TCC Podcast #325: From Solo Copywriter to Thriving Agency Owner with Chanti Zak

Over 271 episodes later, we’ve FINALLY brought back Chanti Zak for the 325th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. From solo copywriter to agency owner, Chanti breaks down her journey over the last few years, and how she became known as THE quiz funnel expert. Her insights on growing a thriving business are ones you won’t want to miss. Here’s what we talk about: Why Chanti made the decision to hire a team and how it’s helped her grow her OWN business. Hitting a 50/50 revenue mark between clients and courses. What unique advantage do copywriters have over other business owners? How to use your energy for what you love and avoid burnout (especially when growing a family). Who was her first team member and what did they do? When to start saying “no” to client work and “yes” to your own business. How to set your team up for success and realizations that will save you time, money, and a headache. Why your business needs to be more like Mcdonald’s. The importance of having a system for everything in your business. How to break the people-pleasing pattern. Why you need to create boundaries and implement them. Where does Chanti’s copywriting energy go nowadays? Mindset shifts to go from copywriter to CEO. The challenges of writing for yourself vs. writing for clients. Should you become an e-commerce copywriter? The negative bias around shifting your content. How quizzes can work for YOUR business and why they’re still effective. Tools for building a growth mindset and handling tough conversations. How The Copywriter Accelerator helped establish foundations for her business. What’s possible in a short period of time? Press play to listen to the episode or read the transcript below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Join The Copywriter Accelerator The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Chanti's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM Episode 54 Episode 141 Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  If you listen to last week's episode, you know that from time to time, we like to have previous guests come back and talk about the evolution of their businesses since the last time that we spoke. This week, we're doing it again. Our guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is former Copywriter Accelerator member and former Copywriter Think Tank member, Chanti Zak. Chanti shared the details about the three phases of her business that she's gone through over the last couple of years since we last talked to her and when she first started out as a copywriter. And if you are just starting out or you're thinking about what your business could become in the future, you're going to find a lot of inspiration in what Chanti has to share today. Kira Hug:  But first, this podcast episode is sponsored by The Copywriter Accelerator, which is our five-month mastermind/coaching program for copywriters who want to build a profitable copywriting business and make roughly $10,000 a month in their business consistently. So if that grabbed your attention, if that's what you want to do in the New Year, then join the wait list for The Copywriter Accelerator, and you can do that by going to thecopywriteraccelerator.com. Rob Marsh:  Okay, let's get to our interview with Chanti. Kira Hug:  Let's just rewind a little bit. We don't have to cover everything that's happened since we last chatted, but can you share a highlight reel with one of your highlights from the last two years post-COVID? Chanti Zak:  Oh my gosh. From the last two years, probably one of the biggest things has been building a team and just working with a lot more brilliant humans and learning how to ask for help and support in my business, but also in life. Rob Marsh:  We'll link to the first interview. In fact, we've talked to you a couple times on the podcast, if I'm not mistaken, Chanti. But we're going to link back to those so that people can catch up and hear how you built your business and how you literally went from getting laid off to creating this business. But we should probably also not only have you just built the team, but let's talk a little bit about where you are in your business, the kinds of things that you're doing today, the kinds of courses and work that you do for the clients. When we talked that first time, you didn't have this huge roster of famous, big name marketers and copywriters and the who's who of the internet that you have today. So tell us about that business. Chanti Zak:  Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's been a wild ride. So yeah, I think the first time I was on the pod was totally solo, really just figuring things out and I feel like I had no clue where I was headed or what I was doing. And today, I sometimes feel the same way, but I have a little agency, so that's a big change because demand for quizzes became so impossible for me to meet by myself that it was time to bring other people in. And so the agency; learning how to run that, that's been a big change. And then I think the first one was on the pod, I didn't have a course either, and I was very much behind the scenes and putting all my energy into everybody else's business and not my own. So shifting from that to, "Okay, I'm going to use and discover my own voice and build my own audience and use the skills I'm using for clients for myself." And that's been a journey too. So Grow with Quizzes is my main course, and I probably am 50/50 now in terms of revenue from clients and from the course and other smaller courses that I've created. And that was my goal for a long time, was to get to that 50/50 mark. And so, now I'm there and wondering kind of what's next. Kira Hug:  Congratulations. Because reaching that 50/50 mark is not easy, and I know it's a goal for many copywriters we talked to. I want to go back in time and just go to the moment or the moments when you were thinking through your strategy and thinking through, "Do I want to build an agency, do I want to be a 50/50 agency in courses?" How did you work out the plan so that you could start to implement and find people and build it out? Chanti Zak:  So I think as copywriters, we're in a unique position because we see directly the impact and results that words and stories and knowing how to sell has for our clients and seeing that for them necessitates seeing it for ourselves. So that was the shift for me was like, "Oh, what I did this thing for a client that made them millions or grew their list by tens of thousands, what if I applied those same skills to my own business? And what would that look like in terms of just using my energy to do what I love and not burnout?" Because I think that's another thing as copywriters, once you're in the groove and you know how to get clients and you gain some solid skills, there's almost always too much work and too many people who are like, "I want that. I want that." And so yeah, learning to say no and say yes to experimenting with doing these things for myself and my own business, I think that happened probably like 2017, 2018, I started really shifting my mindset to that direction, but that was really hard. And at first, I created the course and I didn't have a team and I was still doing one-on-one client projects, figuring out how to launch my own course, support my own students, and it was just way overwhelming. Every big change that I made in my business, even adding the course, building the agency, building a team was brought forth because of my children. Well, my husband and I decided we were going to have another baby when my son was four. And that was a wake-up call because I didn't know what it was going to be. With my first, I didn't sleep for two years and it was so intense. So I'm like, "Okay, preparing for that, what can I do to set myself up for this to not lead to massive burnout and overwhelm?" And so, the course was the solution in that instance. And then fast forward, when my daughter was seven months old, I found out I was pregnant and I'm like, "Okay, having another baby." And that was when I really looked at bringing in support and building that agency. So those were the key moments where I realized, "Okay, big change needs to happen." And both of them changed everything. Rob Marsh:  So, Chanti, listening to you talk about that, you went from being on your own to growing to 10 people, that's a pretty big jump. Will you step us through each decision like what was the first position you added, what was the second, and why did you need that person in your business? Obviously you need to be generating the revenue to support a team like that, none of us have gold mines in our backyards. You might actually have one in your backyard just undiscovered, but my backyard is not quite that big. But yeah, talk us through building that team step by step. Chanti Zak:  Yeah. Well, and I'll just preface that with that's been a real challenge and struggle is the revenue to support the team. There have been many months where on the surface I'm making a ton of money, but behind the scenes, I'm spending all of it on a mostly team. So that's been a huge challenge that I'm honestly still trying to navigate and figure out. But the first team member that I brought on was a VA, and that was pretty early on. And I would highly, highly recommend anyone listening who's still doing their own invoicing and putting their own proposals together, and if you can afford even just a few hours a week, that was a game changer, that was the first step. And I think I started with 10 hours a month of support from my VA. So that was the first step was getting a VA who helped me with all the administrative stuff. And then from there, I started bringing on contractors to help with client projects.