TCC Podcast #101: Getting to know Rob and Kira a little better

We’re kicking off our second century of podcasts by flipping the tables and answering your questions for the 101st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Justin Blackman (of 100-Headline-Project fame) grabs the microphone to ask Kira and Rob all about: •  who Rob and Kira really are •  how Rob and Kira met and decided to start The Copywriter Club together •  where the idea for The Copywriter Accelerator came from •  the story behind the creation of the first Copywriter Club event •  why we shut down our second program and what we learned •  some of the other mistakes we’ve made over the past year or so •  how The Copywriter Club has changed our own businesses •  the progress we’ve made on the goals we shared in episode 50 •  how the podcast (and our guests) have helped us improve our writing and processes •  what we’ve learned going through The Copywriter Accelerator for the third time •  when we plan on taking a break from learning •  what’s coming up for The Copywriter Club in the coming months Plus Justin asked a long list of “lightning round” questions that we do our best to answer—but let’s face it, we’re not very good at the whole quick answer, lightning fast thing. So, if you want to know more about Rob and Kira and a bit of what’s going on behind the scenes at the club, download this one to your favorite podcast player. You can also hit the play button below or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Justin Blackman The Copywriter Accelerator The Copywriter Club IRL Event (link coming soon) Brian Kurtz Kim Krause Schwalm Amy Posner The Copy Clinic Tarzan Kay Sam Woods Joe Schriefer Sarah Grear Sean D'Souza Bond Halbert Tanya Geisler The Copywriter Club book lists Dan Kennedy Wikipedia’s List of Lists Seth Godin Eman Zabi Mel Abraham Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Justin:   What if you could hang out with two moderately talented copywriters, who spend all day asking seriously talented copywriters, about their successes and failures, they're work processes and their habits, and steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what I'm going to do with Kira and Rob this week, at The Copywriter Club Podcast. You're invited to join the club for episode 101 as I turn the microphone on Rob Marsh and Kira Hug and dive into what it's like to run a gigantic Facebook group, interview copywriting royalty, develop a training program, and create a think tank, on top of managing their own work. Rob, Kira, welcome to your show. Rob:   Moderately talented, might give us more credit than what we deserve. Might be overstating things a little. Kira:   That's true, I'm flattered. Thank you. Justin:   Exactly. Rob:   Let's do this Justin, let's do it. Justin:   Let's do it. So, I'm going to turn the tables a little bit. We're going to get into what it's like to run The Copywriter Club and Facebook group, your Accelerator, The Think Tank, your own client work. So we're going to get into it a little bit about who are Rob and Kira? I know you guys, you're a bit of an unlikely pair. Rob you're a little more formal, a little buttoned up and corporate. Kira, a little wild child, dressing up like a pirate, you got your hair colored like a troll. But somehow you guys, you make it work. So I want to hear a little bit of rundown about how you guys met, and what's the history of the TCC. Kira:   Rob, I'll let you tell our Tinder story. Rob:   I think you tell it better than I do actually though. So, yeah, the short story is that, yeah, we met on Tinder and we both swiped right, and it just was meant to be. And then the longer version is that it had nothing to do with Tinder and we met in a mastermind group run by Copy Hackers. And it took us about maybe a year, but over that year we sort of got to know each other a little bit, shared our copy with each other. And at the end of a year, a few people had started suggesting that we should be doing something together, some kind of project or something and I had explored the idea of doing a podcast and reached out to Kira and said ‘Hey, I've got this domain, The Copywriter Club. I don't know what we should do with it, maybe we should do a podcast.’ And she was game. And that's all she wrote, it's been fun ever since. Kira:   Yeah, that's it. I never thought about a partnership necessarily. I wasn't looking for a partner. But it was interesting that several people ... not just one, mentioned you two should do something together. And I think we were both like, what, huh? And then when Rob mentioned his idea around The Copywriter Club, I was just in because I was looking for a podcast. I wanted to host a podcast again, I had had one previously and I also love building communities. And I thought Rob was a decent human being and we would get along. So it just seemed like a no brainer decision. Justin:   Alright, so it was a podcast first and then the Facebook group came along pretty quick right? Rob:   We put together the Facebook group actually right when we launched the podcast, simply so there would be a place for people to discuss anything that we talked about, or to ask additional questions. We just thought it would be a good support place, you know, just to hang out and have a group. We had no idea how big it was going to get. There weren't really any harden fast plans about any grand strategy of what it was going to become, but those two things, we pretty much launched the same week, the first week of January. Justin:   Nice. So were courses ever part of the original plan? Kira:   Well, we knew from the beginning that this was not a hobby and it wasn't going to be a non-profit. And that we both you know we wanted to build a business together and monetize it eventually. So we understood that, that wouldn't happen overnight but I think we were both very clear and had a conversation where we're like, hey we both have families, we both have a lot of client work, a lot happening, so what are our intentions? And so we were pretty serious about just treating it like a business, from day one. So we knew that we were both interested in creating training programs and creating content. We both really enjoyed creating content, although I would say, we don't create enough of it now. That's what we really want to do more of. I mean the idea was to figure out what is needed in the space and to create it. But I don't think we knew exactly what that looked like at the time. Justin:   Now you guys sort of came about with of a course The Accelerator which became more of a business foundation course. Was that your initial goal or did you kind of think that it might be more of just a general copywriting course? Rob:   So, yeah, like Kira said, we didn't really have a plan. But what we started seeing in the Facebook group in particular, was people were asking for help mostly about business questions. How do I get my first client? How do I choose a niche? How do I setup things so that I can be successful? How do I get my second client? And so we kept seeing these kinds of themes repeated over and over and over in the Facebook group. And that led us to think, okay, if we're going to help everybody in a broader way, or at least help as many people in our group as possible that seems to be where the biggest need is at this point. And so that's the first thing that we built. Justin:   Very cool Kira:   Right. We were thinking through also, okay, what are the six components, I don't know how we settled on six, but six felt right. Maybe Rob ... that was your idea. Like the six cornerstones of a business based off what had worked for us, what we had seen worked for others, and then also what we were learning in the podcast interviews too. So we created the program based on what we felt like were the core components you need to get the business up and running. And also based on topics that we're both interested in and enjoy talking about too, like branding, positioning, niche’ing, which we talk about a lot in the podcast. And putting yourself out there and building authority too, so all of it is stuff we really enjoy and we feel like we also see how it's helped copywriters. So I think we kind of, just took a chance on those six core components, but it ended up working out well. Justin:  Nice, and then the conference, that came about last year. What was the tipping point that you realized you guys are big enough to be able to pull one of those off now? Rob:   I'm not sure that there was a tipping point. So we were asked by Joanna Wiebe at Copy Hackers, to help with a promotion that she was doing. And we thought in order to really succeed at that, we needed to come up with a bonus that would resonate with people and that people would be interested in. And we had been talking about possibly doing an event sometime in 2018, maybe at the end of the year. We've actually been talking to a couple of the speakers that we had at our event and maybe doing something together. And when Joanna reached out, we just said, well let's just throw out a ticket and see what the response is. And we were surprised that so many people were interested in it. And it really forced our hands to then deliver and create a conference after we had done that promotion with Joanna. Kira:   Right. And meantime ... it seems like the same way that Rob and I partnered and multiple people said hey, you two should think about this. At the same time that we were working with promoting Joanna's program, other people, like our mentor, Brian Kurtz, kept telling us we should think about an event and really just kind of kept pushing that idea. And we were talking to Kim Krause Schwalm about partnering with her, you know, doing some type of event as well.