TCC Podcast #77: Processes, Niches and Investing in Yourself with Christine Laureano

For episode 77 of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with copywriter and marketing specialist Christine Laureano about her business, what it’s like to work with different niches that are completely different (makers and engineers), and a whole lot more. Here’s what we covered in our time together: •  how she went from the corporate world to maker to marketer to copywriter •  what she did to deal with a devastating personal tragedy •  the importance of carving focused creative time out of your day •  how she created systems to support her work and produce results •  the difference between working with big clients and small clients •  how she conducts her discovery process to uncover additional work (she gives a specific example) •  the process she went through to land a recent engineering client •  how she deals with working in more than one niche •  what she does to find clients who can pay within her niche •  why she is involved in more than one master mind group •  how she stays upbeat all the time (this is great advice) She also explains why e-commerce is such a rich opportunity for writers today—the growth in this sector makes it hard to ignore. To listen, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Copyblogger Angels by Silver Ravenwolf The Copywriter Accelerator Danny Iny Teach and Grow Rich The Copywriter Think Tank Joanna Wiebe The J Peterman Company Seinfeld Ba6marketing.com 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, 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 77 as we chat with copywriter Christine Laureano about her path from business owner to copywriter, writing for engineers and other technical clients, how she uses her coaching experience as a copywriter, and how she stays so positive through the ups and downs of business. Kira: Welcome, Christine. Rob: Hey, Christine. Christine: Hey, guys! Excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Kira: Yeah, welcome! Rob: It’s great to have you here. Kira: All right, Christine, I know you have a really interesting path and story and we’d love to share it with our listeners. Christine: Oh, yeah, the winding path. Okay. Well, I am probably one of the oldest copywriters in The Copywriter Club. My path started back in the 80’s, way before the internet, when marketing was still done with maybe a computer, but pen and paper; rock and chisel. But I graduated college with a marketing degree and a minor in computer science. So not only was I into the marketing end of it, but I love the tech stuff. So I ended up getting a job at Xerox, and I did the corporate thing for several years. From there, I go down to a very, very technical job as a marketing exec, managing executive for accounts for an electronics distributor. I worked really closely with engineers, I worked with purchasing, I worked with production and manufacturing, and I did that for a really long time and that satisfied my technical need. And of course, the writing that I did for that was really that boring, dry copy. It was proposals, it was the stuff that I hate to think about when I look back on it. And then from there, I ended up having a family. And this is where everything kind of turned and the reason I talk about it like this is, I know everybody has life lessons and things and tragedies and things that happened in their life that forced them to pivot, and I had one of those. Our first daughter ended up passing in daycare. So my life completely, completely changed. I spent a month on the couch, literally, trying to figure out, “What am I going to do with myself? What am I going to do my life?” I actually finally ended up getting off the couch, took a shower, and went to a bookstore and books were, you know, a great solace for me, but not non-fiction. I went to all the how to books. “How to feel better”, “How to get your life back”—all that. And that really made me think about what were the next steps. So when I had my next children, there was no way daycare was in the picture, so what could I do that would use some of my talents, but yet, allow me to be home with my kids? And the big part of it was, how to feel good while doing it. So I ended up creating a natural skincare line. I became a certified aromatherapist, I worked a lot with essential oils, and I just wanted to play around with products that made people feel really good, so I did that for a little bit, and then as it started to grow, and I had products on every flat surface of my house, I actually got scared. Because I thought about, “Wow, my next step is to become a manufacturer, get a facility, move out; what do I do with my kids?” So the worst thing I could possible do: I bailed. I gave it all up and I bailed. Actually, it was a really good decision at the time because that’s when I discovered how to do other maker things. I became a chocolatier, I did other fun things that I could burn my time without having to become another big business. And that’s when I discovered coaching. Because one of the things that I loved to do was coach other women in their creative business on how to start a business. So I did that for a while. I worked in the coaching space for a bit. But I really, really missed the product-end of it. That was a service-based business and I missed doing the products. So I decided to go back, re-launched my product, I rebranded, I renamed, and I built that business literally from the ground up with new formulas, new GMB compliancy, FDA regulations, and all that. But what I discovered in this winding path was that, all the pieces that came together were, I love marketing! And it was my creative director at Basics Botanicals and I found that that was my passion. I didn’t love making as much as I loved marketing. So that’s what brought me to copywriting. I did copywriting in my interim with children. I did do a couple year’s stint as a freelancer. And I did work for ADT and a couple agencies here on Long Island, but as I had my second child, I ended up working away from that because I lived so far away from everybody. So I pulled away from that, and that’s when all these other things happened and I came back to it back in 2015. I got a certification from Copyblogger for their content marketing because I loved the way that fit into e-commerce businesses and trying to help other makers get seen and heard without a big budget for marketing. So I started with that, and then it just kind of grew back into loving copy, and optimizing—not that I’m great at it, but I love the idea of it—and I ended up in Joanna Wiebe’s mastermind. I love how Joanna put together the idea of conversion copy with research-based information, not just a direct marketing aspect of it. So that’s really how I came back into copywriting, in this windy path. Rob: Okay. There is SO much that we can cover here and so many different questions that we want to ask, but, really don’t want to gloss over—you mentioned the tragedy of losing your daughter, you know at a real pivotal point in your life, and hopefully I’m not asking too much, but, you know I think a lot of people go through tragedies like that, and aren’t able to talk about them, and so I’m just wondering how you got through that? You mentioned a month on the couch. I just can’t even imagine how to deal with that kind of a thing. How did you possibly get through that? Christine: Yeah, and thanks for asking because you know what? Everybody has some kind of tragedy in their life, and the one thing for me was, a month was kind of a short time, but it was a really long time not to take a shower, so....laughs. Kira: Laughs. Christine: I really had to get up. Rob: Sure, sure. Christine: It actually took many, many, years to work through it, but what I discovered at the end of that month was, I could do one of two things: I could spiral up, or I could spiral down. And I was headed in the downward spiral really fast. And that’s when I got up and I went to the bookstore, and I literally—for a lot of the spiritual people out there, they’ll get this: I actually found a book on angels. And it was the strangest thing, because wherever I turned in the bookstore, there that book was. Kira: Huh! Christine: So I’m like, “Okay....I’ll pick that book up, I guess!” The universe has an interesting way of showing us just what we need. I have never seen that book again; it wasn’t in any other bookstore after that. So, you know, I really kind of took that time to regroup and really get to know myself. I allowed myself to grieve again; it was a long, long, long process, because the way this tragedy happened. So, I let myself be there. But in the meantime, I let myself also kind of dabble back into my creative side, because anybody that works for corporate knows how mind-numbing corporate work can be. I had, you know, mind-numbing from that and then, the tragedy of my daughter, just... You know, my head was not in the good place. So, I just got really creative. Rob: My guess is, having gone through that too, you probably have sort of a better sense of the importance of family, and the time that you spend there, and I think that’s probably impacted the rest of your career, because you’ve really been there for you other kids. You want to make sure that time is important. Christine: Absolutely. And, that was right Rob—top of mind for anything else I did was, you know, my main priority was my family and my kids, being there for them.