Wondering how copywriters could be using Facebook and Instagram ads to grow their business? Our guest for the 425th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie. Kwadwo had to reinvent his business during the pandemic. And today he helps businesses grow with ads on Meta. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: The Accelerator FastTrack The Art of Online Business Podcast The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: Facebook ads. Copywriters write them. Some copywriters run them. All of us see and click on them. And yet, most of us don’t have a deep understanding of how to use them for our clients or our own businesses. It’s not a skill you can easily pick up by listening to a podcast, but we can get a deeper understanding of them with the help of an expert. Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my guest is Facebook Ads Manager Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie. Kwadwo’s business collapsed during the pandemic and he had to create an entirely new means for supporting his family. So he began a business helping others use Facebook to promote their products.   That’s not all we talked about. Kwadwo talked about the value of learning a new language and how that can change your perspective on the world. And the challenges of starting over. I think you’re going to like this episode. Before we get to that… I’ve been telling you about The Copywriter Accelerator FastTrack— that’s our business foundations program used by more than 350 copywriters to start, build and scale their own writing business. Graduates include six-figure writers like Justin Blackman, Kirsty Fanton, Michal Eisik, Dani Paige, Krystal Church and hundreds of others. The only way to get the business changing strategies and proven ideas we share in The Accelerator is with the Fast Track edition. And it will be going away sometime in the new year.  So if you’ve been thinking of joining the accelerator, this is just about your last chance to get that game-changing program. I’m working on a new program that will replace it… something that will be more concise and immediately applicable. It’s too soon to reveal the details but if you join The Accelerator FastTrack before we launch this new program, you’ll get The Accelerator and free access to the new program when it launches. That includes all of the content, the 8 modules and blueprints and several bonuses that will help you find and land the high-paying clients you want. If you get started with the FastTrack now, when the new year is here you’ll be ready with a steady flow of clients and a signature service you’re proud to offer them. Visit thecopywriterclub.com/fasttrack to learn more today. And now, let’s go to our interview with Kwadwo… Kwadwo welcome to the podcast. I’m excited. First of all, as I said, as we were starting to chat just to meet you, but also to have you on to tell us your story, how you became a Facebook ads manager, a strategy partner, host of a very popular podcast. How did you get here? Kwadwo: Let’s go back to when I was sitting in Beijing, China, the capital of China, with my wife at a Mediterranean restaurant. And we were enjoying our hummus and naan and we’re sitting and we’re overlooking like a popular shopping strip. And so we’re chatting and just relating about China life because I’ve lived there for 12 years. And the next thing that happened was It’s very typical for me, but my wife had never experienced before. And so a couple of tables down, there’s two Russian girls. They had spotted me, and they had started giggling like they saw somebody famous. And the thing is, I was famous, and I’ll go into that in a moment. they made their way over to the table and, you know, say, excuse me, introduce themselves and wanted to take a selfie with me. So I introduced them to my wife and then did the selfie thing and they went away. And my wife was like, wow, you weren’t joking. Like this happens. People recognize you as the elementary Chinese guy. And elementary Chinese was my prior business that got decimated by the pandemic where I taught Mandarin Chinese.  I’m going to go into the story a little bit, but I taught Mandarin Chinese to expats, expatriates, people who are not Chinese, but living and working professionally in China. And that was going quite well. I have this desire now as a Facebook ad manager, and I’m skipping forward, but we’ll get back to that previous business and what happened and why I’m not doing that anymore. But I have the desire to help people run their ads profitably and not make the mistakes that I made back then that got me famous for that previous business, but did not fill up my courses with a bunch of students who were the right fit for me to serve.  And so here’s what happened. I was basically on the Hollywood B-lister level of fame. Conservatively, three out of ten people, expats, in China would recognize me on the street. And that happened because one timing, it’s some sort of success that usually has to do with like luck and chance. And so one was timing. I was showing ads at a time in China, a market that’s walled off. So like all of the good social media, you know, the YouTubes, the Pinterest, the Twitters, X now, Facebook and Instagram, you can’t access in China without a VPN, virtual private network that helps you tunnel under what they call the great firewall of China to keep out all the Western influence. And so I was showing Facebook ads for that business in China and getting my funny videos about speaking Chinese were showing up for super cheap all over everyone, at least the expats, like iPhones and Android devices. And that grew my Instagram account. I don’t know, 27, almost 30,000 folks like back in 2017, 2018, which is not a huge account, but decent. And lots of people knew me, but because Instagram is all about showing your ads. And this is why I say, constantly do not boost your post. Instagram loves it. I know you’ve seen it on your Instagram, right? This post is reaching more people than usual. Let’s go ahead and show it to more. Hit that boost button now. And it’s like, don’t do it. Don’t do it. They want to show your post to people who like to interact. But if only all of our Instagram followers or even 80% of them, 70% I’ll take that turned into customers. What happened was is since I have two kids and my wife and I like to speak foreign languages to our kids, I was speaking Mandarin to them. Their nanny in China was speaking Mandarin to them. My wife speaks fluent Spanish.  We decided to take a vacation to Mexico and it happens to be on January 13th, 2020. And so a couple of weeks after that, people start looking at us sideways and saying, uh, where did you say you came from again? And we’re like, uh, we’ve been out of China for 14 days. We’re good to go. And then we were quarantining in Mexico. We extended our Airbnb into like a three month long-term stay because why not? It’s Mexico, chips and guac everywhere. A bit less so during the quarantine and then China shut down their border. So. And I think they gave us seven days to fly back. And well, who wants to buy one-way tickets with less than seven day notice for four people? And because my business was incorporated in China at the time, teaching Chinese, and our visas were tied to that business, we ended up not being able to return to China, having to get our cell phones, hop on FaceTime, because we’re Apple users, and get rid of everything in our apartment when our apartment lease was up. And so imagine four, four bedrooms of stuff, some good friends going over there and we got reunited with six luggages later on. And that was how the previous business ended. And the current, I guess the genesis of the current business where I, I coach and help with funnel strategy for online course creators and I run their Facebook and Instagram ads. That’s how that started. Rob Marsh: That is nuts. Just the being locked out of your home, your place, everything. That’s crazy. Kwadwo: Yeah. I think it technically was a midlife crisis. Hopefully I live longer than the half life that I had lived up to that point. Rob Marsh: It might be your first midlife crisis. I hope to never have one nearly as bad as that. Before we talk about, you know, Facebook and the things you’re doing in your business, let’s talk about learning languages. So I am, I am one of those people who I love to travel, love to travel. Yes. But. I am also terrible in that I cannot speak another language fluently. I know a little bit of Spanish. I can read a little bit of French if I’m really focused on it, a little bit of Italian. But yeah, I don’t know. All my kids speak French. My youngest daughter speaks a little bit of Spanish. She’s not all the way there yet, but my wife speaks French fluently. She also happens to speak Italian and Spanish. So I’m surrounded by it, but I’m that awful American who’s never bothered to go out and learn the language. Let’s talk about why, why this is such an important skill set for some of us who, certainly if we love to travel, but why it can add other things, even if we’re not traveling. Kwadwo: Okay. First of all, we got to dispel the guilt. Awful American. It’s something that people will say from other countries. I don’t feel that awful about it actually. The context is important though. We’re born in the US, like many people would say, like the most powerful country in the world. And in the States, the context, you don’t necessarily need to learn another language. It’s not like we’re in Europe. And so like I just say, don’t beat yourself up about it, but it’s cool that you want to learn another language. So language learning, huh? Rob Marsh: Yeah, let’s, let’s, why? I mean, what, what does that add to? I mean, again, it’s really easy to see why we should maybe learn things about copywriting or learn things about marketing or business skills. Why language? Kwadwo: I always go like this, I hold my hands together with my fingers kind of interlocked. I think people do this when they talk about the word synergy, but one hand is language and one hand is culture. And language cannot be separated from culture and culture is always carried through language via communication. And so what happens when we start to venture out and well, one of the benefits, and learn language is we’re learning other cultures. And the way I like to see it is that we are beginning to pick up a new lens by which we can view the world. And it’s usually a lens that we didn’t grow up with. And the amazing thing about it is it’s challenging. It allows us to see ourselves the way other folks from other countries and cultures see ourselves, it allows us to begin to rub up against concepts that we’ve never been exposed to or challenged by, especially if they differ from our own, in a disturbing way, the more the better, because it just, I believe, makes us better people. When we go through struggling feeling vulnerable, learning a language, having to make the mistakes, having to be seen as somebody that’s a learner, you know, like it’s hard to be an expert when you’re stumbling through a foreign language, even within like a subject matter that you’re normally very well versed at in your native language. Like all these things change how you see the world in a better way. And I thoroughly believe like if, more folks took on the task or the challenge or the fun or the joy even of learning a foreign language, that the world would be a better place because there’d be a heck of a lot more understanding. Rob Marsh: Yeah, we could use a little more understanding in the world today, I think. Yeah. So this is maybe an odd question, but a lot of times we think about that second language. Speakers of a second language are at some kind of a disadvantage because they don’t know the proper way to conjugate the verbs, or maybe they mix up certainly gendered words within the romantic languages, that kind of thing. But what are some of the advantages that new speakers of a language might have that people who already speak it don’t? Kwadwo: When you speak or are learning a foreign language, people will listen to you because you’re struggling with the language. And so for a moment, if you approach it right, you have more attention than you normally would because you’re this anomaly. Anomaly. Anomaly! And also… when you speak correctly, as in you set up a new conversation, you, I, I love just apologizing and saying, look, I don’t know how to say this a fancy way, but I need this, or I think this, and I’m sorry if this offends you, but I don’t have a way to doctor it up. And people are like, Oh, thank you for saying that. But then you can speak very, um, directly to folks. And I think that is a benefit of learning a language. Another very obvious benefit is if you’re learning a language from a people group where nobody really looks like you, then you also get the added benefit of being special and getting to meet basically whoever you want. That’s something I taught when I was in China is using the fact that If you’re a non-Asian learner, then you don’t really look anything similar to what somebody would see in China, and you can use that to your advantage to meet some of the best people and have the coolest novel conversations. Rob Marsh: As much as I love thinking and talking about this, language isn’t really why you’re here on this podcast, where we do talk about a lot of words, but your new business is all about Facebook, Facebook ads, helping clients get exposure. There are a lot of copywriters who would love to be more involved in writing ads and solving these kinds of problems for their clients. Tell us how you basically got connected in with Rick and what you’ve learned and done since. Kwadwo: Sure. When it comes to Facebook ads, I feel like copywriters are at an advantage and I can say that myself because as a Facebook ad manager, I believe the ad copy is the most important thing to converting somebody who’s out there and face on Facebook and Instagram into somebody who becomes a lead for the business and ultimately somebody who can be served by the business. Um, I rely heavily on really good ad copy and as somebody who, I openly say this, I am not well-versed when it comes to the written word. I think copywriters are at an advantage and here’s how a copywriter can best serve your clients if they’re running Facebook ads. You’re already good at taking your client’s voice and putting that in written form in an engaging way. Wonderful. If you specialize in conversion copywriting or you could call yourself a sales page strategist or you’re decent at writing those emails that are designed to sell, then you also know a thing or 18 about taking somebody’s voice, their expertise, but also combining that with your research or their research on who they serve so that you can make sure the writing communicates how somebody can solve their problems and tying that in with like the ideal customer’s ideal outcome, right? So when it comes to Facebook ads, it’s not that much different. Sure, there’s a structure or, you know, three or four that really work well for Facebook ads, but a lot of it comes down to the top three lines of Facebook ad copy. And those are those ones that peek out above the, um, inside of the Facebook feed or Instagram feed above the visual that you’re using. And lots of people call those the hook. And if you can get good at writing hooks, which I like to break down just as speaking to someone’s frustration in a different way or kind of outlining in a intriguing way, the possibility, that’s wrapped up in downloading this lead magnet, then you can pretty much master having good Facebook ads because the right people will see that hook and be intrigued and then expand the ad copy, read the rest of the well-written research words and head on over to the landing page, which you’ve had a hand in writing as a copywriter and you’re off to the races. But I feel like copywriters are a big advantage when it comes to running Facebook ads. How I got into Facebook ads. Did you ask that to Rob? Yes. Yes, for sure. Okay. So, um, when my previous business failed, I needed a job. And since I had been involved in an online business that was successful, I just couldn’t pivot it. I taught a method of learning language via social interaction. And during the pandemic, people were trying not to interact socially. And I couldn’t pivot to just teaching Chinese to everyone around the world who was learning Chinese. And so I had paid for a mastermind that I was a part of. and that I saw good growth because of the strategies I learned from. And so it was that very mastermind, a really good guy named Rick Mulready, the owner of it, who had offered me a job coaching inside of that mastermind when I had nothing else going for me because my business had failed. And that was in the fall of 2020. And at that same time, I had picked up another part-time job inside of a Facebook and Instagram ads agency managing Facebook and Instagram ads. Because again, I was familiar with running my ads incorrectly for my previous business, and I was familiar with the online space. And so I held those two jobs and then leveraged the strengths I’d built and the skill sets I built from those two jobs into doing the same exact thing for clients now. Rob Marsh: So before we started talking, and I definitely want to talk all things Facebook ads, but before we started talking, you mentioned that one of the things you’ve noticed is that copywriters do not use ads, Facebook, Instagram, or anywhere, with maybe a few exceptions. but they don’t use ads to build their own business to find clients. Uh, and my first response to that is, well, maybe it’s because we don’t know how to do it, which I’m not sure is true because we oftentimes we’re helping our clients do this stuff. So like walk us through why you think more of us should be doing this for our businesses, what the opportunity is and how we should get started. Kwadwo: Sure. And the disclaimer is that it could just be the niche and the people that I’ve been blessed to meet with haven’t been running Facebook ads. I do actually have a client who is a copywriter and has a very successful direct-to-offer, self-liquidating offer funnel. I think that Facebook ads is a very worthwhile pursuit. if there is already a profitable offer being sold. And one big mistake that people make is they think that We just need more eyeballs on our offer and that will make it sell. So we’re going to run Facebook ads to it. And I always say like Jesus saves Facebook ads do not. The offer needs to be profitable first. And if we have like a profitable launch mechanism or if like we’re routinely selling to our email list and offers the program, the membership, the coaching service is just selling like hotcakes, so to speak. And we can just do some simple number crunching and look at the revenue and then look at the number of leads that it took us to get that revenue and establish an amount of profit per that lead. Then we can start to play with Facebook ads because Facebook ads have a cost to them. And the name of the game is, as long as the profit is quite a bit higher than the cost, then let’s go ahead and add that Facebook and Instagram ad fuel to the fire. But it takes a bit, a bit of time in a spreadsheet just to look at those numbers. But I believe that time is well spent. And for many of us, we could grow quicker. If we turned on Facebook ads sooner, once our offers, our programs, our coaching, our courses, our memberships are profitable. Rob Marsh: So as you talk about that, it seems like, okay, it definitely makes sense for digital type projects or products, memberships, courses, that kind of stuff. What about services? Can copywriters profit? I mean, you know, most of the services that we offer, copywriters are charging, I don’t know, anywhere from say $500 to multiple thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands of dollars. So you don’t need that many leads to get, you know, a couple of clients doing that to be profitable. But also, I don’t see services being sold through ads on Instagram, Facebook very often. And you’re right. Maybe it’s just the people that I follow, the people that I see. I’m not seeing that out there. But what about that? Kwadwo: Well, it’s a service. So naturally, to show an ad to a service that’s multiple thousands of dollars and expect somebody to buy that, well, we’re not going to run ads to a sales page because that would never, ever, ever work. But here’s the thing. If you’re a service provider, I’m a service provider, right? A lot of my referrals are coming from a certain place. And so it’s my responsibility just to look at the funnel that either I’ve purposefully put in place, but many times there’s an organic funnel there that I just haven’t quite discovered yet. And this is where I don’t 100% preach Facebook ads. For example, if somebody, let’s say is in masterminds and they realize that a lot of their leads are coming from there, well then join more masterminds. Like if you’re being a guest on podcasts and you’ve done the tracking, IE maybe made a podcast specific lead magnet, you know, that only is given out when you’re on podcasts and that’s, it’s connected to your email. CRM so to speak and people are tagged as having come from another podcast and you can see leads coming in because of your guest podcast speaking opportunities and then you can track like every quarter you’re looking at revenue and seeing if there’s like a podcast tag Associated with any of those clients will then lean into being a guest on a podcast where Facebook ads though does wonders is for the copywriter the service provider that also has other things to sell well, that’s a a really easy thing to do with Facebook ads because I’ve had the privilege of meeting copywriters who have thousands and thousands and thousands of people either visiting their website a month or in followers on Instagram. And the algorithm just doesn’t give that reach. Um, but specifically for like a service provider funnel, if I’m looking and tracking the numbers, then I want to know what action, how many actions am I doing that gets a discovery call and what percentage of discovery calls am I closing? And if I happen to be in a situation where I have a decent social media following or a decent readership on my website and ads can help that initial interaction where somebody might get onto my email list and then I send an email, a sales email or a sales email sequence that results in discovery calls. That’s kind of where ads fits in for a service provider. Rob Marsh: That makes sense. So I’m a copywriter. I’m listening to the podcast. I’m listening to you, Kwejo, talk about all this stuff. And I’m thinking, all right, I at least want to give this a try. I’ve got some stuff that I can offer. Maybe I’ve got a template pack or something. Or maybe I just want to attract some attention to my podcast or to something else that I’m doing. Maybe I can do some retargeting afterwards, whatever. How do I get started? What are some of the steps short of you know, calling up you and say, Hey, fix this stuff for me. Kwadwo: So where do I start? Sure. Start with the messaging. That’s usually the part that’s the hardest. But luckily, if you’re active on Instagram, then you already know what messaging is working. And if you’re not sure, you can dive into it like this by going to your Instagram reels, because those are pretty popular right now. But if you’re if carousels are your jam then look at your Instagram stats and you’ll be looking for the posts Let’s say over the past six months that have the most reach or that are reaching the most amounts of unique accounts and when you look on a reel and you go into the stats setting, there’s like a little pie, a circle chart, and I think it has like blue and purple on it. And so when you find a reel, one easy way is just to look at your Instagram feed and look at the reels that have the most plays, right? But then dive into those and look at the stats to see which one of those is reaching the most new accounts. You’ve kind of looked and discovered a reel where Instagram has decided because the engagement is good that the algorithm will push that reel out to new people. All right, so that’s step one. Now you’re going to start to focus on once you find five of those reels, look for the commonalities in what you’re saying. They all might be talking about the same thing, if you’re lucky, or maybe they’re talking about, you know, two or three things. Then look at what you’re writing in the caption of those reels, because it’s not just the content of the reel. It’s also, you know, the amount of time that people spend reading the caption and what they happen to do after they read the caption. Meta, you know, the owner of Facebook and Instagram tracks all of that stuff. So you’re just reverse engineering because success leaves clues and start with that. It could be as easy as taking a popular reel that’s lined or that’s well aligned with a lead magnet and running that reel as the visual for your ad and then looking at the copy from that reel and adding that into your ad copy And then just remembering that this just comes down to testing. So like if I have one piece of ad copy on a reel that’s been doing well, I’m just going to look at that top section of the ad copy and see if I can rework it a little bit. The first one or two sentences to speak to a couple of different frustrations or to tease a couple of very, you know, attractive outcomes. And then I put it into ad manager and here’s where most people, Stop. And it’s, it’s leaving money on the table in the form of you could be paying too high for a sale or too high for a lead, but just test, take three different pieces of ad copy and pair them with the same visual. Give it five days. Give it a week. See which one comes out on top, so to speak. And then now you’ve got a great piece of ad copy. Come up with some other graphics or some visuals. Put those with the same ad copy. Let those run for another week. See what’s working. And if you keep being faithful to that process, then you’ll end up with hopefully a handful of ads. Three is what I usually like to go for that are working for you and that Yes, it’s simplified. Yes, meta seems to offer up at every turn chances to make mistakes in running ads. But if you stick to those concepts of look organically for what’s working, use the copywriter skills, I wish I had those skills personally, to make some variations of the written word that’s already working, and then just go through the basic testing process, you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve in a decent lead cost for the right kind of person downloading your lead magnet. and even coming into your launch or just decent costs for folks that are buying your email template. I have a client that her SLO funnel, her funnel direct to offer $37 offer for email templates that sell. It does very well, you know, because people need that and selling is serving. So test right so that you can serve more people. Rob Marsh: So I think everybody knows this. You mentioned it. Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram. What are the differences between the two platforms as far as audience and the different things that we should be doing on them? Or is there no difference? Kwadwo: From my ads perspective, I don’t see a big difference. I like to let the algorithm decide where it’s going to show the ad, and then I work from there. And here’s what I mean. Meta collects 52,000, I believe is what you can Google, data points on every user. And they have been doing so for over a decade. So what that means is they know me and you, like they know you, Rob, better than you know yourself. Rob Marsh: They know us better than we know ourselves. Kwadwo: Yeah, it’s nuts. 52,000. It’s way beyond what you like, what you don’t like, what you watch, what you don’t watch. Like they know like how much time you spend on a post. If you slow down, like how much are you slowing down? You know, like what are you doing seven posts later? Like what makes you exit the platform? And can they, they, they know so much. Right. And so I, I honestly don’t worry about different, but like leave that to the social media growth strategists, like about how you should definitely show up on Instagram versus Facebook. But as long as you have a presence there and, and for those of you with small Facebook and Instagram accounts, even if you don’t, you can just rely on the algorithm to find the best people for you. And from there we can tweak, you know, like if we see for some reason that like Lots of your leads are coming from Facebook and not Instagram. Well, maybe you can post more to Instagram or we can just stop showing ads on the Instagram platform and your lead costs will come down because we’re focusing the algorithm over there on Facebook. It’s more of a, it’s less of a, how should I show up differently on Facebook and Instagram and more of a, what am I going to do with the data about where my leads are coming from? Rob Marsh: Makes sense. So let’s say again, I’m a copywriter and I want to break into this. I want to do more Facebook ad writing. Okay. What are some of the steps that I want to do, you know, short of taking all of the courses and figuring out how to do all the backend Facebook stuff? How do I get in front of a person like you, Kwaijo, and say, hey, you know, we should be working together or here’s some of the stuff that I can help you do? like find me or yeah, well you are somebody that does what you do basically a Facebook strategist ad strategist that kind of thing. Kwadwo: I say go with who you know. I’ve heard too many times and this is just me speaking from the heart like I would love for lots of people to come work with me but not everybody knows me but you probably know via your client or one of your clients Facebook ad manager with a repute with a good reputation go to them because a lot of this comes down to trust as soon as you involve like your hard-earned money going into Facebook ads and There, you just want to be able to not have to have as little anxiety as possible. So by going with somebody, you know, who has a proven track record, that’s going to happen. Also though, educate yourself. There’s a lot of free content out there on the internet. There’s content on my podcast that talks about like good fundamentals for running Facebook ads too many times. I have a new client who says, somebody ran my ads and I just didn’t understand their reports. They would send me a report every two weeks. I didn’t really know what they’re doing. And when I say, well, why? Well, okay, so let’s hold the Facebook ad manager accountable to give me metrics So I know what’s really working what’s not working, but then also as the business owner I want to learn the basics of Facebook ads That way you pay the ignorant tax in advance with your time and your research rather than paying it later Because of a lack of results or lack of accountability on the ad managers part. That’s what I would say Would you like a simple ad formula that a copywriter could use to best serve their client if their client’s like, hey, we’re going to do ads. Help me write some ad copy. Rob Marsh: Yeah, let’s hear it. I mean, obviously, if I’m going to pitch you as a writer or pitch another Facebook ad specialist that I know, I want to send you something that shows off my ability. So if you’ve got a couple of formulas that help, let’s do it. Kwadwo: Take an ad and let’s demystify it. It’s just like other copies. So you got to have a good hook, right? And following that hook is probably time. Let’s say that your hook skews towards the negative side of the coin, meaning it focuses on a frustration in a non-triggering way because we don’t want to trigger people. Like right after that, it’s probably time to empathize a quick bit. you know, um, so that somebody feels like you’re not just calling them out, but you’ve been there too, or other clients that the person frequently serves have been in that exact same situation. And that’s where you transition to say, well, that’s why we created this solution and then download it. Right? So your download link goes there. And then under that for the, logical reader, if you will, who has gone through the hook and the empathy part. Let’s call it the emotional part. And this has to sound really, really familiar to a copywriter. But after that, you know, you might have a one or two or three very simple bullet points. I like to make sure that if it’s a feature, it’s also a benefit, but talking about a lead magnet. And then again, I like to end an ad with a bit of hope, you know, as much negativity as we see, like, let’s give some hope that you can do this. And if you just follow, I’ve given a very general framework, but if you just follow that, that’s a good place to start for ads. Rob Marsh: Let me throw some letters at that. That sounds like problem, empathize, solve, hope, PESH. It’s very similar to the PAS framework, but yeah. So I like the addition of hope because ultimately we’re selling solutions, but without hope, nobody gets to the solution portion. So it’s a really important addition. Agreed. Okay. So you mentioned one of the things we need to educate ourselves on are these metrics that make a difference. And there are a ton of metrics, a lot of stuff that really doesn’t matter, but it seems important. Things like views, that kind of stuff. What should we be looking for? What are the top maybe three or four metrics that we just have to pay attention to? Kwadwo: All right. Cost per result, that’s the most important one. If it’s a lead campaign, cost per lead. If it’s a sales campaign, cost per sell. Now hopefully on the back end, we’re doing the math. So if I know that I’m bringing in $3 leads for a launch, hopefully I also know how much those leads over the past launches have been worth to me. So then I can say, ah, Launch leads are worth $15 to me. I’m only paying $3 a lead. Let’s go. And bonus points if I know that launch lead, cold traffic launch leads are worth $15 versus warm traffic launch leads, but I won’t get into the weeds. We want to know how much profit we can have, right? Same thing for cost per sale. Now the next metric that I’m looking at if I’m troubleshooting my ads is what’s called link click through rate and some people, you may have heard the term like outbound link click-through rate. I’m going to consider those the same and that would be the percentage of people that have viewed your ad that have also clicked on a link to go to wherever you’re sending them. The lead magnet opt-in page, the sales page, the registration page. the book a call consultation page what have you and the numbers you’re looking for here is 1% or above and you’re good to go 1% is good like 1.25% it’s great 0.75% link click-through rate horrible so think like hockey stick or like a logarithmic curve and You’ll be fine. So 1% or above Now you’re starting to get into more of a nuance, but let’s say you have ads that are running and your ads aren’t performing as well. Well, I would ask, did you have multiple ad copy versions? Did you have multiple visuals? And if not, this is where you want to test because people, we, we’re just inundated with a bunch of media and so if I’ve seen your ad before and I see it again and I see it too many times I’m probably like I’ve seen this before and I just filter it out and keep scrolling on my doom scroll right and so just by changing up the way an ad looks by adding in another visual taking a graphic doing something as simple as picking another background color then like you don’t get filtered out as easily and it looks fresh and a higher percentage of people will click on that ad. And so the last metric I’ll mention here, because we’re just going to keep it simple, right, is keep an eye on the frequency column. So we started off with cost per result, we went to link click-through rate, and now we’re looking at frequency. Just keep an eye on that frequency column and make sure that people aren’t seeing your ad too often. And if they are, then add some new ad creative in there. Rob Marsh: And you should… What’s a good number for that? So, you know, is it like And it’s been a long time since I looked at this, so I can’t remember if it’s by week or how it measures, but is it three times a day, three times a week, five times a month, what is a good number? Kwadwo: Okay, so in that frequency column, you’ll see a number, and it could be one, it could be 1.7, but that number is the number of times that somebody in the audience you’re targeting has seen an ad within the timeframe that you have selected inside of Meta Ad Manager. So if I select, last month, and then I see a three, that means on average, within the audience that I’m targeting, somebody has seen an ad three times. So if I see a one, that means only one time. If you’re showing ads to cold traffic, which I define as people who have yet to enter or encounter your business ecosphere, they haven’t visited your website yet, they don’t follow you on Facebook or Instagram, they’re not on your email list for sure, they haven’t watched any of your videos, then one to two is a decent frequency. If