TCC Podcast #118: Copy and branding with Sorcha MacKenzie

Copywriter and brand specialist, Sorcha MacKenzie, is our guest for the 118th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We've admired Sorcha for quite awhile now, and have followed along as she's launched her own brand and website. We asked Sorcha about that process and this stuff too: •  her path from acting to branding to copywriting •  what her business looks like today •  what it’s like to work for big brands like Marvel and Disney •  how research impacts the creative process and brand development •  working with chronic pain so that clients still get what they need •  how Sorcha pads her timelines to give her extra time to get work done •  how she conducts the research for a brand audits and branding work •  the pitfalls of doing group research and focus groups •  how she applies the branding process to her own business •  what she’s done to develop her own brand as a branding expert •  her experience starting her own business •  how she came up with the products she offers for her clients •  her biggest struggles as a freelancer Want to hear what it's like to go from working on an Ant Man promotion to the daily grind of freelance life? Then click the play button below. You can also scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sorcha’s website The Copywriter Accelerator Copyhackers The Brand Gap The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding The Copywriter Club In Real Life Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript:   Rob:   This podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground. Kira:   It's our new membership designed for you, to help you attract more clients and hit $10K a month consistently. Rob:   For more information or to sign up, go to thecopywriterunderground.com. 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 118 as we chat with copywriter and brand specialist Sorcha MacKenzie about working for big clients like Disney and Marvel, understanding brand strategy, the struggles she's had leaving the agency world for freelance, and why puppies make the best and worst office mates. Kira:   Welcome, Sorcha. Rob:   Hey, Sorcha. Sorcha:   Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Kira:   Yeah, we're excited to have you here. We know you well through both The Accelerator and The Think Tank program that you're participating in. But I feel like we're going to get to know you even better today, so let's start with your story and how you got started in copywriting and branding. Sorcha:   Sure, so I'm an accidental copywriter, probably like a lot of people. I was actually trained as an actress until I was about 20 years old. I was going to be a theater actress, and then I kind of bored of the stage world and went to film school. I got an MA in Film Studies. I wrote my dissertation on Grey's Anatomy like all good people do. I ended up interning for Disney afterwards. I did a year's internship and I just never left. I got a really good grounding there. I got to do the creative stuff and learn lots more about the marketing side and all that. So that's really how I got into things, just absolutely stumbled into it. Rob:   Okay, so I've got to know more about the dissertation on Grey's Anatomy. What was the topic? What did you do? What did you write? Sorcha:   So, it was the representations of gender and sexuality within the first season of Grey's Anatomy. So there was lots of like stuff about the gays, the female gays, and all of the kind of representations of different people and all that. It was kind of a groundbreaking show back in the day. I'm going to date myself there. It's been a while since I was at university. Rob:   Okay, cool. So trained as an actress. Tell us more about that experience and how that has fueled your career since. Sorcha:   A lot like being a screenwriter helps being a copywriter, I think having that acting training is really helpful as well, because you get used to jumping into other people's skins and really understanding their motivations and their feelings, which is kind of what we have to do for all of our clients, customers. So I started when I was very, very young. I knew from a really young age that I wanted to act. So I was classically trained. I started doing lessons when I was 5, and I went all the way through until the age of about 20, performed on stage, all of that jazz. But it meant a lot of voice work, a lot of the theory of acting, a lot of ... not quite the psychology of people, but really trying to help you understand other people so that you could become them, which is all things that help my copywriting. Kira:   So Sorcha, what does your business look like today? What services do you offer? How have you structured your business? Sorcha:   Yeah, so my business is probably a little bit different from most copywriters, because I do specialize in branding. So I do a lot of rebrands for people and a lot of messaging documents and pieces like that. I do still write copy, but it tends to be copy that is more brand focused. So web copy, social media copy, that kind of stuff. I don't do as much conversion as other copywriters. It's mainly kind of the branding side of copy that I'm focused on. Rob:   And you picked up this skillset, we know, working in an agency for some pretty big brands. Tell us about that, you know, working at the agency, but also how you picked up the process that you use today working with other clients. Sorcha:   Yeah, so I was really lucky that from a really young age, so I started in my very early 20s right when I graduated. I was working on these huge brands like say Disney, Marvel, Pixar, ABC, ESPN, all kinds of brands, and a bunch more that people wouldn't know were even connected to those brands, because small unnamed brands crop up all the time. So what I really got to do was look at how to do branding in the best way possible when budget isn't an issue and time isn't an issue. And I think those are two problems that a lot of people really suffer when they're freelance, because clients are always like, ‘I need this yesterday, and my budget is $5.’ It's just really difficult to really do anything good with that, mainly because of the research. The research is really what differentiates big agency branding and big agency copy from the small fry guys. When you have the money to do really in-depth research, it just really helps the creative process. Kira:   Cool, and I definitely want to talk about the research and what that looks like. But I'm curious, you know, I think anyone listening might hear Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel, and wonder why ... that's a dream job, why would you ever leave to jump into this crazy world of freelance and entrepreneurship? So what was the catalyst for that change? Sorcha:   Oh gosh, absolutely. And it was my dream job at the time, and I was so lucky to do that for like 13 years. But the main thing for me is, I deal with a lot of chronic health. I have quite a rare genetic condition that affects my joints and my nerves. I was really struggling with just the concept of going into an office every day and being there from ... you know, you say it's 9:00 'til 6:00. But agency world, it's 9:00 'til 6:00 am sometimes. So just that way of living really wasn't jiving for me. I was also down in London. My family are in Scotland, so there was a couple of reasons why I was just like, ‘It's time to make the move.’ And I think I had learnt everything that I needed to from that experience to really go out on my own and give people a great product. Rob:   So yeah, and my list of questions to ask you is growing with every answer that you give us. But let's jump into this idea of dealing with chronic disease, because I think there are at least some people who listen to this show who deal with their own chronic disease, or they're a caregiver for somebody who has something like this. Tell us your strategies for dealing with it, because obviously if you're on deadline, you're working with clients, and then suddenly something happens physically, you're not able to get out of bed or to do the work that you've committed to, that's almost a death blow for a successful freelance career. So how do you deal with that so that you're not leaving your clients hanging? Sorcha:   Absolutely. I manage expectations. I don't talk to my clients about my health unless it is an emergency situation. And I don't feel like they need to know, but I pad my project timelines. So my project timelines are about three times what they need to be, so that if anything crops up, I have tons of time to recoup, get my health back. Unless it's something really, really serious, which luckily it doesn't crop up too often, the client never has to know. And I think that's a really big thing that people who are new freelancers can learn from, is that you control the project timeline. You're the expert, and you're the one who is creating this product, and you need to tell the client how long that's going to take, rather than accepting that they want it in two days. Kira:   Can you give an example of your padded timeline, because I think a lot of us don't even know what's a normal timeline. So we don't know what a padded timeline is, but it would help to hear about yours. Sorcha:   Absolutely. So if I was writing a website which has four or five pages, I can actually do that research and writing in about a week and a half. But I will give myself four or five weeks to do that. Kira:   Got you. Rob:   Okay, yeah, that makes sense.