TCC Podcast #37: Don’t Build a Course with Maggie Patterson

Copywriter and business strategist, Maggie Patterson joins The Copywriter Club Podcast to talk about growing a sustainable consulting business. This is actually the second time Maggie has joined us to chat, but sadly, the first recordings are lost to history. In this second go-round (which just might be better than the lost episode), Kira and Rob get the low down on: •  Exactly what it takes to grow a sustainable copywriting business •  The three things you need before you can teach a skill or build a course •  How to find undiscovered opportunities in your business today •  What it takes to move your business to the next level •  How to build a platform and position yourself the right way •  How to get more done (especially when you’re busy) •  How to deal with clients (the good and the bad) •  The one thing copywriters can do to improve their businesses today •  The secret to getting referrals from your clients Maggie lets loose and shares it all in this episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Maggie’s website The Service Business Success Show Brittany Becher Scoop Industries The conflict resolution resource Maggie mentioned but didn’t talk about Basecamp CXL article on process posted by Rob Joanna Wiebe Jamba Juice Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, 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 Rob and I do every week at the Copywriter Club podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 37 as we chat with copywriter and entrepreneur Maggie Patterson about getting referrals, building a business and merging it with her partner’s business, productize services, why you shouldn’t create a course, and how we can up our game as copywriters. Kira: Hey, Rob. Hey, Maggie. Maggie: Hey, guys. Kira: How’s it going? Rob: Kira, Maggie. Maggie: I’m excited to be here. Kira: Welcome back. We did record an episode with Maggie, and it was incredible, and it was lost. Lost somewhere in a hole, so this is going to be even better, because Maggie is even more fired up this time, right? Maggie: I don’t know if that’s possible, but we’ll see what I can do. Kira: I think a great place to start, Maggie, is you recently put out a show on your podcast, the Service Business Success Show, and I believe it was episode 53 of your show. You were talking about why being a practitioner matters. That was one of my favorite shows that you put out, and I know you were fired up. I want to hear what was the catalyst for even creating that show, and maybe you can just give some backstory for people who didn’t listen to that show. Maggie: Essentially, the premise of that show was ... I love this question, by the way, because this is one of my most favorite topics. The premise of it was really that so many times, we want to cut ahead, and we just want this seven bajillion dollar business, and we don’t actually want to do the work. The reality is for us to build a sustainable business, we need to have mastery. We have to have real skills. For us to be relevant and to be able to grow to those next stages of potentially, one day, maybe in the future of having an online course, you need to be really, really good at what you do to be in touch with it. I think I see so many people teaching that aren’t doing anymore, and they’re disconnected. They’re giving advice that is not relevant, or you know what, one even worse, they’ve never actually done it themselves. It’s something their coach taught them, and now they’re teaching it to other people. There’s just so much flimsiness out there. It makes me crazy. Rob: Yeah. I see this over and over. I’m not going to name any names. I’m sure people can identify people, but it’s almost like a guru or so-called guru does something once. Maybe they built an email list using Pinterest, or they offer a product and they build a sales page, and then suddenly everything is all about how do you do list building and how do you do sales pages. They’re selling courses about the thing that they’ve done once for their own business. They’ve never done it for anybody else’s business. Who knows if it’s replicable. It drives me crazy. Maggie: Here’s the thing that gets me about it is as a practitioner, as someone who’s been doing this a fairly long time is I’ve seen so many different scenarios and mutations of how things will go. The market changes so fast when you’re working online. The reality is is that at the end of the day, it’s really hard for you to teach or give anyone counsel when you haven’t looked at that more macro view. I think people are teaching a very micro-view of that thing that happened for them. Then, what happens to the rest of us over here in practitioner land is we are left undoing those unreasonable expectations. I mean, I have this conversation multiple times per week with clients where I’m educating them. I always say, “That person is a freaking magical unicorn. Results may vary. That’s not typical.” I’m now the dream killer completely, 24/7. That’s my official hashtag. Princess Straight Talk is the other one I’ve started calling myself lately. Kira: When people are listening, though, it’s like, “Well, how do we know if we’re ready to teach the course?” Right? Because, there could be some people that have been the practitioner for a while, or at least in their mind, they are good. Is there some type of checklist we could run through so we know when we’re ready to expand and maybe teach? Maggie: I think there’s really three parts to this is, number one, understanding that value chain of building your business. Most of us start off freelancing, and then we move into being a business owner. Then, we move into leveraged or productized services. Then, we should be going into probably something more like a group program. So many times, I see people wanting to go from freelancer to big-money group program, or totally hands-off, passive product. What they’re missing in that is refining their method. I think doing ... just, let’s say as a copywriter, just writing copy for a really long time is not good enough, in my book at least. You need to have methods, systems and frameworks, and have your process really, really set out. I think if you haven’t done that step of offering a productized service yet, you’re probably jumping ahead. Number two is understanding, as a service business owner, as a copywriter, there is so much scale left in your business. So many times people will say to me ... I’ve had this conversation twice in the last week alone, that they’re like, “Well, I maxed down on how much money I can make.” Then I start deconstructing their business. I look at it, I’m like, “You could raise your price here. You could triple your price here. You could add a service here.” They could be making so much more money without that time, effort and stress of launching a course. Then the third thing is have you done the audience building? This is the one I see a lot of people break down. Maybe they’ve nailed one and two, but they’re like, “Well, I have a 50-person list.” I’m like, “Okay. Good luck with that conversion rate.”I think as a copywriter, we have a better handle on conversion rate, but we have these mythical, magical stories of rainbows and unicorns where so-and-so had a 500-person list. Well let me tell you about that, it was four years ago when there was only two people doing what that person does. Now, there’s 500 people doing the same thing, trying to teach that same course. I think you need to have your feet firmly planted in reality, and really look at do I have the audience and the reputation to pull this course off. Hey, maybe you’re only trying to get five people. Great. But, usually people have a very different vision of what that course is going to be. Kira: Why is this happening now that it’s so saturated? Are we in the bubble, or has the bubble popped? Because I’ve heard some people say, “The bubble has popped in the course arena.” Other people have said, “No. Not yet.” I mean, will we know? Maggie: I could argue both ways. My business partner, Brittany, and I had this discussion earlier this week. I think we’re seeing the start of the end of the bubble. I think we’re a far ... We’re in the decline. I don’t think we’re in the bubble popped. I think the thing to remember is, even if the course bubble pops, that’s a great thing because the best courses, the cream will rise to the top kind of thing. I do think we’re still a while out of these course things. I think, honestly, people want to launch a course because it sounds easy and fun. Rob: Let’s talk more about that, Maggie. If we want to launch a course, the last time we talked in the horribly lost episode, you gave us some advice that’s contrary to a lot of what we’ve heard from other people. If I want to launch a course, what are you going to tell me? Maggie: Well, the first thing I’m going to ask you is how big your email list is, and how much are you willing to invest to grow your audience, and realizing that audience growth is a little bit nebulous for a lot of us. Rob: Let’s say that’s going to be three to five hours a week. Maggie: Yeah, good luck. I hope you’ve got some money. You know what, here’s the being with Facebook ads, I hope you have a large budget for Facebook ads, because the quality of that traffic, and it’s cold traffic,