TCC Podcast #69: The Client Whisperer with Myrna Begnel

Copywriter, marketing strategist, and CMO-for-Hire, Myrna Begnel joins us for our second episode of the week (our 69th overall) to talk about her copywriting business and how she became known as “the client whisperer” among the members of The Copywriter Think Tank. In this episode we cover: •  how Myrna went from selling elevators to agency strategist to writing copy •  what she learned from her career in sales that applies to copywriting •  how you create a relationship with a client so your projects succeed •  how to recreate the “sales conversation” on your sales page •  the questions she asks to understand her client’s customer needs •  what a discovery call with her looks like •  how her processes help her repeat and scale her business •  the “grandma’s house” approach to setting boundaries with clients •  how to get started with processes, then how to improve them •  the lessons she has taken from working with agencies inside and out •  what it’s like to completely start over in business •  why it’s important to focus on mindset and not just skillset We also asked Myrna about what her projects look like as a “CMO for hire” and how she packages her services, and charges a high price for them. Say this next line in your best stadium music voice: “Are you ready for this?” Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: The Copywriter Club IRL Doberman Dan Amy Porterfield Artessa Marketing 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 copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea 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 69 as we chat with copywriter and marketing consultant Myrna Begnel managing clients so they want to keep working with you, what we can learn from the agency world, how she has structured her business and her time to get more done, and what it’s like to start over after building a business with others. Kira: Welcome, Myrna! Rob: Hey, Myrna! Myrna: Hey, guys! Thanks for having me! Kira: Or should we call you Kitty? Myrna: Kitty! Yes. You can always call me Kitty. Rob: I'm not sure why I can't get over that. It's like, to me, you're Myrna, and to Kira, you're Kitty! I guess we're just going to have to live with that. Kira: You know what, though? It fell apart, so Myrna joined our think-tank and I was trying to stick with Kitty and now you have become Myrna and I can't go back to Kitty, so... I'm sticking with Myrna. Myrna: I know. You know, my high school friends all call me Myrna B. My maiden name was actually Beals, but... as if there are other Myrna's, you know... Myrna A, Myrna Z... Rob: (laughs) Yeah, we have to make sure we don't get you confused with Myrna D and Myrna J. Myrna: Yeah, exactly. When you have a unique name like mine, you know, you kind of got to overcome it. Rob: I love it. Kira: So, Myrna, let's start with your story! How did you end up here, and I'm pointing at the spot where you're sitting right now. Myrna: (laughs) Well, it's kind of a convoluted story because I come into copywriting, a lot of the people that I know, they've always known they wanted to be a copywriter, they've had a very direct path into owning their own business and being a copywriter, and I think I come from a very convoluted path just based on my history. Probably my third career. So I started off selling elevators and escalators right out of college and I did that for 6 years. I was the first female sales manager in the company's 150-year history. One of the things that—you know, I'm starting to date myself—we didn't have digital back then. There was a very different way to sell and communicate. We had an internet to do email, but we didn't have Word programs. We actually dictated sales and letters and proposals. So, it was back in the days of three-piece suits and you go to construction site in a business suit; skirts every day. And so, from that world though, one of the things about it is that you always were writing, you were always thinking, you were always communicating and there wasn't this digital world to distract you from everything. There was always that writing in my background. I quit that and actually became a stay at home mom for a couple of years, which is a totally different switch. And I got really bored with that so I was always looking for, what was I going to do next? I went back to school and I got a Masters [degree] in writing. This is probably in my 30s. And totally shifted and started my own business and started a small freelance writing company. At the time, it was focused on, digital was really just coming out. And I was focused on websites and I started building websites and started figuring out technology and I realized that you can apply a lot of the same processes in project management of the elevator world to the exact same thing that you're doing in building websites and writing copy for websites. That was where I first got introduced to a really huge project that changed my trajectory of my career, which was a digital agency hired me to do a huge, huge project for H&R Block. I ended up staying at the agency doing a lot more than copywriting for the next 8 years, and that's really where I learned just about everything that I know about strategy, about how to manage projects, how to be the client whisperer, how to communicate. I got to write in so many different ways. I got to write video scripts that I never even knew I knew how to write, I got to write websites, I got to write emails, I got to create email programs. I talked about all sorts of different kinds of marketing and putting entire marketing plans together. I sold anything from small websites all the way up to $150,000 websites. Really got a lot of exposure and tons and tons of cross training. How I ended up where I am today was a little bit of a fluke. I restarted the company because, once an agency grows from five people to fifty, it becomes a very different animal and it wasn't really fun anymore. So I wanted to go back to what I did before, which was get back to the writing, and it's something that is my passion, it's what I really love to do. So I went back to starting my own company and I was doing that for about six months and writing and doing some of my strategy work as well and I got hired on by another agency—they just made me an offer that I could not refuse. It was literally making 75% more than I was at the old job. And when you're making that kind of money, you think that there's some stability and security in it. Well, it wasn't really a good fit, and the agency wasn't going in the direction that I think I was going in personally, and sometimes the universe just knows what to do, even though you don't. Fourteen months after I had this job, and I was just struggling with it—I hated it. I hated every minute of it. I really was trying to get back to what I wanted to get back into, and fourteen months later, they laid me off because I'm the most expensive employee and they wanted to go in a different direction. they wanted to do business development and that's not what I wanted to do. A month later, my mom gets ovarian cancer and I end up not working for about a year and a half, other than like a 12 week contract stint because I ended up taking care of her. In the meantime, my fiancé—he's a consultant—he loses his job. We go through a 3 or 4 month span where we don't have any work at all, no income, we're living off our savings, and I'm freaking out over that... He gets a job out here in California—we lived in Chicago before—and lo and behold, in the middle of this chaos, I'm moving, I'm dealing with my mom passing away, I'm traveling back and forth, and I'm trying to start a business because I'm going, well, what else do I know how to do and I don't want to go work at an agency ever again... So I've been here about a year and a half and it was great because it was like the giant etch-a-sketch of life! I got to basically start over and decided to build my business exactly the way that I want to, which is why I said the universe decides—you get what you need. Instead of what you want. And I needed to be shaken out of my comfort zone and I needed something there—and that's what I got. Rob: I love the story, and the philosophy—both. But I want to-before we dive into all of the agency experience and what you're doing right now—I want to go all the way back to that first sales job, selling elevators. Myrna: (laughs) Rob: This is-yeah, first of all, not the typical thing that you know, people would normally sell! But, talk a little bit about your sales experience and how that has informed the other things that you do, especially in your writing. Myrna: Yeah! Well, you know, it has a lot to do with relationship building, because selling elevators and escalators is not—you don't just pick up the phone and go cold call somebody and pitch someone and go hey, you want to buy an elevator?? Rob: Yeah, right! Nobody is buying an elevator every week or every month! Myrna: No. Kira: I'll buy one. Myrna, Rob, Kira: (laughs) Myrna: I don't think you can afford it, Kira. (laughter) Myrna: Yeah, it's a lot about building relationships ahead of the sale and it has a lot to do with planning and knowing exactly what somebody wants and what they need. For me, that really translated a lot into process, infrastructure, and doing a lot of legwork upfront before you ever take on a project,