TCC Podcast #212: Doing Things Right with Liz Painter

Do you ever listen to what our podcast guests share and think, that’s not the kind of business I am building? Today’s guest for the 212th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Liz Painter. She has built a very “normal” copywriting business—one that probably looks a lot like your business. And there’s still a lot here that we can all learn from. Here’s what we asked her about: •   her path from journalist to email strategist and copywriter •   how copywriting and journalism are different and how to write better •   Liz’s writing process and formulas—and how it’s different from others we’ve seen •   the #1 thing she tries to accomplish in the email she writes •   3 different formulas for writing email sequences •   how Liz finds her clients and what she does to get referrals from clients •   what her business looks like today and how it all works day to day •   how Liz has networked herself into several agency relationships •   how she changes boundaries and processes when working with agencies •   her LinkedIn strategy and how it immediately to a new client and more connections •   the “comment first” strategy for finding connections •   going all in on one social media platform and not stretching yourself too thin •   Liz’s sales process—step by step—and how she makes sure to get a “yes” •   what Liz does differently from other clients—she definitely listens more •   the #1 lesson she learned from working with Copyhacker’s agency •   what Liz struggles with in her business—why it took so long to find success •   what she would do differently if she had to start over •   a list of books she recommends for personal improvement •   what she’s doing to save the bees with every project she works with This is a great interview with a copywriter who is doing a lot of things right. To hear it, click the button below. Or scroll down to read the transcript. Better still, subscribe with your favorite podcast app and never miss a show! The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Joanna Wiebe Amy Posner Better Proposals Philip Pullman novel Shinesty The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson Essentialism by Greg McKeon Personality Isn’t Permanent by Benjamin Hardy Life in Half a Second by Matthew Michalewicz The One Thing by Gary Keller The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks Liz's website & Instagram Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob:   You ever listen to the guests that we talk with on the podcast and think, "Their business is nothing like mine. What they're doing is so different from other copywriters and I'm not really sure that I can learn anything from they're saying."? Well, our guest for the 212th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Liz Painter. She has a business like most copywriters and yet there are plenty of things that she's doing that we can all learn from. Whether it's her approach to LinkedIn, how she's worked with agency clients, or her sales process, Liz is doing a lot of stuff very successfully. She stopped by to share all of the details in this excellent interview. Kira:   We'll share our discussion with Liz in a moment. But first this episode is brought to you by The Copywriter Think Tank, our private mastermind group for copywriters and marketers who want to challenge each other, create new revenue streams in their business, receive one on two coaching from the two of us, and ultimately grow to 200K or more. The think tank is now open for a few select new members. If you're interested you can visit copywriterthinktank.com to learn more about this mastermind. Rob:   So let's get to our interview with Liz Painter. Kira:   Liz, before we hit record we were just remembering our time with you in San Diego way back in March when we got to stroll down the street leisurely with you and hang out with you in person and it just seems so long ago now. So I'm excited to catch up with you and hear more about what you've been up to since we last saw you in March. So why don't we kick off with your story, as we do, about how you ended up as an email strategist and copywriter. Liz:   Yeah, cool. Yeah, that does seem like a long time ago that we were in San Diego. Back in the day when you could be outside with other people and hang out. So yeah, my journey started out as a journalist. Straight after university I studied journalism and then I got a job at a newspaper and it was a really good grounding in, not copywriting obviously, but writing because you're in this newsroom and you've got the editor sat across from you. And if you write a really boring long intro to your story he's going to shout across the newsroom and tell you in front of everyone that it needs work. So you have to get good at it really quickly. So that was a really good grounding in how to write concisely and quickly and in a way that catches the reader's attention. And I did for a couple of years and what happened was one of the features writers went off sick and I ended up covering for her and I was doing a lot of the advertorial stuff where you're going out and interviewing business owners and writing about their business. And I really loved it. And that was kind of my first brush with copywriting, although I didn't really know it was called that back then. And then when I eventually left the newspaper and went freelance, my intention was still to be a freelance journalist but my husband was setting up a photography business. And so he'd be talking pictures for people and they say to him, "Do you know anyone that can write the website words or the brochure words to go with these pictures?" And he would point them to me and that's how I got into copywriting. And before I knew it I was doing that much more than I was doing the journalism. And then the route to email copywriting is probably quite a long one. I was a generalist copywriter for quite a long time. I just did what people asked me to do and didn't really question it for quite a while. And then it was probably around 2016, 2017 and someone I was working with pointed out how much I loved email and how passionate I was when I spoke about it and maybe that was the direction for me to go in. And that was kind of the start of the journey of narrowing down into just doing email strategy and copy. Rob:   I'm really interested in talking a little bit more about your journalism background. And particularly because we see I think quite a few content writers, copywriters come from journalism or from even an academic background of writing. What do you see are the biggest differences between the writing that you did as a journalist and the writing that you do today as a copywriter and especially with email? Liz:   I think you have a lot more freedom with copywriting to go in a number of different directions. Certainly for me writing news journalism, my creativity was quite limited. These are the facts of the story and you need to present them in an exciting way. But there's only so many different tangents you can go off on, whereas copywriting I feel like the world is your oyster to some extent. Obviously you've got to tap into what you hear from customers when you interview them but I do think there's a lot more freedom in it. In terms of other differences, I have more time to do the research I want I to do when I'm copywriting. Often with a news story it's quite quick. You just get to interview the person who's lost a relative or whatever the story is that you're covering and you've only got a few minutes really with them and then you've got to write the story then it's out. So yeah, I don't usually rush stuff like that with copy if that makes sense. Does that answer your question Rob? Rob:   It definitely answers my question. I think about ... Obviously there are some significant differences. And you focus in a little bit on the audience, how you get to know the audience better to do research better. With news, you're writing to a general public, maybe broader. But I'm also thinking there's differences in the way that the copy is presented between news and copywriting. It might be more story based when you're trying to connect with a customer as, like you said, going through the facts of the story and just trying to get things out quickly and you're not necessarily building the same kind of rapport. So yeah, long way of say yes, I think you answered my question. Kira:   You mentioned that when you were working in journalism and writing articles, if you didn't grab the attention of your manager fast you would hear about it and they would shout across the room to you. So what was your strategy for grabbing attention in the intro because I imagine you're using a similar strategy today in the email copies with the hook? Liz:   When I started, I was a year or two out of university and so probably still more wordy than I needed to be. And I think what the editor beat out of me was that kind of using more words than you need to. But what needed to be in that intro was essentially, who, what, when, where, why. The standard journo stuff but without putting any extraneous details in or anything boring and then immediately getting into the action. And I think that carries across with copywriting. You see a lot of throat clearing don't you? Especially in email where people are kind of warming up to what they really want to say and you're like, just cut the first three paragraphs and start right in on the action. I wrote a blog post about that recently actually and compared what we do to Elvis songs. Because if you listen to Elvis songs, he pretty much always goes straight in. Like there's very little intro. He's straight in with the lyrics. There's no kind of warmup. I think that's what comes from journalism. Rob:   So as you write emails for your clients, how do you think about the writing process or what does your writing process look like?