TCC Podcast #280: How to Create a Prelaunch Strategy and Set Boundaries with Ash Chow

For the 280th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we’re joined by Launch Copywriter Ash Chow. Ash helps her clients strategize for pre-launch and breaks down why it’s such an essential part of your overall launch strategy. Tune into the episode to tap into your next launch strategy. Tune into the conversation: Having a “is this really my life?” moment and completely shifting gears. How a quarterlife crisis can be a pivotal time in life. The pull to do something greater and make a big impact. The stigma around being a certain age before starting a business or pivoting your career. Navigating feelings of low self worth and shame. How copywriters are constantly scrutinized and how to not internalize feedback from clients. Why validation can be an important part of working through difficult situations. How to respect your boundaries when you’re a people pleaser. Using the comments by that mean girl in high school or an unencouraging teacher to ignite your creativity. Why you need to train your clients on how to communicate with you – you have to lead by example. How to write more empathetic copy even if you’re not going through the same situations. (Lean heavily on your VOC research) The shifts and pivots Ash has made in her career as a copywriter. How Ash has built her authority and visibility by leaning into pre-launch strategy. Ash’s framework to power up your pre-launch. How to address objections as part of your pre-launch strategy. Mistakes to avoid in your pre-launch strategy and what to do instead. How Ash helped with the Accelerator pre-launch. How to create your own stage to speak on. If you’ve been wondering how you can power up your launches with a pre-launch strategy, listen to the episode or check out the transcription below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Club In Real Life Event Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Connect with Ash Episode 67 Episode 143   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  We've interviewed several recovering attorneys on this podcast. All of them got through law school only to realize that the law wouldn't be the fulfilling career that they once thought it would be. And the pull towards creativity and writing is just too strong for these folks. So they answered the call to be a copywriter. Our guest, for this episode of the Copywriter Club podcast is another recovering attorney and think tank member, Ash Chow. Since graduating from law school, she's thrown herself into writing everything from fanfiction to launch copy. And today she's known as the expert in pre-launch copy and strategy. All of the stuff that you need to do before a launch to make sure that it's a success. She knows so much about this, that we focused most of our discussion on the topic of prelaunch strategy. Kira Hug:  Before we dive into our conversation with Ash, this episode is sponsored by the Copywriter Club in Real Life. So that's her are in person event happening March 28th through 30th in Nashville, Tennessee. The room is filling up and it can only hold a certain number of people because it's a boutique hotel. So there are spots left if you want to join us. I am very excited to hang out with people in real life again, since it's been two. And I just, I miss it. I miss people. Rob Marsh:  We haven't even seen each other in two years. Kira Hug:  That's true. This is the first time Rob and I... I feel like I see you all the time, but you're right. We haven't touched each other. Rob Marsh:  Not that we do a whole lot of touching. Kira Hug:  We haven't hugged each other and just like high fived and all those more appropriate things. We haven't done that in two years. And so this is going to be so much fun. We have incredible speakers now that we've nearly finished the lineup speakers like Mike Kim, Raven Douglas, Brigitte Lyons, Ash Chow, Jude Charles, Linda Perry, John Mulry, Brian Speronello, and so many more. And we're planning lots of fun activities, social activities. I'm feeling really excited. So if you have any interest and you just want to check it out, possibly travel to Nashville to join us, we will link to additional information in the show notes. Rob Marsh:  Now let's jump into our interview with copywriter and pre-launch strategist Ash Chow. Ash Chow:  Like most copywriters I was someone who was super creative as a kid. I really loved reading. I got straight As in all of my English subjects and I low key wanted to be an author. But as I got older, I got a lot more practical and it did feel like my creativity really got stamped out of me. But pretty much at the age of 15, I was super inspired by like all the legal dramas I was watching at the time. And I really wanted to work hard and get into a really good career, which at the time I believed was being a lawyer. So I pretty much at the age