I’m showing ads for a launch, which we’ve definitely seen this year, 2024, at the time of recording this video, that you’ve really got to make sure you’re showing ads to your warm audiences. Maybe I can tolerate a frequency up to four. But in general, lower frequency is better. I can tolerate a frequency up to four for warm audiences, but I’m always thinking I need more ad creative. I need more ad copy variations because for sure your ads are going to work better at a frequency of like two than four because of that whole, I’ve seen this before thing. And you don’t want, you want as few people to think they’ve seen this before as possible. And so always show up prepared with extra graphics, you know, text on pictures, maybe even like a picture of yourself. Just try different visuals. Not every test, and I want to kind of set this expectation, not every test goes well, you know. In fact, most tests don’t work. That’s the name of the ads management game. But if you are faithful to the test, you will encounter that one out of 20 tests or that 1 out of 20 graphics that works better than the other 19, in which case you’ve got yourself a winner and better results. And if you can keep going to find the 1 out of 50 that works better than the other 49, then guaranteed, just because statistics, then your ads are going to work better. So that’s what I would say. Rob Marsh: It feels like all three of those are indicators that you need new ad ideas, right? If your click-through rates are going down, you need some other thing that’s gonna get attention. If they’re seeing the ads too often, then you need more ads. If the cost has gone up, you probably need more creative. So in my brain, it feels like these are all moving towards the same kind of a thing. Okay, how are you keeping everything fresh? How are you getting more people to respond, which is the name of the game. Kwadwo: I mean, that’s why people hire an ad manager, right? Like, because there comes a point on your success to like, or on your journey to business success, where like, because you’ve hit a certain revenue, and you’re doing certain types of things in your business where it doesn’t make sense, because your time is more valuable than spending it looking inside an ad manager all day long. Rob Marsh: So yeah, that makes sense. Anything else I should be asking about Facebook ads, Instagram ads that I just don’t even have the background to know about that you think, man, it’d be great if everybody knew this? Kwadwo: It would be great if the listener understands as a copywriter that the ad is just, I know they get it, the ad is just the top of the funnel. Right. Let’s look at the landing page. Let’s make sure the landing page conversion rates are on point Otherwise, we’re going to change how the landing page is being presented change add copy there I personally speaking to Speaking from the viewpoint of a service provider would say like if you’re a copywriter and listening which I know many of you are then The moment you can add value to not just the Facebook and Instagram ad, but to the landing page, obviously you’re probably already adding value to the sales page and the email and look at the funnel as a whole and even be able to jump into a spreadsheet, which I’ve gotten used to, but I didn’t like it in the beginning and be able to say, okay, like these are the crucial conversion steps. This is where it should be. Here’s what we can tweak to get that opt in page conversion rate higher or that sales page conversion rate higher. You’re so valuable to your client and you’re able to make sure that like you’re duly compensated, but you also can sleep well knowing that you’re helping somebody very significantly serve more of the people who they were meant to serve with like their passion or their skill. Like it’s great. And so dig on in, dive on in, help with all those conversion steps. Rob Marsh: With a few minutes that we have remaining, I would love to dive into some of the challenges that you faced in basically switching over your business, not just shutting down the business that failed for all kinds of crazy reasons, but then moving into a job and then taking over at least some portions of the business for Rick. Maybe I don’t know, but maybe you’ve got the entire business or it’s just the podcast. I don’t know. Yeah, I’ll clarify that. I’ll tell you some challenges too. Kwadwo: Yeah, please. I am the host of The Art of Online Business Podcast and this was a podcast owned by Rick Mulready. He was the host for the longest and I worked with him and it made point at a point where it made sense at a point where he was transitioning to he’s doing great things in the AI space. helping the same online course creators, coaches, and membership owners use AI so they can increase their impact and reduce their overwhelm. Still the same thing, the guy is brilliant, but when he was moving in that direction, it just became clear that the podcast wasn’t going to serve his business the same way it had. And so, me having worked with him and known him over the years, I decided I would acquire it. And I did, and I became the host. Big challenge here because lots of the listeners were used to Rick and I am no Rick. That guy is a genius. He really knows how to think. I’m a thinker too but his unique way of looking at businesses and doing the coaching thing and helping them generate more revenue and he’s done that for like 12, 13 years I think. from meta and Facebook ads back before it was called meta and then into coaching online course creators and beyond. So I had to be comfortable with myself and who I was. I had to navigate. It was a challenge kind of bridging the gap between how Rick delivered value and being true to how I would deliver value. And finding my own voice, but easing the listener into my own voice over the past year, that’s been a challenge. Let’s just talk about like whenever there’s a transition. there’s going to be an exodus of certain folks because they might not like me as much as they like him. So seeing the numbers and still showing up, and then seeing the numbers of more people coming because they like me. So that was a challenge. When I had to shift businesses, or even from a business to a job, and then to a business again. The biggest challenge was my identity. And so me accepting a new identity or realizing I was more than this previous identity I’d built up as the Chinese guy, the elementary Chinese guy who taught Chinese, that was so hard, Rob. Rob Marsh: Especially if you’re famous and being recognized in restaurants everywhere. Right. Yeah. Kwadwo: And so here I am in a country where I didn’t speak Spanish. So I was in Mexico in the middle of the pandemic, trying my hardest to figure out how I could just get back to China. Cause I was trying to speak on stages there and host events, you know, um, and nobody here knew me as an elementary Chinese guy. It wasn’t like it was helping my business at all. And I’m like wanting that past me. But having to realize, and I’m a Christian, so for me, a lot of the process was just crying in prayer. But having to realize that I am not that previous identity. I am Kwadwo, and I have value outside of just this little part of me that happened to be famous in China. And so to kind of like There was a point where I just had to leave that behind. As much as I wanted to go back, and as much as I wanted to have that kind of business and that kind of, you know, a little bit of fame, I had to look forward and say, all right, well, where are we going here? What is the new identity? Who am I now? And and take these brave steps. And they were painful, honestly. It was very painful. Lots of tears and crying, and so much support from my wife. She’s raising two kids. We got stuck out with a nine-month-old and a three-year-old. So she’s going through her own battles, right? But she’s not earning the money. I am. And I had a lot of support from her at that time. And that was a very, very big challenge. But here I am. I’ve made it and I’m doing okay by the grace of God. Rob Marsh: Forward, ever forward, right? Speaking of ever forward, and you mentioned that Rick’s been looking into AI, but where do you see AI impacting Facebook ads, Instagram ads, the stuff that we’re doing there? Obviously, in the back end, Facebook is doing all kinds of stuff that is finding audience and they’re applying AI in ways that we can’t even see. But on the front end, the stuff that we can see, where is that all going? Kwadwo: I believe it is going towards a place of simpler ads management, where the AI does a lot more and the ads manager does less. I frequently talk about Ads management, kind of like a Latin dance. Since I’m down here in Mexico, I think of salsa and bachata and merengue, you know, tango. It takes two to tango, right? And the person managing the ads, be that somebody hired or yourself, is the lead and the algorithm will follow, right? But it’s going towards a point, because I can see the changes daily. Meta is always rolling out new features. And anyone who’s looked inside of Meta Ad Manager can see that they’re rolling out a lot more suggestions, or they’re taking away certain methods of targeting in favor of letting the algorithm Figure it out for you, you know, whereas you used to really want to test years ago a bunch of detailed Audiences and break everything out into a bunch of ad sets like now frequently the best ad sets that are working are these big ones with like Two to five million people in it and just a broad wide open ad set where you only tell it the country the algorithm tell tell the country and maybe the gender and the age range and it just Finds everything else out for you we’re seeing a lot of new like what they call advantage plus creative where it’s like we do spend our time. Graphic designers are still important, but meta can do like eight different kinds of things to the, to the image at its whim based on what it sees people responding to, you know? And so definitely there’s this trend towards letting the algorithm do more for the ad. And so I see that as, kind of leveling the playing field, you know, over the upcoming years, it should hopefully, uh, get easier for somebody to hop into ad manager right now. It’s still a minefield of mistakes waiting to happen because you, you just have to test things and know what does what. And, um, but yeah, that’s where I see AI going right now. I feel like there’s a stigma to AI. And so we definitely bring our expertise. And I say we, me as an ad manager, you as a copywriter, we bring our expertise to that. But I feel like eventually AI will get to the point where it does do a better job than we can do at writing, provided we do a great job of feeding it with results from the research that we’re doing. I don’t know when AI figures out how to do the kind of research that’s necessary to produce good ad copy. But it can’t be, it can’t be far. It can’t be far down the line. Not like in this year right now where they’re developing like, you know, GPTs or let’s call them AI agents that specialize at one task and you can call on it to do one thing specifically. Well, it can’t be that many more years before you have like the agents working together and communicating with each other. And then after that, at a certain point when they start communicating in a way that we can’t just peer into the code and figure out what they’re saying, We’ve got the matrix. Rob Marsh: So yeah, hopefully it’s the result is us all sitting on beaches and enjoying drinks with umbrellas in them rather than hooked up to life support and providing the energy to the matrix. Yeah. Kwadwo: You know, when Henry Ford came out with the Model T and that started to become super popular, let’s just say motorized vehicles. I mean, he was laughed and ridiculed at. People had plenty of arguments, so they say, at least in the books, as to like, why would you do this over a horse? And well, now horses are mainly like ridden in sport. You know, it’s like an equestrianism. It’s an art form. And so I wonder if that’s where it’s going with AI, where there will still be value for somebody who’s riding themselves, producing out of only their own creativity, But for the business world and everything else, it’s like, we’re going to use AI, but we appreciate the artists who still come up with their own writing. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I think authenticity is one of those make or break things with AI. Once it can fake authenticity, we might be in trouble. But until then, there’s a need for a lot of creators still. So we’ll see. So Kwadwo, this has been really interesting, fascinating for me. If people want to be part of your world, and they should, your podcast is excellent, the ideas that you share. Oftentimes, you know, bite size or can be consumed very quickly. Where should they go and how do they get on your list? All of those things. Kwadwo: So my podcast is The Art of Online Business and we’re serving online course creators and to an extent service providers who just want to level up their income, say from mid four figure months to high six figure years. And you’re going to be on the podcast too. And so I teach on Facebook ads there, but I’m also inviting folks with a wealth of knowledge like yourself to speak every week. And so that’s The Art of Online Business on Apple podcasts, we have a decent and growing presence on YouTube. And look, if you’re wanting meta Facebook and Instagram ads help, but you’re at the point where you want to manage it yourself, I do one on one coaching, I find that that is serving more and more people who know that their business is ready for ads, but they haven’t quite hit that revenue point in the business where they can hire out ads management. The perfect solution is coach with me for a month and I’ll show you everything I know to run your ads so that at the end of that time you’re running your ads, you know how to do the testing, you know the things because you had like unlimited access to me while we were coaching, you know the things to do and how to troubleshoot all the various issues that can show up. And that is a good way to go forward. Rob Marsh: Yeah. That sounds like a really good solution for a lot of people, especially if you’re just starting out and trying to figure this stuff out. Cool. Well, I’ll give you that link. Yeah. We’ll link to it in the show notes. Thank you for your time, Kwadwo. Really appreciate it. And looking forward to talking to you again on your podcast in the near future. Thanks, Rob. Thanks for sharing so much about Facebook ads and reels and how we can use them more effectively for both our clients and in our own businesses, knowing what works and what doesn’t work when you should use Facebook ads. And when you absolutely shouldn’t, this stuff is important and it’s so easy to get caught up in what other business owners are doing. Things like Facebook ads and copying them rather than taking the time to figure out what’s going to work for your business. Knowing the numbers, which actions lead to discussions with prospects and how those convert. We all need to be tracking this stuff. And if ads fit into that flow in your business, you should definitely be using them. Given how much data Facebook has about each of us, this is a goldmine just waiting to be used to connect you with the people that you can help. Maybe my favorite part of this interview is quite Kwadwo’s story and how he had to find a new identity in both his business and his personal life after his old business crashed or in the pandemic. And sometimes you just need to reinvent what you’re doing and it’s never easy. You just need to push through, keep on going until what you’re doing succeeds. If you’d like my help as you push through and reinvent your business, go to the copyrighted club.com forward slash fast track. and sign up for that program while it’s still available. And if you wanna connect with Kwadwo or follow him and learn more about using Facebook and Instagram ads to grow your business, there are a few places that you can go. He hosts the Art of Online Business podcast and we’ll link to that in the show notes. And if you visit his Instagram page, you’ll find a link there in his bio to get his short email series, Seven Biggest Facebook Ad Mistakes That Kill Results. It’s a great place to start with him. Be sure to look for him on YouTube as well.   

A lot of copywriters need a way to attract prospects… but more than that, they need to do it in a way that immediately communicates that they’re the expert—an advisor clients can trust. In the 424th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with copywriter Meg Kendall about creating an industry report that does this perfectly. If you want to stand out from all the other copywriters who depend on lead magnets and social posts to get clients, you need to listen to this episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: Meg’s Website The Copywriter Accelerator Fast Track The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  One of the biggest challenges copywriters face… actually it’s not just copywriters, it’s freelancers of every kind… one of the big challenges we all face is getting noticed. But more than that, getting noticed in a way that builds trust with the clients you want to work with. Just about everyone has a lead magnet… or an email list… or content on social media… all with the intent of making a connection to prospects and potential clients. If you don’t have those you should. They’re table stakes for creating a successful business. But because everyone has them, you have to do more than these to stand out. One way to stand out is to write an eye-opening industry report that immediately sets you up as the expert in the field. It’s more than a download, it’s a shortcut to interviewing potential clients, establishing relationships with them, and demonstrating your ability. Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my guest is copywriter Meg Kendall. Meg followed this exact path to connect with several potential clients in her niche. She’ll be sharing exactly how she did it in this interview.  Before we get to that… you’ve heard of The Copywriter Accelerator program. That’s our business foundations program used by more than 350 copywriters to start, build and scale their own writing business. Graduates include six-figure writers like Justin Blackman, Kirsty Fanton, Michal Eisik, Dani Paige, Krystal Church, and today’s podcast guest, Meg Kendall. We no longer run that program live… the only way to get the business changing strategies and proven ideas we share in The Accelerator is with the Fast Track edition. And as I mentioned on this show last week, even that will be going away sometime in the new year.  So if you’ve been thinking of joining the accelerator, time is running out. What will replace it? It’s too soon to reveal the details but if you join the accelerator fast track before we launch this new program, you’ll get early access to both the accelerator and the new program. Until then, you get all of the content, the 8 modules and blueprints and several bonuses that are included in The Accelerator Fast Track. And when we launch the new program sometime next year, you’ll get that updated program too. Don’t wait to work on your business so when the new year is here you have a steady flow of clients and a signature service you’re proud to offer them. Visit thecopywriterclub.com/fasttrack to learn more today. And now, let’s go to our interview with Meg Kendall. Hey Meg, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. Let’s start with your story. I’ve been watching you build your business now for a couple of years. I think it’s a good one. Meg Kendall: All right. Yeah. I feel like my story is kind of similar to a lot of other copywriters and that it’s very winding and maybe a lot of the backstory is fairly irrelevant to what I do now. So I had a fairly long career in hospitality. I worked as a server and a bartender for about 10 years, and it was pretty hard to leave. At some points, I wasn’t sure I would ever leave. And then I finally broke out, and that was via going back to school for the millionth time, it feels like. Really, it was the fourth time that I finally got my undergraduate degree, and that was in botany. And I lean on that a lot today because most of my clients are…  So I work in climate tech, so they’re all very focused on the science behind climate change. just like very technical topics, et cetera, stuff like that. So they love that I have a botany degree. From there, I moved to New York city for a job, completely irrelevant to botany. I moved there as the technical term is an orientation and mobility specialist, but nobody knows what that is. So I’ll tell you, I was a travel instructor for visually impaired students in the Bronx and New York city. So that was a really interesting time period of my life. And I’m only telling it because it’s relevant to switching my way to copywriting.  Yeah, so I was in New York City. So many big changes in such a short amount of time. I moved to New York City with my husband, left that 10-year-long hospitality career, became pregnant with my now two-and-a-half-year-old daughter pretty much like a week after we got to New York City, which wasn’t in the plan, but was a happy accident. Yeah, really, really hated my job in the Bronx. It’s just, they didn’t paint an accurate picture of what the job was going to be like. And I found that out pretty quickly, but I was there at this job and I was pregnant and I had great health insurance and I couldn’t leave my nice health insurance job in New York City to go bartend pregnant in New York city. Right. So all that’s going on.  And so two years past that I do this, like I’m, you know, I’m crying in the hallways at my job. It’s sad, but it’s fine. Like I’m getting through it. And then I have Charlie and I’m like, how do I get out of this? How do I get back to my roots and get back to doing something that I love doing and, like, never have to go back to this place again? It’s funny because I didn’t think about it while – I did think about it while I was pregnant, but I didn’t try to actively work my way out of it. And it wasn’t until Charlie was born that I was like, oh, I can’t go back there. Like, I just can’t do it. It’s not going to happen. So I remember that once upon a time I was going to earn an English degree, but everyone’s an English degree major, but everyone scared me out of it because there’s no way you can make a living as a writer. Like you’ll have to, you know, you know, the same old trope. No one thinks you can make any money writing for a living. I’m sure most of the people listening to this podcast have heard that same cliche throughout their careers.  I found myself in someone’s marketing funnel. I think it was The Comprehensive Copywriting Academy. And that’s how I discovered copywriting. I didn’t even know what it was. And I just really went all in on it immediately with my little five-day-old baby. And yeah, took it from there. And things have snowballed since then. I think when I first learned of you guys, I was learning like, oh, it’s a good idea to niche. Now, I think it was you that told me. I was like, I’m going to niche down to B2B SaaS. And you were like, that’s not niching. I was like, OK. Yeah, I guess you’re right. Because I was so new to everything. I didn’t really have any concept of the scope and what was possible and just how far niched you could get. And yeah, I came, I’d always wanted to work in sustainability, but I think I had the same, the same problem with sustainability as I did with writing. Like I’m like, either you work in a job that you love and you don’t make any money or you can make money and work, work in a job that you don’t love very much. So I’d always, I’d never achieved a job in sustainability. And then through copywriting, I discovered climate tech, which marries these two worlds of lbeing able to have a lucrative career working with like fancy technologies that are moving the world forward, but also doing something good for the world and the world of sustainability. So it seemed like a pretty perfect match right away. Rob Marsh: Yeah. I want to go back to you being a bartender. I was a bartender before I started copywriting. Not for 10 years. I did it for maybe a year and a half, two years or so. But were there things that you take from that experience of working with people daily, trying to keep them happy, that basically translates to copywriting today? Meg Kendall: Absolutely. So I think a lot of things, one thing being the obvious, like you’re behind the bar and people drink and they spill you their life secrets. I feel like you do get that sort of inside look at human psychology and you’re exposed to so many different people and so many different perspectives and so many different attitudes and you sort of get kind of an intuition for what makes people tick and how people are going to react to different things. So I think that’s one aspect of it. But the other aspect that I think affected me more is the hustle ability. Anyone that bartended through COVID knows how terrible that was. Not to promote the hustle and the grind because I don’t agree with that at all, but doing it for a short amount of time in your life I think does give you a little bit of grit and teach you stuff. And I think I translated that over into my writing career more than anything, like just doing the work. Rob Marsh: Yeah. I think I took something similar. Uh, there’s, you know, there’s all kinds of ways to approach bartending or any work really, but there’s obviously there’s a time when hustle matters and obviously you can’t hustle 24 hours a day, seven days a week for your entire career. But there may be some really intense times where, you know, for a few months, maybe even for a few years, you require hustle. And I think, you know, while we’re mentioning it, because you talked about how, you know, you basically quit your job as soon as you had a child. Having a child is in a lot of ways, a 24 hour hustle, maybe not work, but it puts the rest of your life into a hustle mode in a lot of ways. Meg Kendall: Yeah, absolutely. So I don’t want to frame that wrong. I didn’t quit my job right away. So I dived into copywriting for my 12 weeks of maternity leave because New York City is fantastic and those kinds of regards. I got maternity leave and so did my husband. But I did go back to work and I built up my copywriting career on the side. So that looked like Rob Marsh: Even more hustle though, right? You’ve got to work hard while you’re working. You’ve got to take care of an infant. Meg Kendall: Yeah, that’s not easy. Yeah, exactly. So it took me about six months back at my job before I could cut back down to part-time. And then another year after that, I was able to quit. Rob Marsh: Okay, so let’s talk about how you found those first couple of clients. This is always a challenge for copywriters, especially as they start to move into a niche. I know you started a little bit broad before you really decided on climate tech and some of the things that you’re doing today. But how did you connect with people in order to get work? Meg Kendall: Okay, so the first few articles I wrote, I was baiting people on Reddit. I was asking people if they had something that they wanted someone to write about and that I would write it for free. I know people don’t recommend that, but I was so new and I had no history or portfolio. And I knew I wanted to write for tech, but I didn’t know. I just didn’t know how to come up with a topic for myself that someone would want. And I wrote two articles for free. And those were my first portfolio pieces. And then from there, I went to Upwork, landed my first website copywriting job there, a pretty decent one. I think it was like they paid me like $1,700 to write their entire website, which to me, that seems really low now, but at the time I was like, this is great. I was so excited. I actually took the sales call in my office at my job in the Bronx school and took it way in the morning and locked my office door and then landed the client and was jumping up and down like, yes, I did it because I was so excited to get out of that job. Yeah, so first two articles are free. Then I landed a client on Upwork and then my next client I landed through LinkedIn. Rob Marsh: And then obviously you started to move towards climate tech. I know you were in the accelerator and we talk a lot about niching and that kind of stuff, but what was the thought process there beyond the fact that you have this degree in botany? Meg Kendall: For moving into climate tech? Yeah. So I really wanted to be involved in the world of sustainability and like doing the best that we can against the problem that is climate change. And then the tech aspect came, I think part of it’s a little bit nostalgic because my dad, when I was younger, he was a really gigantic tech nerd. And I know that he would be so flabbergasted and amazed at how far things have come today. So it just seemed like a really nice, like collision of worlds. So that’s what made me stick with it. Rob Marsh: Cool. So one of the things that you’ve done that I think is really smart, and maybe this idea came while you were in the accelerator or shortly afterwards, but you wrote an industry report and used that to launch an email list. So talk about that, the thinking, what you did and why. Meg Kendall: Yeah, the industry report is definitely one of the best things that I’ve done for my business. I did get the idea while I was in the accelerator. I think it came directly from you guys. I was like, that’s a good idea. I’m going to do that. But I didn’t do it by myself. So I had been friends with another girl in the climate tech freelancing space. Okay, so let me back up. I’d been trying to work on this industry report, right? Months are passing and I’m making a little bit of progress, but not that much. And I’m like, oh my God, how am I ever going to get this thing done? And then a girl that I had just had one coffee chat with earlier on in my career, I had reached out to her like, hey, just trying to make friends in the space. Are you up for a coffee chat? Et cetera, et cetera. It was a friendly call and that was that. And then a couple of months later, she reached out to me like, Hey, how’s freelancing going? I’m just feeling like I’d really love to have someone to work on some kind of marketing initiative with. I’m just looking for something fresh to do with my business. Things are getting kind of lonely and stale essentially. I was like, it’s so funny that you should ask because I’ve been trying to write this industry report for climate tech to further my business and help people in the climate tech space, but I’m just not making any headway on it. I was like, let’s do it together. And that’s what we did. We did it together. I mean, there’s so much that came off of that, but we built an email list and it’s spawned an entire business between the two of us. So yeah, the industry report really changed everything for me. Rob Marsh: Go a little deeper into what the industry report was, because I think, you know, as we think about this stuff, you know, we’re always looking for the thing, right? And there’s a lot of advice out there. You want to keep it simple. You want like a one page checklist or, you know, I mean, there’s so many different ways to do this, but an industry report, I don’t hear that very often. And so, yeah. What went into that? Meg Kendall: So we reached out to so many people, mainly marketers of climate tech companies, and asked them to chat with us. An industry report is so smart because you get to position yourself as an expert in the space, but also you get to talk to these people that you want to be your clients one-to-one and understand what challenges they’re facing and what they’re looking for and what outcomes they’re trying to achieve. So, yeah, we just reached out to people simply on LinkedIn, like, hey, we’re working on this industry report. We’re hoping for it to be a really valuable piece of content to bolster the climate tech industry as a whole. Would you be willing to chat with us about, like, the challenges that you’re seeing? What do you think is working in the space? Like, where are you getting your leads? That kind of thing. And we had a really good response rate. I’d say it was probably 50-50, but people that didn’t respond or people that were like, sure. Yeah, definitely. We’ll chat. Cause I don’t know. I feel like in climate tech, most people are pretty willing to help. Like we have a common goal, right? So everyone wants to be helpful towards that goal. Yeah. So we’d get people on these calls and ask them about their challenges. What have you seen that’s working? I just listed these things off already, but people were more than willing to talk. And a lot of it too, is they wanted to be featured in this report because it makes them look good. So it was pretty easy, you know, and you’re not just making an ask. You’ve also had something of value to offer them. Rob Marsh: And do you give them a copy of their part when it’s done? Obviously you used it as a lead magnet as well. Meg Kendall: Yeah, I did. So how we did it is we, after we did write the report, we’d send them the snippet that we included them in so they could like approve their quote and like get context for how we featured them. So they’d sign off on that. And then we were like, okay, when everything’s finalized, well, you’ll be the first one to get the report. We’d be happy if you shared it with your network. And most of them were very happy to share it with their network because, you know, they were in it. Rob Marsh: And what were the results? Did you see clients immediately from that or how has that played out in your business? Meg Kendall: The clients have definitely been a long game. We saw a bunch of, we got a lot of traction for it and we built an email list from, we still have a pretty small email list. We’re floating at like, we’re getting close to 400, but it’s still pretty small. But more than half of that was from that initial industry report. And we’re still getting people trickling in from that industry report today. And honestly, it’s funny. So we didn’t get many clients immediately, but we had a lot of great conversations and it was great for our own voice of customer research. But in the second half of this year, we’ve gotten more people reaching out to us because of that industry report than we ever did at the very beginning. So I would say it was a slow burn, but it’s definitely paid off for us in spades. Rob Marsh: And I know you say your list is only 400, but a list of 400 potential clients is actually a massive list. You couldn’t serve 10% of them if they all said yes immediately, right? Meg Kendall: Yeah, that’s true. And it’s so funny because at the beginning we were watching it like, wow, is this really happening? Because we didn’t know if it would flop or if it would work or what. And when we got to 100, we celebrated. And I think we both bought ourselves a coffee from our shared account or something like that. But now we’re like, oh, 400, it just feels so small because we haven’t been growing as fast as we want to. But in hindsight, it’s a lot of people for us, at least at this stage. Rob Marsh: And do you have plans to do another one in the future or to renew it for the new year? Anything like that? Meg Kendall: So originally our plan was to do one every year. I think our current plan is to sort of refresh the one that we already have and just update it for 2025. We did have plans. So I did tell you briefly that we’re expanding our audience to include corporates. And part of our plans for that did include doing a new report aimed at that audience. But I think it’s going to have to be more of a mid-year kind of thing because we’re a little, we’re treading water right now. Rob Marsh: So yeah, let’s mention that because I think we were talking about that offline before we started recording. So just so everybody has context on that, the climate tech world that you had been serving is mostly startups. And there’s some challenges with that that are leading to the expansion of your niche. So talk through that a little bit. Meg Kendall: Yeah, so climate tech is a fantastic space to be in, but it is startups. And then everyone knows that tech is going through kind of a funding downfall right now. And climate tech was immune to that for a while, but they are no longer. They’re not quite as down as the tech industry as a whole, but there’s still they’re down and they’re down and you can feel it. And yeah, so we’re trying to move away from only working with all these like pre-seed and seed companies and moving I think now we’re setting a standard. We only work with companies that have raised a series A, but also our interests are leading us to work with corporates as well. So we’d like to work with companies that have sustainability initiatives, and we’d like to help them with their sustainability reporting. Rob Marsh: And obviously more established companies have more money to spend. They have marketing departments that you can connect with. So there are a different set of challenges, but it’s not necessarily moving away from the thing that you love, but expanding the potential clients you can help. Meg Kendall: Exactly. Yep. