TCC Podcast #247: Growing Wings as You Fall Off a Cliff with Nicole Piper

Nicole Piper is our guest for the 247th episode of The Copywriter Club podcast. Nicole is a copywriter and direct response marketer. She started her career as a global brand development strategist working for companies such as Nickelodeon, MTV, and Pokemon. Now she focuses on writing for the health and wellness space. Here’s what we talk about: Going through a divorce and losing your 6-figure job. Falling upon copy courses and becoming energized with everything you’re consuming. When you might be ready to go all in and give it your best shot. How following your gut can open up the doors to 100’s of possibilities. Feeling unsure about your copy and it falling into the hands of Kevin Rogers. Becoming Parris Lampropoulos’ cub and gaining an incredible and surreal experience. Manifesting two clients in one week by getting out of your own way. How to get comfortable with not seeing the entire path ahead of you. The secret to the fastest growth and success. Hint: It’s not by doing it alone. What you can learn from Nickelodeon’s marketing angle. How to find the best humans in the world who are collaborative rather than competitive. When it may be the right time to hire a content strategist. The 4 P’s and how it can bring your message to life. Where most copywriters mess up when making big promises. Why you should have someone read your copy out loud to you. The better way to break into the health and wellness space. The challenge of finding the right people for the job. The truth about being an expert to your client. The difference between prevalence and intensity is the solution to finding your ideal client. Listen to the episode below or read it in the show notes. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Think Tank Piper’s website Piper’s health coaching website Grace’s website Full Transcript: Rob:  There's this idea made popular by the movie, The Secret, that you can manifest things into your life simply by thinking about them. Actually, that's a bit of a simplification of the idea of manifesting, but I think you get the idea. By focusing on things like money or say a nice home or great clients, you actually attract those kinds of things into your life. Now, we're not so sure that it's that simple. In fact, I think I'm on record as saying that it doesn't actually work that way, but we do think that when you work hard and you focus on the right things, good stuff generally happens to you and your business. Our guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is copywriter, Nicole Piper. Nicole is a great example of this manifesting process, attracting opportunity and clients by getting to work and focusing on what she really wanted to happen in a situation where many of us would probably do the opposite. We'll let Nicole share her story in a moment. But first, before we get to that, I want to just introduce the Copywriter Think Tank that's the sponsor for this episode, and that's our mastermind for copywriters and other marketers who want to do more in their business and their work. Maybe you've dreamed of creating a product or a podcast or building an agency, or a product company, or anything else beyond just simply writing for clients, billing by the penny or by the hour. If you want to become the best known copywriter in your niche, that's the kind of thing that we do in the Copywriter Think Tank. And because Kira is still on maternity leave, my guest host for today is Grace Baldwin. Grace is a member of the Think Tank. Grace, you can share a line or two about your experience, and just tell us what you think about that. Grace:  Sure. Hi everybody. Yeah, my name is Grace Baldwin, I am a B2B SaaS copywriter currently working in-house in the company. But yeah, I'm part of the Think Tank and it's been a pretty phenomenal experience, and I'm super excited to be here. Rob:  We'll talk more about surrounding yourself with community and that kind of thing in this interview, but if you're interested in learning more about the Think Tank, go to copywriterthinktank.com, and maybe you could join this extraordinary group of business owners as well. Again, Grace, you can find Grace at heygracebaldwin.com. As she mentioned, she's an in-house copywriter and a SaaS copywriter. She's made amazing leaps forward in her business over the last couple of months, and so I'm thrilled to have you, Grace, to be my co-host for, at least the comments and the interjections here in this episode. Grace:  So happy to be here. Rob:  Okay. Let's jump into our interview with Nicole and find out more about her business, the clients she works with and her story. Nicole:  Okay. Yeah, that's actually ... It was like cosmic or divine. That's what I like to say when I look back on it, because I've been in the corporate world, as you guys know, for many years, 29 years. I'd always of dreamed of becoming a writer. I remember, every time I was just getting really sick of the whole corporate life, I would always like envision myself moving to some little village in the south of France where I would sit in a cafe and write a novel or something. I always like dreamed of that and I didn't really know about copywriting yet. I figured that would have to be like a retirement career. What happened was I was actually, this was in 2015, my husband had decided he didn't want to stay married anymore. I was the primary earner. Again, I was still working in the corporate world. It was this really, obviously very stressful time with the company new and what was going on in my life. We have a son. My husband's idea was that we would sell the house and we need to move someplace else. I was like, all right, I didn't want my son going through his parents' divorce, having to go to a new school somewhere, give up his childhood home and puberty all at the same time. I thought that was a little much. I was like, let me control the things that I can and keep those stable. I figured, crunched the numbers like, okay, I can buy my husband out of the house. That way my son could stay in the school, in his home, and at least I can keep that part stable. I had worked out like doing this big cash out refi so I could pay off my husband. This was December 29th, 2015. He signed a quick claim deed. I'd actually waived alimony and child support, and I was trying to be amicable with all of this, and he was too. I'd taken over the ownership of this house and big mortgage and all that on December 29th. December 30th, the president of company calls me into the office and lays me off. Rob:  So awful. Grace:  That's awful. Nicole:  Yeah. Because here, like I said, I waived alimony and child support, so I had nothing. I remember just sitting there thinking, all right, the panic attack is going to hit any minute now, and it didn't. The weirdest thing is, the only thing I can do is I can describe it as like I did ... It wasn't a voice that I heard, but it was a message that came across loud and clear, and that was, God's not going to let you fall off a cliff if he doesn't give you wings to fly. Now, I'm not a particularly religious person, but I got this very clear sense. And all of a sudden, I just relaxed. What I was thinking was, I don't know what's going to happen next, but it's going to be good. That's like a really key shift that happened. Because I had actually, a couple of months before bought a copywriting course and I had gotten on some kind of a mailing, and I bought the copywriting course. It was AWAI's course, and I thought, wow, this sounds great. Maybe this can be my three to five year exit strategy from the corporate world. Then here, I had the rug pulled out from underneath me. I thought, okay, let me do this, I'm going to study this copywriting thing, at the same time is find a job. I was like trying to replace a six-figure income. I would wake up 3:30 in the morning and I was just too excited to go back to sleep. I just wanted to get down on my desk and study this copywriting course. At the same time, I was going on job interviews. Every time I'm on a job interview, I'd feel really nauseous and just so not into it, and the copywriting thing just made me so excited and filled with energy. I finally decided I was just going to really pay attention to that. I said, okay, I'm going to give it two years. I'm just going to work on this copywriting thing for two years and see if I can make this work and turn it into a viable business. I'm telling you, as soon as I put that stake in the ground, stuff just started showing up for me. It was extraordinary. There's no other way to explain it. It was extraordinary. When I say stuff showing up, what I mean is like, I went to the bootcamp, AWAI's bootcamp. I'm sitting there ... I walk into the bar and I see Kevin Rogers, and I go up and I just start chatting with him. I'm like, "The real problem I have here, I took the six-figure course, and I'm doing all this training, but I really don't know if my copy's any good." And he's like, "Well, you know what, why don't you send me your copy. Send me something to look at and we have a conversation about it next week." I said, sure. Then he left and I turn around and there's Parris Lampropoulos. I knew he was a copywriter, but I didn't know the players. I basically have the same conversation with Parris. We're just chatting for a while. Then he basically says the same thing. He says, "I'd be happy to take a look at some of your copy." I'm like, all right, fine. He doesn't have any card, so I'm writing his email address on the cocktail napkin. Right. There was like a group of people around us. I thought they were trying to get to the bar. I only realized later they were trying to get to Parris. Parris leaves,