what’s next, leaving Google to start her own business, dealing with burnout, and whether she really organizes the books on her shelf by color, not subject. Rob: Hey, Kira. Hey, Jenny. Kira: Hello. Jenny: Hey, thank you so much for having me. Yes, indeed, I organize by color, but I will tell you, I know where every book is because the color imprint stays in my mind. It’s really easy to zoom in, like, “Oh, yeah, that was a red book, it’s over here.” It’s not as confusing as you might think. Rob: I think a lot of writers, if they go to your website, they’re going to see the video or the pictures that you’ve got of your bookshelf. That’s one of the first things, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, all of the white books are together.” Kira: I know. I love it. Rob: “All of the green books are together.” Jenny: Oh, yeah. Rob: It makes me laugh. Jenny: The funny thing is I’ve honed this thing over three or four years of living in the same apartment, so I’ll be watching TV and I’m like, “Oh, that book needs to move one slot to the left.” What you see, it’s like my bonsai tree. I just get to prune at it every single day. What you don’t see is the back of this Ikea shelf is all the reject books that don’t have a pretty color. Rob: That is too funny. Jenny, I think a lot of our listeners may not know who you are, have seen your work. You’ve got a fantastic book that we definitely want to talk about, but maybe you could start by just telling us a little bit about your story. Jenny: The best place I like to start is that I felt like I was losing my mind every few years, that I worked at a startup for two years, I took a leave of absence from school. Then I moved over to Google. The career conversation I regret the most is the one I never had, and it was to tell the founder at the startup that I was getting bored and, I didn’t have the language for it at the time, but hitting a plateau or a pivot point. I moved over to Google, and I was at Google five-and-a-half years doing AdWords, began then later coaching and career development. Half way through my time there, I wanted to leave. I certainly thought something was wrong with me, like, “If I can’t be happy at Google, I’ll never be happy anywhere. I must be one of those entitled millennials that the media keeps talking about.” But at the same time, while I was there I trained over 1,000 people. I was there as the company grew from 6,000 to 36,000. I saw how many people were struggling with this question of what’s next. I started a blog, the Life After College website, in 2005. That’s ancient in internet dog years at this point. That was my side hustle that, in 2011 when my first book was coming out, I decided to do an unpaid leave, go do a book tour, self-funded book tour, and ultimately made the choice not to go back to Google. I thought there again, “Okay, this is the hardest career decision I’m going to have to make, but I’ve got to try. I’ll forever regret not going all-in and giving my own business a chance.” And, as you mentioned in the intro, I was burning out. I was doing too much. Google is really intense all day, all week, and then my blog and book on nights and weekends. Then, sure enough, two years into running my own business, once again I was wondering what’s next. I had become known on podcasts as the girl who left things, the girl who left college, the girl who left Google. I felt like I couldn’t escape. Even when I was at Google, when I would tell people I worked there, it was, “What’s it like? What’s the culture like? Can you submit my résumé?” Then, as soon as I left, on all these podcasts, “What was Google like? Talk to us about Google.” I felt like, “Who am I? What is next for me? What am I moving toward, not just away from? What can I create a movement around? How can I create a bigger impact?” As I wrestled with those questions, I paused most of my business activities. I was having a personal apocalypse year. I don’t know if either of you have had one of those, where everything that can go wrong will, starting with a breakup pretty much on January 1st. Kira: Oh, man. Jenny: Yeah. Now my business bank account dwindled all the way down to zero, to the point where, as recently as 2014, January, I didn’t know how I was going to pay the rent in two weeks. At that point, the question isn’t the lofty, “What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?” but, “What do you do when your back is up against the wall?” I had to figure this out. Otherwise, I was going to have to fold my business or move out of New York, and neither of which I wanted to do. The last few years now have been dedicated to exploring, how do we get better at answering this question, “What’s next?” How do we be more resilient in the face of change? What is this movement that’s happening where ... As I mentioned, I thought I was the only one. I thought I was going crazy and I was destined to never be happy. As I started researching Pivot, I found that everyone’s going through this more often. We’re not just granted two times in our life a mid-life crisis and a quarter-life crisis in order to search this existential questioning of who we are and what’s most important. We’re all, especially anybody listening to a podcast like yours, questioning, “Am I learning and growing?” every few years we’re going to be cycling through those questions. As I worked on the book, I adopted the motto, “If change is the only constant, let’s get better at it,” and that’s been my focus, is helping us all accept career change as normal, not beat ourselves up over it, and have a process to move through it more easily, whether we’re self-employed or we work for someone else or a combination of both. I’m happy to say that now I’ve been running my business over six years, and in the first four months of this year I’ve earned more than the last three years combined. The things that I’ve been studying and talking about are working. Kira: Wow. Jenny: I feel much calmer, even though I still have no clue what’s next, really. I feel so much calmer going through the process. Kira: Wow. There’s a lot we want to dig into here. If we could back up, before Pivot, when you just started your own business and you had left Google, how did you start your own business? What did you do to get it going and to rev up the engine in those early days? I’d also love to hear about what wasn’t working, because you mentioned that your bank account dwindled down. Something was working and something wasn’t working. I’m sure that would be relevant to the new copywriters who are just launching their businesses. Jenny: Well, that’s very Pivoty of you as well, because Pivot is all about focusing on what is working. The biggest mistake I made when I was running my own business was focusing so much on what I didn’t want, what I didn’t know, what I didn’t have. It’s very easy when we’re self-employed to have that fear of, “I don’t want to go broke. Okay, well, I don’t want these nightmare clients. Okay, well, I don’t want this.” None of that moves it forward. It wasn’t until I started to look at what was working. How did I already get clients? What kind of clients did I like the best? What was already bringing in income, like my book, my speaking engagements? Even if I didn’t want to talk about life after college for the rest of my life, I had activities that were working, and now I just needed to shift to them. There’s the idea of a pivot as well,