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Okay. So you briefly mentioned the coffee chat and the person that you have become a business partner with. Talk a little bit more about the development of that relationship. Meg Kendall: Yeah. Yeah. So we just had that brief coffee chat. It’s so funny because just recently, we were like, who reached out to who? And we both remembered it the opposite way. She was like, I think I reached out to you. And I was like, I don’t think so. So we had to scroll back in our chats and see what the truth was. And we were both kind of right. I engaged her and then she was like, do you want to have a coffee chat? Anyway, so that’s how the marketing report came to be. We worked on it together for… It took a while. I want to say it took us a couple months because we were balancing our client work on top of that. And we launched it in January of this year. And we didn’t really know what we’re like, what do we do now? Do we keep working as like, co freelancers? Do we start a podcast? Like, what’s our next thing? What do we do with this? Like, do we make an umbrella brand? And we really went back and forth on it for a long time, because we were both very passionate about our flexible schedules and being able to take a long lunch break and not being beholden to someone else’s schedule and taking a vacation when you want to and not feeling stressed about it. So we stayed freelancers for a long time, but then we decided to like, hey, let’s do this thing because we’ve been working together side by side for so long and we know we get along really well and we share the same values and neither one of us is going to be like, oh, why aren’t you working right now? That kind of thing. So we just decided it would work and we went all in and now we have this shared Climate Hub LLC business. And yeah, we’re totally in it. Rob Marsh: And how do you break up what you do? Obviously, you’re a copywriter. Is she also doing writing? Is she doing design work? Like, how does that work? Meg Kendall: Yeah. At first, it made sense to us because I was more doing brand messaging and website copywriting, and she is more of a long-form content writer. I will say our skills really overlap quite a lot, which is textbook from what we’ve been reading in our business books, what you’re not supposed to do when you seek out a founder for a company. We’re aware of this and we know it’s maybe an issue, but we’re working it out. Yeah, we actually just had a consulting call with someone recently about how we need to really define our roles and how it doesn’t feel like it matters now, but it will as the company grows. Yeah, I think I lost the thread there a little bit. Rob Marsh: I think that’s exactly right. I think there are opportunities for partnerships all over the place. And the way we structure them is pretty unique. I mean, sometimes it’s a full on partnership where you’re creating a business together. Other times, it’s a working relationship. And so it’s just interesting to see how yours has moved from that casual acquaintance to now you two are building a business together that could do some really amazing things with climate focused copy. Meg Kendall: Yeah, it’s exciting. We’re really excited about it right now. We joke because it’s right now it is still just the two of us. We’ve dabbled in working with freelancers, but the idea obviously is to build a team, subcontractors to begin. But we’re definitely early stages. Rob Marsh: Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about the kinds of projects that you do. What is the way that you engage businesses? What’s the typical project look like? How much are you charging? All of that stuff. Meg Kendall: Yeah, so this is in flux. I feel like it’s always in flux, but the bulk of our work currently is content marketing. So we work with climate technology companies. A lot of them are software, but also more hard technologies to like direct. Lots of climate technologies, but usually we work with them on a lead magnet, such as a white paper, and then engage them to make blogs and social media content based off of that, which is called a hub and spoke model. That’s our main offer, I would say, but we also work with climate tech companies on their brand messaging and positioning website, copywriting, that sort of thing. Rob Marsh: And when you engage, you mentioned, you know, you started working for free. Obviously you’re not doing that anymore. What’s the typical price point for you guys? Meg Kendall: Yeah. So our minimum engagement start at $2,500 a month, which I actively think, I think that should be higher, honestly, at this point, but just this climate tech winter that we’re going through, we’re holding it steady for now. Um, but yeah, lead magnet starts at 2,500 on the low end and then, content starts at 750 at the low end, because it’s pretty technical content. So we engage with subject matter experts. And yeah, so lots of interviewing, lots of research goes into the piece. They take a while. Rob Marsh: Yes. Not your typical blog post. I’ll read three other blog posts and rewrite something similar. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. For sure. Okay, so we talked about how you got your initial clients built up this client list or potential client list with the industry reports. Is that where most clients are coming from now? Or how does that engagement start so that you can go from, okay, they’re on my list, they’re interested in us, they know us, but now we want to actually start work. Meg Kendall: Yeah, so it’s a mix. I’d say we get a fair amount from the newsletter. It’s funny because some weeks, so we send out the newsletter every week, and some weeks we’re like, why are we doing this? Because it’s work. But then the next week, we’ll get someone that’s like, I love your newsletter, and we’re looking for storytelling. Can you guys help? And we’re like, oh, OK, it is worth it. But it’s easy to forget week to week when you have a couple of quiet weeks. So yeah, I’d say it’s probably a pretty It’s a pretty even split between people that are nurtured on our email list and people that just find us inbound on LinkedIn. So that’s where most of our leads come from, I would say. We do do some outbounds, not a lot, we should do more. We should do a lot more than we do. And we get probably a small amount from our outbound as well. Rob Marsh: Yeah, amazing. Okay, you’ve also developed a few frameworks. I know the frameworks may be changing as you are switching from, or as you’re enlarging your niche just a little bit. But I love frameworks. I love them partly because they demonstrate different things about a business, but they also set us apart from other copywriters, content writers in the space. So you’ve got a couple of them. Talk a little bit about how you came to develop. I guess the first one you built was the pedal framework. And then you’ve got four C’s and you’re working on yet another framework for this newer audience. But let’s talk a little bit about your thinking there. Meg Kendall: Yeah, so I love the frameworks because it makes it so much easier to talk about what you do, and it makes it feel like you own a process, which I think clients really like because it makes it clear to them like, okay, hey, she’s done this before. She has a way for doing the thing that she does, and she knows that it will get results. The first framework I came up with was Petal. Yeah, it was very on brand for my individual branding. I came up with it. I went through Justin Blackman‘s brand voice special. I don’t know if that’s the right name for his signature brand voice program, which is a great program. I’d recommend it to anyone. I came up with it during that. to outline the way I approach voice, which was relevant to my brand messaging guides that I was offering at the time, which I still offer. I just don’t talk about the framework as much. I think it’s a little pedal’s just a little too frilly, I think, for my climate tech people today. Maybe not. That’s just the gut feeling I have about it. So I don’t talk about it as much, but I can. So pedal. Let’s see, what did it stand for? OK, so P was for pattern ease for emotion. T is for tone. A is for atmosphere and L is for language, as in like the brand language that you use to talk about things. So I’d go through each of those letters to sort of develop a brand voice and tone and like develop a brand language framework for my clients. And that’s what they would work within for their materials. So they could sound unique and resonate with their audience and all those nice things that we want our copy to do. Rob Marsh: And then you also have the four C’s, which I think is the one that’s on your website today. And at least I find it there now. Yeah. Meg Kendall: Yeah. I think they’re both on my website. The 4C Copy Canopy is a more general phased approach. I still use this approach. I just don’t talk about it in the same way. Actually, I think now my approach is a five-phase approach. The 4C Copy Canopy, the first C is Collect. That’s an audit of the client’s current atmosphere to see what’s working on the website. What does the brand voice sound like? How’s their positioning working? How does it fit in with the larger market? That’s collect and then phase two is cultivate. That’s where we go in and define the key messages. Their messaging pillars, we dial into the strategy and then figure out how to match those messages to each of their ideal customer personas. Phase three is compose and that’s where we develop and document the brand language system using the pedal framework, which is below it on my website, which I already talked about. Then phase four is communicate, which I say is how you get visible with your voice and message in the market and sort of bring that to scale so people can hear what you have to say. Rob Marsh: I think what I really like about your approach here is the way that you’re using two kinds of frameworks. So the four Cs is more of a process framework, whereas the pedal framework is a little bit more of an idea framework or about the thing that you do. And you’ve put them together in a way that totally makes sense. is so different from the way everybody else talks about their business, even though what you do isn’t all that different from other copywriters. You do research, you do writing, you present to the client, you make changes, whatever. Like literally doing the same work, but the way you’re talking about it is totally unique to you. Meg Kendall: Yeah, exactly. It’s really a marketing tool in itself and it makes you sound unique and clients find it impressive, I think. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I mean, that’s actually my next question. And clients find it impressive. How do you use them as you’re bringing clients on board? Do you talk about them before, you know, on a discovery call? You know, do you work it into a proposal? Like, where does it show up in your process? Meg Kendall: I typically, I briefly mentioned it in a discovery call, I could probably use it more there. But mostly, I’d say it shines in my proposals. I reference, like, this is how I do it and this is why it works. And it looks nice in the proposal, too. So I’d say that’s where I get the most mileage out of it. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes sense. And like I said, it shows you off in a way that’s very unique to what other copywriters are doing. Let’s talk about where your business is going in the future. I know the tech world’s seen a little bit of a slowdown, so you guys are expanding, but what does the business look like next year, hopefully even two or three years down the line? Meg Kendall: Yeah, so we love talking about this because it’s what we’re so excited about right now. We’re in the middle of a website refresh right now. I think hopefully it’ll be live by the time this episode goes live. Rob Marsh: Fingers crossed. Meg Kendall: Yeah. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Okay. So right now we’ve got our eyes set on continuing on in climate tech because we love it. It’s our zone of genius and the people in it are so fantastic. And I swear all my clients are the smartest people I’ve ever talked to. So we love that, but we’ve got our eyes set on expanding to corporates that are doing good sustainability work, or at least doing their darndest at doing good sustainability work because it is hard work. And we’d like to help those companies with their sustainability reporting. And that is so that’s more than just like a fully impact report, right? Because it’s this is going to become a compliance issue. Companies are going to have to start reporting on their sustainability. This is more relevant in Europe than it is in the U.S. today, but hopefully it will become relevant in the U.S. more than it is today. So for us, that looks like really understanding the regulatory frameworks and standards that these companies are having to report to. So that’s something that we’re both working on in our our very limited free time is credentials and these different kinds of sustainable finance credentials, accounting, all that kind of thing. Yes. So that’s our nearish short, nearish medium term goal is to help corporates with their sustainability reporting and helping them achieve compliance, but also using those reports, not as just like a data driven checklist, but as a narrative driven marketing asset. so that they get the best of both worlds. And then long term, we’d also like to bring sustainability consultants into the fold under the Climate Hub umbrella and help those companies that are doing their sustainability reporting actually reduce their emissions too. So our positioning would be like, Hey, we’ll help you report on this. We’ll help you use the support in your marketing initiatives. And while your stakeholders, as long as you’re actually doing the work, we don’t want to fluffify it. That’s our big thing. You don’t want to tell a story that isn’t right, but we want to tell a story that is accurate and still makes you look good. And then also our additional value add would be like, not only can we help you report on this and make it make you look good, but we’ll also actually help you reduce your emissions and make a tangible impact on improving the world for everybody’s futures. Rob Marsh: That’s amazing. I love that it goes beyond just writing where you’re trying to help implement best practices, help share the story. Too many copywriters, I think, just get hung up on just doing the words like this is all I do is I just write the article or I just write the website and they don’t go the extra step to help clients implement whether it’s sales strategy, climate strategy, whatever. So I love that you guys are doing that. Meg Kendall: Yeah, we’re really excited about it because we’ve obviously what we do right now. I feel like we’re doing good for the world, but I feel like with the direction that we’re going and we can do much more good than we are today. Rob Marsh: So let me ask you maybe a strange question. A lot of copywriters, you know, we’re working alone in our offices or at the kitchen table or wherever we, you know, the coffee shop, wherever. What are some things that we can do to make our own businesses just a little bit more climate friendly? Meg Kendall: Oh, good question. Well, we have writers at home at their desk have such a light impact to begin with. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I know. That’s kind of my initial thought is, well, maybe I can’t do anything other than turn off the lights and work in the dark. Meg Kendall: Yeah, I mean, all of us could be doing so much more. So there’s like, I’m not sure if you’re maybe some of our listeners aren’t familiar with everyone, AI is all the rage, right? And it’s a very powerful tool. But my goodness is the energy consumption of AI, such insanity. And now that it’s replaced people’s Google searching, I’m not good at keeping statistics off the top of my head. But it’s something like one Google or one AI prompt is equivalent to some ridiculous amount of water used. Don’t quote me. Look it up for yourselves. But the energy use is insane. So I think the best thing people could do with their online businesses is probably being mindful of their AI use. Not to say not to use it. I use it. I think it’s a very powerful tool and it makes me more efficient and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I’m a big fan. Things like that. And people talk about this a lot… the carbon footprint of your website, that’s something you can think about. But again, I don’t want to shame anyone’s personal actions because there are so many bigger fish to fry out there when it comes to the climate crisis. But yeah, all of us could be doing more. Have a vegetarian day, et cetera. Rob Marsh: There you go. Vegetarian day is maybe where I’ll start. Less meat today. We’ll see. So as you were answering some of these other questions, you mentioned a couple of different programs that you’ve invested in. And this is something that I admire about you is that you’re always looking to learn and to improve. I mentioned you were in our accelerator, you were in the think tank for a while. What’s your philosophy there? And why do you do that? Meg Kendall: It’s obsessive. It’s a good question. My husband would probably like to know as well, too. I think that it’s important to always be learning and there’s always things you can improve on. And quite frankly, I get bored if I’m not working on something new or learning some kind of new skill. And I just think it’s I don’t know, maybe I’m a bit of a personal development freak. I just think it’s good practice and it keeps me from getting sad, I think. So, yeah, maybe it’s a tick. But yeah, it’s so nice to meet other people that are also investing in these courses because they have the same, not the same values, but the same yearning for more, I guess is how I would put it simply. So yeah, it’s just a great way to meet people and keep your mind sharp and keep doing better in the world. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I mean, I’ve talked about this maybe 100 times on the podcast, but this has always been a game changer for me. I’ve almost always been in some kind of a mastermind. I still invest in programs and try to learn from things. I was on a call yesterday with somebody that I met in a mastermind that both of us were not in that particular mastermind anymore. We were sharing, oh, who are you learning from right now? Or what’s the thing that you’re working on? And having those kinds of relationships This isn’t even a question. I’m just confirming what you said. It’s a total game changer for business. Meg Kendall: It really is. It makes such a difference. It makes things less lonely and it gives you a sort of a sense of accountability too. Like right now I’m eager for another, like we’re ready for another business coach. You know, like someone that knows more than we do. That would be great. Any day now. But yeah, yeah. I’m a continual learner and investor and yeah, I can’t help myself. Rob Marsh: It’s a good place to be. You mentioned the impact of AI, but let’s talk a little bit about how you’re using AI in your business to help you make more progress or to do things faster. What are your two or three favorite tools and what are you using them for? Meg Kendall: I use chat GPT the most. Someone just introduced me to perplexity and I cannot believe that I didn’t know about it. I mean, I don’t know that much about it yet, so I don’t have that much to say. I just saw someone quickly show me on a screen and I was like, that’s amazing. That’s a cool tool. It’s a really good tool. So I plan on investigating that more, but mostly I’ve just used chat GPT and Claude. I used to be way more wowed by Claude than I am by ChatGPT. But in the recent weeks and months, I am seriously impressed by the output from ChatGPT. like to a point where I’m a little scared and nervous because just in the last year, it just seems to me like it’s improved. So maybe I’ve gotten better at prompting and like feeding it better context, but the stuff that it puts out these days, I’m just really wowed. Okay. But to answer your question on how I use it. So honestly, for most of my clients, I have a giant conversation ongoing and ChatGPT for each of my clients that understands their brand voice and has been fed like all the content that I’ve previously written for it. And it helps me outline, you know, sometimes it helps me build out full sections because it’s trained very well on my writing and all of their background. And it’s an incredible tool. It terrifies me every day. Rob Marsh: All of them seem to be getting better. And yeah, it’s good to use them. They definitely move our businesses forward. Good to be aware of the changes as well so we can stay ahead of them just a little bit. Meg Kendall: Yeah, I will say I had sort of written it off for a while there. Like I dabbled and explored when it was, you know, for such a rage and I was like, I just don’t really see how it’s that. I don’t know. It didn’t excite me, but over the last few months I’ve been using it again and I really am impressed by the improvements I’ve seen. Rob Marsh: Yeah, same. So we also briefly skipped over this, but you basically launched your business with a newborn. I think your child is a couple of years older now, but you’ve done all of this as a mom of a very young child, high demands. How did you balance your time? How did you find the time to even work on your business with all of that going on in your personal life? Meg Kendall: Yeah, so I think about this, and then I think of other moms that have multiples, and I’m like, how do they do that? But I’m sure you just adapt as your life changes, and that’s just how it goes. But to answer your question, let’s see. So I’m very lucky in that my husband – well, lucky, it’s a double-edged sword. My husband and I have opposite schedules. So he is a manager at a cocktail bar, so he works evenings, which means that he can be with Charlie while I work during the day. My day usually gets cut off by three or so. So that helps a lot because we don’t have to pay for daycare or anything like that. I don’t know what we would do if our schedules were not opposite. Beyond that, I wake up very early and I make sure that I get my exercise and my breakfast in before anyone else wakes up. It’s not really a time management thing. It is though. It’s like a mental management thing, which makes me able to handle my time much better. This is thanks to my business partner. I’m also a recent Cal Newport fangirl. Rob Marsh: Okay. Meg Kendall: I finished his deep workbook and just listened to a really long podcast from him on, uh, the Huberman lab. And I am actually, I’ve got his planner right here, his time blocker planner. And I will say that has made a big difference in the way I approach my day. I feel so much more accountable and I get so much more done. And it’s just like, there’s when you take the guesswork out of your schedule, it really, it really changes things. So I would say that’s a recent development, but it helps me a lot because my day really is short and I had to fit it all in before I switched to, two and a half year old duty at three o’clock. Rob Marsh: So let me ask you about that, because it’s one thing to buy a planner. It’s one thing to say, I’m going to do all of this stuff. And it’s another thing to have the discipline to do it. Now, obviously, there are a few forcing factors in our lives that, you know, force discipline. The mortgage payments do or, you know, I do have to do child care at three o’clock. And so therefore it has to be done by three. Some of that stuff helps. But how else do you find you adding discipline into the various things that you do so that you make sure it gets done. Instead of picking up the phone to scroll and suddenly it’s 30 minutes later and the only thing you have accomplished is that you’re angry about the election or whatever. Meg Kendall: That’s exactly what that accomplishes too. Rob Marsh: I know. Me too. I’m speaking from experience here. Meg Kendall: Oh my goodness. Yeah. So the phone thing is actually a recent huge focus of mine. I’m really trying to tackle that addiction. I haven’t completely broken it. Everyone has it, right? But I will say I’m markedly better over the past few weeks. As for how to maintain the discipline, I’m not sure. I just think I do think that I lean – I’m pretty good at having it in the first place. I don’t know if I have a secret answer to it. I think that I beat myself up if I don’t do the things that I tell myself I’m going to do and then I don’t like how I feel when that happens. Not that I’m perfect. I do end up beating myself up about things quite often but I think – I mean that’s my best motivator. I’m like I can either do this and feel good at the end of the day or I can not do the thing I told myself I would do today and then be really hateful of myself in the evening. And no one wants to do that. So that’s my driver. Rob Marsh: Being aware of that feeling, I guess, it is a good way to maintain that discipline for sure. Meg Kendall: Yeah, I think I relate it to exercise. So someone told me this a long time ago. I’ve been a pretty regular yoga practitioner for most of my life. And something someone said to me once is like, you may not want to go to yoga class, but how many times have you ever left yoga class and regretted it? And so that’s how I view my workouts in the morning when I don’t want to get out of bed. And that’s how I view my work, too. I’m like, I’m not going to be mad that I finished this thing that I set out to do today. Rob Marsh: I’m exactly the same way with running. In fact,  I run four or five times a week. I actually don’t like running, which is a little ironic because that’s the thing. I do it because it’s easy. It’s quick. You know, I can get out in 10 minutes or whatever. But I love having run like the actual running part. I hate it. I hate it until maybe the fourth mile when maybe you get a little bit of that, you know, kick in of the runner’s high or whatever. But I love the feeling when I’m done—that I have run. Meg Kendall: Yep, exactly. It gives you such a feeling of accomplishment. I can’t agree with you that running is easy because I hate running. Rob Marsh: I don’t think it’s easy to run. I think it’s an easy exercise. So the other thing I love doing is getting on my bike. But by the time I put on my kit and check the tires and you have the light on the bike and it’s cold or what, you know, it’s just so much easier to go for a run. Meg Kendall: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Rob Marsh: So Meg, if you could go back and talk to, you know, Meg, I don’t know, 2018, you know, as you started exploring and thinking about copywriting, or maybe it’s a little closer to 2020, what advice would you give her in order to help her, I don’t know, make more progress more quickly or, you know, have an easier time of it? What do you think you would tell her? Meg Kendall: I think one of the things I would tell myself is to get over your fear of networking. because I’m still not great at it and it’s still not my favorite thing to do. I love it while it’s happening. When I’m in conversation with someone, I’m like, this is great. This is why I scheduled all these coffee chats for this week, but I dread the time leading up to them. When I was an early freelancer, I was like, am I going to be able to do this? I’m not a super social person. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make the connections that I need to do. I would think I would go back and encourage myself to get over it and do it anyway, which I did eventually, but I would have wished that I did it sooner. Rob Marsh: Takes a little bit of time sometimes just to figure it all out. Okay, Meg, if somebody wants to find you, follow you, maybe check out your industry report, get on your list, all of those things, where should they go? Meg Kendall: Yeah. So you can find everything that I do at theclimatehub.co. And you can reach me via email at megattheclimatehub.co, or you can find me on LinkedIn, which is my only active social platform. Rob Marsh: Amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Meg Kendall: Yeah, thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. Rob Marsh: Thanks to Meg for sharing so much about her business, creating an industry report, partnerships, frameworks, and so much more. If you want to connect with Meg, you can find her at megcadmell.com. She has her information about her business, everything that she’s doing there. You might also see her popping up on social media occasionally. We’ll see how that all goes.  I really like this idea of industry reports as a way to generate almost instant credibility with your ideal clients. In fact, we like it so much that we have a couple of our own industry reports for copywriters and content writers. One of those is our pricing survey where we ask more than 500 copywriters about the projects that they work on and how much they charge for each of them. You can find that report broken down into three different articles on the blog at thecopywriterclub.com if you want to check it out. There’s also an opt-in there on those articles if you want to download a free PDF that has all of the information that we gathered for that report if you want to keep it handy when you’re trying to figure out prices on various projects that you might be working on.  We also created an in-depth 32-page report on how to find clients. One writer that we shared it with said that it was more helpful than a course that he had taken on the same topic. Each of the ideas in the report have been proven successful by other copywriters that we know personally, and if you decide to get your own copy, I’m certain that several of the ideas will work for you. Several of them work for me, so I know they work. You can find that report at thecopywriterclub.com/findaclient. Find a client’s all one word. Forward slash find a client. It’s free, so be sure to check it out.  But getting back to my point about building credibility with industry reports, it takes work to put them together. A good report is something that you can’t just write in one afternoon. You need to gather information and hopefully talk to several experts in your industry in order to produce one. You’re looking for trends and new ideas and insights that you can share. But if you do that work, these kinds of downloads tend to be far more valuable than an ordinary lead magnet, and they will help you attract clients to your business. got a report that you’ve produced. I’d love to see it. So send it to me when you have a moment.   

For the 423rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we’re checking in on the progress A.I. has made over the past year with Jon Gillham, founder of Originality.AI. We talked about how originality helps protect writers from false accusations of plagiarism and checks facts (unlike ChatGPT and Gemini), plus some of the risks that A.I. poses to the world of content creation. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Stuff to check out: Get the AI Bullet Writing Prompt Originality.AI The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Almost two years ago, we realized that A.I. was not just a new idea that copywriters and content writers needed to pay attention to, rather it was a game-changing technology that would impact almost everything writers do. The number of new tools and features that include use A.I. to deliver their benefits is in the thousands. That’s a big part of why we launched the A.I. for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast last year. You can find more than 20 conversations about A.I. on that podcast. But as A.I. has become almost commonplace, we stepped away from doing so many interviews about artificial intelligence and just how it is changing our industry. But I’m thinking it’s about time we checked in on how the tech has changed over the past few months and what copywriters should be using it for… if they aren’t already doing it. Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my guest is Jon Gillham, the founder of Originality.AI. This tool is the most accurate A.I. detector available today. What’s more in addition to checking for content created by A.I., it’s a fact checker—something tools like Gemini and ChatGPT have struggled with, it checks for plagiarism, and will help protect you against clients and others who might claim your writing isn’t original. We talked about how they do it and the risks A.I. continues to pose for writers on this episode, so stay tuned. Before we get to that… last summer we ran the last ever live cohort of The Copywriter Accelerator program. Since then, the only way to get the business building insights and strategies that we shared with more than 350 copywriters over the past seven years was to join the Fast Track version of the accelerator at thecopywriterclub.com/fasttrack. But I’ve been working on an updated version of that program and it too will go away soon. So if you’ve been thinking of joining the accelerator, time is running out. What’s coming next? It’s too soon to reveal what I’ve been working on, but if you join the accelerator fast track before we launch it, you’ll get early access to the new program, absolutely free. Until then, you get all of the content, the 8 modules and blueprints and several bonuses that are included in The Accelerator Fast Track. And when we launch the new program sometime next year, you’ll get that updated program too. Don’t wait to work on your business so when the new year is here you have a steady flow of clients and a signature service you’re proud to offer them. Visit thecopywriterclub.com/fasttrack to learn more today. And now, let’s go to our interview with Jon Gillham. Hey, John, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. We’d like to start with your story. So how did you become the founder of Originality AI, and I guess also the co-founder of AdBank and Motion Invest and Content Refined? You’ve done a lot of this company starting thing. Jon Gillham: Yeah, it’s been a journey. Yeah, so my background was as a mechanical engineer, did that in school, and then I always knew that I wanted to get back to my hometown and started some sort of online projects. A lot of those projects all had sort of a central theme around creating content that would rank in Google, get traffic, and monetize that, whether that was an e-commerce site, a software business. And then at one point, we built up some extra capacity within the team that I had of writers that we were working with, and then started selling at extra capacity. So built up a content marketing agency, sold it, and then had seen the wave of generative AI coming. look to build a solution to try and help provide transparency between writers and agencies and, and clients. And that’s where originality came from. Rob Marsh: So as far as most people’s experience with AI, it really started about two years ago when, you know, ChatGPT went live and suddenly everybody was like, oh my gosh, this is not what we were expecting, or it’s come along a lot faster. But you’ve been doing this a lot longer than that. Tell us, you know, basically, how did you get interested in AI and get started with creating these kinds of tools? Jon Gillham: Yeah, so I totally agree. I think a lot of people sort of assume everything on the internet that predated Chat GPT was human generated. But the reality is that there was other tools that predated Chat GPT. Specifically, there’s the GPT-3 that got released by OpenAI in 2020, and then sort of from GPT-2 2020, and then From that, there were many writing tools that were built off the back of it, so tools like jasper.ai. And we were, at one point, one of the heaviest users of Jasper, where we had a writing service where we transparently used AI content, but stalled that content for a lot less than the human-generated content in another part of the content agency. And so that was where we really started to see that the efficiency lift that came from using AI and then, you know, who who gets to capture that efficiency if is it, you know, the writer that copies and pastes out of chat to BT that then displaces a writer that did hard work on their own. And that was sort of where, where we first started playing with AI. And then yeah, using it extensively within our content marketing agency. Rob Marsh: So before we go really deep on AI and the stuff that you’ve done, I’m interested, as a founder, as a co-founder, just what are some of the biggest challenges that you have faced as you’ve started your businesses? Again, we’re talking to an audience of people who are running their own businesses, most of them. So I’m just curious how you’ve been able to succeed where so many others tend to fail. Jon Gillham: I mean, there’s certainly failures in there. So they’re not all successes. So I think the common theme is when we’re solving it, the common themes on when there’s success is probably two core things. One, that resolving a problem that is meaningful and adding sort of significant value by helping to solve whatever that problem is, is one. And the second piece is when there’s been a really good team around that project, when the co-founders on it are great, when the initial hires are really, really good. Those are probably the two key things that have seemingly been the common traits when the projects have gone well, and there’s certainly projects that haven’t gone well, lots of failures in there as well. Rob Marsh: Interesting you say that. I worked at a startup a decade or two ago. the CEO that came in to run it. It was a fun environment, really great place to work. We had a successful exit, sold off to HP. And I remember the CEO saying, if you’re lucky, you get to have an experience like this sometime in your career where you put together a great team, you’ve got a great product, you have this great experience. And then he said, and then you spend the rest of your life trying to replicate that at the next company or the company after. And there’s a lot of truth to that. Jon Gillham: There’s a lot of truth. In a lot of our weekly meetings at the All Hands right now, we’re saying, like, you know, these are currently the good old days. So, like, enjoy them because we’re going to be looking back at this, like, hopefully we will be fortunate to be lucky enough to be looking back at these days as the good old days, because it is a lot of fun right now. And I think, yeah, I certainly echo what he was saying in terms of, yeah, it doesn’t, a lot of things need to go right to line up with sort of a, all the pieces to be in that sort of like a scaling stage of a company. Rob Marsh: Okay, so let’s talk about Originality AI and this tool that you have built. Basically, my understanding of it is, you know, as I’ve scanned through and checked it out, it does a few different things. You know, checking to see if there’s plagiarism, if some content was written by AI, some additional things as well. To me, this seems incredibly useful for a couple of different audiences. One, I teach a college class at one of the colleges here. I’m always using AI checkers. As I see submissions coming in from students, I’m like, that’s suspicious. Let’s run it through the checker. But obviously businesses hiring content writers, copywriters want to see that their stuff’s original. Problem is sometimes the checkers don’t work the way they’re supposed to. So tell us about originality AI and the problems that you’ve been solving with it. Jon Gillham: Yeah, so the problem we started out to solve and being from the world that we were in within content marketing is a content, a final step in the content quality check. So kind of a final QA, QC on a piece of content. And so historically that might mean readability, readability check, plagiarism check. Okay, we’re good to go to publish it. Now that means Checking for if it’s been generated by AI or not, and we’ll get into some of the challenges around that. Plagiarized, if it is or isn’t. I mean, no one plagiarizes anymore when you can just get AI to write it for you. And then fact checking. So we have a fact checker built in because that’s sort of a new an increase in heightened sensitivity around fact checking with the prevalence of generative AI content and hallucinations. And then some of the standard readability checks, grammar, and spelling checks. And so we aim to be that complete content quality QA QC step so that somebody can be really confident. We say hit publish with integrity, where they can take a piece of content, make sure it meets all the requirements, and then hits publish. Some of the challenges we talked about, AI detectors are highly accurate, but not perfect. And so the same way that the weather is meant to use AI and it gets it right a lot of the time, but also gets it wrong to some extent. AI detectors are similar, where they’re a classifier that aims to try and predict whether or not it thinks this piece of content is AI generated or human generated, and then it makes its best prediction, gets it right, calls AI, in our case, if it’s just sort of a straight chat GPT output 99% of the time, but it will get, it’ll call human content AI one to 3% of the time, which works in certain settings, doesn’t work in other settings, academia being one where really it’s impossible to apply sort of an academic disciplinary action with a false positive rate above 0%. Rob Marsh: Yeah. It strikes me too that there’s certainly, because of the way AI is trained on human writing, at least originally now, I think there’s more AI training data in the actual database, but the way it was trained, there’ve got to be one to 3% of humans that write the way AI is right anyway. They’re boring writers, or they have the cadence that we tend to see get picked up, or they use those same cliches that we tend to see a lot of. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense to me that those writers are going to come up as AI because well, AI has been trained to look for this stuff. Jon Gillham: Yeah. I mean, so it really produces a very, by definition, it’s like all this data has gone into it all in this massive training set. And then it ends up producing, I mean, you can ask it to produce this sort of range of outcomes of like, hey, write write a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in the style of Dave Chappelle, right? That’s gonna be a pretty unique piece of content that doesn’t look like typical AI content. But there’s certainly some ticks to AI content that we feel like we can pick up on. But yeah, there are definitely some people that have a style that is very similar to sort of the base style of most LLMs. And it can be extra frustrating for them because they end up getting false positives at a higher rate than somebody else might. Rob Marsh: Yeah. So are you saying that, you know, if I have AI write something and I try to spice it up by saying, you know, write like Dave Chappelle or, you know, make this humorous or silly or something like that, originality is still can pick that up at 99 to 100%. It can still tell that it’s written by an AI. Jon Gillham: Yeah, so that’s the big difference between a sort of a human’s ability to detect AI and like an AI’s ability to detect AI. Human’s ability, we can get fooled very easily. We have sort of a couple cognitive biases that are working against us. We have an overconfidence bias, and then we have a pattern recognition bias. So if you ask a room who’s an above average driver, 80% of the room puts up their puts up their hand. And, you know, the stock market and casinos are sort of built off of this sort of humans capability to think that they see patterns when they actually don’t. And so in all studies, the sort of humans ability to detect AI is like 50 to 60% accurate. And it gets worse when you apply these sort of prompts that make the content more unique than this than the straight sort of like, recognizable chat GPT kind of content. Whereas AI detectors are picking up a lot more signals than what humans are capable of identifying. And its accuracy stays very high in 99% for even the most sort of challenging prompts for a human to try and identify. Rob Marsh: So how do you solve that problem? What does your tech do that’s not being used by everybody else? Jon Gillham: Yeah, so other detectors have in all benchmarks were the most accurate, but there’s other detectors that are close. The sort of unsettling thing in whatever AI system exists in the world, it faces some of the same challenges, where if you ask Chachapiti or the makers of Chachapiti and say, why did it respond like that? They struggle to answer. They can talk about the training data, they can talk about the training method, but they can’t say why it responded like that. And in a similar way, our detector is picking up on patterns that we don’t No. We understand how we trained it. We understand the efficacy test that we put it through. We understand the benchmark test that we put it through. But we can’t say this piece of content was identified as AI for these reasons. And I wish we could, but that’s just not how AI works. Rob Marsh: Yeah, so this is part of the black box trouble that leads some of us to think that maybe AI is doing stuff in the background that we’re not even aware of and will someday take over the world. Jon Gillham: Exactly. It is an unsettling experience to create something and not understand exactly how it works. Rob Marsh: Are there other challenges around then AI generated content and identifying it that we haven’t chatted through or hit on? Jon Gillham: I think some other challenges related to AI content is around, I think, a lot of a lot of editors used to sort of use the quality of the content as a tell on whether or not they needed to go deeper on fact checking, usually sort of like factually accurate information was also well written information. And what the sort of the challenge that generative AI is produced is that that that sort of trigger for this, this does not feel like a very well researched topic. and article is no longer the same problem. Whereas now, really, really well-written, grammatically correct written AI-generated content, it can also be very factually wrong through hallucinations and having just made stuff up, but convincingly so. And so I think that the capability to to the level of intensity that needs to be applied down to fact-checking of all content because where generative AI has sort of poisoned the content is, it becomes harder to understand in today’s sort of environment with generative AI. Rob Marsh: Yeah. So some examples of that might be if you’re, well, you could be writing, say a paper for school or something where you’re saying, Hey, give me 10 sources for this particular kind of an idea or a scientific study or something like that. Or if you’re writing content for a client, you might be looking for, you know, five real life examples of this particular marketing thing that happened, you know, that, and then the LLM will just hallucinate two of the five. It’ll just make it up. Sounds real, but they’re not. So how do you guys fix that? Because it seems like you’re using an LLM that’s making stuff up. How do you make sure that it can tell that it’s making stuff up? Jon Gillham: Yeah, so we… AI can… There are very few settings, very few times where an AI or an LLM can achieve the level of sort of perfection that is needed in a lot of environments where you need sort of a 99.99% sort of accuracy rate. And fact-checking is no different. But what LLMs are great at is going out and assisting humans in that process. And so we created a fact checking aid that goes out, looks at a piece of content, identifies all the facts in that piece of content, and then goes out to the web and trusted sources, pulls in a bunch of information, And then makes a judgment on whether or not that statement is actually potentially true or potentially false, and then provides a bunch of sources that human editor can go to and and and investigate further. And so it’s access sort of a. Back check me that provides its judgment but it’s judgment will be wrong cuz i get it wrong and the ones that first use the problem but it produces a lot of efficiency for an editor that is already gonna do that process where they need to take a piece of content identify a fact. Go out. source and try and understand what is what is the truth, and and what is sort of the truth that they’re that they’re within the context of the of that article, and then share it, it can produce some pretty sort of what feels like some pretty magical answers at times where An article might say the boiling temperature of water is 90 degrees Celsius when everyone’s like, no, of course it’s 100 degrees Celsius, but it will call it true if the context of that article is mountain climbing at a certain elevation. So it’s like, given the context of this article, this fact that water boils at 90 degrees Celsius at this elevation is true. And it can feel like a magical response where it’s like, you understood the context of this entire article, the elevation that was mentioned above, or even the base camp or the camp that was mentioned, and then it references the elevation and then provides the right answer. So that can feel like a pretty cool Rob Marsh: Eight in the fashion process but it does get things wrong at times sure so yeah it would it would identify maybe outlying situations that we wouldn’t necessarily be thinking of off the top of our head that are true. and it could pull some of that stuff in. So let me give you maybe, this is probably a ridiculous example, and I’m obviously asking you to maybe predict how it would figure this out, but I’m assuming you’ve heard the very famous quote that’s all over the internet that is, you can’t trust everything you’ve read on the internet by Abraham Lincoln. So if you were to try to source that, obviously there are literally thousands of pages that have that on the web. Would the AI pick that up as false or would it, because it can identify all of these sources out there, do you think it would not be able to identify that? Which again, it’s ridiculous because as humans, we all know that it’s a ridiculous quote, but I’m curious about that. Jon Gillham: I think I think it would it would answer it as potentially some I’m guessing on how to answer it. I think the the sort of So I think it would struggle with that because it depends on the context of that statement. The statement that you just made, if you worded it as a common statement is, and then what you just said was factually true, that that is potentially a common statement that is shared all over the internet, attributed to Abraham Lincoln. But then I think so I think they like true or false binary classification, it would struggle with that because in certain in certain settings that is a true statement like what you said was true, that is a common statement that is shared on the internet. but where it would really shine is in the sort of description of why it made that judgment, where I think it would do a really good job because there is such a rich history of that, that there would be a really good explanation to say that this is used as an, you know, they would word it better than I could, but it’s like, this is used as an example of how you can’t trust the internet, depends on how this would be used. So I think it would provide a pretty useful explanation I’m not sure how it, whether or not, I think I’ve read a very accurate and helpful answer, but I don’t know how it, whether it would be true or false because it was, I think there’d be cases where that statement could be made and it’d be a true statement depending on what came before it. Rob Marsh: That makes sense. I think this is maybe one of the areas where AI still really struggles or LLM struggle. And that is context shifting, you know, where things are one way in 80% of contexts, but in 20% of contexts, it’s different. And as humans, we’re really good at reading the context and changing the meanings and the machines just aren’t quite there yet. Jon Gillham: Yeah, agreed. Rob Marsh: OK, so that’s fact checking. And then it also checks for readability. These are tools we’re pretty familiar with because Grammarly has been around for a decade, tools like Hemingway, that kind of thing. Are you doing anything different, or is it sort of similar to what those tools are doing? Jon Gillham: Sort of similar. One thing that’s different is we try and sort of look at, We try and apply sort of, there’s a level of science to sort of content that sometimes gets applied, sometimes doesn’t get applied. In the case of readability, if you were to sort of search before, you know, what is the optimal readability score to write for the internet? And it depends on, again, kind of your audience comes first. But when we looked at it, there’s this really clear distribution using a few specific scores around top ranking articles in Google. And it did not coincide with sort of the prevailing wisdom of like right in an eighth grade level, period. But what we’ve been able to see is like these scores, these certain scoring mechanisms, the flush concave reading ease, matches up to a really nice normal distribution around certain score ranges that exist in the top 20 results within Google. So if you’re trying to create content that will rank on the internet, you should rank you should try and aim to create content that has a readability score within this range, because that’s what the rest of the top ranking articles do. Now, obviously, there’s outliers, if you’re writing for, you know, intense medical sort of then sure, if you’re writing for children, sure. But that’s what we’re doing that’s different is sort of, instead of just providing sort of a non-data backed recommendation on a reading score, we have built our tool specifically for people that are publishing content on the web, and then we have sort of identified the best tests to use for the readability score, and then the best scoring range to be in where say we sort of break it down by distribution. So like is it one standard deviation, two standard deviations away from the average? Rob Marsh: That’s really cool. And so does that do that by topic or do you have to tell it the audience? Like how does that identify? Jon Gillham: Yeah. So it’s general, so it’s, it’s across all the topics that we looked at. And so we we provide the graph and and sort of we provide that range. And then you can pick what what your audience on whether you should be on the sort of upper end of that range or the lower end of that range, it’s unlikely you should be way off that that range on the readability score, unless you have a really strong reason to, if you’re trying to rank your if your primary audience is to The primary objective of that piece of content is to rank on Google and get traffic. We provide this range from six to nine, and based on your audience, you can adjust within that range that you think you should be. Rob Marsh: Okay, yeah, like I said, that feels really incredibly useful actually, especially for a writer who is writing across different niches or industries, you know, maybe addressing different audiences. Does the tool also then make suggestions? Like here’s how you can dumb it down or smart it up as part of that? Jon Gillham: So it will identify sentence by sentence, which parts make it challenging to read. So which parts have made it sort of, if it’s like, Parts of the writing that are at a very high level, it will identify those parts. If so, it can provide guidance on dumbing it down, making it easier to read, cleaning it up. It provides guidance on that on a sentence-by-sentence level. It doesn’t provide guidance in the other direction. Rob Marsh: Okay. Yeah. And so it’s not actually rewriting, which seems like it would defeat the purpose of having this be an AI checker in the first place. Jon Gillham: We’re wrestling with that topic because the same thing on grammar and spelling where we have some users that would love a sort of a fix all issues button, but then it will trigger the AI detection. And then, so we’re wrestling with that, because maybe there’s a use case there. But we got to really figure out how we don’t confuse users. Because, yeah, I think them clicking inside of an AI detection tool, a button that says fix all issues, and then it detects as AI, which would potentially be a confusing user experience. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that seems to be one of the triggers for a human writer is that there are actually some errors in it. I mean, that’s certainly something I see with my students in the class that I teach. And maybe this is where those 50% human misidentifications start happening. But if I see a couple of grammatical errors, I’m like, oh, OK, yeah, this is clearly human written instead of AI. Jon Gillham: Unless they added that to the prompt. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Please add three misspellings so that Rob Marsh doesn’t figure this out. Yeah. So what else is a tool doer? What’s the next evolution going to be? Jon Gillham: We want to help publishers publish content and be as successful as possible by publishing that content. So trying to help them understand that the content will perform well within Google. So we have some interesting take on sort of content optimization. We have that in the works, which we’re really excited about on sort of current method around content optimization tools. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them like Surfer SEO or Market Muse or ClearScope. They look at the top 20 results and then do this sort of like, I’ll call it like dumb math and just sort of say, these are the keywords that you should include. I think there’s a smarter way to do that. And we’re testing that. And we’re excited for what’s going to come with that. And then any job that a copy editor does. So we try and sort of be that tool to help copy editors do their job far more efficiently and effective. One of those jobs that they do is need to make sure that a piece of content meets the editorial guidelines of a company. And so whether that’s always spelling this word a certain way, that might not be sort of the standard that standard sort of spelling, every sentence being or every paragraph being no more than three sentences, you know, whatever those editorial guidelines for company might be active voice, passive voice, whatever, you know, all that all that kind of stuff, trying to provide this sort of editorial guideline compliance component, where so an editor can sort of put in a piece of content, click a button in our tool, and then understand exactly how that piece of content matches up against each of the things that they need to check for AI plagiarism, fact checking, grammar, spelling, readability, editorial compliance with their company’s guidelines. And then ultimately, is it going to perform well in Google, since that’s a lot of what our users are using it for. So that’s, that’s what’s coming. Rob Marsh: So I see a copy editor might want to use that basically to do 90% of their job, and then they can take the output and do a quick read through. It could save themselves a lot of time. I suppose a writer could do that as well to reduce the need for as much of a copy editor, or a client may be interested in doing that on the client side just to double check everything. Jon Gillham: Yeah, we see a lot. So we see that the whole value, like we’re building it for the copy editor, but we’re seeing that whole value chain from the writer using it up front to make sure it sort of meets those requirements, because they know what they’re being judged against. And then the end client using it as well to say, am I ultimately getting content that meets my expectations? And so a lot of AI has caused a lot of problems in the world. in the world of writers. And one of the biggest problems has been the sort of lack of trust that has bubbled up around what they have done, they haven’t done, and what the expectations are on writers. And so we’re trying to be a tool that provides transparency between, from the client to the, you know, whoever’s in the middle, editor, agency, et cetera, to the writer that’s gonna get paid fairly for their work. So yeah, generative AI has definitely created a lot of challenges. Writers being a big, facing more of those challenges than probably any other industry. And hopefully we’re AI on sort of the good Terminator as opposed to the bad Terminator in this battle. Rob Marsh: So, you’re kind of hinting at it, but one of the challenges that a lot of writers have had is they write something, they submit it to the client, the client runs it through an AI checker, it gets a false positive. The writer, you know, is, hey, I wrote this whole thing. So, you know, the trust is gone there. In order to fix that, is this something, would you recommend copywriters, content writers should have the tool or would I recommend this to my clients? You guys ought to get originality, get AI, run it through that because that will show you that it’s my copy. Jon Gillham: What’s the dynamic there? First, false positives happen. We know that, especially at the volume that we’re running content through, and we understand how much it sucks when a writer gets falsely accused. It’s really tricky right now. So we’ve had, I’ll share a couple quick quick asides, but we had a writer writing for originality. We obviously use our own tool. And they swore up and down that they had not used AI. We then we have a so we have a free Chrome extension that lets people visualize the creation of a document. Rob Marsh: And so it takes I can follow it can follow the change, the change tracking in a Google document. Jon Gillham: Yes. So behind that change tracking, there’s a ton of data, there’s character by character, your metadata inside of a Google document. And then what our free Chrome extension does is it pulls that out, and then can create recreate the writing experience writing process. And if you see this sort of like, cut and paste minute cut and paste 1000 words, do one writing session 15 minutes per 1000 word article, And it hits it 100% on probability for being AI detected. I’m pretty confident that that was AI detected. So in our case, we had a writer. And when they swore that they hadn’t used AI, went into the Chrome extension, and then ultimately admitted that they had used AI. and so where they wouldn’t we coach them up on it and maybe still work with them and they don’t. So what do I recommend writers do is to use create the document in a Google document use a free Chrome extension like ours that will show the creation process. And then use a tool like Originality to know if they’re going to have a challenge, if it is going to be a false positive, they can show the client that they truly created that content themselves, and they can get fairly paid for it. The sort of The world I fear for writers is a world where there is zero protection against other people using AI. And I think there’s, you know, there’s a lot of really world-class writers, but AI can’t write the equivalent of now. There’s a lot of writers that it can do a lot better job at writing than it can write a lot better than I can. It can write a lot better than some writers that I’ve hired in the past. And those individuals are extremely at risk of their job being replaced. And based on the sort of the progress of AI, I think most writers are going to be at risk of their job being replaced by AI if there isn’t any kind of effective defense against saying what is human and what is AI. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so maybe leaving the world of writing in AI, I don’t know if you’ve got thoughts on this, but where do you see AI going just more broadly? A lot of people, I mean, writers, obviously there’s a little bit of a threat there to our livelihoods, especially if we’re writing at the bottom half of that writing scale. We don’t have an original voice of our own that’s really difficult to copy or that we’re not able to write for our clients and their voices. Obviously, there’s risk there, but what about beyond writing? Do you see AI as a threat to the human race? Where are we at? Jon Gillham: I would have answered differently probably two years ago or a year and a half ago. What we have seen is our detection. When we first launched, we thought GPT-4 would come out and we would no longer be able to detect content and that would be it. And we’re just enjoy the last few years of humanity before AI takes over. We all become paperclips. Yeah. Yeah. But what we have seen out of LLMs is that there has been this plateauing around intelligence. If we look at the leap from GPT-3 to 4 to kind of now, it’s, you know, this could age really poorly. But what we’re seeing is this plateauing around the capability of tools. And then we’re seeing this closing in the gap of our detection is better now than it has ever been, despite there being far more advanced models. And so my sort of And we’re seeing all of these open source models sort of closing in on the closed source models.  And the way that what’s sort of what’s happening now is like, additional additional features are getting added. So it’s like the brain is already there. And sort of the analogy that I like to use right now is like, a spreadsheet is a pretty simple piece of technology. But the world would shut down if no one was allowed to use a spreadsheet for a day. Because it is sort of so pervasive into so many pieces of business operations. And I think it’s going to be similar-ish trend where I think there’s going to be a lot of people that do get displaced. Developers, writers, graphic artists are all at risk. I think it’s going to be hopefully a a force for sort of expansion of GDP, and then the creation of additional jobs and, and companies that used to need 20 people now need five people. And therefore, there’s, you know, five more, five more companies or more companies. So I think I’m optimistic. But I do think there will be disruption along the way. Rob Marsh: I mean, disruption is not new. It happens every few decades, certainly every century or two. So this may just be the next big disruption. But until that really gets underway, tools like this are really helpful in protecting the things that we do as writers. So John, if people want to check out, well, first of all, the Chrome extension, is it also called Originality? Or is there a different name for it? Jon Gillham: Yeah, so if you search originality.ai Chrome extension, it’s available. Rob Marsh: Okay. And then obviously, originality.ai, where else can people go to connect with you or to find out more about, you know, how you think about this whole problem? Jon Gillham: Yeah, happy to connect with anyone, anyone that’s sort of facing challenges around false positives. We’re always eager to sort of help guide people through that challenge. You can connect with me at John, J-O-N at originality.ai, or find me on LinkedIn. Rob Marsh: Awesome. I appreciate your time and just talking through all of the stuff that is going on here because yeah, it is a challenge and there’s so many cool tools that can make this easier and better. So thank you for that. Jon Gillham: Thanks Rob. Thanks for having me. Rob Marsh: Thanks to John for helping me understand a bit more about the latest changes that we’re seeing in the world of artificial intelligence. You should definitely check out originality.ai at originality.ai. Obviously, AI has presented a challenge for writers over the past couple of years. We’ve seen a lot of clients shift their content plans to using more AI tools instead of content writers, and that has not always resulted in better content or copy. Many of them have changed back since then. There are, however, copywriters who are doing some pretty amazing things with AI.  So what’s the difference? Well, they’re putting in the time to learn and use the tools. Originality, like I said, is definitely worth checking out, but it’s not the only tool you should be trying. You should be trying tools like Clod and ChatGPT and LeChat and writing tools like Writetoon. You should be using the AI features that are in tools like Notion and Hemingway and even Google Docs. This stuff is important. And if you want to be a copywriter or a content writer for more than the next year or two, you really do need to know how to use these tools. If you haven’t gotten started already, you can get my AI bullet writing prompt completely free at thecopywriterclub.com/aiwriter.  It’s a pretty in-depth prompt that will help you write pretty amazing bullets, headlines, and subheads for your emails, for your subject lines, for your sales pages, however you want to use it. You can get that again at thecopywriterclub.com/AIwriter.   

