TCC Podcast #140: All About The Copywriter Underground with Kira and Rob

Thinking about joining a membership community for copywriters? This episode may help you make the decision to jump. For the 140th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk about The Copywriter Underground—what it includes and what you can expect when you join. And so it just isn’t us talking about a thing we made, we asked six members to join us and share their experience. The result is an episode that is a bit longer than what we usually share, but it was interesting to hear some of the things Underground members shared about their experience. Here’s what we covered: •  what has surprised us the most since launching The Underground •  what The Copywriter Underground includes (there’s a lot) •  how The Underground is going to change this July 1st—important if you’ve been thinking of trying it out •  how The Underground has helped members like Amy Jones, Derek Hambrick, Mladden Stojanović, Renae Rockwell, Emily Zoscak, and Natalie Smithson Like we said, this one is different. It's not a full-on sales pitch, but it is all about this community that we love. To hear more about it, click the play button below, or download the episode to your podcast player. Or to read the transcript, simply scroll down.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: David Garfinkel Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob:   This podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground. Kira:   It's our new membership, designed for you, to help you attract more clients and hit 10k a month, consistently. Rob:   For more information or to sign up, go to thecopywriterunderground.com. Kira:   Hey Rob. Rob:   Hey Kira, how's it going? Kira:   It's great. It's great. Rob:   We do not have an intro prepared for this episode, because we don't have a guest today. Well, we actually have six guests today, but not, this is a different kind of episode. We've never really done this before, and I think we were talking the other day about The Underground and we thought, you know, a lot of people ask us about what's going on in The Underground or what it is and they have questions. And so we thought, let's just go really deep on what's in The Underground, what we do there, and ask some of our members of The Underground what their experience is like, just so that people have a really good idea of what it is and how it can help somebody in their copywriting journey. Kira:   Yeah. So this is fun, because you'll actually hear the voices of the members. And we lovingly call them our moles. I don't know who started that, we think it was Justin Blackman, who coined the term. But our members seem to be very happy being called moles. So we will hear their voices as they talk through their experience in The Underground, which we haven't really shared before. And then Rob and I will just talk through what we've learned from running The Underground since September, right? Is that when we launched it? Rob:   Yeah, we launched it in September and it's been going now for seven or eight months. It's grown to almost 200 people. And we're actually going to close the doors to new members here in the near future, we've got a few weeks before that happens. But we'll talk a little bit about that as well, and the change behind that. So Kira, you know, let's, what's your experience been in The Underground so far? Like what has surprised you, what were you expecting and how has it turned out maybe differently or even better than what you expected? Kira:   Yeah. So I think so far what has surprised me the most is that the community aspect is more important than anything else. Then the trainings we create, live trainings in there, there's a ton of great templates and resources and scripts. Especially like, we add stuff from our own businesses that we use, and that's all been great, and the members use that. But I guess I have been surprised at how many members really are sticking around and growing their businesses and gaining confidence from each other and the community aspect. Which is great, because that's what a membership is all about. But until you start it and see it unfold, you don't really know what the members will take out of it, and you don't know if a community is going to work or not if people will connect. There are parts of that you can control and help, but also part of that is just the people you're attracting, and if it's working or not. So I'd say that probably surprised me the most. What about you, Rob? Rob:   Yeah, I agree. And I think I've been surprised as well as to how strong that community is. It feels a lot like The Copywriter Club when we first started out. Kira:   Yeah. Rob:   With just a couple hundred members, and the camaraderie, the people supporting each other and helping, you know, with questions and copy reviews and holding each other accountable. In fact we tried to structure some of the things that we started creating for The Underground to help support that. So we added things like accountability groups and copy review groups and those kinds of things. The other thing that really surprised me, I knew that it was going to be good, but just the excitement that happens every time we send out a newsletter or that we have a live training, the reactions to that, it's just overwhelmingly positive. And that's actually been really gratifying, because we knew we had some really good things to share, but knowing that people are actually taking that and using it in their business in smart ways is just fun to see, you know, as people use the things that we're sharing to grow and to do more than what we even thought people would use it for. Kira:   Yeah, and that makes me think of, you know, what else has surprised me is just how the members are willing to share their own resources. So forget about what we share in there, you know, month to month. But I just have seen so many members support each other with copy feedback or just like, ‘Hey, does anybody have a process for this? Or a template for this? Or an example of this?’ And people ask and then people show up and provide it, because I think there's this element of trust in the group from our core members, from new members that step in, and there's just a really good tone of sharing and openness, and again it's something that we can try to create from the beginning but I think it's just, we've got the right people in there with the right attitude, so again it's like this willingness to share and support each other. Which, that's just, that's the place you want to be, right? Rob:   Yeah. Absolutely. So maybe we should just talk through like, all of the things that are in there so people get an understanding of what we're talking about here, and then ask a few members what they think and what their experience has been. Kira:   Yeah, so this is funny because I feel like you and I talk about this a lot. There is a lot in The Underground and I think our concern sometimes is that maybe there's too much, right? You don't want to overwhelm anyone that's in there. But we will run through what's currently in there, and you can kind of pick and choose what is helpful to you. So what I love, and I know you love, Rob, is the monthly newsletter that we mail to everyone's home. And it's something that I love, when I receive it, even though, you know, we know what it says. We're working on it together. And you put in so much work into those. But every time I see it, you know, in my mailbox or on my stairs I get so excited. Even today, I just got mine for this month, all about proposals and what you should include in your proposal. So we do send that monthly newsletter that covers different topics and it's really meaty, and I'd say that's very useful. So I don't know if you want to talk more about like, the topics that we've included so far. If you want to get into the weeds there. Rob:   We've covered a lot of different things, you know, when we launched The Underground we said that it was going to focused on marketing, on copywriting, and on mindset. And we've touched on all of those things at different times with the newsletter, so we have, you know, we've talked really in depth about adding proof to your copy. And you know, how do you demonstrate that what you're saying is true. We've talked, like you just mentioned the latest one all about proposals. And a whole bunch of ideas for improving your proposals, well beyond what I think most people send out. And we even shared some of our, some of the things that we did, we used to do in our businesses, and the bad things that we did with our proposals when we first started out. And what we've done to change our own proposals. And then lots of ideas for, you know, how other people can improve them, even beyond some of the things that we do. We've talked about mindset issues, like self care and how do you give yourself time off, and how do you take care of yourself? We've talked about marketing your business and, you know, how better ways for getting out in front of your clients. So it's really, it seems like a really cool tool, and it's one of the things that we get the most feedback about, certainly in the group every time an issue hits peoples' mailboxes. They start sharing photos of them reading the newsletter in cafes or sitting there with their pets or, Derek Hambrick even mentioned at one point that his reading the newsletter in a bar in Germany got him a free drink. And we're still waiting to hear the whole story on that. So, but yeah. It's kind of fun. And then you mentioned the community, we have a private Facebook group for members only of The Underground, and it is a really cool group. You know, there's just so much going on in there, and there's the opportunity there to share and to learn and to grow and get to know each other has been awesome.