TCC Podcast #216: Nailing Brand Voice with Justin Blackman

Writing copy with personality is hard. So what does it take to do it? We invited copywriter and brand ventriloquist Justin Blackman to talk about how he does it for the 216th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast—and to give us an update on everything he’s done since our first interview with him way back in episode 59. If you’re looking for ways to write with more personality, this interview is for you. Here’s what we covered: •   a recap of what he’s done in his business for the past 4 years •   how he doubled his salary a year after leaving his full-time gig •   how important building his authority was—and the result •   when it’s time to move on to the next thing in your career •   recreating your job/career as new opportunities arise •   what it takes to build the confidence to move forward •   taking on big challenges as a way to grow your authority and business •   the investments Justin has made in mindset •   how Justin’s ego kept him from writing his best work •   Justin’s advice to anyone who feels like they aren’t as far along as they should be •   how to write with more personality—the formulas that work •   how to figure out your own unique voice •   why so many voice guides are useless and what to do instead •   Justin’s WTF framework and how it captures the 3 parts of brand voice •   the things we’ve done in our businesses to change our mindsets •   Kira’s brand strategy guides and what they include •   the program he’s created to help others write with personality •   how he gets everything done—it starts with working on his own stuff first •   how to have fun while working as a copywriter •   his tattoo story—this goes back to what he said about ego getting in the way As usual, this is a great episode you won’t want to miss. Scroll down and hit the play button, or scroll a little farther to read a full transcript. Or download the episode to your podcast player. Better still, subscribe and never miss an episode. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Episode 59 Never Lose a Customer Again The Go Giver TCCIRL Linda Perry Lianna Patch Abbey Woodcock The Codex Persona Ian Stanley Liz Painter Prerna Malik The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix Justin’s website The tattoo video Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob:   Writing is hard, but writing with personality or perfectly capturing the personality of your client is even harder, but that's what Justin Blackman does. Justin is our guest for the 216th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. He stopped by to share how his business has changed since the last time that we spoke in depth about the Headline Project way back on episode 59. Kira:   Before we do that, this episode is brought to you by The Copywriter Underground, the membership for copywriters of all experience levels who want to invest in their businesses and grow. As a member, you get more than 60 hours of video training courses on marketing your business, improving your copywriting skills and fixing your mindset so you're set up for success. Learn more at thecopywriterunderground.com. Rob:   Okay. So let's jump into our interview with Justin. Kira:   Let's kick this off. My first question I even wrote down was, dude, what have you been up to the last year? Question mark. Question mark. Question mark. Because I feel like you've taken off. And I don't think it's just me because we talk about you and we say good things in our circles, and I feel like you just have, I don't know, like you just are doing the right things and it's paying off and you've put in a lot of hard work too that is worth acknowledging. But it just seems like you're doing really well. And so I am really excited to hear about what you've been doing, the changes you've made, and how it starting to pay off for you too. Justin:   See, I think that's the fun part because the last couple of months, it doesn't seem like it's been the hard work. It seems like the years leading up to this have been the hard work. And now, when everything shut down and I was like, "I need to figure out what to do." I said, "You know what? Now I can have a little bit more fun." And that's when I embraced the fact that there weren't a lot of people talking about just the silly things that I was talking about and writing with the style and the weird techniques and things that I do, because there really was a structure behind that. And I just wrote an email saying, "You know what? I'm going to keep it light." And I made it fun. And then at the end of the email, I broke down exactly what I had done above it. And people wrote back to like, "Yes, more of this. I had no idea that there was actually a science behind this. Tell me about this process." And then I started talking more about that and just having fun, literally not knowing what to do, not feeling comfortable to sell anything because of just the whole economic situation. And that created the course of Write More Personality-er, which was even just a placeholder joke name. I actually don't like that name at all because grammatically it bugs me. I was just having fun, and I put some stuff out just to see... really just for entertainment value, just to take people's mind off of everything. And that's really what set the wheels in motion for everything that I'm doing right now. Rob:   So before we get to all of the things that are going on in your business, I think maybe we should take a step back. You've been on the podcast a couple of times before this is you're certainly competing for one of the people that we've had on the most. You've talked about a lot of the things that you've done in the past, the Headline Project and your work with the hotel and some of the other stuff that you've done, but maybe we could just recap because while it does feel like you're everywhere and we keep seeing you pop up in a lot of different places, we know because we've seen the behinds, that there's been like this progression through your career, as you've built your authority, as you've developed the pathway that you've followed, we've seen what's happened. Maybe you could give us a short recap of some of that stuff. And then we can talk about the particulars, how you've partnered with people, the training that you've done, the events that you've attended, that you've spoken at, how you've grown your authority, and really look at what you've done almost as a case study for what copywriters who might want to do the same thing as you should be doing. Justin:   I could do all that in case there's one or two people out there that don't know who I am, I imagine that there are a lot more than that. The background was, I was working in-house at a international hotel company and I was writing for like 14 different brands at the same time and just pumping out a lot of different content. I had taken a couple of different writing courses. And I was a decent writer, I'd say it was better than average, but I didn't necessarily identify as a copywriter at that point. I invested in the first round of the Accelerator in the beta program, you guys ran me through the gauntlet clip with the Headline Project where I wrote 100 headlines for 100 days for 100 companies, which came out of an idea through Kira in the hot seat. And that's what put me on the map. I eventually got recognized about a year after that by an agency that was creating Facebook ads, long form Facebook as an email series for coaches and consultants. They needed someone that could write in multiple different styles and voices. And without even realizing that I was able to do it, I took an assignment with them just as a test and made it fun. They had a very lighthearted style, but I was able to emulate it really quick. Some of that also came through the Codex Persona, which was a training that I'm now a co-instructor, but because of that really unique skillset that I had developed without realizing it, I nailed the project. And he told me afterwards that I was the first person in four years that ever nailed it on the first try. So I went with that confidence. I left the hotel company, moved to create a Pretty Fly Copy as it's really is its own entity and took on the agency is my first retainer client. And my first year, I wound up doubling... My first year as an official copywriter and freelance slash business owner, I wound up doubling my salary from the hotel company. Over the course of two years, I've written for more than 329 different people, realized that I didn't necessarily want to continue writing the Facebook ads and emails, but I was able to figure out that the consistent process that I had with being able to sound like different people was my superpower. The being able to nail voice was something that I could do better than pretty much any other writer that I had come across. And it took a long time for me to be able to say that as confidently as I can now. I'm still not entirely comfortable with it, but I'm starting to own the fact that I'm pretty darn good at voice. And now, I've moved forward with training other people on that process. And in addition to just the voice, I also have broken down all the techniques that I've stolen from all these different people and from my background studying comics and comedians and improv, and combine it all together now. And I love working with copywriters to teach all this stuff. Kira:   All right, cool. Yeah. Let's talk about doubling your salary because you just slipped that in there, but that's a big deal. You left your full-time gig at the hotel, went out on your own and doubled your salary. It sounds great and wonderful and probably anyone listening is like, "Huh, how do I do that? I want to leave my job and double my salary." Are you just a unicorn and it's just you Justin,