Starting and growing a copywriting business isn’t easy. So when we find a writer who seems to have figured it out, it’s worth taking a closer look to see what’s going on. So for the 422nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I asked Megan Smyth to share more about her business and podcast and how she’s gotten so many things right as she’s grown. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: The Copywriter Accelerator Fast Track Megan’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  One of the things I love most about what I do at The Copywriter Club is the opportunity I have to see copywriters grow in so many different ways. They get better at writing. They build and develop amazing businesses that support the lifestyle they want—sometimes that’s something as dramatic as a full-time, six-figure business and other times it’s a part-time gig that helps pay some of the bills. And for copywriters who already have a business, it’s fun to watch them change and update the way they market themselves, create products, and find their ideal clients. Honestly, it’s a big part of why I do what I do. Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I talked with copywriter and launch consultant, Megan Smyth. As you’ll hear during this interview, Megan is one of those copywriters who has made big changes to her business over the past couple of years. Megan’s a pre-med student turned copywriter and the business she’s created will inspire anyone who is just starting out or is ready to make a change—heck, I’m inspired by the progress she’s made. So stick around and listen to what Megan has to share about how she did it. Just a quick note… on this episode, we’ll mention The Copywriter Accelerator program that helped jump start Megan’s business and brand creation. That program is no longer available—at least in the format that Megan participated. However, we’ve taken all of the content, the 8 modules and blueprints and several bonuses and repurposed them into what we’ve called The Accelerator Fast Track. This version is designed to help you get results even faster. If, as you listen to us discuss that program, you are interested in how it might help you and your business, simply visit thecopywriterclub.com/fasttrack to learn more. And now, let’s go to our interview with Megan Smyth. Megan, welcome to the podcast. Tell us how you got started. How’d you become a copywriter, a course creator, now doing some coaching as well? You’ve come a long way. Megan Smyth: Yeah, doing all the things. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here. It’s an honor to be on this show. It’s one of the very first podcasts I started listening to on this journey. So, you know, if we’re talking about how I got started, very first copywriting and business podcast I ever listened to was yours. And I’ve learned so much from you and Kira. But yeah, so to kick it back, I did not grow up dreaming of being a copywriter. I’ve yet to meet anyone that even knows what that was at a young age. My plan was to be a doctor. So I studied pre-med in university, and I realized about halfway through that something was just not right. I was enjoying it, but not as much as my friends around me in the program. And I was sort of on this fast track to success. It seemed like I had it all figured out. I was in this great program. I was applying for early admission to med school and all these things. And there was just this voice in the back of my head that was like, this is not it. Something’s not right. And so when all of my friends in the program were writing the MCAT over the summer, I took the summer off and I booked a one-way ticket to Thailand. And that was sort of my escape plan. Rather than tell everyone that I was having these doubts, I just left the country for three months. Just ran away from my problems, which is what you do at 19 years old. And I was just not sure what I wanted to do. I thought med school might not be it, but I wasn’t sure what the other options were. And so I thought I would use this time to do some soul searching. I went to Bali. I did the whole thing. And I realized on that trip, what I really wanted to do was travel. That was a big motivator for me. I wanted the freedom to be able to work wherever I wanted to see the world and meet new people and have new experiences. And so I started looking for a career that would allow me to do that and stumbled into copywriting because I’ve always loved writing. And I just really fell in love with it from the beginning. I loved the sales aspect of it and the psychology aspect of understanding how people think and why they make decisions. And I started copywriting while I was still in university. And then I, you know, had a couple of clients on the side. I left my day job pretty immediately after graduating, which I don’t recommend. Just don’t head first into the whole thing. The same year I graduated, I was like, I’m going all in on this business. I launched a website as you do and waited for clients to just magically find me. They did not. And then in January, the next year I joined The Copywriter Accelerator and that is when things started to take off for me. Rob Marsh: So when you first launched, obviously this was before the accelerator or whatever, how did you get your first couple of clients? I mean, how did you even have the guts to say, I’m a copywriter, not knowing anything about it? Megan Smyth: Yeah, well, I didn’t. That’s a great question. So I applied for this job that I randomly found while browsing the web for things to do online, how to make money online. And someone had posted this job, and she was looking for actually a blog writer. And so that was how I started. And she was, at the time, yes, she was running a blog, but she was also running launches for her. She was a coach. And so slowly over time, I was watching her launch, and I had ideas and suggestions for how she could get more people in this program. And so she sort of brought me into that world of launching. And I ended up working with a seven-figure coach as my first client, just sort of out of the blue. I was 19 years old, I had no experience. And so there was a bit of luck involved, but I had the guts to apply to this job. And I basically said in my application, I have no experience, I have no qualifications, but I am willing to work so hard and I think I could do this. I think I could make a difference in your company.” And she took a chance on me and to this day I’m very grateful for that. That sort of got my foot in the door and I just sort of gained experience as I went. Rob Marsh: I love that you had the guts to go for it because most of us, especially 19, 20 years old, most of us would be like, Oh, well, you know, I’m not qualified. And I think more, even more women than men, oftentimes we back up and, and aren’t willing to step forward and say, well, I might not be qualified, but I’m willing to give it a go. So I love that approach. Megan Smyth: Yeah. Thank you. I was just going to say that I think a big contributing factor was, you know, I almost didn’t apply for that job, but I, in the back of my head, I remembered reading the stats somewhere that, you know, men will apply for jobs if they only meet something like 40% of the qualification criteria, whereas women don’t apply unless they have a hundred percent of those things checked off. And I just thought, screw that. I am not going to contribute to that. I’m going to apply. Cause the worst case scenario is they say no. And, you know, I tried to put myself out there and it worked out. Rob Marsh: Yeah, it’s amazing. And it’s probably should be one of the big takeaways from this episode. We’re only a couple of minutes in and go for it is the lesson there. So you got into the copywriter accelerator and then you started to make some changes to your business. Talk about that and the thought process that went into deciding where you were going to focus your time, the kinds of clients you were going to serve, the kinds of services that you wanted to offer. Megan Smyth: Yeah, so by the time I joined The Copywriter Accelerator, I had been writing copy for over a year at that point, and I felt like I was getting really good at that side of things, but I still wasn’t really treating it as a business. It was really hard to get out of that side hustle mindset when it had been a side hustle, you know, when I was in school, and then I had a day job working in medical research at the hospital all day, and it was hard to transition just my mindset around that. Now I suddenly had full-time hours that I could give to my business, but I had no idea what to spend that time on. And so, you know, in the accelerator, we learned all the different aspects of running a business. And that was when I started to really think through like, what is my marketing strategy going to be? How am I positioning myself? What is my branding? All of these things that sound like really basic, but you know, again, I was 20 years old and I had planned to work in the medical field. I had no idea what I was doing in business. It was all new to me. And I just, I loved it. I just kind of soaked up everything from Yunkira like a little sponge. I was like, how could I get the most possible out of this experience? Rob Marsh: Yeah. And, and then you’ve now you’ve launched a lot of stuff. So who did you ultimately decide to serve and what kinds of services did you launch with as you came out of the program? Megan Smyth: Yeah, so when I initially was in the program, we played around with niching. I was, like I mentioned, I started, my very first client was a coach and I loved working with female business coaches. And so I did a lot of work in that space, but towards the end of the accelerator and, you know, in the years that followed, I actually changed my target audience, actually widened my niche, which I think is less common. Everyone talks about, you know, go as narrow as possible. And for me, working with just female coaches felt like a bit like putting myself in a box. And so I widened to what I now call, you know, purpose-driven brands. So women who just really want to make an impact, whether that is in the coaching space and serving people that way, whether it’s, you know, sustainability focused, they just have this sense of impact and, you know, positive change that they want to create in the world. And my job is to, you know, give voice to that brand and help them amplify that impact. Rob Marsh: So are you still doing launch copy or does it run the whole gamut? Megan Smyth: It runs the gamut. I would say I specialize in launch and sales copy. So I call myself a sales copywriter. It is mostly launches and evergreen funnel copy. However, there is a fair amount of brand messaging involved in that because a lot of times people come to me for one thing and they end up realizing they do need clarity on their overall brand positioning as well. And so I really become like a long-term partner for my clients, like through launches, but also, you know, through their brand evolution and, and all of that. So I do work on a variety of projects, but specialty is sales. Rob Marsh: It feels to me like you bring a lot of marketing strategy into it as well. I mean, even as you talk about how you engage with your clients, you know, where you’ve got to figure out, okay, what are the missing pieces? What do they need? So what’s your approach there as you, you know, as you sign up a client, how do you bring strategy to the initial call so that you’re actually helping them do more than just write copy? Megan Smyth: Yeah, so I realized pretty early on that great copy is useless without a strategy behind it, as much as that pains me. But my very first projects, I would write, let’s say, sales page copy or emails or something like that. But without that strategy, the clients either weren’t seeing results or they weren’t implementing them in a certain way. I had all these ideas to share on how they could potentially improve that strategy. And so strategy is a part of the conversation from day one. I don’t do any copy projects that don’t involve the strategy piece. It’s just like a non-negotiable for me that I’m going to be involved on that side of things as well. And so I transitioned, I would say right outside the accelerator around that time was when I started doing consulting as well. And so now that’s sort of like the baseline for me is I will either do just consulting, just the strategy, and they can hand it off to another copywriter. or I will do both, but I will not do copywriting without the strategy. Rob Marsh: So what does a project look like then? As a client shows up at your door, you know, I want to work with you, Megan. I’ve got, you know, I’ve got to launch a product or I’ve got, you know, some other need. Step us through how that looks from your standpoint and how you would engage a client. Megan Smyth: Yeah. Great question. So as soon as they inquire, I’ve got sort of a pre-call nurture sequence that takes people through like a little bit of what my process is and what makes me different, you know, testimonials, that sort of thing. So that we’re kind of set up going into that call. We’re on the same page. And then we get on a call and I kind of put on my, my old doctor’s hat and I try and diagnose what the real issue is that they’re coming with me. I’m not trying to like pitch them on a certain service. I’d like to go into those calls with an open mind and really figure out what they need to get the results that they are looking for. So for example, I just had a I just booked a project with these two business partners who are launching a product in the new year and they came to me wanting funnel strategy and copywriting, but they weren’t even sure which copywriting assets they needed. They weren’t sure if they need a new sales page, no email funnel, all of that thing. And so I walked them through the process of what that would look like in terms of research and strategy. And like I said, I always start with that. And so we have now signed on for that like base launch consulting package. And once we map out what their funnel is going to look like, then we enter phase two, which is copywriting. Rob Marsh: And when you’re mapping for somebody, are you doing that before you start the project? Is it a paid service? Is it part of your research process to basically put together that whole strategy map for them? Megan Smyth: Yeah, so the way that I structure it is the strategy is sort of a separate package. Like this is our baseline package. We’re gonna do launch consulting. We’re gonna map out that strategy together. That is the paid package. And then copywriting is like an additional service on top of that. Rob Marsh: Okay, cool. And then what? Then what happens? How does the project go? Megan Smyth: Yeah, so after the copywriting phase, essentially, they will take the copy and implement it. And I am there sort of as their partner throughout that, you know, to answer questions, to help them, you know, connect with a designer or whoever else they need on that project. And once they launch it from there, then we’ll do a debrief to gather all the data, analyze it, and continue to optimize for next time. The goal for me when I’m working on projects like this, whether it’s a live launch or a funnel, is to create something that is not just going to generate sales once, but to create a system that they can use over and over again in their business and set them up for long-term success. Rob Marsh: You’re creating assets basically for them that they can use long-term. Okay, so I want to ask about money. When you first started out writing those first few blog posts, about what were you charging per project? Megan Smyth: Oh, $20 an hour or something like that. Yeah. Rob Marsh: Okay. All right. Fair for a 19-year-old college graduate. Megan Smyth: It felt like a ton of money at the time. I was like, I have made it. I have arrived. And I will also say, I’m Canadian, and so $20 US was more than I was making, I think, at my hospital research job at the time. I was like, this is amazing. Rob Marsh: Yeah. All I have to do is just fill in the 40 hours and I could be rich. Okay. So compare that to what you would charge on a project today. How has that changed? Megan Smyth: The minimum project price for the consulting alone on a launch project is 3000 US. So yeah. Rob Marsh: So big changes. Megan Smyth: Not even in the same, yeah. Rob Marsh: Yeah. And I mean, now you have the potential to make more than a doctor would make in some cases. Megan Smyth: I do. It’s funny you say that. My goal since starting my copywriting business has been to make more money than I would have as a doctor. I was going to be a trauma surgeon, so setting a high bar there, but working half the hours or less. That’s the goal. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Fewer gunshots to attend to. Well, you’re a cannibalist. There probably aren’t very many of those, but fewer car crashes to attend to, more words, more money. Megan Smyth: Yeah, exactly. Rob Marsh: Okay. Well, you’ve also added some other things to your business besides just the copywriting projects. So you have a course that I think is going to become a membership at the beginning of the year. Talk about that. I think as I was going through your site and seeing all the things you’ve added since the last time you and I were able to chat, you’ve got like the Firestarter framework. And so, yeah, I want to hear all about this. Megan Smyth: Yeah. Okay. So where to start? Well, I’ll start with the course sales liberation. So you mentioned that what I do for my clients is I like to create sales assets that I can use over and over again. And so I have put that framework into a course for people to do the same in their business because that’s what I did in my own business was create these revenue generating assets. And it’s, I think, you know, a missed opportunity for a lot of service providers, especially they were asking me like, how are you growing your sales this much while working fewer hours? I only work like part-time hours, but I am able to make a full-time income. And so obviously people were like, how are you doing this? And I started sharing more about that. I was like, well, instead of, you know, creating fresh content every week, like I’m not a big social media person. I don’t want to be posting every day or engaging every day. And so I started thinking, how could I create that same leverage in my own business that I create for my clients? And so that’s where the Firestarter framework came from. And part of that framework is creating those long-term assets. And that’s what I built my course around to help people do as well. Rob Marsh: So talk about some of those assets that you’ve built that attract those clients. Megan Smyth: Yeah, so it’s different in every business. In my own business, it’s different for the copywriting side and the course side. So in the copywriting side, I have things, like I mentioned, my pre-call email sequence. That does a lot of the heavy lifting for me. Everything from my inquiry form on, it’s very structured to do the selling for me so that my job is easy when I get on sales calls. It doesn’t require a ton of time. writing these emails from scratch for every new lead. They have, you know, the inquiry form qualifies them. Then they go through this email sequence that sort of positions our call for success. Like I mentioned, testimonials, it walks them through the process, frequently asked questions, all the things that would normally come up on calls, that all takes place in an automated email sequence. So by the time we get on a call, they are pretty much ready to go. Very few questions. And then, you know, the proposal, contract invoice, that’s all automated and templatized. It’s all got a nice automated system for it. And then once they are clients, I of course have a process like for retention and referrals and all of those things. So a lot of different systems going on in my business. And then in terms of assets, like on the course site, it’s a sales page and an email funnel and that’s it. It’s simple. Rob Marsh: So, and when you launched your course, did you have a big list? How did you promote the course in order to bring people in? Megan Smyth: No, I did not have a big list at all. I want to say like less than 200 people, like very small email list at the time. I did promote it on email a little bit on Instagram, not so much. I think the key was having written so many other launches, I knew what I was doing on the email marketing front and so I had very high conversions on the emails that I was sending. It was a two-week launch sequence and I had a freebie going out before that. I sent out a free email sequence for two weeks and that was just very educational, very value packed. It started lining up, you know, overcoming objections and all those things. So that was sort of my prelaunch runway. And then another two weeks of sales emails and that was it. I essentially sold it only on email. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Through to your 200 person list and you basically fill your course. That’s awesome. That’s yeah, that’s amazing. And, and since then you’re now thinking about turning the course into a membership. What’s the thinking there? Megan Smyth: Yeah, group coaching. So I realized that people were, you know, they were getting great results from the course, but so much of it is meant to be customized. It’s very much like choose your own adventure course. It’s not like, you know, here’s what I did and here’s the exact template you have to follow. There are lots of templates for you to choose from, but as I mentioned, every business is different and I wanted to get people, you know, the flexibility and also the space to ask questions and say, look, how does this apply to my business? What do I do in this instance? and that sort of thing, not to mention all of the mindset drama that comes up when we talk about sales and selling ourselves and marketing our business and all the resistance around that. And so I really came to the conclusion that people would be better served through a group coaching program and to have access to that community and to that support. And so we are relaunching in the new year with that coaching element added. Rob Marsh: So we can pop on your email list and be ready for that in a bunch of weeks when that comes around. Megan Smyth: Yeah, exactly. You can watch if you’re just curious what that email sequence looks like. It had like a 40% conversion rate from the freebie to the paid course. So if you just want to watch someone, I personally as a copywriter like to watch other people’s launches and see what they’re doing in their emails. I do the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. So if you just want to come spy on me, that’s cool too. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Well, I’ll be hopping on your list to make sure that I’m part of that launch when you’re ready to go. Okay. So you’ve got serving your clients, you’ve got the course that’s becoming group coaching. What else is going on in your business? Megan Smyth: Great question. What isn’t going on? I feel like there’s always so many things happening, but I would say the group program is my main focus at the moment. I am taking on fewer copywriting projects to make space for that because I do have a one-on-one coaching upgrade. and I have one-on-one coaching clients at the moment as well. And so I want to make sure I’m serving everyone to the highest capability and not taking on too many different things. So I am stepping back from copywriting, have very few projects that I take on on that side to focus more on the coaching side of the business at the moment. And I would say that’s where my my number one priority is. I’ve also got a podcast. I’ve got a lot of other things going on. And so I want to make sure that I’m not spreading myself too thin and that I’m prioritizing serving the people who are already in my space. Rob Marsh: Now, let’s talk about your podcast. I’ve listened to a couple of episodes as you’re out there. Why did you decide to launch a podcast? And it’s not really a podcast about copywriting. It’s more about this broader marketing world, basically serving the clients that you have. So yeah, talk a little bit about that. Megan Smyth: Yeah. So the purpose behind the podcast was I was having a lot of one-on-one conversations, both with like coaching and consulting clients and just with friends in the online business space. Some were copywriters, others were, you know, designers, photographers, coaches, all kinds of different niches. And there were so many conversations that we had where, you know, people, the general consensus was, and these were all women. Um, but the, because as we talked about something that was like, you know, difficult or challenging, it was going on in our business. And someone would say to me, like, Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you said that. I felt the same way, but I’ve never heard anyone say that before. Or like, I’m so glad you brought that up. I’ve been going through the exact same thing. And I just thought, why are we not having these conversations out in the open? Because entrepreneurship can be a really lonely journey, especially in the online space. And so I wanted to create a space for people to have those open and honest conversations about the good times and the bad times. you know, the challenges and how we overcome them. I’m a very honest and blunt person. And so I wanted to kind of challenge people to talk about that stuff, like, you know, the money issue, and, you know, what you do in a slow season, and all of these things that I felt like weren’t being talked about. and to have those hard conversations. And so that was the original purpose behind the podcast. And it’s grown and evolved from there, but I would say it’s not a ton of educational content. It is more so people being honest and sharing their stories and knowing that we’re all on this ride together. Rob Marsh: I think part of what I like about your podcast is how it dovetails with the branding on your website, which also feels like, maybe it’s not meant to attract men so much, but it feels like kind of a girls group, like welcome to, like let me put my arms around you and be part of this club that I have. And so, you know, it fits, I mean, again, the kinds of conversations that you’re trying to have fits with that vibe in a really big way. I’m guessing that was intentional. Megan Smyth: Yeah, absolutely. The podcast is called Blaze, and that comes from the word trailblaze. I feel like we were all sold this idea of there being one right way to do business. In the coaching industry, especially, people are like, I have this blueprint here. Take it and follow it. This is how you do things. You have to do this. You have to do that. posts on social media. You have to grow your email list. You have to do this and you should do that.” And I was really tired of that. And I just wanted to give people the opportunity to share their stories. Because like I said, I was having these one-on-one conversations and the understanding that I was getting was like, there is no one right way to build a business or to do that. You can do things your own way. You can do them differently. And here is this incredible community of women to show you what is possible. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I endorse that a hundred percent. Obviously you went through our program, which is all about, you know, figuring out your way to do the thing that you want to do. But there’s way too many people out there selling the blueprint or the way. And so I think that’s probably why even me listening to your podcast really resonated, you know, some of that messaging there. Megan Smyth: Yeah, for sure. That’s my messaging around selling as well is that so many people I talk to, they hate selling themselves, absolutely dread it. When I did market research before launching my course, that was the number one word that came up. I would say, when you think about marketing your business or selling yourself, what comes up for you? Everyone was saying dread. I was like, this is a conversation we need to change because I do believe there is a sales and marketing strategy out there for everyone. And it might take some work to find it. You might have to do some experimentation. But how can we find a way to make this work for you? Because if you don’t enjoy it long term, that’s not going to work for you and your business. And so we want to find a way that feels fun and sustainable. And there are so many different ways that can look. And so I love being able to showcase that on the podcast as well. Rob Marsh: I think, yeah, looking for things that you dread is a great way also to find problems to solve for clients, right? If they dread it or, I mean, and it’s not just a copywriter thing. I mean, I dread doing the books. I dread taxes. I dread, like, I hate even opening up the bank account. I just want to know there’s money in there. Like, I avoid all of that stuff. And so, yeah, like identifying those kinds of problems that people dread is probably a copywriting, not really a secret, a great thing to look for when we’re looking for problems. Megan Smyth: Absolutely. Yeah. Bookkeeping was the first thing I outsourced to. I feel like on that one. Rob Marsh: Okay. Well, let’s talk a little bit about your brand, because it’s very different again from what you started out with. And I kind of already said what at least it feels like to me, but when you went to, you know, create this visual look for your website and the messaging on your website, uh, what was the process and what were you trying to convey? Megan Smyth: Yeah. Okay. So I’ll start with what I was trying to convey and then I’ll walk you through kind of how we brought that to life. But the, the sort of vision for the brand was when I started my business and even before that, you know, just growing up, um, and watching the business space, like as a little girl, I would watch dragon’s den, which is basically our Canadian shark tank for American listeners. I would watch these business conversations and pitches. And it was a very like male centric environment, at least back then there was one female dragon on the panel and she was always being interrupted and spoken over. And it was just like a very male environment. And so that was what I grew up watching. And I, as a little girl, internalized that and I never even considered business as a career path, like never had entrepreneurship in my future. was not on my mind at all until, like I said, university and much, much later. And even then when I came into this space, there was a bit of the old pushy sales tactics as well. It was very old school boys club kind of vibe. And I wanted to shake that up a bit through copywriting and through this conversation around sales and the way that the sales industry is going in the online space. I think we’ve seen that shift in recent years from the pushy tactics don’t work anymore. No one wants that. in their own business. It’s not working on consumers either. And so I was like, let’s change that conversation. And so I had this vision in my head of Like I said, that old school vibe, the boys club, and the visual concept that I worked with a messaging strategist and a designer. The messaging strategist is one of my friends from The Accelerator, so I can thank you for that connection. We worked together to come up with this visual concept of a woman walks into this bar, this old school bar in Edinburgh, Scotland. That was the pitch she gave me. It’s very specific. She walks into this bar. Yeah. And she’s the only woman in the room. And she walks in and she goes up to the bar and she orders a scotch neat. And everyone just kind of sits up and takes notice. And it’s like, this is her place now too. And the fact that she’s there kind of opens the door to other women to be there as well. And so that was a very high concept pitch for this. And thankfully, I had a very talented designer who took that and turned it into beautiful visuals as well. Rob Marsh: Yeah. And then as far as the messaging that goes along with that, I’m assuming you wrote the messaging. Yes. Maybe I’m wrong about that. I don’t know. And so what is the thing that you’re communicating there that’s backed up with the visual? Megan Smyth: Yeah, so same thing in the visual. Some of the pitch concepts from that messaging that I worked on, like I said, I did write the website copy myself, but I had a lot of help from my friend from the Accelerator, Kristen of Cursor and Ink. We can give her a shout out. She worked with me on the strategy behind the messaging. And so some of that did make its way right from the strategy document onto the website and homepage, especially the concept I just mentioned of the woman in the bar. I think that is still a line on one of my website pages. And, you know, just this vibe of like shaking things up and, you know, burning the old sales playbook and writing our own rules, that’s really heavily featured in the messaging. All the fire imagery that’s, you know, out now on the podcast and the course is just kind of this common thread throughout of, you know, we’re here to make some noise and make some change as well. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I think before we started recording, I mentioned that when I saw your website, saw all the things that you were doing, it just was one of those things where I’ve got to have Megan come on the show because I wish I could take people back in time and show them where you were, you know, three and a half, four years ago, you know, before you started in the accelerator and then what you’ve done since because I think it’s amazing and I admire a lot of the the work that you’ve put into creating that business and the way that you’re showing up in the world is, I just think it’s phenomenal. Megan Smyth: Thank you. That means a lot. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Okay. So all of this is set up so that you can work part time, so you can travel. So how’s that working out? How many hours do you work and what are you doing with the rest of your time? Megan Smyth: Great question. What am I doing? I’m chilling a lot. I am learning very slowly. I realized recently that I came to the conclusion, you know, I never learned how to relax like in my entire life. I’ve always worked multiple jobs at a time, like all through school and everything. And I am slowly but surely carving out more time for just relaxing and for hobbies, time with family and friends, getting outside, all of the things. But I would say I work anywhere from 10 to 25 hours a week, maybe 30 max, depending on what I have going on on that season. If it’s busier with client work, launching the course obviously takes extra time, things like that. But I have been able to travel a lot and to really enjoy the places that I visited. That was my big thing is I didn’t want to be in these beautiful places and be stuck indoors on my laptop. I wanted to get out and explore and I’m so grateful I’ve been able to do that. Rob Marsh: So what are some of your favorite places you’ve been able to travel to? Megan Smyth: I would say, okay, so I was in Greece for two months earlier this year and the entire time was just like an absolute dream. Total bucket list destination. I timed it right with the time zone difference between Canada and the US and Greece because I got to go out all day and spend all day exploring and wandering through olive groves and exploring ancient ruins and then in the early evening, I would come on and have a couple of calls, do a couple of hours of work, and then just kind of wind down in the evening and just enjoy my time. And that slower European pace of living was just so good. And I’m so excited to get back there. Rob Marsh: Yeah. I’ve been to Greece. It was a long time ago. It was basically backpacking as a student with one of my friends, like I said, a long time ago. It’s definitely one of the places I need to get back to. Megan Smyth: Yeah. Rob Marsh: So beautiful. So in order to make all this happen, do you have a team that supports you? You mentioned you outsource your bookkeeping. Is there anybody else that you’ve got that is helping you run all of this stuff? Megan Smyth: Yes. I do outsource. Actually, my bookkeeper is my sister. She was my very first hire. I have outsourced quite a bit to her. She started out just doing the books and she’s become my complete operations manager. She handles all of the system side. She’s very organization minded. To have her brain on that is so helpful for me. We’re opposites. I’m the visionary, creative, And she’s like, let’s bring that back to earth. Like we’re going to make a plan. We’re going to make a strategy and do all the things. And so she really is like my right hand woman and I could not do this without her. And so she’s become more and more involved in the company. And then I also have VA who does podcast editing and helps with a few other like marketing admin tasks. And so no, it is not just me. Rob Marsh: Amazing. So what’s next in your business? I know you’re, you’re launching the group coaching. Anything else that’s coming up to be excited about? Megan Smyth: I would say that is the main focus. Like I said, at the moment, I am just beyond excited to launch this program again. I’m really excited about the workshop I’m hosting, going into that launch as well. I know the purpose of a workshop or a webinar is to launch the course. It’s part of the launch, but I’m honestly just really excited for the workshop aspect and to deliver free value there, whether or not people buy the course, because the workshop is centered on what we just talked about. that’s creating a full-time income on part-time hours. And whether that’s because people want to travel like me or they just want more time with their family or to focus on their health or whatever it is, I’m really excited to share kind of behind the scenes of how I’ve done that and how I’m helping my clients do that as well. Rob Marsh: So since you’ve ended up on a very different path than the one you thought you were going to be on when you first went to university, What advice would you give to teenager you, maybe 20-something you, that would make a difference in the pathway that you’ve chosen? Megan Smyth: Yeah, I would say stop worrying about what everyone else wants. do your own thing. And that kind of is the message, like I said, of my brand and the podcast and all that as well. But back then I was so caught up in I think other people’s ideas of success, hence studying medicine. That was very much an idea that was kind of planted in me from other people. It was like this idea of what a successful career and life would look like. And it took a lot of time and I think introspection to think, well, what do I think a successful life looks like? And it turns out it wasn’t med school. It was completely different than that. Turns out all I wanted to do was, you know, be creative and travel and, you know, help more women make more money in their businesses. And that’s my dream. And your dream doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. So I would just say to trust yourself. Stop worrying about what other people think. Rob Marsh: I, again, I wholeheartedly agree. If I had done what I thought I was going to be doing back in college, I’d be an attorney. I would probably hate my job. I mean, I think I would have probably been a decent attorney, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. So yeah, as I look back, I’m like, yeah, serendipity, you know, play around, have fun, let things happen and see if the path just ends up being a little different. Megan Smyth: Another way to say that would be to follow the fun. What genuinely lights you up and what do you have fun doing? Because I think a lot of people assume those have to be separate things. They’re like, I can’t have fun doing the thing that’s going to make a living. That’s for hobbies. I’m like, I think there is a way to make that happen. I’ve created it. You and Kira have created it. So follow the fun in both your life and your business. Rob Marsh: Yeah, for sure. I feel like that might be a pretty good place to end. Megan, for sharing so much about your business and what’s going on. Like I said, I’m just I’m amazed at what you’ve built. I shouldn’t be amazed because obviously you’re so good at this stuff anyway that it would have happened no matter what. But just having the back row seat and watching you do all of this stuff has been a lot of fun for me. So, yeah, good. Good job. And thanks for sharing so much. Megan Smyth: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Definitely would not be where I am now without you guys and The Accelerator. Rob Marsh: You’re nice for saying that. Thank you. Thanks to Megan Smythe for sharing how she got started and the business that she built. You can find her on her website, megansmythe.com, which we’ll link to in the show notes. Her podcast is called Blaze and you can find that on Spotify and other podcast platforms. Be sure to jump on her list so that you can watch her launch for her group coaching that we talked about during the show. So yeah, if you join the list, you can check out what she’s offering there. Before we sign off, I just want to repeat one of the ideas that we talked about early on this show, and that’s the willingness to go for it. Megan had it, and a lot of successful copywriters do, but too many copywriters hold back and wait for client work to find them. or they wait for opportunities to come their way, and that just doesn’t happen enough to make it a viable strategy for success. You have to put yourself out there, you have to try new things, you have to take risks, and it might require you to do a few things that make you uncomfortable, make you step outside of your comfort zone. If you’re not willing and able to do that, you’re going to struggle to make things work as a copywriter. So this is me encouraging you to put yourself out there, pitch podcasts that you want to speak on, write for publications that can get you in front of your ideal clients, create and send that pitch to the client or to the event manager, to the podcast host that you want to connect with, go for it.   

