TCC Podcast #143: Selling Workshops and More with Lauren Hazel

Copywriter Lauren Hazel is our guest for the 143rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Lauren is a hustler who has done a lot in her years as a copywriter. She thinks and writes about brand stories, marketing and email. Once we got her in the studio, we asked about... •  how Lauren accidentally became a copywriter •  how she stumbled onto copywriting when she tried to improve a flyer •  the programs she used to learn her skill set •  what she learned about pricing from her first freelance project •  her cold call pitch that failed and what she learned from the failure •  what she did to grow beyond her first couple of clients •  how changing her title brought her more copywriting and marketing work •  how she splits her time between her marketing agency, training and writing •  what she does in her workshops and how much she charges •  how she packages her strategy work •  the things she has done that have made the biggest difference in her business •  the kinds of clients she works with in her business today •  the mistakes she’s made that she won’t make again •  what it was like to work with 50Cent We also asked Lauren about her program for introverts. To hear what she had to share, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: CopyHour Lauren’s website Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob:   This podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground. Kira:   It's our new membership designed for you to help you attract more clients and hit 10K a month consistently. Rob:   For more information or to sign up, go to thecopywriterunderground.com. What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira:   You're invited to join the club for episode 143 as we chat with copywriter and brand strategist Lauren Hazel about building her business, what it means to hustle and how copywriters can do it better, why every copywriter should have an email list and what to send them, and what it's like to write for a celebrity like 50 Cent. Hey, Lauren, welcome. Lauren:         Hey, how are you all doing? What's up? Kira:   Great. Great to have you here and we want to kick this off, I feel like we should kick it off with 50 Cent and just give that away, but we're going to make people wait for that story. Lauren:         Ah… Kira:   So let's start with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter? Lauren:         By accident. Not intentional. It's like, ‘No, duh duh duh.’ No. So what happened ... Oh God, I'm thinking about my birthday is coming up in a couple of days by the time we're doing this, so. Kira:   Oh, happy birthday. Lauren:         Thank you. So it's nine years probably. Yeah, damn near nine year, almost 10 years here. So, what I, I live in New York City and I had a tutoring business. So, I was trying to find a way to get more tutoring clients. An at that point, I was using either referral system, so I would go to places that I had worked or knew where there were schools that I had volunteered at and asked for, ‘If anyone needs math tutoring, I'm available.’ And then I was doing fliers, because fliers actually still work for those who don't know. Fliers do work. And I was trying to make the flier better, so I was in a group and I was like, ‘Hey, here's my flier. I'm trying to, I'm planning on posting this out in Soho or whatever and see if I can get some clients.’ And folks were like, ‘Give me a hint.’ And then someone said, ‘Hey, why don't you, you should really look into copywriting because you'll then learn how to write a better flier and stuff like that.’ And I'm like, ‘Okay, I know what copywriting is legally.’ And I was like, ‘What is this copywriting thing?’ And so they started pointing me in the direction of some links and then I got on some email lists and then I got into some courses, the courses back then and learning how to write copy, direct response copy, so I can actually write better ads or fliers for my tutoring business at the time. So that's how I started. It was to get some kiddies and some parents to trust me enough to hand me money and your child to teach them some math. Rob:   So, tell us what were some of those resources that you used to get the skills when you were first starting out? Lauren:         Let's see, I'm trying to think. There is a program which is still around called the Copy Hour. I got into that, somebody probably said, ‘Hey, why don't you do Copy Artist?’ Because at the time I was in college at the time, so it wasn't like I wasn't doing anything. I was in college, working part time and doing that thing for student loans purposes. So, they said, ‘Well, Copy Hour would probably be good because it's not as time intensive. So I joined that and, which was a significant investment at the time because I am a college student with limited funds. But my funds was going to pay for books because eventually I planned to go to law school. That's what the thing was. I was going to go to law school. So, which is crazy when you think about what happened now. But that was the one of the plans I had. But at that time because it wasn't like video courses and stuff like that that, it was abundant now, a lot of that stuff wasn't as abundant nine years ago. Like that's, some of that stuff was just kind of coming because tech was an issue. If anyone remembers what it was like to attempt to have a video course and then try to upload it and go through all them tech issues. That stuff didn't exist. So now it's like there's so many easier ways to learn stuff. Back then it wasn't as easy. It was quite difficult. So, Copy Hour was an email delivered course. So that's what I initially started on, Copy Hour. Kira:   So, this is going back, I know, I think you've mentioned eight or nine years, but do you remember any of those changes that you made to your fliers after sitting through a couple of those trainings or reading through those emails, what changes did you make to the fliers to improve them? Lauren:         Oh, like a call to action would have been nice. Listen, I, and it's funny because I come from a background where I've puzzled and didn't, done things, but in terms of writing an actual flier to get a client for that type of service. And in New York it should be abundant because New York is very big on education and things like that. So, if you say you're tutor, you could tutor French or stuff. You can usually get clients relatively easily. But at that time I was charging higher prices than what the normal was. Like if that was like nine years ago, let's say $10 an hour was let's say the average price of a tutor. And these are tutors who are New York City educators who are, teachers. Certified, trusted people. And I'm like, ‘I'm not in New York state teacher, but I'm going to charge you 50 to 60 bucks an hour.’ That was, yeah, that was pretty steep. I was making that kind of, so when your flier just can't be this, right? So actually having a call to action, like, ‘Hey, call this number.’ The concept of putting a package together because I didn't have that. It was just like, okay, well, Monday through Friday, these are our hours. But the concept of packaging your offer to give people options, having at least two or three packages and different pricing tiers and all that stuff. I learned looking at different sales letters and stuff, the way that program goes. But I didn't know any of that. So my flier was basically, ‘Hi, my name is Lauren. I tutor math, Pre-Algebra and Algebra. If you're looking for a tutor, my name is Lauren.’ That's pretty much what the flier was. Kira:   Sold. Lauren:         Yeah, sold. That was it. That was it. Sold. So, when I went through that and I started, it was like, okay, so now I'm making the change and I understand a bit about why I'm making the changes and, that I was making at the time. Rob:   So, how did you go from writing for yourself and your own tutoring business to writing for other clients? What did those first projects and clients look like? Lauren:         It was like a couple of years into it. I had my business built up. I turned the tutoring business because I was a, I follow like [inaudible] safety and that's when you get, earn one K. I got that program and I was going through that and I was like, ‘you know what?’ They started bringing, like you could sell courses. I remember this still early course thing, technology-wise. So this is not easy as it is, teachable stuff today. So I was like, ‘All right, how would I do this?’ And at that time there wasn't, it wasn't like on YouTube where everybody was uploading, there was no Kind Academy. Let's just say that the Kind Academy didn't exist. Okay? And so I'm pre Kind Academy, I'm like, how can I grow this bigger without all of my time? Because I'm still in college.. I'm in college, I have other responsibilities outside of that. And I had this one-on-one tutoring thing, even though I'm charging a lot of money to do that because I'm paying my way through school. So, what winds up happening is I heard, ‘Oh, you could freelance and get more money.’ And I was like, ‘ Well, that sounds doable.’ I figured if I can get clients for my thing, I can do it for somebody else and get them clients. So I figured, let me take a dive and see what that was going to, how that was going to work. And at the time my major was in a business, so I was, we had to do these projects where we actually work with businesses anyway.