TCC Podcast #265: The Parallel Welcome Sequence, Taking List Growth to a New Level, and Building a Name for Yourself on Upwork and Beyond with Daniel Throssell

Daniel Throssell takes the mic on the 265th episode of The Copywriter Club podcast. Daniel is a copywriter who has created something he likes to call, “The Parallel Welcome Sequence.” He teaches his students how to look at storytelling from a different lens, and now he’s going to give you a glimpse into how he makes it happen. Here’s how the conversation breaks down: His grand escape from being an electrical engineer on a remote island. Winning a coaching call based on a story he wrote with no experience at all. How he was able to go from no experience to charging $200 an hour on Upwork. The Facebook message that would change the game for Daniel. How he managed to become the most-copied Upwork profile and how he gained 5 star reviews. Why he is so passionate about writing soap-opera-slash-personality-driven emails. The importance of partnership in copywriting. The difference between one off projects and growing with a business over time. The advantages of building your own list vs writing for a client list. How to get on more podcasts with this simple tip. The benefits of having a financial cushion when going after your dream business. How to test out your own launch ideas and analyze the results. How Daniel grew his list from 0-5000 in 18 months: what’s the secret? Why you should think about creating a welcome sequence from a different angle. The importance of staying consistent even when you think no one is listening. Why copywriters have an edge against other marketers and business owners. How to maximize and connect with your superfans. Shifting your business from client-focused to self-focused. Who should do a parallel welcome sequence? Pop your earbuds in or check out the transcript below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Daniel’s website Laura Belgray interview part 2 Brandi Mowles podcast interview Connect with Robbie King  Full Transcript: Kira:  If you've ever said to yourself, "I want to get paid to be me," this is the interview for you. Today's guest for the 265th episode of The Copywriter Club podcast is Daniel Throssell. A copywriter who's not afraid to show his weird side and approach list growth and relationship building differently. But before we dive in, let me introduce you to my cohost for today, Robbie King. Robbie, welcome to the show. Thanks for doing this with me. Robbie:  Thanks very much for having me. It's lovely to be here. Kira:  I want you to just quickly introduce yourself, who are you, how do we even know each other? Robbie:  Yes. So, we met probably virtually about two and a half years ago, when I was just kind of scratching my head about copywriting. And remember, we had a bit of back and forth. And then pretty quickly I realized that signing up for The Underground, and then eventually The Think Tank was just going to be the best thing to get my business going and help stop me banging my head against the wall, I think. Kira:  And Robbie, what are you doing today? Robbie:  So today, I actually work in house for a tech marketing agency. That was after a good year and a bit of having my freelance business. I did that after a good few months of just learning the whole business side of running a copywriting business. I thought I'd balanced that out a bit by just, I guess learning on someone else's dime, there's a lot to be said for that. It's proven very useful. I've gone deeper into my skill set, into my niche, which is video and content consultancy. So, I've been doing a lot of that. And I'm still writing copy. So, it's been quite the journey. Kira:  I know you shared this with me earlier, but maybe you could just share that that idea came from Matt Hall at TCCIRL. Do you mind just sharing how you had that idea to go back in house? Robbie:  Yes. Shout out to Matt Hall. Great guy, great talk, TCCIRL 2020. He had a great take on spending time freelancing, and in house and the benefits of both, and how both environments have the pros and cons for one's education. And so, with that in mind, I thought that after a couple of years, freelancing would be a good idea to go in house. And, of course, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "Well, at some point, I may flip back to freelance." That's the exciting part, I guess. Kira:  Very cool. Well, let's jump in. Before we do that, of course, this episode of the podcast is sponsored by The Think Tank Mastermind. Robbie, as he said, is an alumni member of The Think Tank. So, Robbie, can you just share maybe what your experience was like in The Think Tank and the biggest benefit for you? Robbie:  Yes. So, I mean, I came to The Think Tank probably from a slightly different position to most people, my business was actually quite new. So, it was kind of the definition of moving fast and breaking things. I was just