What does it take to create a course that delivers on its promise and ensures that students get through all of the material? On the 421st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, copywriter and course corrector, Maya Stojkovich, shares her COURSE framework for creating and fixing the programs experts sell in order to get results. There’s a ton of crossover with copywriting sales messages, so grab your headphones and let’s get to it. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: The Course Corrector The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: Why are so many course creators failing when it comes to selling their courses? Or worse, they do sell their courses or memberships or workshops, but the people who buy them don’t finish them. I’ve certainly bought my share of courses with the full intention that I was going to complete the training and the assignments, and they’re still waiting there months… sometimes years later. What’s up with that? Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I talked with copywriter and course corrector, Maya Stojkovich. Maya is one half of the partership behind the Course Corrector—a program designed to help course creators fix the things that keep course buyers from finishing the work and getting the result they want. The other half of this partnership is Linda Perry who has been on the podcast several times before. On this episode, Maya shared the formula for making sure a course will deliver the promised result and keep students engaged. And smart copywriters will notice some big similarities between what she shared and what we often put into a winning sales message. So stay tuned. Just a quick plug… this episode is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground… the only membership for copywriters focused on helping you build your business skills—the skills that help you attract clients, create services they want to buy, price them effectively, and run a business that’s fully booked and profitable. Does it reallly make a difference? Yes it does. Members tell us its the best investment they’ve ever made in themselves. The training resources, templates, critiques and community are game changers. And you can find out more… even try it risk free for thirty days at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu And now, let’s go to our interview with Maya Stojkovich. Hey, Maya, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. Let’s start with how you got to where you are. How did you become a copywriter, a teacher, and now a course corrector? Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me on. I’m so excited. That is a wonderful question. How I got here, I’d say, is a pretty non-traditional route. Everything about it seemed traditional at first. I went to college. I got an English degree. I actually started off working in politics and that’s what I really thought I wanted to do. And then I ultimately recognized that it wasn’t the life for me. And so I actually ended up coming home and I was trying to reassess and, you know, I got the chance to actually join the Accelerator, and that was the first course I ever took. And I sat there and was like, this is really something. But there was a piece that was missing. I wasn’t fully engaged, but I also like to blame that on being 20 and 21 and not really knowing who I am at that age. And I continued to learn. I took so many courses. That full year, I was just taking course after course. I actually ended up becoming a certified mindset coach. And that really helped shape the rest of my career path. I actually settled down into marketing for a while, and then I up and moved, and I ended up being a paralegal, a teacher, an education programs coordinator. And it seems all over the place, but now sitting where I am as one half of the course corrector, I recognized that my entire path was just setting me up to become this course strategist, to actually dive into the courses that I had taken prior and say, you know, what can I take from this and actually apply it to courses everywhere? Rob Marsh: Yeah, I love that. And obviously, all of the things that you’ve done have, you know, created, gotten you where you are. That’s the way paths work, right? Maya Stojkovich: Right. Rob Marsh: All of us. But of all of those positions, did you have a favorite and some big takeaways from being a teacher, mindset coach, paralegal? I don’t know. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, I know, right? So many. I would say that the most impactful was actually the education programs coordinator. I got to learn what it took to craft this beautiful narrative. I taught environmental sciences to third and fifth graders. So it’s a tough audience, but I got to craft this beautiful narrative with these programs about salt marshes, about like forests, about, you know, fiddler crabs. And I had to make it exciting for these kids. I had to get them interested and be like, here’s why you should care. And here’s why this matters. It is applicable to you in your lives as small children. And it was just this beautiful process, and it gave me so much information about teaching in and of itself that I now have the ability to apply it to courses. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. That basically is what you’re doing now. So let’s talk about what you’re doing now. We’ll come back to maybe your experience with some of those courses that you were taking earlier. Tell us about the course corrector and what it is, what you guys do. You’re working with Linda, obviously. I have immense respect for Linda. I think she’s been on the podcast four times maybe over the last seven years, whatever. So absolutely love her to death. But what are you guys doing in the course corrector? Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, absolutely. So the course corrector is, as it sounds, I’m one half of it. I do work with Linda Perry. She is also, fun fact, my mother. Which a lot of people go, what’s it like working with your mom? And I absolutely love it. We have very similar brains, but we work completely differently. And I like to say we go on our separate caves when we work and come back together and always find the same conclusion. But what we really do is we dive into courses. And so what sets us apart is that we don’t actually always work on the course creation process. While we welcome a bunch of course creators and can help them create their courses, I like to say as preventative measure, so they don’t actually bump up into issues in the long run. We work with established course creators who have a course, and their course has gone awry somewhere, and they’re not quite sure why. Maybe they have an idea. They can say, maybe my engagement isn’t great, my completion rates are down, you know, I’ve looked at the numbers, or maybe something isn’t translating. And they have an idea, but it’s that big why that becomes the mystery. And what we do is we actually have a six-point framework. It’s called COURSE, unironically. And we dive into a course and we actually look at it holistically and we pull apart the pieces that aren’t working and actually help create this transformation for course creators that it’s just hard to do by themselves because they know their material, they know their course, they created it. And sometimes you just need that second or third pair of eyes and so we provide that. Rob Marsh: Yeah. I love what you guys are doing, especially as an owner of several courses. And I realize how difficult it can be, especially what you have it set up to then take a step back and say, OK, wait, do we have the right promise here, you know, and and doing all of the things. So can we actually step through the course framework and talk about each of the steps that you guys go through? Maya Stojkovich: Yes, I would absolutely love to. So We start with C, which is clear, identifiable goals. So we’re going to look at your course and we’re going to say, hey, do you have a clear goal? And usually it’s that one goal for the course taker. So you’re delivering something, you’re promising a transformation. What does that look like? I also always love to mention, hey, you are in your course yourself. Please have some goals for yourself for your course. That’s always so important because so many people always get focused on the course taker. And I’m like, put yourself in your course, which that also shows up later. And then we have Rob Marsh: Oh, wait, let me let me stop you right. Let me so I want to ask about that. Because that’s actually really interesting. I mean, I would normally be thinking, okay, yeah, the big promise, and we’ve got to make sure that we deliver on this transformation. When you say we should have goals for ourselves. What do you mean by that? Are you talking about financial goals, enrollment goals? Or is it more tied to the course content itself? Maya Stojkovich: I think it can be all, every, both. I really don’t think it’s exclusive. I often find that with overarching course goals, you’re really going to focus on engagement, how many people you want in your course, money, you know, what you’re bringing in. And so that tends to be the focus. But can you focus on what do I want to get out of my course content-wise? Absolutely. That can be a goal. Rob Marsh: And maybe there’s also some relationships that you’re developing with the students in a course. You know, there may be some things we can build goals around there, too. OK. Maya Stojkovich: OK, so O. Which is outcomes and pathways for success, which I this is my favorite part of our course framework because I love pathways. I think they’re just the key to success for any course out there. Yeah. So that’s O. Rob Marsh: So, and so how should we be thinking about pathways? Is it simply, uh, you know, if I’m going to draw this out, I’m thinking, okay, module one leads to module two that, I mean, that seems kind of basic. Is there more to it than that? Uh, as far as like how the ideas string together? Maya Stojkovich: Absolutely. So I think that so many people look at pathways and they go, okay, I have a, B, C. I know where all these points are. I know what they lead to. And then it’s this great transformation. But really looking at a pathway, it’s not just that you actually have to create a pathway really intentionally because. If you don’t look at every element of the pathway and it’s like A and then you have like point one, point two, everything that goes in and under A to get to B and then to get to C, you have to be very clear and very intentional of the content you’re putting in, how you’re creating this pathway, the story that you’re crafting through your course. Otherwise, people might fall off. People might start going down a different path. I really love the image of when creating a pathway, you are leading your course taker, so you’re the first, you got your little backpack on, your lamp, you’re guiding them through this really dark, scary forest, but you know the way, and they’re trusting you to lead them, and so you don’t want them going down and veering left when they’re supposed to go right. So you want to really be intentional about how do you get from point A to point B to point C to point D to actually deliver that end result. So there’s just a little bit more nuance in there. Rob Marsh: It feels like partly we’re talking about a framework, but it’s a little bit bigger than just having a framework to step through. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, absolutely. And this is where course goals become so important because you have to be very clear on those goals to actually create this narrative, that story, this pathway. Rob Marsh: Okay. You. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, you, which is your unique course proposition. We look at how you are in your course, how you’re showing up, as well as just what makes your course stand out in this very saturated market. You know, everybody has a course. This isn’t new. Everyone knows it. But what makes yours unique and different in this market, in your niche? How do you separate yourself and sell yourself, really? It’s very fun to help course creators figure this out because oftentimes it actually ends up being themselves, which they don’t even know. They’re just kind of compiling this course and they’re like, huh, this is really interesting. Lots of information. I’m like, yeah, but is it unique? And they’re like, well, I don’t know. And I’m like, where are you in your course? And then they go, oh, it’s this really big light bulb moment for them. But it doesn’t always have to be, right? We have a boot camp and it’s our eight-week program. And what we do with ours is it’s not necessarily us that makes it unique, it’s this transformation we’re bringing. So how do you just make your course stand out in this market? Rob Marsh: Okay. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Andmaybe  I’m putting you on the spot here, but you kind of just said like what your unique transformation is as far as what you deliver. Some of the other courses that you’ve gone through, like for instance, I think you’ve worked with Justin Blackman. We’ve talked to Justin a ton on the podcast as well. What would you say is unique about his course? Maya Stojkovich: Oh, I mean, it’s him. I know, this is what I told you. It ends up usually being people themselves. But it also is what he’s delivering. It’s how he delivers his voice branding voice guides, right? It’s about his delivering because people love learning from Justin, and I get why he is amazing at what he does. But he also delivers something so unique and just twists it a little bit. It doesn’t have to be very dramatic, right? You don’t need to be five million steps ahead of everyone else. You just need to have one little twist that makes you unique, and that’s what he has, and that’s why it makes his courses so exceptional. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Okay, next step is R. Maya Stojkovich: Realistic milestones and action steps. And so this leads from pathways. You’re really going to need to have those milestones, those action steps. They have to be, you know, relevant, realistic. Applicable. And you want to have them as that support. This is also really going to help. So it’s going to help with E, which is engagement. It’s like a little heads up. But this really helps keep your course takers engaged. And when you actually implement those milestones and those action steps, you’re keeping your course takers on that path. So it’s incredibly important. Rob Marsh: So let’s give some examples of what milestones could be. So for instance, in our accelerator course, we have blueprints that we step through so that people can complete those. They turn them in. Does that count as a milestone or as action steps or is it beyond that? Maya Stojkovich: Absolutely. That does count as it. I love to think of, you know, it doesn’t have to be so overthought. It can be homework assignments, which I know, you know, everyone dreads. We’re adults. We don’t go to school anymore. We don’t have homework. But really, it can be homework assignments. It can be something as small as taking a poll or, you know, asking people to communicate in your community that you’ve built. It really is just as small as checking in and making sure they’re still there. Because when you implement these milestones and these action steps, if someone’s not completing them or if someone isn’t engaged, you can tell and then you actually have the ability to course correct. Rob Marsh: Right. OK, so S is solid content. Maya Stojkovich: So content, you know, it’s what you compile into your course. It’s everything that you bring. It’s how you make your course happen. It’s the transformation. It’s all your knowledge, right? The issues that we see usually in here is that everyone knows their stuff. Course creators know their stuff. You come with so much expertise and so much knowledge. You’ve done your research. But your course taker isn’t there yet. And so we see a lot of information dumping. We see a lot of, you know, higher level information being thrown in and not actually made into these bite sized pieces. So it’s really just engaging with your content a little bit differently. And it’s taking a holistic look at your content in terms of everything we’ve talked about thus far. You know, you’ve the goal, you have the pathway, you have your unique course proposition. Does your content actually filter through all of these different aspects and deliver in your course. Rob Marsh: Yeah, cursive knowledge seems to be something that could impact a lot of course creators because we do assume that people are at a level that we’re communicating at. And so this feels like, it isn’t, but it feels like dumbing things down sometimes in a way to be able to engage at a lower level of expertise and delivering that information, which is not easy for anybody. Maya Stojkovich: No, it’s not. And it’s one of those things of how do you actually take a step back and recognize, okay, this is where my course taker’s at. How do I get them to where I want them to be? How do I get them to that expert level? And so it might seem like dumbing it down, but really, again, it’s just engaging with your content differently and actually engaging with your audience. And that’s why it’s so important to know who your audience is, and also root yourself and goal-wise for your course in your audience as well. Because yes, it is about you, but it is also about delivering something to them. And so you almost have to like remove the ego and remove the self from the content. Rob Marsh: Yeah, maybe a better way of for me thinking about this is that rather than dumbing it down, you’re basically providing a ladder that starts at the bottom and helps people step up to where you are and ultimately delivers the promise. That’s beautiful. Well, maybe I should be a course corrector. I don’t know. And E you teased is engagement. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah. So you got engagement and ongoing investment. So we look at the engagement throughout the course. Again, this is another big one. Oftentimes in courses, engagement gets lowered and you don’t know why. And so we look at why and we are able to diagnose and figure out why. happens to be all of the issues that we’ve mentioned thus far, so you get to actually look at your course a little bit differently. And then we look at ongoing investment. We want to see if your course takers are buying into you and your services and continuing on, because you almost want to leave them with that little cliffhanger and say, hey, you can learn more. And do they bite? So that’s what we look at. Rob Marsh: OK, so a lot of our listeners are just copywriters, content writers. Maybe they write for course creators. Maybe they don’t. But it feels to me also that this course framework is, in a way, it’s like a sales framework. It’s a way to get somebody from wherever they are right now to making an investment and then actually purchasing something towards the end. Am I misreading that? Maya Stojkovich: No, no, you’re not. I mean, it really is. You never want to forget that you’re always selling something. Your course is meant to help provide for you and your business. Your course is meant to be this additive to this funnel, right? Like, I never want to shy away from that because a lot of people see course as this like unique kind of standalone thing, or maybe they think it leads into something else. But this is where you do have to be really clear about it because you are selling something. You do have to almost pitch and sell even while you’re still doing the course. It does actually end up sounding a lot like sales. It definitely relates to what your copywriters are doing. I think it actually makes it a little bit more manageable when you start to think of it that way rather than viewing this course because so many people get overwhelmed in course creation. Then when their course fails, it’s like, they spiral and they don’t know what’s going wrong and they sit there and then they beat themselves up. Or if you’re writing for courses too, it’s how do you prevent that for a course creator. And when you actually just start to look at it as, you know, I’m engaging with people and I’m getting them hooked and I’m bringing them in and then I’m leading them through this funnel that is the course itself, I think it makes it a lot more pleasant to deal with. Yeah, for sure. Rob Marsh: OK, so that’s the course corrector. We may come back to some of this stuff, but I would love to just get your thoughts about the course industry itself. Because I think a lot of people with courses saw this golden year or two during the pandemic where everybody was learning online, everybody was investing in that. And then the last two years has become significantly more difficult for most, not all. There are still a few people who are really selling well. But a lot of course, owners have really struggled. So what’s going on? What’s causing all that? Maya Stojkovich: I know. I think this is such a great question. And I love talking about this because, you know, we saw it as like the golden years and also COVID too, right? COVID happened. We were all stuck indoors. Everyone was like, we need community. We need to learn. And then there were courses. And so the online e-learning market boosted up. Here’s the thing with it. It’s still growing. And so I don’t want people to lose hope because it is growing. So by 2030, it’s supposed to be $687 billion more in revenue. And I just think that that’s a really positive statistic. On the other hand, though, you also have another statistic that says about 95% of horses fail. And so I challenge it by looking and saying, you know, I don’t actually think there’s an issue with courses and people buying courses in and of itself. I really think there’s an issue with the quality of courses and also how you set yourself apart and sell in this market that is very saturated. You know, I don’t shy away from that. We don’t shy away from that, the course character at all.  There are a lot of courses. I just think that there are a lot of courses that get thrown together with all these hopes, these dreams of more time, more money, more freedom, give back to me and my business. and then they fall apart, and then shame spirals happen, or you have course takers that end up falling apart and also have shame spirals happening. So it’s just like a lot of collective negative mindset issues that end up coming to play and then really impacting these courses. Again, 95% fail. I think that that is such a glaring statistic that really shows it’s not necessarily the course market that’s an issue, it’s just how we’re interacting with our courses. And that doesn’t make us wrong or bad, it’s just looking at it differently. Because here’s the thing, we’re not all stuck indoors anymore. It’s not COVID. But how do you cultivate community and really boost up your course and tell a story with it and make it impactful so people clamor for it, so they actually want it, right? And, you know, we’re also in a time and an age where people want community more than ever. People want to connect more than ever. And it’s like we’re all somehow isolated. We have social media. We don’t know necessarily how to interact with people anymore. We want that connection, that a  face to face connection. And courses actually do provide that. So if you set yourself apart with your course, I really think, you know, it’s why we think of those names, the big names that can still sell. Right. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes sense. I want to ask you about this statistic, this 95% of courses failed. And maybe I have a slightly different take on it, too. But is that a measurement of just completion, or are there other ways of looking at that? Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, there are definitely other ways of looking at that. So we like to look at completion rates. I always say that it doesn’t show the full picture, though, because you can have 95% completion rates, and still no one’s actually applying your content You know, Linda and I are actually talking about this on our podcast, too, because we just think it’s such a glaring issue because everyone looks at completion rates and they’re like, well, it’s doing great or it’s doing poor, but it doesn’t actually measure how your course takers are doing. I think it also, you know, you have to look at engagement. Where are they dropping out? How many are dropping out? What does that look like? your content? Is it being applied to your course taker’s lives actually? Are you really delivering that transformation? So there’s a bunch of different ways you have the ability to measure course success, which is also probably why you look at a statistic and it’s so big, it’s like 95%, right? And I also think that likes to point out there’s an issue in every course. And while it might be minor and not causing a big problem, There are issues, and they’re continuously popping up. So how do you correct? How do you deal with it? Because I hear so many people also saying, I had to rerecord 10 hours in my course. And I’m like, then there’s something wrong. It’s not you. And let’s figure it out. Let’s actually dive in and address these issues, because it’s holistic. It’s not just like one glaring issue. It’s not just completion rates. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I look at it too and think, for example, so one of the modules in our accelerator course deals with processes, another one with packages. And I think from time to time, people will actually join our course having different pieces of their business figured out, but maybe they don’t have processes in place. And so when they get to that module, they use it, they fix the problem. And maybe that’s what they were there for. And they don’t really care about the branding module that’s coming later. Maybe they’re OK with what they’re doing. And so I feel like sometimes that number gets in the way. And that comes back to, I think, what you were saying as far as these results and these outcomes. Sometimes we have this huge promise at the beginning of a course. But what people really need is maybe one of those steps along the way that get them to that big promise. I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking about that wrong. Maya Stojkovich: No, I mean, what I just kind of was thinking about as you said that is, you know, this is all just information. Linda and I always say, what you’re looking at is just data. Like, I think it’s so important to look at it that way, because you can see people drop out right after that one module, people are like, I got what I’m here for, and I’m done and I’m out. you can look at that and be like, oh, that is so disappointing. Why didn’t they stay the whole time they just invested? Like this is, you know, this is great stuff. I know what I’m offering is amazing. And they’re just telling you something. Maybe that means you need to break it apart. Maybe that means you need a whole separate course on just that to engage those buyers differently. It’s really just data, and it’s allowing you to take the temperature of your course so you have the ability to course correct and make those changes where it’s needed. It’s not, you know, I’m bad, I’m terrible, or I have this amazing thing and they don’t want it. What’s wrong with them?” Because there’s so many stories we tell ourselves and can tell ourselves about our courses. I’ve seen it in so many course creators. As a course taker myself who has dropped out of a course before, you sit there and stories, all the stories, but really it’s just data. It’s saying, where am I not meeting certain expectations or where is my course falling apart or what are they telling me so I can just do this a little bit differently. It’s nothing, you know, it’s all fixable, which I think is great. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes sense. So let’s say I’m listening and I’ve been thinking about, you know, I’m a successful copywriter. I’ve been thinking about creating a course for some of the people in my niche. Maybe it’s, you know, how do you write emails for, you know, this industry or something like that. And I want to get started. Do you have advice for somebody beyond that framework, you know, where it’s like, OK, I’m sitting down. I’m going to create my course. What are maybe one or two, maybe three things that I should be doing to make sure that that first launch is going to go OK? And obviously it doesn’t. I’m going to come and join the course creator to figure it all out. But I want to start with a really good foundation. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, absolutely. I think that one thing to really set yourself up for success is compiling, and this sounds so silly, but compiling everything you want to say. I think, you know, this goes along with the content piece, but it’s more than that. It’s really saying, I have this brilliant idea, now what? And I really think that starts with compiling your knowledge base. I don’t think there’s a better place to start because then you can actually sift out, you know, if it is about writing emails, making better emails, whatever it is. you then actually have a whole process in front of you, and then you can pick and choose what’s the most important. And that’s actually going to set you up for success. And I also think, you know, taking the time to really envision what do you want out of this course? What are your hopes, dreams, aspirations? And I know that that sounds kind of woo woo, but I really think that’s important to actually sit and engage with yourself so you know what might come up for you mindset wise or what might come up for you in terms of you know, getting stuck on something, some hopes, some dreams, and again, not then being able to collect that data. I really think those are two big things. It’s like just compiling your knowledge base and putting it in front of you so you know where you’re going, what you’re doing, and also just, you know, taking a second to say, what do I really want out of this? Rob Marsh: Yeah, that’s all good advice. You talked a little bit about in the engagement step, you know, things that we need to be doing to add community. There are a ton of courses out there that it’s just you log in, you see the video, you maybe get a transcript. That’s it. That’s it. There’s like no engagement with the course owner or whatever. So can we talk about some of this stuff? How do we add this in? Maya Stojkovich: I love this. I know you just got me so excited. Yeah, you’re a little excited right now. I love this aspect because community is so vital and so important in a course. And even if they’re not engaging with you, how can you just take a second to create a community, even if it’s small? So that looks like having a place for them to comment and interact with each other. And I don’t care if it’s an evergreen course and there’s a small comment section that’s been up for years. People can actually engage and comment on other things that have been left and can see things. And I think that even in and of itself creates just a small element of community. Or for bigger courses, do you have that Slack channel? Do you have that Facebook group? Are people interacting with it? One thing I will always say about community is as the course creator, you have to take the first leap. That is vital. You have to take the first leap because everyone else is coming in thinking, well, I should already know this and why don’t I know this? And I can’t believe I’m having to take a course on this. And oh, you know, and again, all these stories and no one wants to take the first leap. It’s like, you know, if you’re in a crowded room and someone asks for a comment and you’re looking around and you’re like, OK, who’s going to say something first? It has to be you. Rob Marsh: Yeah. And what does that look like? Is that like, is that me, the course owner? I’m always putting in the first comment saying, Hey, what do you think about this? Or is it even more outreach? Like let’s jump on a video call and you know, just chat for 10 minutes about what your goals are for, you know, for this. Like, I guess there’s a million ways to do this. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, there really are. And you know, there’s not, Best thing about course is it’s not one size fits all, right? And so it’s up to course creator preference. I like to say if you have an evergreen course and it’s not something you’re checking all the time and it’s there and people are engaging and commenting, you can tell course takers to comment. You can say, hey, what’s one thing you learned? What’s one key takeaway? Or in a Slack channel, you know, pose a question about this module that they’re in and get them to think about it a little bit differently. Maybe help them get a little unstuck or just push them. Or, you know, if you do have maybe even a smaller course and have the ability to hop on those one-on-one calls right off the bat, do it because it allows them to start to filter through their thoughts and then actually engage in this process a little bit differently because then they have a stake in the game. You know, you want your course takers to come in and actually invest themselves because, again, then they’re going to continue to invest themselves in everything you have. And so it’s allowing them to come and really give themselves to this course. And that’s why I say, you know, you have to be the first one and it doesn’t have to be this big step, because I think also often course creators can get bogged down by their course. They can get exhausted. They can get burnt out, not just by their course, but also in work itself. And so how do you make it manageable? That’s why it’s also up to the course creator. Rob Marsh: One of the trends that I’ve seen happening in the course world is this move to, like, smaller workshops, you know, little, you know, $27 masterclasses kind of a thing. Would you also recommend engagement there as well, where the investment isn’t much. So maybe a course creator doesn’t have a lot of time to put into it. Because again, you know, the money difference between a $27 course and $1,000 or $2,000 course is pretty significant. Is that mostly just a place for the comment section? Or would I do something different there? Maya Stojkovich: I think, I think a comment section works fine for something with, you know, it’s $27 and minimal engagement and I think that’s more so you have to know where that workshop or where it lands in your funnel almost. It’s like, okay, is this going to lead into a course? Because maybe I have to do like a little bit more, but I don’t have to do a ton, right? You can have a comment section or you can have a Q&A portion of it, right? You can have a place where you engage and then tell them what comes next. And that really is just engaging them that bit differently. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, drastic. It doesn’t have to be hopping on a one-on-one call. But it can also be saying, you know, you have my email. If you have a question, please reach out. I’m here. I love to talk. You know, it’s just that little extra step that allows them to feel more comfortable so that then maybe they can come into your course. the $1,000 course and say, all right, I can do this. This is manageable. And I know that they have my back, too, and that they’ll actually deliver. Rob Marsh: I think what you said about the funnel is really important as well, because if this is the first step in the funnel and this is the first taste that somebody gets with engagement with you, you want to show them what engagement looks like at a higher level as well. So if you simply just ignore somebody with that $27 workshop, but your course has some really great engagement ideas or ways that you do that, it feels like you’re missing showing off what they would get. And so there’s probably some strategy thinking through, like, how much do I really show off so that I can move to the next step? Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, this is one thing that we do look at. We like to look at, you know, the before and the after, too, when you work with us, because it tells you a lot, you know, Where are you getting your course takers from if you have a funnel and you say okay? I have that $27 workshop and that leads into my course like you can start to think about that workshop a little bit differently and put in that little extra emphasis in there so you can bring them to your course. Because again, a lot of people think, you know, no one’s buying in. Money is this big issue. People just want to connect. And if you give them a reason to buy in, I promise you they will. Like, they really will. And even if it takes just like a little bit more time, They will, but they have to trust you first. It’s human nature, right? Like, they want to know that they’re actually going to get the results that they buy, because how disappointing is it if, you know, they buy and they spend thousands of dollars and they don’t get the results? Like, that hurts for the course taker and the course creator. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes sense. Before we started recording, you said that you had started thinking a lot about storytelling and narrative and its place in courses. Talk a little bit about that, because again, it feels like sometimes the modules are separate from each other and there’s not necessarily a story that connects them. So what’s your thinking there? Maya Stojkovich: I actually love that we were just talking about workshops in this too because this is – I was watching some workshops as a lifelong learner over here. But that’s where I started thinking about that piece and I was like, huh, like what comes next is their course or what their offer is and I’m not sold by their workshop. Like there isn’t a story to it. And I think it’s so impactful to think about storytelling in terms of what story is your business telling and what story is your course telling, especially your course, to your audience that allows them to buy in beginning, middle, and not drop out, to actually stay the full way. It’s like what I was talking about with, you know, education program coordinator position with the kids is how do you make them care? How do you make them interested? And that really is by storytelling. Because if I sat and I was leading a course, and it’s about, you know, courses like we have, and I’m like, hey, you know, it’s really cool if you like set a goal, and here’s how, and here’s all this information, here’s X, Y, Z, okay, on your way, do it. They’re going to be like, this was so boring.  Or, you know, or if I have one module that’s packed full of stories, and it seems really cool, but then they don’t know how to apply it, I’ve lost them.” It’s not just in one module, because you’re right, there’s module one, module two, module three. You offer all these elements. How do you combine them all together and really craft this beautiful story for the course taker so they know their why, they know their objective, and they know the how? I think those elements really get told through story to actually just engage people a little bit differently. They’ve bought into the information you’re selling. There’s a reason they bought your course. They said, hey, I see what you’re offering has value. I want this end goal transformation. I know I’m going to get it through XYZ information. A lot of people on their websites have, here’s what you’re going to get out of module one, module two. They know what they’re signing up for. But how do you make it interesting? This is also where unique course proposition comes in. How do you insert yourself? How do you insert case studies, personal examples? personal anecdotes. They work wonderful. And I’m not even just talking about like the successful stories either. Tell your failures. Don’t be afraid to like show yourself and show case studies and in an honest, raw light because everyone’s coming in with their humanness, and they just want to learn and get that transformation, but they need that extra oomph, and I think storytelling is a wonderful way to do that in your course. Rob Marsh: Yeah. That’s got me thinking about ways that I need to add more stories into a couple of things that I’ve been working on. Maya Stojkovich: So that’s good. Usually does. Rob Marsh: Let’s shift a little bit, because you’re a mindset coach. Let’s talk a little bit about the mindset that it takes to be a successful coach, course runner, course owner, because it’s not quite the same as running a copywriting business where you’re working one-on-one with clients. Talk a little bit about that and what it requires. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, working one-on-one with clients, you actually have the ability to engage with them a little bit differently. You go from one-to-one to one-to-many and then you go, whoa, what is coming up for me? I’ve seen it so many times. Really, I’ve landed in the stories we tell ourselves because you have no idea what is going to come up for you in your course until you run your course. I think that is why we personally love working with course creators who have an established course and we love correcting it. so much mindset comes up. And it’s not just for the course creator, it’s also for the course taker. But I’m always just so astounded by the shame spirals that people can go into when even one small thing goes wrong with their course. So say you have lowered, lowered engagement rate in the middle, right? That’s where a lot of drop off tends to happen in the course.  Course creators then look at themselves in such a critical lens and they go, what is wrong with me? What am I not doing? What is wrong? How did how did I let this happen? And then it just spirals and spirals. And then they actually aren’t able to, you know, address the issues from a nice, secure, happy little spot that they were when they were creating their course and building it. So super excited. And then it causes burnout. I mean, I don’t I can’t even tell you how many course creators have come to us and been like, I’m exhausted by my own material. And I’m like, It’s a shame spiral, it’s mindset, I promise.” And it was like, oh, why? Really? Mindset? Are we sure? It’s like, yes, I promise you it’s mindset, but that’s because course creators don’t always come prepped from that one-to-one-to-one-to-many, being like, okay, I know what’s going to come up for me. I know that it’s going to make me feel X, Y, Z, and so here’s what I’m going to implement. But it’s also why I encourage really delving into like mindset when it comes to your course, because then you’re actually able to build in those buffers, because then when you see people drop out, you can actually look and go, OK, I know this doesn’t have anything to do with me. What’s happening for my course taker at this point? Because it actually takes you out of the self then at that point. Rob Marsh: Feels like there’s almost an opposite opportunity too, although the opposite may not want to actually come to you for help, but somebody who’s such the expert, I know this stuff better than anyone else. I don’t need to change it. This is the way I learned it. Everybody else can learn it the same way, which could lead to failures as well. Again, that person’s probably not saying, well, Maya and Linda can help me fix this because they know everything, but maybe there’s some of that going on too. Maya Stojkovich: Right. No, definitely. It does come up. I also, you know, course creators, they know their stuff, like, y’all know your stuff. I always said this, like, they come as an expert and they come with this knowledge base, but then that makes it so hard to like work on the issues almost because it’s like, you get stuck. Rob Marsh: How about money mindset? I think there’s a lot of anxiety around pricing courses. And I’ve even seen, again, because of the change in the market, sometimes people have lowered prices to try to make a course more appealing. Other people actually have raised prices in response. So what do you say about that kind of an issue? Maya Stojkovich: I mean, oftentimes I see people actually lower their prices. Please don’t do that. I mean, it’s – value your course at what you think to be true. You know how much work you put into your course. You know what people are getting out of your course. Price it and don’t be afraid. I really think that that’s so important because yes, money mindset comes in and I can tell you now. Go look at your self-worth, like how’s that showing up, all that. But really, you know, it’s one of those things where you know what you did. You know how much effort is in your course. Please don’t lower it just because you’re not seeing people come in. Please maybe like just go look at other areas. Like how’s your list doing? That’s always, you know, a question I love to ask because are you drawing in the right people? Because the right people will buy in when they know what you’re selling is important and they know they need it. And so I really, around money mindset, I always ask course graders, please don’t lower the pricing. And also, if you’re hiking up the pricing and it’s not quite right and it’s super high and then you’re getting people buying in, what you’re also then going to see is a lot of dissatisfied customers by the end of it. And that’s just like a little cautionary tale of, hey, if you do raise it too high, here’s a great way to tell is that by the end of it, people are going, hmm, I didn’t quite get what I thought I was going to get and I spent a lot of money.  And then you’re going to get not so great feedback. And the reason that that’s so important is because, you know, word of mouth does exist. These people are in your space. If they’re coming to you, they’re in your space. And, you know, you also don’t want negative feedback on your course. A course is a part of your business. It’s, you know, you put a lot into your course. So I think there’s a Nice mindset when it comes to money because you never want to price it too low, but then you don’t want to price it too high. I think it’s just really being able to critically look at your course and say, okay, how much is what I’m offering worth? Then you can also play around with it. That’s another thing is you don’t have to stay rigid in your mindset around money. You can play around with it. Are more people buying in at this rate? What does it look like at the end? Or are they not and maybe why? And then let’s get some feedback from the people that have been in my course and paid for it. So I just think that that’s also a great way to measure some of that and reduce some of that mindset around money. Rob Marsh: So most of what we’ve been talking about so far really is applicable to course owners, but all of us are also on the other side as learners from time to time. So I wonder if you’ve got advice for learners who may be in a course that isn’t perfect. So maybe this is you going back to your experience with our course, which I still think is perfect. The engagement issue may have been different. I don’t know. No. Joking a little bit. What advice do you have for that learner who is maybe not quite feeling it? What can they do to ensure that they’re actually getting the value out of a course that, obviously they bought it, they want the transformation, they want the result, but somehow they’re getting stuck? Maya Stojkovich: Yeah. I think that it’s really important to vocalize some of those issues as a course taker who has had mindset issues come up and dropped out and also, you know, strung along through a course by like tooth and nail, you know, just sitting there like, okay, I’m going to get through this. It’s one of those things that when you vocalize, it actually reduces the shame that you’re feeling and kind of the pressure of it all because then you actually have the ability to go to someone who just genuinely wants to help. I mean, this has been a lot about the course creator. But something about course creators is they’re offering this because they really want to help people. Ultimately, they want to impact people. That’s why courses get created in the first place. And so if you’re the course taker and you’re sitting there going, I just spent money and I’m not seeing what I want to be seeing and I’m feeling really upset about this, reach out. Like, ask for the help because, you know, and that’s always the scariest thing to do, right, is actually asking for the help and then having to admit it. But I really think it is the best thing you can do. It’s almost like the antidote is just vocalizing where you’re at because there’s no shame in falling behind in a course. There’s no shame in saying, you know what, I’m not getting what I want out of it. but how can I problem solve? It’s like, again, that shift. It’s just this little mindset shift that comes with just saying, you know what, I actually do need some help, or I need some direction, or maybe this isn’t right for me, but I want to talk with the course creator and actually see what’s going wrong. Rob Marsh: Yeah, all of, I underscore all of that. I think it’s really important to, you know, raise your hand, get that engagement because you’re right. You know, especially if you’re past that refund stage or whatever, you know, it’s like you still ought to get your money’s worth. And if it takes a little effort, I’ve had people tell me occasionally, well, I’m afraid I don’t want to ask for too much. to which I’ve always responded, you keep asking and I’ll let you know when it’s too much because like you said, I want to make sure that people get the transformation that they’re promised out of any course that they would take from us. So hopefully anybody listening who’s in that kind of a situation will do that and ask for more so that they can actually get that result. So Maya, what’s next for you and Linda? What’s next for this course creator? Where are you guys going from here? Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been kind of talking about it through like little little hints through is we have a bootcamp that we’re launching actually. You guys can go to our website at thecoursecorrector.com and we have an eight-week bootcamp that’s super hands-on and we’re really excited about it. It’s going to help course creators actually dive into their courses. It’s really meta because we have a course about correcting courses, but really dive in and actually see what’s going wrong. It’s through our course framework and you then have the ability to actually take apart your course and put it back together. have a fully functional running course that actually gives back to your business, like, you know, those promises that you’re guaranteed. So. Rob Marsh: OK, so we definitely can check that out at coursecorrector.com. Where else should people go to follow you, Maya? Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, absolutely. So another spot on our website, you know, we also have a self audit if you’re not quite sure where your course is going awry. But we also are on Instagram and LinkedIn. So I know that all of that’s going to be linked as well. And we have a Facebook. So We’re really accessible, and if you ever want to hop on a call, we’re more than welcome. We love talking courses, clearly. Rob Marsh: Amazing. Yeah. Well, I may even call you back. We’ll see. Talk about my courses. Yeah. No, I mean, I love, you know, I love Linda again. I know I’m saying this a second time, but I respect everything that she has done. She’s an amazing human being and a great educator. I love what you guys are doing together. So if you’re listening to this and you’ve got a course and it’s not quite right, reach out. because Linda and Maya can definitely help. And thanks, Maya, for spending so much time with us today. Maya Stojkovich: Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me on. Rob Marsh: Thanks to Maya for sharing her process for fixing courses, fixing our mindsets, and finding community in the programs that we either run or we help our clients to sell. If you write for coaches, membership owners, or course creators, what Maya shared should help you as you work with these clients to improve the way that you talk about the results that they deliver. Be sure to connect with Maya on LinkedIn and check out the coursecreator.com where you can get more details about that program, learn the basics when you join their email list and a lot more. Maya and Linda are worth following even if you don’t have a course of your own, so be sure to check them out.  As I said when I introduced Maya, the course framework is similar to the framework that you might use crafting any sales message, starting with the big promise, the clear goals that you have for your readers and going all the way through engagement and keeping your readers interested in all the information that you have to share. So as you think about this, maybe there’s parts of that framework that might help you improve your copywriting and your sales messaging. Think about that. We briefly mentioned that Maya was a student in our own Copywriter Accelerator program when she was just starting out as a copywriter before the course corrector was a thing. If you are interested in checking that program out, you can see the details at thecopywriterclub.com/FastTrack, FastTrack is all one word. A year or so after we created that program, we had a curriculum specialist go through the content, do much the same thing that Maya and Linda do, identifying what was missing and what we needed to add in order to make it better. And the result that you get today includes all of the building blocks for a successful copywriting business. The list of students that went through that program and today have successful, often six-figure businesses might surprise you. It includes copywriters like Chanti Zak, well-known for her quizzes. The voice guy, Justin Blackman, Brittany McBean, who’s written and sold courses of her own on building a six-figure business. Michal Eziek, who’s got one of the best websites I’ve ever seen for a copywriter, has done amazingly in her own business as well, working with tech companies. a variety of other writers that she’s coached to success. Others include Zafira Rajan, Kirsty Fanton, and literally hundreds of others. You can see why they joined and what they learned at thecopyrightedclub.com/fasttrack.

