TCC Podcast #398: Figuring Things Out with Lauren Esmay

The number of people who have listened to all 400+ episodes of The Copywriter Club is likely small. Probably fewer than 100. But today's guest on The Copywriter Club Podcast is trying to add to that number. Copywriter Lauren Esmay has been listening to every episode and posting about them on LinkedIn. We talked about that as well as how she's built her business over the past few years and what's coming next. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: The P7 Client Attraction System The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: In the next couple of weeks we’ll post the official 400th episode of this podcast. Unofficially we’re already past that number as we’ve had a handful of un-numbered episodes posted between the official one. If you were going to listen to every episode, I estimate it would take you about 14 days or so without stopping to eat, sleep or do anything else. I’m not suggesting you do that… but I’m not NOT suggesting that you do it either. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira Hug and I interviewed copywriter Lauren Esmay. Lauren recently took it upon herself to listen to every episode of this podcast and she’s been posting her take aways from each episode on LinkedIn. Looking back on what she shares has reminded me of a lot of great, forgotten advice and ideas and insights shared by so many smart copywriters over the years. And as you’ll see as you listen to today’s episode, Lauren has used this content tactic to connect with a who’s who of experts in the copy and marketing world. That’s not all we talked about, so stick around to here more about Lauren’s story. Before we jump into the interview, you know I’m going to talk a bit about the best copywriter community The Copywriter Underground. We are working hard to make it the most valuable copywriting community and training vault available anywhere. So we’re constantly adding the latest information and help for our members. One thing that has changed recently is the standard Google, Yahoo and other big emailers are using to determine where the email you send ends up. Sometimes that’s the inbox. Sometimes it’s the spam or promotions folders. And sometimes they decide not to send your email at all. It’s true. You hit send, your email service provider sends your message out into the ether… and Google can simply decide that’s as far as it goes. So we’ve invited email deliverability specialist Matt Brown to share with the members of The Copywriter Underground exactly what you need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen to you… or your clients. It’s happening this month… June 2024. And if you want the latest insights on how to make sure your work hits the inbox, you need to be in this masterclass. We’ve shared some information about it along with all of the other benefits you get as a Copywriter Underground member at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. Let me just add that if you know this stuff that Matt will be sharing, you’ll be a much more valuable resource for your clients than a copywriter who just writes up some emails and hands over a google doc full of copy. In fact, if you add the skills Matt will be teaching to your services, you’ll be more likely to land good, high-paying email clients on long retainers than if you just write emails. Join us at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Lauren. Kira Hug: Lauren, how did you get started as a copywriter? Lauren Esmay: So first, thanks for having me. My way into copywriting is much like many other people I've talked to. There was no linear path. I have several degrees in psychology and I went to med school for a bit. I did a lot of different things that I'm just like, I know I want to help people and this is how I'm going to show up. I tried to find places that I thought could make me financially successful and I just kept realizing that I was not happy in these places. And at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the place that I was working for—we took several different crisis lines including high risk suicide crisis lines and veterans crisis lines. It just became very overwhelming for me. And I also had just started my PhD. I'm like, well, what am I going to do? Like I need money. I can't afford to quit. And one of the projects that I had started for the place I was working, the nonprofit, was putting together a resource list when a lot of the inpatient treatment programs began to get capped for their wait list.  So we had to find plan Bs for these people that needed immediate treatment. And that's when I started looking at these websites and I was like, these people have credibility with their degrees and 20 plus years of experience, but it's 2020 and so much lives online. I don't trust this enough to put this into my resource list. And I was trying to, I've always been a very analytical person. And so I was trying to distinguish, well, what does this website lack that others make me feel like I trust that person? So I'm going through this and I have three different lists of this is definitely someone I'm going to put into this resource list. This is someone I'm going to call and talk to them more about what they offer and how they can help these clients. And then the third list of absolutely not. And around the same time, my husband, who is also a therapist, was beginning to think about going into his own private practice and when I decided that I wanted to quit my job, I was like, well, what if I try to make your website? And he's like, well, I have no interest in that. So if you think that you could do it, I'm all for it. So around that time, just because of algorithms I started getting ads for copywriting courses. I found a really cheap, like $500 copywriting course. And I was like, well, I'm going to try this. And if I decide that I don't want to do this, I feel like at least I can build a few skills. And that was my entryway into copywriting, I started finding a few different other therapists that I knew were transitioning into private practice. And I started writing websites. Rob Marsh: You bounced around a bit, like med school, PhD. Was this just a process of finding the thing that you wanted to do or what else was going on? Lauren Esmay: So it's interesting, looking back at like even electives that I took in college, like I took creative writing courses. I took a lot of statistics courses that I didn't need to take just because I have always enjoyed things like analytics and measuring different outcomes… I took several philosophy courses I didn't need because they were heavily relying on writing and seeing different points of views. I think I'd always been interested in writing, but I grew up thinking you can't make money writing. Anytime I would take time away from work, I'd be like, I don't want to go back to work because I'm not interested in this. This isn't fulfilling to me.  And so when I started doing these projects, and some of the projects, even in the beginning, I was getting paid more for one project than I would get paid in a month at my other job. And I was like, I could easily live off of this just like with the experience I have right now. During this time as well, I've still been finishing my PhD. So I'm in the dissertation part now. It's been a lot of switching from academic writing to copywriting, which I learned is not as easy as some people may think. And so I jumped around a lot. And I think that I used to think that learning was linear, but a lot of times learning now is like learning what you don't want in life to get to where you are happy and to get to the path that you want to be on. Kira Hug: Yeah, and Rob, I don't think you know this, but Lauren and I went to the same college. We both went to Virginia Tech. Rob Marsh: Oh, nice. You were like best friends at school, right? Kira Hug: I wish. No, I was a couple year ahead. Only a few years. Only a couple years. But the statistics classes, I definitely took the only one I had to take, and then I missed the exam somehow. So I was probably in the art gallery at the time, missing my exams. So a different experience there. But I'm wondering if you could just tell us a little bit more about your experience in the academic world, especially since you're currently in your PhD program and wrapping it up. There are probably other writers who are interested. We're all into personal development and learning. And so that could be interesting to other writers. Like, what do you wish you would have known or someone would have told you before getting into that path? Maybe even just with med school to both speaking to both. Lauren Esmay: Sure. I think it's important to know too, that I grew up in a very rural part of the Southwestern part of Virginia. And so it's a place that most people don't get out of, but if you do, you never return. I just knew growing up that if I wanted to be financially successful and in better shape than when I grew up, that I needed to go to college. And also, I think that I entered college right as the recession of 2008 was in its full swing. And so it was, it was heavily being pushed on kids as young as middle school to know exactly what they wanted to do for the rest of their life—I just turned 35—and I think that is completely ridiculous because I clearly had no idea what I wanted at that time.  I actually chose Virginia Tech because they have both a nutrition program and a psychology program, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I went to a school that offered both. So if I switched majors, I didn't have to switch schools. And ironically, I switched out of the nutrition major because they were going to make me take organic chemistry, which I needed to take for med school. So I ended up taking that.