TCC Podcast #97: Writing perfect copy with Michal Eisikowitz

Copywriter Michal Eisikowitz joined Kira and Rob for the 97th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast and we go deep into her business. Michal has made some amazing changes to her business in the last year (including creating one of the best copywriter websites we’ve ever seen). You’re going to want to listen to this one. Here’s what we covered: •  how she turned a degree in speech pathology into a career as a copywriter •  the “experiment” that led solidified her career choice •  what she learned from her other jobs that made her a better copywriter •  how what she accomplished in the Accelerator helped her walk away from her previous job •  the evolution of her business, the kinds of work she does and what she charges today •  how long the exploratory phase should last before you choose your niche •  the work she does today and how she plans to evolve her business •  what her process looks like from start to finish •  why she has branded herself as a “perfectionist” •  how she balances her work with everything else in her life •  what she did to upgrade her website and how to know if you should upgrade yours •  what she has her VA do at the end of every project •  the packages she offers to her clients and how she came up with them •  how she uses LinkedIn to generate leads for her business (and the tool she uses) •  what she did to triple her income this year •  the mistakes she’s made along the way Finally, we asked Michal where she plans to take her business in the next year or two. Note: we lost Kira’s sound for the last few minutes, but it doesn’t detract from this fantastic episode. To hear this one, visit iTunes, Stitcher or use your favorite podcast app to download it. Or scroll down and click the play button or read the full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Accelerator The Copywriter Think Tank 30 Day Social Michal’s website LinkedIn Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: 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 97, as we chat with freelance copywriter Michal Eisikowitz about how she became a copywriter, how she's transformed her business over the past year and her amazing new website, how she uses LinkedIn to connect with potential clients and what she's learned as she started mentoring other writers. Kira:   Welcome Michal. Rob:   Hi Michal. Michal:     Thank you. Great to be here, you know how much I love you guys, so the chance to spend another hour with the two of you. Rob:   The feeling is mutual, so this should be fun. Kira:   All right, let's kick this off with your story and how you got into copywriting. Michal:     I have a really winding path to copywriting. I actually am a licensed Speech Language Pathologist. I trained in Communication Sciences, I have a Masters. My mother is also a Speech Language Pathologist, I have a background in education, so I thought special education was going to be a great fit. Then while I was earning my Masters I wanted a job, side job and I interned at a publishing company as the marketing assistant. I interned there for about three months and then was hired full-time and I ended up working there for two and a half years. I just loved every minute. I did everything to do with book publicity, marketing and copywriting, book titles, press releases, back flaps, book descriptions, catalog descriptions. All kinds of as ad copy, you name it, I was doing their marketing work. This kind of work really gave me this broad foundation in marketing and copywriting and I realized, wow, this is something I really love. What happened was that, after two and a half years, the company eventually closed and its closing coincided with the completion of my Masters degree. I was like okay, the fun is over, it's time to dive into my real job. This wasn't a real job, this was just like a dream. I landed a part-time job in speech therapy. I liked it, the kids liked me, the parents liked me, and it was going well. Then I just soon discovered that I had this kind of twitch, like I wasn't totally satisfied. I felt like I needed to get back into writing. There was something missing. Then I turned my face to journalism and I submitted my first feature to a weekly magazine and eventually started writing regularly for them and as well as other publications, monthly features, columns. At the same time I started accepting freelance writing and copywriting projects on the side. One of which grew into a proper gig as the in-house copywriter of a New York marketing agency. Basically, I was doing a million and one things, it was crazy. I was doing speech therapy, three or four days a week, feature writing for magazines, a steady agency copywriting and freelance copywriting. I was all over the place and then about a year, a year and a half ago I said, ‘This is just not going to work long-term.’ I'm a perfectionist as you well know by now and some point I realized if you want to be a master in your field, you have to choose one. You've got to dedicate most of your energies and your focus to one. I decided to do an experiment and give copywriting my exclusive focus for one year. I quit my speech therapy job, I stopped doing the feature writing and I enrolled in The Copywriter Accelerator, which you know was amazing. I am your biggest fan and that was it that just kind of jump started that experiment year. The good news is that, I really haven't looked back. Since I began giving it like 100% of my focus, my business has exploded and I'm just really thankful and blessed. That's my long and winding journey. Rob:   I love your story, as you know. I'm curious, with all of the things that you did, your Masters in Communication, the marketing job that you had, the journalism that you're doing. What are the things that you learned from those experiences that apply to what you're doing in copywriting today? Michal:     That's a great question. I find that from my speech therapy work, I learned a lot about the importance of listening. There is so much that you learn as a professional from listening to the parents of the children or the patient you're working with, the caregiver of the patient you’re working with. Just those interviews and those initial discovery sessions of really getting to the root of the issue, you learn a lot from that. Instead of diving into the work right away, you kind of use that background information to get very clear on your direction and goals for that session. I think that's helped me a lot in the client interviews and the discovery sessions that I do today. I’d say that my magazine writing was tremendously huge boon for my copywriting, because I was working with very tight work counts, always. I had to really, really learn to write very, very lean. Take out that scalpel and just cut, cut, cut extra verbs, extra adjectives, extra adverbs. There's just so much I learned about keeping your copy so tight and so powerful. In general, I think the magazine writing just really upped my skills and helped me find my voice as a writer. Kira:   Michal, I love the way that you write and it does feel like every word was chosen with intention. Now it makes more sense, I didn't realize that was your background. I’m just backing up and thinking about how you jumped into The Accelerator and treated it like a year of experimentation and really focusing on copywriting. It sounds like it just kind of happened overnight when you joined The Accelerator and we know that's not how it really works. What did you learn from your time in The Accelerator or what did you do that really helped you take things to the next level? Michal:     The first thing is that, The Accelerator started in June, so it was actually over the summer, when I wasn't working on my speech therapy job. I was really able to give it my full focus and I just realized that I am so enjoying this. I'm just really looking forward to coming to my computer each day and working. It's like I woke up with a spring in my step. That was realization number one. Realization number two, was also just the confidence of, I can do this, I'm good at this. I got peer reviews which helped me so much and the critiques were amazing, but there was also the feeling of, yeah, I'm not that far behind. I have the skills and I'm going to keep learning, I'm going to keep growing and there was this sense of I can do this, I can enjoy it and I can make money too. Once I had those discoveries, it wasn't as scary anymore to call up my supervisor and say, ‘I don't think I'm going to come back for the next year,’ or to let my magazine editor know that I'm taking a break for a while, because the possibilities became so real and strong. Rob:   Will you talk a little bit about the kind of projects that you were doing when you first started out as a copywriter, when you first committed yourself and the prices you were charging and compare that to where you are today and the kinds of projects you're doing today and the prices that you're charging? Michal:     Okay, so I was probably charging half of what I'm charging right now. I was doing all kinds of copywriting all over the place, no real niche. I was accepting any and every job as long as it fell under the copywriting umbrella. That was a big mistake, and the more I got into the copywriting as my exclusive focus, the more I was able to really learn what I was liking, what I was not liking and how I can narrow my niche and specialize.