TCC Podcast #95: Staying Curious and Seeking New Opportunities with Julia Reinisch

Copywriter Julia Reinisch is in the house for the 95th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Julia chatted with Kira and Rob about a variety of topics from how she came to join The Copywriter Think Tank to her favorite dive spots in Roatán. Long time listeners know that we like to talk with copywriters at all stages in their business, and while Julia is not a beginner, many listeners will relate to the effort Julia is going through to build a thriving freelance business. Here’s what we covered: •  how curiosity and a suggestion from her family led her from social work to copywriting •  where she found her very first client and the kind of work resonated with her •  how her background in social work makes her a better writer •  the kind of work she does as an in-house copywriter at a University •  how she learned to talk to customers and thicken her skin with a job in retail •  the unique steps she took to start her own copywriting business •  why Julia thinks every copywriter needs a great website •  what she’s done to take her business to the next level •  her thoughts about connecting with other writers in the Copywriter Think Tank •  what she’s done to pitch her employer on hiring her as a copywriter •  the advice she has for copywriters just starting out •  her thoughts about working with other writers •  what she’s doing with her business in the future •  her favorite dive spots in Roatán To get this episode in your earbuds, visit iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcast app. Or simply click the play button below. And if you don’t like listening, you can scroll down for a full transcript (there’s even an option to download it and read it later).   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Yeti MooseJaw REI Jax Asana The Copywriter Accelerator The Copywriter Think Tank Mary’s Crack The Blue Cave Julia on Twitter MomentumCopy.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 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 Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira:   You're invited to join the club for Episode 95, as we chat with in-house and freelance copywriter, Julia Reinish, about her move from social work to copywriting, what she did to pitch herself to a big client, the struggles of a full time writing job and the place adventure plays in her life. Welcome Julia. Julia:  Hey, Rob, Kira, thank you so much for having me. Kira:   Yeah, great to have you here as one of the members of our think tank, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit more. But, Julia, can you just start with your story? How did you end up as a copywriter? Julia:  Yeah. Personally, I've always been a really creative person. Growing up I guess, I was the child that probably kept my parents super entertained all the time because I was always finding something new to explore and something to really learn a lot about. I know at one point I got really interested in everything about Atlantis and Lost City type things and codes at one point. I thought that I was totally going to grow up and be a spy. So just all kinds of creative things like that. But one thing that's remained constant, I guess, is that I've always been really interested in writing. I won my first writing contest at nine years old I think. From there, did a lot of writing in school and everything as everyone else does, but I was always getting recognized for it. So you would think that when I'd get to college and everything, I'd want to actually pursue that as a career, but I didn't. I guess a part of me just really wanted to reach more of the sensitive part of myself. I would say I'm a very sensitive person and I'm always really keeping an eye out for people who are having a hard time in life. And I actually decided to study social work. That did not make my family super happy because they thought that I wouldn't be able to make a decent living for myself, but there's lots of people who are doing well doing that, so I guess to kind of make them happy too, and because they know me super well, I also studied communications and journalism in college. So right after school, I graduated and I worked as a social worker for about five years. I worked primarily with folks who were homeless, housing a lot of refugees, a lot of young adults who aged out of the foster care system and that was actually really cool for me to be a part of seeing people's transformations, seeing people in really heartbreaking situations, but seeing the resilience in them was really inspiring to me. But the thing is, is being a really sensitive person, I would get really overwhelmed with it and I definitely, within those five years, got burned out. I would go home feeling like I had headaches every day. I would feel like I'm not even making a difference and I was just like, "Man, this cannot be what life is all about for me. Something's not working here." So I got really interested in learning more about my self-care and just being aware of that. Finally one day my family, they asked me, "Why aren't you pursuing writing? We've always seen you as a writer. We've seen how much you enjoy it. Why don't you look into it more?" So when they told me that, I thought about it and I looked back at my couple jobs that I'd had in social work. And even then, I had been finding ways to write. For example, in the refugee program when I was working with housing refugees, a lot of these folks would be coming in and we wouldn't know that they were coming into the United States. We would get a week's notice basically and we would have to go out and find a landlord that would be willing to work with this family of eight or nine people and be willing to rent to them, even though they had never met them. And that's a pretty hard sale, especially ... I was in Minneapolis in St. Paul at the time. But that's a really hard sell, so I had noticed that a lot of landlords, they just weren't getting it. And I was getting asked the same questions over and over again. So, I had actually written up this, I guess you would say it was like a facts document, FAQ, frequently asked questions document, where I took some of the main questions that landlords were asking me over and over. Like, are these folks coming in here legally? How do I know they'll be good renters? How do I know they'll pay the rent? And I created this little marketing slick you would probably say, and I started using that for landlords. Then, there were just other projects here and there that I noticed that I was finding excuses to do those kinds of things, even though I was still in social work. So I was thinking, "Okay. I've never really seen myself as a fictional writer." It never really interested me that much. But, there has to be a way to actually do more of this business writing. There has to be a way to do more of this. So I started doing some research online and I don't even know where exactly I found it, but I stumbled upon the term copywriting. And I thought, "Well this is kind of interesting." A lot of people when they hear copywrite, they think it's just about legal stuff and protecting property and things, but I dug more into it and I realized this persuasive writing, writing that sells, writing that's informative and educational for folks like that, kind of writing really interested me. That was the kind of writing that I had been doing, honestly, for years. Even as a social work, I was a camp counselor, like all these different things. I had been doing that kind of writing for a while. So, I started to look into it more. I looked on LinkedIn and this is actually where I found my very first client, was on LinkedIn. They were asking for blog writers. They represented a cleaning services company. So I started writing blogs for a cleaning company. Not exactly the most interesting stuff to write about, not very thrilling so to say, but I got a few blogs on there that actually went pretty viral for a while. I know I had one that was about 11 ways not to use vinegar to clean your home or something, and I guess that was a huge hit for some reason. Rob:   I'm going to interrupt right here. Julia:  Yeah, please. Rob:   What are they? Am I misusing vinegar at my home right now? I don't know. Julia:  Oh, man, Rob, I would have to look it up. I know something about you don't want to use it on your computer screen because it can remove the coating on your computer. I think it makes eggs coagulate, so you don't want to use it to pick up eggs off the floor, stuff like that. Rob:   Good to know. Thank you. Julia:  Well, I'm glad I could save you the trouble of that. I'll find it for you. And I can help you read that later. But, yeah, so I did some writing for them. Eventually, I got referred to a trucking company. I wrote a bunch of blogs and stuff for this trucking company, which was ... man, that was a crazy ride. But I realized as I was doing this, I really enjoyed the research part. These weren't the most sexy industries to write about per say. They're hard to spice up sometimes. But I enjoyed the challenge of it. So I would find ... I was talking to people and asking to talk to people who were truck drivers and I bought the CDL training manual just to really dig into it. I realized how much I loved that research part of it and really trying to get my head into what , for example, a truck driver, they're driving all the time. They don't have a lot of free time. And when they do have free time, they're going to eat or sleep. So it was a good challenge for me to try to think about what are these folks going to actually take the time to read in their very,