Marketing consultant, Leticia Collins is our guest for the 420th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. She’s an expert in community-based email list growth, so it’s no wonder she added 4300 people to her list in less than a week. Want to know how she did it? Then this episode is for you. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: Leticia’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: The money is in the list, or that’s what we’re told. And before you can work on getting some of that money out of the list and into your business, you need a list. If your list is small, you need a bigger list. If your list is full of the wrong people, you need to find the right people. As a business owner, one of your big challenges is your list. And knowing that, would you like to hear how you can add hundreds, maybe even thousands of qualified names to your email list in as little as a week? Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I talked with marketing strategist Leticia Collins. Tish is a successful marketer who has worked hard to grow her list. And in this interview, she shared how she added 4,300 subscribers to her email list in one week. And triped her revenue in the process. If you want to grow an email list full of potential clients for your business, this episode is for you. Before we get to that though… you hear me tell you about several resources that we’ve put together to help you build and grow a writing business. I’m going to quickly list a few of them here so you can get the help you need… we have a free facebook group called The Copywriter Club. You can find us on Facebook and request that we add you to the group where you’ll find seven years of threads about all kinds of copywriting and business questions.  Obviously you know about this podcast. You’re listening to it right now and there are more than 400 interviews with successful copywriters and other experts in our backlist. Once you’ve listened to this episode, scroll through to find interviews with people like Seth Godin, Jay Abraham, Jereshia Hawk, Joanna Wiebe, Todd Brown, Kennedy and so many others. Honestly, it’s the best free library of copy, content and business ideas that you’ll find anywhere. And it’s at your fingertips. Take a minute now to subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss another episode. And right now you can get our free, 36 page mini-book called How to Find Clients when you go to thecopywriterclub.com/findaclient . I guarantee you’ll find at least one and probably 5-10 ideas you can use to find a client for your business. We’re here to help you build a business, so be sure to take advantage of all the free resources we’ve provided for you. And now, let’s go to our interview with Tish Collins. Welcome to the podcast, Tish. I want to start with the question we always start with, which is how did you become a content creator, a digital marketing strategist, business mentor, all of the things? Leticia Collins: Hi, well firstly thank you so much for having me on, it’s so lovely to be here. And I got started in business, I started my business back in 2019 and I never really saw myself becoming a business owner at all, I kind of fell into it. It started when I went to university, I studied journalism and creative writing and one of our assignments, one of the very first assignments was for us to start a blog. I had always wanted to do that. So I was really excited about it. I started my blog and it was going to be like a portfolio for when I became a journalist. Obviously that didn’t happen. Um, but what did happen is I began to grow my blog. I grew my Instagram. I started working with brands and I kind of started my first business that way. And then after a few years I began to get some questions about how I was getting paid to work with brands and growing my Instagram so fast. And so I thought, you know what, there is a bit of a market here. There’s people who want to learn how to do this kind of thing. So I started my first proper business as an influencer coach. And I did that for a little while. And then I kind of started to realize that actually working with brands is great, but it’s not a sustainable form of income. And so I started teaching these people how to actually create their own products and services and how to monetize that way. And it just kind of snowballed into what I am now, which is a marketing strategist for online business owners. Rob Marsh: I love that. I want to know a little bit more about the whole influencer coach thing, because obviously there are a lot of people out there who would like to be influencers. There are a lot of copywriters, marketers, freelancers who maybe they don’t want to be influencers, but they want to be able to do the things that a lot of influencers do, that is grow their audience and share their expertise. So maybe just as in a couple of minutes, you can tell us, what does it take to really be that kind of an online presence and almost influencer? Leticia Collins: Yeah absolutely um I think I mean the main thing about influencers and content creators is that they are a personal brand right so it’s a lot of sharing your personality like behind the scenes of your life and what you’re up to and I think that actually having a background in that really helped me when it came to build my business because I already had a personal brand, I already knew how to grow that and so I was able to lean into that with my business and really connect with my audience. So yeah I think if you’re wanting to be an influencer content creator then it’s definitely about building a strong personal brand and just not being afraid to show up and share like the real and raw version of you because that’s what people really like. It’s the authenticity and the things that people can relate to. Rob Marsh: I sort of question this a little bit because there are a lot of people who don’t want to share that, you know, behind the scenes kind of stuff or be raw and vulnerable. And I’m sure that you don’t need to share everything, but is that really a requirement or can you build an online brand without going so deep in your personal life? Leticia Collins: I don’t think that you need to share everything. There’s a lot that I don’t share, but it’s a lot of like the small snippets. So speaking about business owners specifically, it’s the simple like, what are you doing today? Like what’s going on behind the scenes in your business? Are you recording a podcast episode? Are you working on a product? Like that kind of thing. And also just sharing your personality. And that doesn’t have to be like, uncomfortable it can be within your copy you know your writing you don’t have to get on video all the time but within your writing just injecting your personality and kind of like words that you say quite often or things that are going to make you relatable and just not sounding robotic right? Rob Marsh: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Because again, yeah, I don’t want to share everything. But I do think that there’s a way to talk about the things that we do in a more authentic or raw way than just, you know, posting up, you know, lead magnets or whatever. Leticia Collins: Yeah, no, definitely. Rob Marsh: So let’s talk about how your business works today then, because you’ve got a couple of different things that you do and a few different services. Who’s your typical client and what’s the kind of work that you’re doing today? Leticia Collins: So I typically work with online business owners, so coaches, service providers, and course creators. And I help them with their marketing and business as a whole, but I’m specifically kind of looking at helping them create a digital product or course so that they can, so they don’t have to rely on one-on-one services all the time and trading time for money so they can kind of make I don’t want to say passive income, but maybe more like leveraged income where they’re not having to show up all the time. And I also help them to grow their audience so that they have someone, their ideal client to sell that offer to. Rob Marsh: So let’s talk about offers first, because again, this is the work that a lot of the content creators and copywriters who are listening right now do for their clients or they want to do for themselves. What are the first steps? If I want to build my own product or have my own digital products to sell, where should I start? And maybe there’s a process for doing this properly. Leticia Collins: I think it does help if you’ve worked one-on-one with clients for a while before so that you know what the process is yourself so you have like your own defined process and then kind of just pay attention to what you’re always teaching again and again. Is there something that you could actually package up and put your framework into its own product or course so that you can then market that to more than just one person at a time. So I think that’s the best way to get started is to pull from your experience. And as you notice, you know, the same thing coming up over and over again, you’re going to realize that there is actually a market for this and be able to sell that in a one to many format instead. Rob Marsh: I’d love to get your thoughts on this because I’ve seen this happen over and over where somebody like, let’s say it’s a copywriter, uh, they’ve been doing copywriting for a while. They’ve had some success in their niche and they think, Oh, I’m going to start selling templates to copywriters. And, uh, you know, maybe they sell a few, but it doesn’t go quite as well compared to Maybe a similar copywriter who does the same thing, but instead of selling templates to other people doing the same work as them, they sell templates within their niche to business owners who need this thing. Do you have thoughts around where is the better market and should you start in one and move to another? Leticia Collins: I think it really depends on your business, but if you’re a copywriter and you’ve been working with a specific niche, I think it’s always best to start out with selling to that audience that you’ve already created. And then as you build that and get like a better understanding of how running a digital product based business works, then Perhaps if your next goal is to work with copywriters and you do have that understanding and experience then that can always be a route that you can go down after. Rob Marsh: OK, yeah, that makes sense. So as you’ve built your business, you know, I’ve been watching what you do for a while. I’ve been on your list for a while and seen, you know, you’re doing a lot to grow your own audience. You know, tell us about your efforts there. And hopefully there are some tips here that we can steal and use in our own businesses. Leticia Collins: Yeah, I’m trying. So I started my business back in 2019 and it took me quite a while to actually get to the point where i had like a solid audience and i i think i used to struggle a lot with growth i had a community on instagram um but nothing like i didn’t really have an email list so it got to 2022 and i had around 700 people on my email list and I just said to myself one day I want to make 2023 the year that I really grow my email list and that’s what I really leaned into that year. So I started 2023 with 700 subscribers on my email list and by the end of the year I had over 7,000 subscribers. Okay that’s big. Yeah, it was a big growth and it all came because I decided that I was going to lean into the power of collaboration. So I was really leaning on other business owners, supporting them, having them support me and we were leveraging each other’s audiences to grow and that definitely was, still is the biggest way that I’m growing my audience. Rob Marsh: So before we started recording, you told me that you actually grew your list by 4,300 subscribers in a single week. Tell us a little bit about that. Leticia Collins: Yeah. So like I just said, 2023 was the year of growth. I was contributing to bundles, I was participating in freebie swaps, I was speaking in summits, I was just doing everything I could to grow my list and in August I decided that I had gotten results from contributing to bundles so I wanted to actually host my own bundle event and I’ll quickly explain for those who might not be familiar with bundles but a bundle is a collaborative list building event where a group of experts within a similar industry or niche come together to serve a common audience and each business owner will contribute one of their paid offers usually priced between $9 to $97 and they’ll give it away exclusively for free for those who sign up for the bundle. And then the bundle is open for a limited amount of time and anyone who registers is then able to sign up for the gifts inside. So when someone signs up for your gift they give you their name and email address and so you get to grow your email list with targeted leads. Now as a host you have the opportunity to grow your email list even more because you are getting the emails of every single person who signs up for that bundle. They’re going straight to your email list, you don’t have to wait for them to opt in to the gift you contribute. So I hosted my first bundle, it was called the Balanced Business Bundle and we had I think 40-ish contributors. It was open for a week and in that week we had 4,300 people sign up for it and that was all organic so I managed to grow my email list by over 4,000 people organically in one week so that was a major boost to my email list. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that’s amazing. Were you able to track those, uh, new subscribers to like sales or, you know, how long they stick around? You know, what does that look like long-term? Leticia Collins: Yeah. So I still have stats in my email provider. I had a tag created specifically for the bundle. And, um, so I’ve seen through, I think, how long has it been over a year now? I still have quite a few of those on my list still. Um, In the weeks following, I gained two private clients directly from that event, who I’m actually still working with now. And over the following months, through my emails and them just being in my world, I enrolled hundreds of new students into my courses and digital products. It was a major growth, not just for my audience, but for my business and my revenue as a whole. And I would say that that is all down to email, you know, having a strong welcome sequence in place and then nurturing them with regular emails and selling regularly too. Rob Marsh: We’ve participated in several bundles and I haven’t seen 4,300 people join our list, but we’ve seen big bumps in our list when we do that kind of thing. So I like it. But one of the things that occurs to me is that for most people, these happen by invitation, right? They wait for a bundle collector to reach out and say, Hey, do you have something? Would you like to participate? And I wonder, you know, if somebody’s thinking, well, this would be great. How can I get on some of these people’s radars? How do I get noticed? So they’ll reach out to me. Is there an easy way to do that? Or do you just need to watch for bundles happening? You know, what would you do? Leticia Collins: So I think if you’re looking to be invited that it helps to see, you know, if, is there a bundle that’s happening like annually or quarterly or something like that, that you can kind of email the host and be like, I would love to be considered for the next one. And a lot of the times they’ll have a wait list or. something in the email software that software where they can reach out to you when that happens. So that’s one option, but there are also a ton of Facebook groups that people who run bundles specifically post in to find contributors and there’s often an application process. I think that I don’t find that a lot of bundle hosts actively reach out to people anymore and it’s mostly through application where they’re posting it in a Facebook group or somewhere like that. So I would say to go to Facebook groups and browse directories. I actually, in my membership, we have a directory that features different bundle events, different summit events, and so I’m always looking in these Facebook groups and adding that to the directory so that members can easily go and apply for them. So if you’re if you’re in those Facebook groups, then you are going to see those opportunities and it’s really easy to apply. Rob Marsh: And if I’m thinking, OK, I’d like to actually host my own bundle like you did and get the full benefit of this event. What you know, again, what are the best practices and how should we get started with that? Leticia Collins: That is a good question. I would say that you need to really have a feel for how bundles work first. So make sure that you’ve contributed to bundles, you understand how it works, you kind of know the process. And then when it comes to hosting your own bundle, the key is to just kind of be organized. So I would start with coming up with a theme. It does help to have something that is more niche so that you’re going to attract the right person because you don’t want a ton of unaligned people coming into your audience, you want people who want to learn about what you teach on specifically. So if you host a bundle then I would make sure that it’s specifically on what you teach on and targeted towards the audience that you want to have in your audience. So that would be the first step. And then the next step is to put out the applications, you know, post in those Facebook groups, find people to contribute and actively reach out to anyone who you feel is the perfect fit for, or has the perfect target audience for what you want as well. Um, and then just being organized is another tip. I think bundles are a huge thing to run, there is a lot that goes into it, and I, my very first bundle, I think I had about 10 or 12 contributors and that was enough. So now I’m running bundles with like 70 contributors, but I would not have been able to do that beforehand without having that experience first. So I would definitely start small and get a feel for it. And then the thing with bundles is that it is a repeatable process. So once you’ve done one bundle and you have all the assets, you have the to-do list, you have like everything in place, then you can just duplicate that and repeat it again and again. Rob Marsh: And I know that obviously you can set this stuff up with basic website builders, but are there any specific tech tools that help manage this process? Or is it just use the tools that you have? Leticia Collins: I think you can mostly use the tools that you have. I host my bundle on my website. You obviously need an email marketing software, most business owners have that, and if they don’t then they definitely need to get one. For the checkout I do like to use Thrivecart because I can also use their affiliate software and I like to use an affiliate link for my contributors so that I can track who’s getting the clicks, who’s getting the sales, you know, and also see who’s not pulling their weight and promoting because that is always, like with bundles they only work if everyone pulls their weight and does promote so if you’re seeing that someone isn’t promoting then you can reach out to them, you can ask them what’s going on, and if needs be, then you could remove their gift if they’re not promoting, but yeah, that is a big one. And I haven’t used this myself, but another tool that I have seen a lot of bundle hosts using and finding really helpful is a tool called Spread Simple. There’s two, there’s Spread Simple or Softer. And they just create a really easy database of all the contributors gifts that allows registrants to search through and just easily find everything. Rob Marsh: It makes sense. You know, I can imagine a lot of businesses should be contributing to bundles, even if they’re not hosting their own. It seems pretty easy when you have a small product, in that’s related to everything else there to help grow a list. So, you know, hopefully this is something that opens eyes for a few additional people to participate in. Leticia Collins: Yeah, and one of my favorite things as well is that actually you don’t need to have a load of digital products but a lot of the time you could just if you’ve got a course or a signature program you can often just pull a lesson or a module out of that and submit that to a bundle and that’s not available on your website but it is still a paid offer and if you’re contributing that for free then anyone who signs up is going to get like the foundations of your program and see exactly what it is like to work with you and then you have that able to kind of pitch them afterwards and be like you’ve got a small snippet like this is what you’ll get if you if you work with me so they can then go on and decide to purchase the full thing. So I think that’s actually one of the best ways to contribute to a bundle. Rob Marsh: And then obviously it’s not just about getting these people on your list. You want to be able to follow up. You hopefully have things that can help them solve additional problems. So as far as the follow-up email sequences, what do you recommend there? Leticia Collins: Again, I think it depends from business to business. I personally, so as an example from my business, I have a membership called the Audience Growth Club. So it’s all about audience growth. So when I’m contributing to bundles, I am contributing gifts about audience growth and often it’s a masterclass from that membership. So I’ll contribute that. and then I will have a tripwire on that gift that will then offer them a deal if they were to join the audience growth club there and then and regardless of, well if they take me up on that then obviously they just go straight into my normal emails but if they don’t then they’re entered into my welcome sequence and I share a little bit about me, my journey, I deliver them some value around the topic of audience growth and then after a little while of just nurturing them, getting to know them and forming that connection I will then start to talk about my membership and release the pitch sequence and after that I will add them to my regular email list and I will send emails you know to maybe three times a week sometimes but it’s just always about keeping them nurtured and delivering that value so that when they are ready, regardless of whether they join in the pitch sequence or they don’t, um, I’m still delivering them value and giving them that opportunity to purchase. Rob Marsh: We maybe have, uh, answered this question in some ways because we talked about the 4,300 subscribers, but what other results have you seen in your business since you’ve been focusing on business or on audience growth? Leticia Collins: Through all of the collaborations that I’ve done, I would say the biggest thing is that I’ve been exposed to a whole new audience. When you team up with a competitor, you are able to get in front of their audience, and while they’ll likely have a similar audience to your own, they won’t have the exact same people in their audience, so you have the opportunity to reach ideal clients who may not have found you before. Another thing I’ve noticed is that it’s really helped to establish my authority and build trust. For example, you know, if you appear as a guest on a podcast, you can use the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert and authority and a thought leader within your industry. And on top of that, when you’re collaborating with established business owners, you are also being promoted to their audience and their audience already know and trust them so it’s likely that they’re going to trust anyone that that business owner collaborates with and think that they’re also trustworthy so that’s an immediate credibility boost for you as a collaborative partner. And we just spoke about the sales but another thing is with collaboration is that It saves you a lot of time and money. If you wanted to grow your audience by yourself, you would either need to dedicate a ton of time to do this or throw money into paid marketing and ads, but leveraging someone else’s already warm audience, that allows you to grow quickly and save on that money and save on that time that it would have taken if you were to do it by yourself. Rob Marsh: And do you also do ads for your bundles when you, uh, when you launch, are you doing, you know, Instagram or Facebook ads or anything like that? Leticia Collins: I don’t know. I focus primarily or solely on organic marketing. Rob Marsh: Are you posting on Instagram about the bundle? So you’re using your organic reach to advertise that. Leticia Collins: Yeah. I mostly post to my email list, but when I’m running my own bundle, it is a lot of the contributors sharing and doing that organic promotion for me so I don’t, I do promote the bundle but I don’t need to be like doing anything else extra to promote it. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I’m trying to remember how I first saw you and what you did. And I know, you know, some of the earliest contacts that I have from you are regarding the Simple Business Bundle. And I’m thinking I must have seen it on Instagram or something like that and clicked through to see what you were doing. So yeah, as far as like getting the word out, it feels like there’s a lot of work there. But again, it can really pay off, obviously. Leticia Collins: Well, the beauty of it is that you’re not having to do all of that promotion yourself because I’ve just, I just wrapped up a bundle last week and we had 70 contributors and every single contributor sent two emails minimum and some of them promoted on social media as well. So that was thousands of people hearing about the bundle without me really having to do anything other than supply them with some swipe copy to get the word out there. Rob Marsh: And so typically, you shared the 4,300 in one week. Typically, what kind of growth would somebody see for participating in a bundle like this? And I know it’s probably going to range, if only 12 people are participating versus 70, obviously the potential audience is significantly smaller, larger, whatever, but what should we be able to expect? Leticia Collins: It definitely does vary, um, I’ve had contributors to my bundle add thousands to their list, I’ve had them add hundreds, um, but it depends on, you know, how many people contribute to the bundle, like how much competition there is and how niche it is, but I think it also depends on your specific gift, so is it something that a lot of people are going to want to opt in for? I mean, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to only get a few, like a hundred subscribers maybe, from a bundle, because if you’re delivering, you know, a niche gift, you only want your ideal client on there. So if you were to then get like 500 subscribers, but they’re not your true ideal client, then it’s kind of like, what’s the point in having those subscribers? So Yeah, I don’t think there is like a defined answer. Yeah. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes sense. And it might not be really a fair question because the results are going to be so all over the place that it could be really hard to predict other than to say, there aren’t a lot of downsides here, you know, as far as growing your list. And so, yeah, even if you only got 20 new people, that’s 20 new people that you can influence and interact with. Leticia Collins: exactly yeah and like i say like giving giving a niched down gift is probably the best way to go because you’re not going to get every single person on your list you’re only going to get the people who are actively interested in what you offer and so whenever i’m helping my students contribute to bundles i always say like sometimes they say i want something that’s going to reach the masses and be attractive to everyone. And I’m like, no, like you don’t, you actually don’t want that because you just want your ideal client, not everyone. Otherwise, you know, email lists aren’t free. And if you’re having to keep on paying, like depending on how big your list is, then you want to keep it to your ideal client. Rob Marsh: One other thing that I see with bundles, and this probably becomes problematic in some ways if you’re participating in a really large bundle with 60, 70 people in it, is standing out from all of the other products that are there. I haven’t seen this a lot, but it feels like really paying attention to the name of your product or the hook for why they might want your product. It’s really critical, especially if you’re, I mean, you’re almost competing against everybody else in the bundle. Leticia Collins: Yeah, no, 100%. And I think the main thing to really look at is your graphic as well. What can you do to make your graphics stand out from the rest? And I think it’s always good to have a little bit of color, have a bold title or like a description of what the gift is. And I think it’s also good to have an image of yourself because that’s instantly going to draw the eyes to your gift as well. Right. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Yeah, that’s good advice. So we’ve talked a lot about bundles, but what are some other ways that business owners can grow their audience organically? Leticia Collins: There are so many ways to collaborate. I mean, it can look anything like podcast guesting like we’re doing here. It could look like hosting a joint live training, speaking in summits. That’s something I’m really leaning into at the moment as well. Even affiliate programs are a great way to collaborate. And those are just a few, but yeah, there are so many ways. Rob Marsh: And as far as finding these kinds of opportunities, is it similar to bundles where you’re looking at Facebook groups, you’re looking for maybe recurring summits and asking to participate? What is your recommendation there? Leticia Collins: Yeah, so for summits and bundles, I’m always looking at Facebook groups. And there are a lot of Facebook groups out there specifically for collaborations. So there are podcast guesting groups, there are bundle groups, there are summit groups. Facebook, I think, is just such a goldmine for finding these opportunities. And also just, if you see someone in your industry, your niche, who has a similar target audience to your own, don’t be afraid to reach out and see what you can do. I love hosting freebie swaps. So if those listening don’t know what that is, it’s just kind of when two business owners will share their lead magnets with each other. And then they’ll promote those lead magnets to their audience to kind of cross pollinate And it’s a really simple collaboration that you can do in like 20 minutes So I love that as an easy way to collaborate and a lot of the time I just reach out on Instagram and say look like I’d love to collaborate. Here’s my idea Would you be open to that and nine times out of ten? It’s gonna be a yes Rob Marsh: Yeah, this is something that I’ve seen a lot of. We’ve been approached, we’ve talked with other people about list sharing and sharing lead magnets. One hiccup that tends to happen with that is some people have really large lists and some people have very small lists. And sometimes it’s a little hard to ask or to you know, um, ask somebody else if your list is super small to share theirs if it’s large. Um, so as far as like finding people who are the right people, um, you know, what, what do you tell your clients and the people in your membership? Leticia Collins: Yeah, I get that. And it can be awkward to ask, but what I would recommend is to put together your own little application for if you want to do freebie swaps for those freebie swaps. Um, and then in that you can ask, you know, how often do you email your list to make sure they’re active and what is your current list size so that you can make sure it’s not going, it’s going to be a mutually beneficial collaboration, you know, it’s not going to be one sided. So I think applications are probably the best way to go. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes sense too. And another thing you might want to ask about is open rates, because a list of, say, 10,000 with a 15% open rate is not the same as a list of, say, 5,000 with an 80% open rate. Yeah, absolutely. Leticia Collins: But at the end of the day, I think a lot of it is about trust as well. Like, there’s no way to really truly know, but you’ve just got to trust that the other person is honest. And even if they’re not, like, it’s not going to be a major loss if you’re not, like, if it’s just a freebie swap. It’s not a, it’s just like, you know, you’re helping each other out. So I think that’s always a good thing to do anyway. Rob Marsh: Yeah, agree. Okay. I would love to shift our conversation just a little bit away from this, you know, audience growth and talk a little bit more about some of the services that you offer. Specifically, you know, one of the things you help clients with is marketing plans. And there are Again, a lot of content writers, a lot of copywriters who would love to go broader with their services than just writing the copy. They’d like to start helping with the strategy, with the planning, with figuring out what needs to be added. And so this is a really broad question, but how do you approach these marketing plan type clients? What’s your process there? Leticia Collins: Yeah, the 90 day marketing plan is actually something that I introduced recently. So I’ve been working with my first few clients and I have been loving it so far. So we always get on a call first so I can really get to know them and their business and what they’re currently doing. And then I’m asking them, you know, what are your goals for the next 90 days? And sometimes they want to launch, sometimes they just want to increase sales naturally. And so we’ll go with whatever they have that goal for. But I always suggest because, you know, you think of 90 days as being quite a long time, but actually in the marketing world, it’s really not. So I always suggest focusing on one main offer to drive sales to and it does depend from business to business so that might not be great advice for one specific business but that’s why we have that call at the start so that they we can kind of get an idea of what does actually work for them um and yeah I think it’s just such a fun a fun way to um experiment and try new things I always have my clients trying new things and a lot of the time you know I with the with the with the marketing plan we don’t just focus on the content but also growing the audience and improving the offers as well so I’ll always go and audit their offers their sales page and see what could be improved and I just look at it from a ideal client’s perspective and deliver that feedback to them. And I really love doing them. Rob Marsh: Do you have a checklist that you’re going through as you’re doing your audits or as you’re thinking through the plan? You know, the basically the go-tos, we know we want to, you know, start collecting emails, we want to be emailing weekly or daily or whatever, you know, or is it completely organic and you’re just coming up with something different for each person? Leticia Collins: It is- it’s normally different for each person, um, and, you know, I have, like, my benchmarks, like, you should be emailing once a week, social media, that kind of thing, but I’ll always ask, you know, what’s going on in your real life? Like, what can you reasonably commit to? And if there’s a client who’s saying to me, look, I’m- I’m so busy, I don’t have the time for all of this, I can commit to one email a week, maybe two social posts a week then we’re going to build the plan based off that. Because I really truly believe that you should be able to build your business around your life and not the other way around and I’m always figuring out ways to help my audience with that. So if there’s something they can’t do then we’ll try and find an alternative Rob Marsh: I’ve noticed because I’m on your list, email is a big part of what you do and how you run your business. Talk a little bit about your thoughts around email marketing, why it’s so critically important, why you email, the number of times that you do, should you be selling in every email, those kinds of things. Leticia Collins: Okay. So yeah, I love email. I’ll start with a little bit of backstory. I mentioned earlier that I started my business on Instagram. It was the platform that I used to build and market my business on. And I’m not saying it was a bad decision because it did a lot for me. I found my first clients on Instagram, I found my first students, and I created a really great community. So I owe a lot of my success in business to social media because it really gave me that initial foot into the online world. But it also wasn’t sustainable. So after a while I found that I was creating Instagram post after Instagram post and while I was doing a great job nurturing the audience I’d built there, it really wasn’t helping me grow my audience so well. And I also started to realise that I was putting my business in jeopardy by relying so heavily on social media. I kept on seeing those horror stories of business owners who, like me, had started their businesses on Instagram and were using it as their sole marketing strategy and then they went to login one day and their entire account had been deleted which meant that they had to start all over again from scratch. And although that hasn’t happened to me, luckily, it did give me the kick in the backside I needed to build my audience somewhere that I owned and didn’t have to worry about losing. And that’s when I really started to prioritize email. And over the past couple of years, I have truly fallen in love with email marketing. And the thing I love most about it, other than the fact that you own your audience, is that email is literally the most direct way to reach your audience.  When someone hands over their email address to you, they are giving you permission to send your message directly to them. With social media, you’re battling against algorithms and thousands of competitors, but you can always guarantee that any emails you send will land in your audience’s inbox. Plus, I found at least that it requires a lot less effort than social media. I found myself struggling to post consistently three to four times a week, create the graphics, show up on stories, create reels, you know, all the things. But with email, I’m creating one to two emails a week, maybe three on occasion, and it feels so much easier, and I no longer feel like I’m on a content hamster wheel. And I’m getting so much more engagement and sales for my content as well. I think there’s some stats out there that say for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you’re likely to see a return of, I think it was around $30. I can’t remember the exact stat, but it was something crazy like that. So yeah, I just love how sustainable it is. I love how you’re in control and I love that you get to see a higher return as well. Rob Marsh: And do you use a template? I mean, because I’m on your list, I see what you’re sending. There’s certain boxes here and there. Are you basically using the same things in each email or how often do you change those up? Leticia Collins: Yeah, so I have a template that I created that’s like a basic outline of what I want my email to look like. I try to brand it to my business so that when someone opens up my email, they know that it’s from me, like it’s recognizable, it’s not just black text on a white screen. So I do that with my brand colors and my logo. And then the boxes that you’re talking about, I think that you might be referring to my roundup email. yeah like at the bottom of every email there’s like a roundup yeah yeah so i started doing that a little while ago and i initially got the idea from damaju i don’t know if you’ve heard of her but she’s a great email marketer as well and she had this thing where she was doing um I think she called it four by four footers where you just get to share your like what you’re up to that week a bit of behind the scenes share some affiliate links and so I like to do that my own version of that at the end of my emails and you know I share what I’m celebrating this week the events that I’m loving this week behind the scenes of my business like the things that are going on and I’ll often use that to share affiliate links as well. So if I’ve just started trying out a new product, I’ll link it there. Um, I’ll talk about the bundles of the summits that I’m in. I’ll talk about podcasts that I’m on and I just use it as a way to kind of increase my click rate as well because people, I’ve noticed that people really like this, this roundup style. Um, and I’ll get a lot of clicks on that. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I’m really intrigued by it because it seems like an opportunity. It’s almost like you’re sending four emails at once or five emails at once where you’ve got your main message, but then you’ve got just some fun stuff at the bottom. And I would love to have that look inside your email provider and see where are those clicks coming from? Do they come from the top of the email or do they come from those extra things that you’re adding? Which again, I really like. Leticia Collins: Yeah, and I think that actually having that thing at the bottom that’s encouraging the clicks often encourages the clicks for the main portion as well so it’s like kind of training your audience to to click. Rob Marsh: Yeah, yeah, I totally see that. I may have to experiment with this in my own email list and see how it goes. Leticia Collins: You should. It’s so fun. I love doing it. And it always gives me an opportunity to actually have a look through and see, you know, what could I promote right now? Like, what could I tell my audience? And like we mentioned before about showing your personality, You can really do that here in a really easy way and that’s why I always have you know, I’m like recently I had an My section that’s like I’m excited about and I was just like I’m excited about moving into my new flat and then I got some people reply and be like well, congratulations and you know, I just love to use it to share a bit of my everyday life and to have that interaction or spark that interaction with my audience as opposed to just being solely business related. Rob Marsh: Yeah, this seems like a really good way to do what we were talking about when we first started and that, you know, when we were talking a little bit about being that almost influencer, you know, this is a way to share some of the behind the scenes that’s not in an overt way. It’s not too sherry or too vulnerable, but just kind of fun. Leticia Collins: Yeah, exactly. And people really do love it. You’d be surprised at what people enjoy. Rob Marsh: Yeah, or maybe not. So I’m curious, Letitia or Tish, as you’ve built your business, what are some of the mistakes that you’ve made along the way that you wish you might be able to go back and say, I wish I hadn’t done that? Leticia Collins: Oh, well, firstly, I think my biggest mistake would have been, you know, relying on social media so heavily. When I first started my business, I do wish that I’d started my email list sooner. And I wish that I had focused on or used collaboration as a way to grow my email list sooner as well. I don’t like to say that they are mistakes but they’re more of a learning curve that I experienced or a lesson that I’ve learnt. Something else I have realised recently is that it’s okay to experiment and pivot and I think when I first came into the online business space I struggled with this. I thought that I had to box myself in. I saw so much content about the importance of niching down and that old saying of if you’re speaking to everyone you’re speaking to no one and while I do agree to an extent I also think that when you’re first starting out it’s okay to not have it all figured out. It’s okay to experiment and figure out what path you want to go down. And, you know, we spoke earlier about how much I’ve pivoted from an influencer coach to social media and content creation and now into business and marketing and since then I’ve had the honour of working with all different types of online business owners in all different areas of their marketing and from doing that I found that actually I’m multi-passionate. I have learned that there are certain areas of business and marketing that I don’t like to teach on such as ads on LinkedIn, for example, and I’ve learned that I love to help online business owners create digital products, but I also love to help them create funnels, and I love to help them grow their audience and improve their email marketing. So I’m multi-passionate, but my overall passion is helping online business owners create a simple business that doesn’t require them to be glued to their desk. My passion is helping these business owners create sustainable and scalable businesses and that is my niche. So some people might say that being multi-professional is a mistake or that you know we should niche down more but I found that that’s what works for me and that’s what I enjoy and I don’t personally want to put myself in a box. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I think that’s fair enough. We talk a lot about niching and the importance of that, but niching only, well, niching works, but it works when it works, right? Like, you know, if you want to go super narrow and you can connect with that kind of an audience, then great, do it. And you’re doing fine. But if you want to go wide and you can connect with a broader audience there, and that also works, then lean into that. So it feels like you have a niche, but it’s wider than just industry. Leticia Collins: Absolutely. And I did kind of kick myself a lot when I first started my business because of that, because I really thought, you know, I have to be really niched down. I have to speak to just one specific person, but that does work for a lot of people. And it is a really good strategy for a lot of people. But for me, it doesn’t work. And over the years of having a business, I realized that, you know, I like to break the rules. I like to experiment with different things and that is what works for me and so I think the ultimate lesson is that you know yourself and your business best and you should trust yourself to kind of have that intuition and follow the path that you want to create for yourself. Rob Marsh: So I guess I could just check the last couple of emails that you’ve sent to see what you’re most excited about coming up but what’s next for you and what are you excited about in your business? Leticia Collins: Oh so like I mentioned earlier, I recently launched my membership, so I’m just excited about getting to support my members inside there. I have a few other ideas for things that I’m- I’d like to create over the next quarter, but to be honest, I’m- I know it’s only October, but I’m getting really excited for December and just having the Christmas season and all the holiday content and just getting to have A bit of a rest as well because as much as I love to work I love to rest and just take some down time. So I’m really excited for that Amazing. Rob Marsh: Well tish I really appreciate you taking some time to share so much about your business if people Want to connect with you want to get on your list and see what you’re doing You know with your emails or are interested in some of the programs things that you’re you provide where should they go? Leticia Collins: Yeah, so you can connect with me on Instagram. I’m at marketingwithtish. And if you want to join my email list, I actually have a free resource that shares 18 ways that you can collaborate to grow your audience. And it gives more details on each of the strategies as well. And you can get that at latishajcollins.com forward slash collab if you want to dive a little deeper. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I’ve seen people selling entire courses on this kind of thing. And the fact that you’re offering that information for free is pretty great. So I encourage everybody who’s listening to check that out and keep up with what you’re doing. Thanks, Tish, for spending so much time and sharing so much about your business. Really appreciate it. Leticia Collins: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Rob Marsh: Thanks to Leticia for sharing so much about how she’s grown her list through bundles and other community-based email sharing programs. I really enjoyed this discussion. Tish’s ideas around coming up with content and putting your own personality on it are the kinds of things that more writers need to be doing. And I think there are a lot of ways to apply the list growth strategies that Tish talked about as well. Finding a bundle that includes your ideal clients is a good first step, but what if there isn’t a bundle out there that works for you? I’d suggest maybe you should create your own. Why not be the person who gets five or six or maybe even more influencers who are working in your niche to share resources and lists with each other to create some momentum and energy for the services that you all offer. It might be the start of more than just a list growth initiative. You might find partners and others who can help you grow in so many different ways.  If you don’t have a group of other copywriters and content writers to partner with, that’s where a group like The Copywriter Underground could come in handy. There are several other copywriters in The Underground working hard on growing their businesses and their lists, and it just might be the place where you could find your list growth partner. If you’re not a member already, you can learn more at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. Like I was saying, there’s a lot we can all learn from Letitia. I’ve even borrowed the idea that we talked about from her emails, using my own emails once or twice. Be sure to connect with her on Instagram at MarketingWithTish, that’s her handle, and grab her 18 ways to collaborate to grow your audience freebie at LetitiaJCollins.com/collab.