like, "Let's dive right in," and just surround myself with all kinds of really talented people. And I mean, firstly, it was just the perfect way to sort of face all your fears with a bunch of like-minded people all at once. When you're starting a copywriting business it can be a bit of a daunting thing, can be quite lonely. The Think Tank was anything but that obviously. For anyone who's ever done one of The Copywriter Club hot seats, it was kind of that on steroids in the sense that you just had this just laser focus from a bunch of different brains all offering you tips and gunning for you. Do I mean gunning for you? I think gunning for years is about... Anyway, God, I can't even talk about that. Kira:  We get what you're saying. Robbie:  They're in your corner. All the retreats and the hot seats that we did in The Think Tank were particularly memorable, just because every time we did one, I just came away with just a bigger brain and a whole lot more wisdom. Kira:  Well, thank you, Robbie for sharing that. And if anyone listening wants to learn more, you can go to copywriterthinktank.com. Now let's get into the episode. Daniel:  Well, I was originally an electrical engineer. I have a degree in electrical engineering, and I was working for Chevron on this tiny little island off the coast of Western Australia. You had to fly on this little dinky plane for two hours, it was rattling the whole time. And then you were there for four weeks in the red dirt and the heat, building this gas plant. There was no town or anything out there, it's a nature reserve. It really sucked. And while I was working out there on my four weeks at a time, 5:00 AM to 5:00 PM shifts, I used to follow Ramit Sethi, and his email list. And one day he had this contest, and he was launching his new copywriting course back then. And he's like, "Whoever writes the best sales letter for my course, I will send you my three favorite books on copywriting and we'll do a half hour chat about copywriting." I didn't know what the heck, I'd never heard the word copywriting. I didn't know it had a sense other than copy and paste. But I was like, "Well, I like Ramit. I've seen how he writes emails and his sales pages, and I've even bought stuff from him, so I'm sure I can do that." But because I didn't really know what you were supposed to do, I didn't go with the whole... There was some people entering that contest, and I saw the entrance and they're like, "Here's how to 2X, 5X, or even 10X your business with the power of copy." And I was reading their entries and I was like, "Oh man, I'm going to lose." Because I just told this story about how I convinced my wife to let me buy one of Ramit's books for 200 bucks. I just told that story. And I was like, "Ah, I'm going to get so smashed," and then he picked my copy as the winner of that. And he was like, "That was better than most professional copywriters I've ever seen." And I was like, "Yeah, it's the first time I've ever written copy." And he's like, "What? What are we going to talk about on this call?" I was like, "I don't know, can you tell me how to start as a copywriter?" So, he gave me some advice, some books to read. And after that, I jumped into Upwork. I had heard of Upwork and I thought I'd try my hand there. I bought a course on doing Upwork and I ended up having some good success. In the next nine months or so, I went from literally having no experience there and I went to charging $200 an hour. I was one of the most expensive writers there, making some of the most money. And people were ripping me off, my profile and everything because I was doing so well. Around that time, my reputation got around, and I got contacted by a guy called Scott Pape, who back then was fairly well known. But he reached out to me. And he said, "Hey, I need some help writing copy for a book I'm about to launch." And so, he brought me on to write the launch funnel for that book. And that ended up being the best-selling book in Australian history. It's called the Barefoot Investor. So that was the start of a kind of a wild ride working with him for the next five or so years. And I still infrequently do things with him. But I helped him manage his investment newsletter and his email business, which was huge. So, I learned a whole lot from him until 2020 when basically I kind of struck out on my own, started building my own email list and doing my own thing. And that's basically the story of how I got to today in a nutshell. Rob:  So, let's go all the way back to the red dirt island, nature preserve. I'm curious, you're an engineer, what's going on that makes you not want to be an engineer. Most people would say, "Hey, engineering is a great career, good money, good opportunities." And you trade that in for a life of freelance, what's going on? Daniel:  Man, oh, the money was great, because they pay you a good bonus to be away from your home for four weeks at a time. I should say,