TCC Podcast #322: How Understanding Yourself Makes You a Better Business Owner with Martha Barnard-Rae

Martha Barnard-Rae joins the show for the 322nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Martha is a copywriter and TEDx speaker who opens up the conversation about how getting to know yourself makes you a better business owner. After an ADHD diagnosis, she’s learned to put a different lens on her business and lean into tools and resources that work for her, and let go of what doesn’t. This episode reframes what we understand about ADHD and self-discovery and it’s one you won’t want to miss. How she ended up an English teacher in the most isolated city in the world. Finding a mentor and providing equal value to each other. Why her business partnership ended and how she ended it. How she stumbled into a diagnosis of ADHD and how it’s affected her business. The importance of learning about yourself and tools you can utilize. Why you need to show yourself compassion. How she became a TEDx speaker and how she continues to seek opportunities. The time management struggle… How to manage your time. How taking a break when you need one can save you and your business. Why you need to have an honest conversation with yourself. How to stay in your lane and focus on things you love. Do you have the right systems in place when things go wrong? Smash that play button or check out the transcript below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Join The Copywriter Accelerator The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Martha's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM Masha's website   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Building a successful copywriting business is a challenge even when everything is running smoothly. But that almost never happens as most listeners would know. Several of our guests on the podcast in the past year started their business during the pandemic and worked really hard to overcome the challenges that presented. But there are other challenges to face down things like difficult clients growing your skills and some copywriters even have challenges, like things like ADHD. Today's guest on The Copywriter Club Podcast is Martha Barnard-Rae and she opened up about what it's like to run and grow a copywriting business with ADHD. And if you struggled with focus or lack of attention, you may want to stick around for this one. And even if you haven't, there's a lot of really good advice that she offers that applies to all copywriter businesses. And now let me remind you that this podcast is sponsored by the Copywriter Accelerator. That's our program that helps copywriters, content creators, and other marketers lay a solid foundation for their business. If you are already a good writer, you're already good at the thing that you do, but you're still struggling to build a business that supports you, the Copywriter Accelerator is the program that can help you get over the hump from thinking about your business as a CEO instead of as a writer or a service provider to strategies for getting yourself out in front of the right clients, building a great brand, creating packages that people want to buy the Accelerator will help you set up your business for success in the coming year and beyond. Go to the copywriteraccelerator.com now to join the waitlist so that you get notified as soon as we open up and we will link to that in the show notes just in case you are driving or otherwise occupied and can't look that up right now. And before we get to our interview, let me introduce my co-host today. It's Masha Koyen. Masha is a copywriter and strategist for interior designers and builders. She's a member of the Copywriter Think Tank and a former Accelerator member. Masha, welcome. Thanks for being here. Masha Koyen:  Thanks so much for having me Rob. And thanks for the introduction and I'm so honored to be here. I've been a loyal listener for over three years and as you mentioned, I've been in Accelerator and now in the Think Tank and I absolutely love both communities. They've given me such tremendous support and community accountability and weekly trainings, all those things. So thank you so much. Rob Marsh:  Amazing. So I'm thrilled to have you here and we're going to chat in just a few minutes, but for now, let's get to our interview with Martha. Martha Barnard-Rae:  I was a teacher, I used to be an English teacher. So I live in a place called Denmark, Western Australia, which is on the southwest corner of Western Australia, 450 kilometers south of Perth, which is the most isolated city in the world. And the school that I worked at was 70 kilometers away from my house and my husband is the only paramedic in that place. So his hours are really weird and I was just, "I feel like doing all this driving and all of this stuff is just too hard and I don't think it's supposed to be this hard." So I started looking for something that I could do and I'd always been a writer and I had a friend who was a copywriter and it turned out she was one of the first digital copywriters in Australia. She's been at it for a while and she was just an amazing mentor to me and gave up her time. I had Wednesdays off or something and we'd catch up on Wednesdays and talk about copywriting and we ended up being business partners for a couple of years. And it was really great because it meant that I didn't make all the mistakes that you make in your first year of running a business because she had a template for everything. And she'd quoted for projects like this before and then after it just felt like, because she still had her own business at the same time and my business is called Word Candy and I was really focusing on Word Candy stuff and I just said, "I don't know, I feel like we're done here." And she's like, "Yeah definitely." And we just parted ways amicably but we're still friends. So it was a really, really good way to learn how to run a business as a copywriter. Rob Marsh:  And forgive me if I'm mistaken, Martha, but you don't sound like you're from Western Australia. How did you end up there in the first place? Martha Barnard-Rae:  So I'm from Toronto, Canada. And I moved here with a man and then I have a lot of friends that moved here with a man and they're all broken up and so it's like, "So-and-so moved to Australia with a man and they broke up." And you're like, "Yeah, obviously. Of course they're broken up." So we split and I stayed because Perth... I don't know if you've been to Perth in Australia, a lot of people don't make the trek, but Perth is offensively beautiful and it's always warm and sunny and it's gorgeous. So I stayed here and then I met my husband David and I stayed forever, which my parents are not happy about. Rob Marsh:  Yeah, sure. Kira Hug:  Okay. So can you share a rough timeline if you can add any dates as far as when you left teaching, when you started the partnership? Because that just helps me piece it all together. Martha Barnard-Rae:  Yeah. It was at the beginning of 2019 that I was like, "I need to do something else." I took a copywriting course and then I started that mentorship with my friend Beck and started the business during the beginning of 2019 and then by the end of 2019 because the school year ends in December here. So by the middle of the year I was like, "This is good. This is working, I'm earning money," not enough to replace my salary. But I was lucky enough that that was okay for a period of time. So I resigned and finished teaching at the end of 2019, the best time to finish teaching in the history of the world. Kira Hug:  Well, done. Martha Barnard-Rae:  Because obviously of the pandemic. So when everybody at the beginning of 2020 was like, "We're all learning how to work from home and it's really hard." And I was like, "Yeah, I'm learning how to work from home and it's really hard." And that was when I started to think, "There's something going on here with focus and attention and that sort of stuff." And then that partnership, I think we finished that in 2021. So yeah, we worked together in a partnership from 2019 to 2021 and then I've been a sole trader since April of 2021. Kira Hug:  Okay. That's really helpful. So as a follow-up, I guess, how would you advise other writers to look for a partnership like that? Because I think most of us don't start off that way working closely, almost like an apprentice with another copywriter. I think that's a really great way to start. So what would you look into to find an opportunity like that, so it works well for other copywriters? Martha Barnard-Rae:  Listen, it was a complete fluke that that happened. So it wasn't something that I planned. The interesting thing was that I got onto social media and was doing some social media stuff and my partner Beck, she just doesn't have any social media channels for her business because she's all word of mouth because she's been doing it for so long. So she was the one who was like, "This is cute, but why are you doing it?" And I was like, "Because this is what you do." So it was interesting because she didn't know anything about social media and so we were able to help each other back and forth in that way. But I mean I guess you really need to find somebody that you gel with and someone who's willing to make that investment in you. And I feel really grateful that she did. And I think too because we were working together and she was earning money as well, it felt a little bit more... I didn't feel so greedy for asking her for assistance and stuff, but we just had a situation where we would go, "I'll work on this project, you work on this project." But everything that went out for the first year and a half, she looked over. So I got a lot of feedback from a professional writer. I was listening to your podcast this afternoon with Mary,