TCC Podcast #272: Creating Your VIP Offer, Making the Most of Your Time, and Approaching Business and Copy like an Architect with Kristin Macintyre

For the 272nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we’re joined by Kristin Macintyre. Kristin is a conversion copywriter who writes copy for launches with her signature VIP offer. If VIP offers are something you want to implement in the new year, then give this episode a listen. Here’s how the episode goes down: Kristin’s journey from college professor to launch copywriter. Starting and building a successful copywriting business in a short timespan. How copywriting and poetry have empathy in common. The open-ended questions that lead your clients to their true answer. How to teach and mentor with real-world examples. Pivoting your niche and offer for higher level success. Structuring a VIP offer. How does it break down? The difference between a VIP day and a VIP intensive. Elevating the client journey through different touchpoints. How to get more done by observing where your time is going. Adding a VIP intensive into your offer suite – is it possible for your business? How to set your VIP prices and when to increase them. The struggles of executing a VIP project and how to avoid burnout. What to add to your routine to keep up your energy during writing sprints. The power of knowing ‘why’ we use the formulas and frameworks we do. Diving into the digital product space and marketing your business. How copywriting is evolving into a new era of conversion. Looking to implement a new business model in 2022? Grab your headphones or read the transcript below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Accelerator Think Tank  The Copywriter Underground Kristin’s website Rachel’s website Episode 176 Episode 226   Full Transcript: Kira:  There's been a lot of buzz in the copywriting world around VIP offers, what should you include? What should you charge? How much is too much? How do you avoid burnout? The questions go on and on. Luckily, we're covering a ton of your question about VIP offers today with think tank member and our guest for the 272nd episode of The Copywriter Club podcast, Kristin McIntyre. After shifting from a standard VIP day to a VIP intensive model, Kristin has figured out the best way to deliver a true VIP client experience. We'll dig into all the details in today's interview. But first, I have a very special co-host for this episode, think tank alumni member, Rachel Greiman. So, Rachel, thanks for co-hosting with me today. Can you introduce yourself and say hello? Rachel:  Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm Rachel Greiman, as Kira said. I am a website copywriter for photographers, it is the nichiest of niches, and I love it. I own Green Chair Stories and we are a small copywriting collective. We have four writers besides myself at this point and we write about 50 websites a year. We don't do anything else, and we like it that way. Kira:  All right, I love it. And we're going to definitely dive into your business today because there is some overlap with what Kristin's doing in her business. So we'll dig in deeper. But before we get into the interview, this week sponsor for the podcast is TCC IRL. That's the copywriter club in real life, our big annual event. Before I give the dates and all the information. Rachel, can you just share a little bit about your experience at TCC IRL because you've been before and you are attending in Nashville this March. So what was it like for you? Rachel:  The first one, I've been to two, I went in 2019 and 2020, and the first one was in New York. Kira:  Oh, that's right. Rachel:  And it was the first time I had ever invested in any type of copywriting education or networking. Even though I had been doing it for a long time, I always worked for other organizations and it was nonprofit. So I didn't know anybody that did it freelance or ran their own business, it was a completely new world to me. I had stumbled upon the podcast earlier that year and we were living in Philly at the time. So I was like, "I can make it, the drive up to New York." I was just so surprised at how much I could learn from people who did things that were so different than me. I do something so specific that I was not skeptical, but hesitant to really feel like I was going to get all that much from the speakers. But I took an entire notebook full of notes the first day almost, I think I filled a notebook because I was realizing how much I had to learn as a business owner. So many things that other people were doing, even if they were launch copywriters or direct sales copywriters, I learned so much from them just because of the way they ran their business. So the speakers themselves were amazing. But then I met some of my dearest friends now who I've known for almost three years. It's crazy to think about that I have a daily Marco Polo thread with Lisa Bailey, Sarah Frandina, Kelsey Jenkins, and Andrea Latel. So I talk to them all the time and they have been extremely supportive friends and just business partners. There are people I can go to with all of my questions. It was like taking that spirit of the event and extending it into my daily life. And it's kind of a reunion now when we go. So I think we're all going to go again this year. I know a couple of them are going, I'm trying to get all of them to go again. But it is just like our little posse. Kira:  I love that. So maybe if you're listening and you want some copywriter besties, this could be an event worth checking out in Nashville, Tennessee on March 28th through the 30th. And you can find out more information at thecopywriterclub.com/tccirl-2022. Now let's jump into the interview with Kristin. Kristin:  It's a windy story as they normally are. But I suppose when I think of where I am now as a copywriter, I can really see roots beginning when I was younger. I was always interested in writing, of course, I had the classic assignment in seventh grade or so to write a poem in language arts class, and I loved that activity. So creative writing was something that I loved from when I was young. As I got older, I figured I would go to school for what I loved, which was English and writing and reading. And I did that and finished a bachelor's degree after some start stop of that degree and ended up in a master of fine arts program in Colorado State University studying poetry for three years. Which was truly such an amazing experience. And after that, I decided to teach, get into the world of teaching higher ed. And the poetry faculty jobs are very limited, so I ended up teaching freshmen in college how to write their research papers. So still language minded and writer minded. But I got away a little bit from the creative side of writing and ended up teaching composition. Which was a job that I felt disenchanted with quickly. After a couple years teaching, gets exhausting. And not because of the students, the students were my favorite part for sure, but the red tape and the admin stuff and all of the emotional labor that is really not factored into your paycheck, gets exhausting. So in my fifth year as a teacher, I was looking for an alternative possibility for a career, and I had no idea what that would be. I finally settled on or settled into the thought that I would go back to school to become an occupational therapist, which I felt was a great job with a career at the end of the degree that I would be able to roll right into. I geared up to do that. I took extra classes in school, I took the GRE, which is a big entrance exam to get into a master's program for occupational therapy, and I applied. I applied to some schools and I got in. I was waiting to just submit my acceptance to a new master's program. And somehow through the algorithm gods, I came across a copywriting program and figured I would give that a shot. That I thought was going to turn into just a side hustle to make me some extra money and fund my way through a second master's degree. I did so well in my first, I don't know, three or four months that I quit teaching. I told the master's program I wasn't coming and I went all in on building a copywriting business. Rob:  So as soon as you mentioned that you studied poetry, I started Googling to see if I could find some of your poems, and I found some. Kristin:  Oh, God. Kira:  Wait, play the dramatic music right now. Rob:  Awesome dramatic music. So I don't think they're embarrassing, they're actually cool. So you've submitted a lot of poems and things to different publications, this is totally cool. Talk to me a little bit about the art of poetry. Because some of my favorite writers when I'm reading fiction, one of the things that occurs to me when I'm reading that is that sometimes the thing I like about it is how poetic the language feels. And it's not necessarily the same as copywriting or even normal conversation, poets have a way of seeing the world I think that's just a little bit different and maybe more interesting. So tell us about your approach when you were writing poetry. Maybe you still do write poetry, but your approach to doing that. Kristin:  When I think of poetry and I think of fiction and these creative veins of writing, poetry stands out to me as a mode of thinking about the world, that is, you're right Rob, a little bit different than our traditional narrative driven like a pro's story. Poetry suspends itself from that typical sentence structure sometimes that we think about and we expect when we speak or we read. So when you're poems or you're writing poems, it's a really, really interesting experience to say, I have to suspend what I expect out of this language that I've come to know, this regular sentence structure and this narrative form that I'm going to meet a story here. And be open to encountering this thing that I know so well, which is language in a brand new way.