of 15, I was like, "Okay, that's it. I am going to go to law school." So I worked my butt off. I studied really hard. I wanted to get into like one of the best law schools in Melbourne, Australia. And I did, I hit that goal, I got in and I was like super excited only to get there and realize like this isn't it. This isn't actually where I wanted to be or what I wanted to do, which was really distressing when it was a goal I had worked so hard for, like ever since I was mid teens pretty much. And what kicked it off was halfway through law school, I managed to get like a legal internship. And one of my tasks at the time was to like read through all of this email correspondence between our competing law firms. And lawyers, they tend to write in a really pretentious way or at least like all the things I was reading it came on as very pretentious lots of jargon, lots of unnecessarily... Lots of complex, big words. And I remember I was just reading this email and being like, "Oh my goodness this is what I'm going to have to do for the rest of my life." And that was like a super distressing moment. And around that time as well, my creative itch had started to come back and all I wanted to do was just start writing again, and telling stories and being real with people. Instead of writing pretentious emails. Like most copywriters again, I think words of affirmation is like my big love language. And when I was going through like a really dark and tough time when I was younger words of encouragement, and reading other people's personal stories was what really helped me through that tough time. So, I had like this urge or this like calling to want to be that for someone else. I wanted to write words that were going to help other people through a messy time feel less alone and like they were going to be okay. So I started a blog and I started like writing a bunch of personal essays, documenting this mini quarter life existential crisis. I was going through and sharing how, I didn't know if I wanted to just persist with law school or start a side hustle and all of that. And that blog post ended up landing in front of a business owner who really resonated with my writing. And she reached out to me and she was like, "Hey, can I hire you to write for me?" And that's when I discovered copywriting was a thing and that you could get paid decent money to write, and the rest is history. Rob Marsh:  So, I have a couple of small questions kind of to pepper in through your story. When you wanted to be an author, what did you want to write? Ash Chow:  I think I wanted to write lots of fiction. So I was a really big fan of Enid Blyton, I think when I was a kid. So she wrote like the Magic Faraway Tree and all of these stories about like fairies and wooded creatures being able to talk. And I was like, oh my goodness. I want to write these sorts of stories. And then obviously my tastes evolved as I got older. I wanted to write a lot of like young adult sort of stuff. You know what's funny, I had a Wattpad and I wrote... This is really embarrassing. I wrote this Harry Potter fanfiction story on Wattpad that ended up winning like an award. That was the sort of stuff I was writing. I mean, I don't want to write fanfiction anymore no way, but it really... That just reminded me I really did want to become a writer when I was younger, so yeah. Rob Marsh:  That's hilarious. That's awesome. Ash Chow:  It's so hilarious. Rob Marsh:  And then did you finish law school before you made the switch over to copywriting? Or did you just opt out and say, "Nope, I'm done." Ash Chow:  Yeah. Yes I did. I did. I always joked that I would've been like disowned if I hadn't finished law school. I was in my third year when I started copywriting, it was like my third year out of a five year degree. So I'd already invested all of this time into it. And I was like I might as well finish it off. So I do have the fancy piece of paper that says bachelor of laws. So yes. Kira Hug:  Can you talk, Ash, a little bit about just that knowing that you're talking about. How did you know that path that you wanted for yourself wasn't actually it. Beyond reading the copy and the emails that were really pretentious and just being like that doesn't resonate with me. Was there something else within you that just helped that wasn't for you? Ash Chow:  Yeah, it was this really strong gut feeling. I just couldn't stop thinking about how this wasn't what I wanted to do and how... It was more like I wanted to make a bigger impact in the world, which sounds really corny, but it was like I didn't feel that I could achieve that by just being a lawyer. So like I said I really wanted to be able to share some of the stuff I had gone through so that I could help other people who were in a really dark time get through that as well. And I felt like I couldn't do that as a lawyer, but I could do that if I had my own platform. And around that time,