TCC Podcast #90: Thoughts about scarcity with Rob Marsh and Kira Hug

Wow, ninety episodes. That was fast, right? For the 90th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk about some of the challenges of running a growing Facebook group and managing competing cultures, expectations, and conversations that cross the line. Some of the topics we covered in this rare guest-less episode include: •  what Rob has been doing with his business for the last two months •  a little bit about Kira’s experiment with a “mini micro agency” •  the program experiment that “failed” •  why we created the Facebook group and why we sometimes let things go farther than some people feel appropriate •  balancing trust and intent with censorship •  the place for scarcity in copywriting •  how scarcity impacts us as copywriters •  what Kira does when she finds herself in a scarcity mindset •  how to create scarcity the right way Plus we talked a bit about what’s coming up next for us and the club. We’ve got some great new (and returning) guests joining us in the next few weeks that we’re very excited about. To hear it all, visit iTunes, Stitcher or click the play button below. And as always you can scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Accelerator The Copywriter Think Tank The Hidden Brain Scarcity Episode Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: 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 90, as Kira and I talk about what’s been going on in the Copywriter Club lately, and in our own businesses; how we hope to monitor Facebook discussions moving forward; and why scarcity is such a powerful motivator for your clients, and something you need to watch out for in your own business. Rob: Hey, Kira. Kira: Hey Rob. How’s it going? Rob: It is going awesome. Before we started recording, we were just talking about how we’re both so happy that Spring is here, and spending some time outside. You were going for a run; I’m hoping to get out on my bike and...yeah, things are going good. Kira: Yeah, definitely. Getting outside has helped with the warm weather; I feel like I haven’t done much of that over the last two months, so yeah. This was a first job in a long time. Very slow; very slow pace! Rob: Yeah, I totally get that. So, my bike has been sitting in my garage for way too long, because the handlebar tape broke on my bike, and I fixed it with some packing tape, and that just bugged the heck out of me. So I had this tape sitting, ready to make a repair, and I finally got it done on Saturday, and got out for a ride, and oh my gosh. You know, like ten minutes in, I’m like, why haven’t I been doing this everyday? You know, I miss being on my bike. So, yeah; thank you Spring for getting here, and getting my out of my desk chair, and out into the world. Kira: Yeah. Well I feel like you and I have been hibernating a bit the past....year, maybe? Rob: Laugh. Yeah, a little bit. Kira: And just chugging along on the copywriter club, and putting it together. So what’s been happening in your business? Because we haven’t really talked about your business since episode 80 which was about two months ago, right? Rob: Yeah. So I think we talked right after the live even that we did. Kira: Right. Yeah. Rob: And you know, after the live event, I took on a lot of work, and so for the last two months, have been working really hard on balancing a couple of really large projects, along with what we were doing in The Copywriter Club, and i have to admit, for the last two months, while the work has been steady and the income has been good, it has been, you know—I’ve literally been working 60, 70-hour weeks, and not spending nearly enough time with my family or on myself. And it definitely wears you down. I think you’ve been doing something similar. Kira: And we did the same thing, I guess. I didn’t realize that, but after the event, I feel like January and February were so focused on the event in New York, that I missed the client work, or I felt...I like to get out there; I like to speak to client; i like to book work; I like to make money; I like to sell. SO I think I just got overly zealous and just jumped into client work, and took on a  lot as well. We both did that, and so I definitely booked the biggest two months I’ve ever booked with more projects than really I could handle and decided to look at it like I’m running a micro-agency, and to bring on subcontractors as needed, and really just to treat it like, you know, I’m an agency; I need to operate differently than I have in the past, and this will be an experiment like we always say. So, that’s been my March and April, and while I feel like I have taken away a lot from that and it has helped me grow—which you kind of always have to say right?--it was painful, it was very painful. I don’t know why I put myself through these torturous events just to, like, grow personally. But yeah; I think the client work paired with our launch of our accelerator program which we launched twice a year, and actually we’re going to start launching it just once a year in September, and then the launch of our Think Tank Mastermind group, and then we even launched a new program—the Accelerator Plus—for our former Accelerator members. Which, you know, well we can talk more about that in a minute. Laughs. Rob: Yeah. Well, but yeah I think you’re right. We seemed to have done a lot of similar things. You sort of took on a lot of subcontractors; I didn’t do any subcontracting, or did very little subcontracting, but also took on a partnership project with an agency that, you know, was worth far more than the typical project that I do, and involves several videos and animations and, just a beyond scope of what I’ve done as a freelancer. You know, I used to do that kind of stuff a lot in the agency world before I did my own business, but it’s good to push yourself sometimes, but then you have to let the string sort of set back, and relax, and so hopefully this month, maybe we can do a little bit of that. Kira: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s happened. Yeah, I think it’s just a lesson I need to learn, and I, for some reason, have a hard time learning that lesson, but I do think that I am slowly starting to get it. I just think I need to—I don’t know. I need to feel the pain. I really need to feel it in order to change, and to learn these lessons, like, hey, I should take on less clients while we’re building The Copywriter Club—that makes sense! So, I do feel like sense this crazy few months, you know, I’ve brought on a virtual assistant who is amazing, and will probably have her on the show soon, so that has helped, and I’m working through that very slowly—baby steps—because it’s tricky to on-board people. At least, I have a hard time on-boarding people. And then I’ve been working on just managing my schedule too, to create more space, because I’m the type of person who will just book everyday, like back to back meetings, which I know you’ve done as well, and that’s been really hard for both of us to just go like, no stop. Like we don’t even stop for bathroom breaks. Like we just book it, flat out, all day, calls back to back, which is crazy. So, I am managing my calendar, creating space on Mondays and Fridays, every morning from 9 to 11; just blocking it. Like, just blocking time now, which is something that I had not done in the past. So again, I kind of feel like I need that pain to really motivate me to make the changes that I need to make, and a lot of what we teach other copywriters to do as well. Rob: Yep, that sounds good. And you mentioned that you tried a new product, this Accelerator Plus is what we called it, tentatively—an experiment that we ran, because we wanted to be able to connect with the people who have been in the Accelerator but aren’t ready, for whatever reasons, to move up into the Think Tank, and you know, we put together a little bit of a program, it was a test; we didn’t launch anything, we didn’t really advertise or tell anybody about it, accept for a few of the people who had been in the Accelerator, and with all of the other stuff that was going on in our businesses, and the other launches that we already talked about, it was just too much, you know? It was one of those things where we had all these great intentions about creating something else, and we just felt like we couldn’t give it 100% because of all of that other stuff going on in our lives, so we pulled the plug, which is the first time we’ve ever done anything like that. And as you mentioned earlier, we see everything as an experiment. It’s never a failure to stop something that’s not working, or to stop something that you can’t give 100% to, because you and I want to deliver the very best that we possibly can, and if the experience we’re creating isn’t phenomenal, then we don’t want to be apart of that. And so, yeah. We actually experimented something and then pulled the plug on it, within a month, because it just didn’t feel like it was meeting everybody’s needs. Kira: Yeah, and I feel like it was a good decision, because it allowed us to start having a bigger conversation about what we want to create, what we want to continue to offer... Basically, like, what are our offers; what can we do really well. So I feel like i forced us to think about all the difference pieces because you and I have been in the weeds so much, and I like to operate in the weeds and kind of stay in the weeds, and have a hard time pulling back. So we were forced even to just sit down,