TCC Podcast #103: Building an information business with Belinda Weaver

Copywriter, course creator, and coach, Belinda Weaver joins Kira and Rob for the 103rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Belinda's also the co-host of the popular Hot Copy podcast. We talked with Belinda about the variety of ways she's created income streams for her business. Note: links and a full list of what we discussed is coming soon. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: 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. 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 103 as we chat with freelance copywriter and coach Belinda Weaver about building an information business as a copywriter, what she's learned coaching other writers, creating courses, and running one of the most popular copywriting podcasts, and how tap dancing makes her a better copywriter. Welcome, Belinda. Rob:   Hey, Belinda. Belinda:   Hi, guys. It's really great to be here. Tap dancing, flashback. Oh my gosh. Rob:   Should we jump into tap dancing immediately, or do we want to save that to the end? Belinda:   It's completely up to you. I think it's a lovely hook we can leave people with. Kira:   Let’s save that for the end. Let's start with your story, Belinda, and how you got into copywriting. Belinda:   Well, like most people, had a day job I didn't really like, was looking for an opportunity to do something else. I was working in marketing in Melbourne. We lived just over an hour out of the city, so two plus hours of commuting every day, plus a job I didn't really like. My husband and I started talking about a family, and I started thinking, ‘Well, how is this going to work?’ So I was open to new opportunities, and then I got taken to this kind of sales day with the job. It's a lot of people standing up, giving presentations, doing their pitches. One of them was about copywriting. Now, I did copywriting every day, but I didn't know it was a thing you could actually do as a job on its own. So when, at the end of the presentation, this copywriter started talking about running your own business as a freelance copywriter, I didn't listen to the rest of the day, because that was the idea that I'd been waiting for. As soon as we got back to work, I quietly registered my business. Maybe not that day. I took a day or two to brainstorm a name, but I registered my business. Then, while I was pretending to work, I started marketing and figuring out how to run a business and developing service packages, and then being on social media, and I started getting work. So I did that for about six months. I did my day job. I worked, did copywriting at night and on the weekends. Then after about six months, I was confident enough in my marketing abilities to know that I could get more work. So I was getting regular leads coming in, and I thought, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’ Then on my last day, rather than walking through the office going, ‘Screw you all,’ I put together a presentation for the MD, and I said, ‘I can save you $20,000 on your marketing if you keep me on at my new freelance rate,’ and I just stopped doing all the time-wasting activities. I divided my job into value tasks and low-value tasks, and I had this whole little spiel, and he actually agreed before the presentation had finished. So I had my first client before the end of the day. Rob:   Wow. I mean, that's so smart. Love it. What resources did you use when you made that first decision to move away from marketing and into copywriting, to start writing? Were there books or things that you turned to, to teach yourself the skills, or did you just go at it? Belinda:   I'm a learner, so I took a course. I took a copywriting course, because I think many copywriters, I was doing it, I loved it, I had trust in my instincts, but I wasn't aware of the construction element of copywriting. Once I learned that, I felt much more confident in my ability. A lot of the things I was doing anyway, but I wasn't applying a method to it. So I did a course. I started reading books. I started reading a lot of blogs and following a lot of copywriters to see not only how they wrote, but how they put their business together, how they did their marketing, and gleaning any kind of tips I could get about copywriting as well. Kira:   What did those early days look like for you as far as finding those clients? So you found that first client, your employer. How did you find the other clients at that point? Belinda:   Well, my first client actually came through a mentoring group. I jumped into a mentoring program for copywriters, and my first lead came through there, but then I started publishing on social media. It was back in the day when you could be on social media and share tips about copywriting, and people would flock to you, which is not what it's like now. But, I started doing some social media marketing. So I got a few leads through there. I got my first lead through the mentoring program. The other thing I did was I started connecting with graphic designers and web designers, because I realized we had the same customer base. That was one of my really proactive actions, was introducing myself to web designers and graphic designers and getting to know them, often through social media, and just positioning myself as a copywriter they could refer work to. That's actually where most of my leads started coming from. Rob:   As you started out, how quickly did your business grow? Did you go through that struggle where you felt like you were starving or failing, or was everything a pretty smooth ride? Belinda:   I have to admit, I don't have a dramatic starving copywriter story. It was actually pretty smooth for me, and that's because I was really, really determined, and I've really put a lot of effort into my marketing. I built relationships with people. I maintained relationships with people. I tried to share my knowledge and expertise as much as possible, and I've really felt that that's what drew people to me. I started going to networking events as well, and that gave me enough business to keep going while I refined all my processes around onboarding, and project management, and post sales, and things like that. But, I found it was really quite smooth. Then, within a year I think, I was booked out say four to six weeks in advance. I found people were willing to wait, and that really is all down to the marketing. Kira:   I mean, you said it's smooth, but it sounds like it was smooth because you were really smart about how you jumped into your own business too. I believe you said you spent six months at your job working on the marketing, and really prepping the business before you even quit and felt confident enough that you could leave, while also snagging them as a client. So it sounds like you were really smart in your transition, and you didn't just jump into it without really thinking about it. Belinda:   Yeah, that's exactly right. Jumping into things really works for some people. It does not work for me. I need a plan. I need structure. I need to know I have a safety net, and I need to know it's going to work, and that's all in the preparation for me. Kira:   I'd love to hear about the marketing activities. It sounds like you were doing a lot of different activities when you started out, but what would you say are the key marketing activities that you recommend to new copywriters that deliver the most value if you could only focus on maybe one marketing activity early on? Belinda:   I think it's networking, networking and building relationships. Investing in my network, investing in my marketing, especially when I was busy, is the thing that kept clients coming over and over again. I think a lot of people, a lot of copywriters go, ‘I'm really busy. I don't have time to write a blog. I don't have time to go to networking. I don't have time to be on social media. I just need to write,’ and then the work dries up, and they have to hustle again to get more clients in. So I think consistently building relationships, and doing other marketing activities, but building relationships with people who can refer work to you is something I always prioritize, because when people send you leads, they convert much more easily. You don't have the overheads of getting new business, and you have that consistent stream of clients. It works really well. Rob:   Too true. We could not underline that advice enough. I think relationships are everything in this business. So Belinda, you reached the point with your business that you decided to start doing some additional things in addition to client work, especially creating some information products. Will you talk about the decision to do that and what those products looked like at first, how you developed them, and the impact that that's had? Belinda:   Yeah, sure. At that time I had my first child, and we moved to the states. We moved from Australia to the states when she was 10 weeks old. I found myself in a new country with a small baby trying to manage time zones and nap times, and I found the pressure of getting on the phone to get briefs from clients who were mostly in Australia, and then having enough time to write copy to meet deadlines, I found it incredibly stressful. I found that I wasn't being present with this new baby who was only relying on me,