The publishing platform Medium’s been around for years. But the company has made a few changes recently that might make you reconsider whether or not you should be writing on Medium. Our guest for the 419th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Thomas Smith. I asked Thomas to share some of the reasons Medium has become a place for readers to find great content as well as a place for writers to not just share their thoughts, but also to potentially earn a respectable income stream by posting thoughts there instead of social media or your own blog. Why Thomas? Well, he’s earned more than $19,000 for a single post on the platform, and well over six figures over the past couple of years. So he knows a thing of two. And he shared it all on this episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: Thomas’s Thrive on Medium Course How to Find Clients 36-page Mini-book The FREE Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  It’s been said so often that it’s almost become a meme… there’s this idea that successful millionaires… or maybe its billionaires, I can’t quite remember, but successful millionaires have on average seven different streams of income. They may have a salary or income from a business they own, they earn dividends on their investments, maybe they have income from property they own, and so on. And people share this idea with the intention that those of us who hear it will also think about ways to add different potential income streams to our businesses. But as a content writer or a copywriter, you may not have access to investment that pay dividends yet. Or property you can rent out. Or many of the other more traditional ways these very wealthy people earn money. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t options for us. In fact, some of these options may be easier for you and me, than for the Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks of the world to capitalize on. Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I talked with successful Medium writer, Thomas Smith. Thomas has been writing on and making good money with Medium. He recently released a course that shows how he does it. And I wanted to chat with him about the possibilities for content writers and copywriters to use Medium as a potential revenue source—especially for the kinds of writing we might want to do for ourselves instead of our clients. If you write for you… you may want to listen to this episode twice so you pick up on all the ideas Thomas shares about growing an audience and income stream using Medium. Before we get to that though… you hear me tell you about several resources that we’ve put together to help you build and grow a writing business. I’m going to quickly list a few of them here so you can get the help you need… we have a free facebook group called The Copywriter Club. You can find us on Facebook and request that we add you to the group where you’ll find seven years of threads about all kinds of copywriting and business questions. Obviously you know about this podcast. You’re listening to it right now and there are more than 400 interviews with successful copywriters and other experts in our backlist. Once you’ve listened to this episode, scroll through to find interviews with people like Seth Godin, Jay Abraham, Jereshia Hawk, Joanna Wiebe, Todd Brown, Kennedy and so many others. Honestly, it’s the best free library of copy, content and business ideas that you’ll find anywhere. And it’s at your fingertips. And right now you can get our free, 36 page mini-book called How to Find Clients when you go to thecopwriterclub.com/findaclient . I guarantee you’ll find at least one and probably 5-10 ideas you can use to find a client for your business. We’re here to help you build a business, so be sure to take advantage of all the free resources we’ve provided for you. And now, let’s go to our interview with Thomas Smith. Thomas, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. I’d love to start with your story. How did you become a content consultant, a writer, creator, I mean, of your course, Thrive on Medium, which I should just mention right up front, it’s a course not just about writing for Medium, but actually making a living from it. So how did you get there? Thomas Smith: Yeah, so my background is actually in AI, going way back to before it was a thing. I have a degree in cognitive science with a focus on AI from Johns Hopkins University. I was studying that kind of technology when it was literally on a whiteboard. You were drawing neural networks with a dry erase marker. So it’s come a long way in the time since then, but that was my original background. And I’m also a professional photographer. So I combined those two interests. I launched a company that uses AI to help archives, understand what’s in their archives, find photos in their big collections, get those out there for people to use. Been doing that since 2010. And along the way, I really learned how to kind of take those two interests of AI and photography and combine them in my own business, but also to explain them to people because AI is super confusing and photography is very technical. It’s also creative. There’s a lot of things that people have to understand in order to do both of those. So I kind of developed an expertise, I would say, in explaining those kinds of complex technologies in fairly simple terms and started to publish articles about photography and about AI. And originally I was just writing for publications in the photography space. I was writing for some bigger publications too, like IEEE Spectrum and that kind of thing. And I came along Medium, found Medium, this was in 2019. And I can go into a lot more detail about exactly how Medium works, but it just felt like it was going to be a great home for my writing where I could Basically talk about these topics that I’m very passionate about and have a lot of real world experience in and explain them to people and kind of share how to, how to use AI and how to do photography and how to build a business. All the stuff I picked up along the way in a way that would be really helpful. And it turned into not only a successful kind of platform for me, but also something that helped me launch. a consulting component to my business, where now I’m not just doing photography and using AI and helping archives, but I’m actually helping other companies understand how to tell their story in that space, how to share what they’re doing on Medium and on other platforms. It’s turned into essentially a content consulting business. That’s now almost the size of my core business with photography and AI. So Medium has been a huge piece of that, not only direct earnings on the platform, which I’ll get into, but also the way it’s helped me kind of add that onto my existing business. Rob Marsh: That’s, yeah, that’s amazing. So as I hear you talk about this, I’m curious, and maybe this is where we get into how Medium actually works, but why Medium over, say, my own blog or Substack or some other publishing platform where I can share what I write? What’s so great about Medium? Thomas Smith: Yeah, so I think, you know, it probably makes sense to step back and talk just briefly about what Medium is. I think everybody’s probably aware of it, especially if you’re a writer, you’ve seen it, it’s out there. But basically to break it down to the very basics, it’s a subscription platform. So people pay $5 all the way up to around $15 a month. There’s different levels that people subscribe at. And in exchange for that, they get access to all of the writing on the Medium platform. And a lot of it is behind this Medium paywall where you have to be a paying subscriber to have access to it. At the moment, Medium has about a million paying subscribers. They’ve grown tremendously over the last few years. They were around 750,000, uh, coming out of the core pandemic time when people were, you know, at their computers all the time, they’ve since grown even more dramatically up to around a million. So they’re bringing in probably five to $7 million a month from these subscribers. And they basically send that back out, the majority of it back out to writers who contribute on the platform. And so what I really loved about it initially is that I was an AI expert. I was a photographer. I was working with archives. I had all this knowledge, but I didn’t really know how to build an audience on a blog. I didn’t know how to create Substack. I don’t even think it was necessarily a thing at that time. It was, it was in its infancy, but you know, I was pitching these big name publications. I get a lot of stuff rejected. It was a lot of work just to keep pitching. Uh, I didn’t know how to launch a blog and build an audience around a blog. And what appealed about Medium is if I went and just share really useful stuff that helped people based on my experience, Medium had this built in audience. of, you know, that time, probably 500,000 people. Now it’s a million people. And if I’ve just shared stuff that was great, they would bring that audience to me and monetize it for me. And I could just focus on the writing and focus on being helpful. So I really love that element of it, that it didn’t require the expertise and the work of building an audience. It just required writing great stuff that people found useful. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I like that too. I think one of the big challenges of getting the word out is having your audience. It’s great to drop an email to your list, but if you’ve only got say a thousand people or maybe even 200 people on your list, that’s the limit. Whereas there are platforms like Medium where you can get so much more exposure. Let’s talk about how you do that then, because it’s one thing to write something great, hit publish on Medium. I’ve actually seen that happen where you do that and then crickets, right? So obviously there’s some tricks here. Thomas Smith: Yeah, so it’s definitely, you can publish stuff and it can go nowhere. You can publish stuff and it can take off. My best story ever on Medium, and I should just preface this by saying I’ve written about 790 articles. on the platform now. Um, it’s changing every day cause I’m always constantly adding to that. Um, my best article ever got around, I think about 11 million views. So yeah, when you say the sky’s the limit on it, you know, I don’t have 11 million people on my newsletter. I can tell you that. Um, So there definitely is the potential for a story to go big and go out to a broad audience. Basically, fundamentally, there’s two ways that you get traffic on Medium. One of them is Medium’s own internal audience. So again, that’s a million paid subscribers, but there’s also people who create free Medium accounts and are on the platform. I don’t know exactly how many people there are, but there’s this internal audience that Medium is sending stuff out to. And the other piece is there’s an external audience, which is basically the entire internet and Medium is tied into that very well. So you talk about SEO and SEO topics here on the podcast. Medium has a domain rating of 94. So if you’re in the SEO space, you’ll know that’s a very powerful domain. It ranks really well in search. So people come in from there, um, all kinds of aggregators like Google news will pick up Medium stories. people will link to them and cite them in other places. So there’s external traffic, which is all the traffic from those sources. And then there’s the internal traffic that comes from Medium’s own audience. And to get the internal traffic, there’s a couple of different ways to approach that. One is to build your own following on Medium. So like most social platforms, you can write a story on Medium and people can follow you. And kind of opt to get more of your content going forward. And you can do a lot to connect with people on the platform. It’s a very kind of community oriented platform. So yeah, if you just publish something and don’t do anything, it’s probably not going to go anywhere. But if you publish something and go out and find other people who are writing about similar topics, chime in on their, uh, their stories and share, you know, some kind of useful insight, cause you can leave comments on a story that can help to build your audience. If you publish something there and share it with an audience on another platform, like if you do have a newsletter, you can send your Medium stories out to them. If you’re active on social, you can do that too. You can share stories with clients directly and bring people over to the platform. You can also, if somebody comments on your story, which happens quite a lot, again, it’s a kind of a community orientation there. You can respond to their comments. Medium seems to be really prioritizing that now. If you do that, that helps to build your following. And basically over time, by doing those things, you’ll build up your own following on Medium. And when people follow you, it doesn’t mean they necessarily get every single article that you publish, but Medium sends everybody who’s a subscriber to the platform, something they call the digest every day. And it’s basically a set of stories come through person’s email to basically an email newsletter that’s automatically generated. based on their specific preferences, stuff they like, stuff they’re interested in, stuff they do professionally. And Medium learns this about all of their subscribers over time. And so if you write something and people come and read it and they have particular preferences and interests, then Medium will start to send your story to your followers in their digest who have similar preferences and interests. And as you can imagine, as you build your following on the platform, there’s more people who can potentially get each of those stories. As you cover a broader range of topics, there’s more kind of topics that you can cover. And Medium will even send things that are three or four years old in some cases. So as you build up the number of stories and the followers, you can get traffic on stories you wrote, you know, five years ago, even. I’ve seen that happen. So it’s sort of a cumulative thing. It’s a slow build on that piece of it. There are, however, a couple of ways to accelerate that internal traffic. Um, one of them is to get into a publication. So Medium has these almost like internal collections of stories is the way I think about them. They’re still on the mMdium platform, but they’re called publications. They are run by an editor. Most editors are volunteers, so they, they aren’t getting paid. They’re not taking any of the earnings from your story. Um, and they basically curate stories and then you can submit your story to a publication. And if the editor decides to publish it, it’ll go out not only on your own Medium profile, but also on the publications page. And a lot of publications on Medium have their own very large following. So people can follow a publication just like they can follow an author. And so some of the bigger and more established publications could have 200,000, 700,000 people following them. And if you can get a story in there, even if you’re a fairly new writer, then you get access to that big audience. And that’s going to get your story out to a broader set of people again, through that digest and the recommendations Medium sends out. And then that’ll kind of come back to you too. So if you engage with that audience, then people will not only follow the publication, but they’ll follow you. So getting into a publication is a great way to increase that reach, kind of catapult yourself a little further ahead. That’s how I got started. I published basically crickets for a long time. I pitched a big publication no longer exists. It’s called One Zero. About three or four times the editor rejected me. Finally, I got a story in there and that really started that snowball effect of accumulating followers. Now the, I think the biggest way though, and the one that’s most exciting, there’s a new program on Medium. It’s been there for about a year. It’s called the boost program. This is basically Medium’s response to the huge amount of AI content. It’s out there kind of polluting the internet at the moment. Uh, it is a human focused program. It’s a human curation program. And so basically Medium went and found over a hundred at this point, subject matter experts. in every field you can imagine, physics, parenting, all kinds of stuff, travel. I’m personally one of the subject matter experts for gender of AI, for example, based on my background, and found all these people and turned them into boost nominators. So basically, we can go and have a publication on the Medium platform. We can find stories that are in our area of expertise. When we do that, we nominate those stories to the Medium team. Again, very manual process. Um, the Medium team will review that story and if they think it’s great and it’s pretty hard to get boosted, it’s a, I can’t say the exact number, but it’s a fairly low success rate. But if you do get boosted, it’s means you have really fantastic writing. And, um, that story will go out generally do about 10 times more people than a typical Medium story would. So I’ve seen writers come to the platform who are brand new, who have three followers. And in the first week, if they read a great story and it gets boosted, they can get thousands of views on that story and pick up hundreds of followers pretty much overnight. So that’s sort of the swing for the fences. You’re probably not going to get stuff boosted early on. Even as a veteran writer on the platform, my success rates, you know, probably 30, 40%, but when you do, that’s the best way to grow that audience and earnings too, which we’ll get into very quickly. Rob Marsh: Okay. So I’ve got a lot of questions about this then. As far as Medium goes, it feels like it’s a little bit of a library or wild, wild west of content. You could basically write about anything. So again, considering our audience, copywriters, content writers, They may have personal things that they want to write about. Maybe I want to write a Western fiction story of some kind. Maybe I want to write about technology like AI. But for the core business things that we write about, how good is Medium for business compared to platforms like LinkedIn, where you expect to have business articles on the feed all the time? Thomas Smith: It’s actually, I think, one of the best things to write about on Medium. So yes, it is a platform you can write about anything. That said, Medium’s audience cares deeply about specific topics. And the ones that are biggest, I would say, are kind of, it’s really anything that helps people level up is the way that I like to put it. It’s kind of like If they can learn a new skill, if they can find a better way of doing something, a way to optimize something in their life or their work, that’s why people are on Medium. And there’s certainly, you can write poetry, you can write fiction, but the majority of people want to learn some new skill. They want to improve in some way. And so learning a new business skill is a really fantastic way to, you know, something people want to do on Medium. And sharing a way to learn that new business skill is a really great way to you know, engage with that audience. So I would say topics that relate to running a business to building a business are definitely one of the most engaging topics on there. And so if you’re writing about, you know, how to win clients in the copywriting space, if you’re writing about how to edit a story to get it into a big name publication, or how to start a local newsletter or anything like that, that content would do extremely well. Again, If you’re helping the person level up and learn some new skill or improve their skills in some way, then that’s a great thing to be sharing on Medium. Rob Marsh: And then you kind of answered this question already, but how long can it reasonably take to build up an audience or to get to the point where you’ve got the views that you want or that you’re even making money in doing this? Thomas Smith: You know, it really depends, um, on what you’re writing about and if you can get something boosted early on or not. If something gets boosted in the early days, you can earn substantial money just through the Medium partner program. But let me step back for a second. There’s a bunch of different ways to monetize on media. I’d say there’s probably five core ways that you can monetize. The one that most people jump to is the partner program and Medium is kind of unique in this area. A lot of partner programs, like if you’re going to publish on Tik TOK or something, you really have to have a huge reach before you’re going to make any money at all from it. Even something like the Facebook bonus programs is one that I think a lot of people are focused on right now. You need millions of views. You need a lot of followers to even get into the program. The Medium Partner Program, all you have to do is become a paid Medium subscriber. So you got to pay your five bucks a month and you’re pretty much into the program. You have to live in a geography that’s allowed, but there’s about 70 countries now where you can be in that program. And once you’re in the Partner Program and you pay all your content on Medium, you get paid for every person that reads that story. And there’s a whole formula that determines exactly how much getting things boosted makes a big difference. Having followers makes a difference. The amount of time people spend reading the story makes a difference, but fundamentally you’re getting paid for every person who reads that story from literally day one. So, you know, are you going to earn a ton of money from the very get go? If you get something boosted, yeah, you can earn hundreds of dollars on a story in your first week. Um, I work with somebody who. Came to the platform, got a story boosted in this first week and was at about $115 in a week on the platform. Most people, it’s probably not going to be that quick of a build. It’s going to be something where you build up a set of stories over time. Maybe you sometimes get stuff boosted and get a big bump, but it’s going to be this gradual sort of cumulative building of the earnings from the partner program. And at this point with almost 800 stories on Medium, If I just sit down and do nothing on the platform, if I literally don’t publish a story for a month, I’m still earning about $1,200 or $1,300 a month from the partner program, just from that passive set of stories that I’ve built up. So, you know, it’s not going to be job replacement income for most people, but it’s a pretty nice passive thing. If I write more stories and I get stuff boosted, then the earnings go up from there. In August, for example, I made $4,424 on the platform. My best month ever when I got that 11 million view story was $19,000. And a single month from the partner program. Wow. So again, that’s a lot. I mean, that’s nothing to sniff at. Yes, exactly. That would be nice if it was every month. It’s certainly not. Even the 4,000 was a particularly solid month, but that gives you a sense of the potential there. It’s a, it’s a slow build as you build up your collection of stories with these big spikes, if you get stuff boosted, essentially. Um, there’s plenty of other ways to monetize though. I think the partner program is maybe my number two or three way to monetize on the platform. Let’s talk about some of those others. Yeah, absolutely. So I think the best one and probably the one most relevant to folks here is to use Medium as a lead generation strategy for your business. And what that looks like is you publish a story on Medium about something that you do. And that could be, again, for copywriters, it could be, you know, how do you write in a way that doesn’t sound like AI? You know, how do you write a landing page that encourages more people to sign up for your newsletter or to purchase a course or a product or something like that? It could be, you know, tips for using AI effectively in your writing. It could be tips for tools that you could use, really anything that would be relevant to your target customer and you share something useful to them. And then at the end of your story, you include a call to action that can be as simple as, you know, if you wanted me to do this for you, or you want to hire somebody to do this work or to coach you through it, here’s my email address. And it can be literally again, as simple as that. If you have a newsletter, you can include a call to action for people to sign up for your newsletter. That works extremely well too, especially if you have a lead magnet, if you’re giving away a guide or an e-book or something that people want, that can be a very effective strategy there. But basically, you write about the stuff you would want people to hire you to do. It can’t be salesy. It has to genuinely deliver value. And again, at the end, you put in a CTA for people to contact you. And I know writers and writing coaches who have built a whole business just out of that. You know, sharing tips for editing, for example, sharing tips for getting into big publications. They include a call to action about hiring them. They’ve built a whole client base just through writing on Medium. In my case, again, I added a whole consulting arm to my company. basically by writing about what my company was doing and then including my contact info. And I had people start to reach out and say, you know, Hey, can you just do this for me? I don’t, I don’t want to learn how to do it. Can you just come in and do this work? And, um, I’ve started to do content consulting. I’ve started to teach people how to use Medium. Um, I’ve done, uh, PR consulting. I’ve done anything that revolves around content essentially out of that. So just write about the stuff, you know, deliver value, include a CTA. either to your newsletter or directly contacting you. And again, Medium’s audience is there to learn. They’re there to level up. And if the fastest and easiest way to level up is to hire you, people on that platform will go ahead and hire you. Rob Marsh: Makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So that’s two of the four or five ways to monetize. What else? Thomas Smith: Yeah. So, you know, I think Those are the two there I would split out into two different ones. So there’s the partner program, there’s lead gen and there’s newsletters. I kind of lumped them together, but in reality, combining those together, the newsletters and lead gen is probably, there’s probably people who will do one or the other. So even if you’re not trying to bring in new clients to your business, You can easily capture people’s email addresses and build a newsletter, uh, publishing on Medium. So that would be again, including a CTA, ideally, ideally a lead magnet. You can build your own list. I use Convertkit. A lot of people use MailChimp. There’s all different kinds of programs. You can even pitch your Substack on there. A lot of people have a Substack already and they come to Medium and use it as a way to grow their Substack. So you can basically have a CTA. It says, if you want more of my writing, you know, subscribe to me directly on this other platform. Even if you’re not immediately selling something or you don’t have space for another client, that allows you to capture that person’s contact info and send your new stories out to them. You know, send, if you have a course, you can pitch that to them. If you have other tools where you’re an affiliate, you can, uh, you can pitch that to them. And it just, it’s in a way to, to capture that relationship and take it off of the Medium platform.  One of the cool things with Medium, they actually encourage you to do that. So anyone who posts on like Facebook or even LinkedIn knows if you try to bring people off platform, you kind of get penalized in your reach. Like they don’t want you to do that. Medium is different. Um, doesn’t, doesn’t seem to impact reach at all to include those kinds of calls to action. And Medium even gives you a way to put a subscribe link in the CTA. That’s all within the Medium platform. People can actually press a button and get on your email list within Medium, and you can export those emails and put them in Convertkit or MailChimp or whatever. So, partner program, lead gen, building an email newsletter.  Another great way is to use Medium as a platform for what I think people would call kind of like thought leadership, or it could also be considered almost like a PR platform. And I know you recently had a guest talk about, you know, PR and going to PR through, through a different approach. I think a lot of the tips shared there are very relevant here too. I have gotten coverage for my company in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Coindesk, a very specific place talking about crypto. And a whole bunch of other publications through writing on Medium. And the reason for that is that a lot of journalists are media members. It’s a platform where journalists might publish their own work. They read each other’s work on there.  There’s big name people like Barack Obama who published stories on Medium. So journalists are there and following along. And so when I’ve written pieces generally about my company, but with some kind of, um, broader tie-in. I did a story about how a tool from Microsoft called Copilot—this was early in the generative AI days—was helping me to code better, to write Python code. Even though I’m not a great coder, I could use this tool and sort of improve that. And this hybrid of me and the tool was more powerful than me or the tool alone. And a journalist from the New York Times read that story, reached out, asked if he could interview me. and ended up doing a feature story about my company and how we’ve used AI and this specific tool.  As your guest before had shared, it’s incredibly impactful to your business, both in terms of SEO, backlinks, that kind of thing, but also just notoriety to be featured in these big name publications. So using it as a platform to connect with journalists, using it as a place to publish those kind of thought leadership pieces, to get speaking engagements and that kind of thing, I’ve found can be really effective. It’s a little more indirect way to monetize, but if you’re building a business, it really helps when I can say, you know, my business will go to images, go to images as seen in the New York times, you know, does blah, blah, blah. It establishes that credibility. And that again, all came through Medium.  The final way to monetize. And this is one that I do a bit, but I’ve seen other people do incredibly successfully is through affiliate marketing. So if you have tools that you use. that you find to be really effective in your own work, you can often sign up as an affiliate for that tool, where if you promote that tool, or it could be somebody’s course, you have a friend who has a course, and somebody purchases that, then you get a commission on that sale. And I’ve done this for everything from like, I wrote a story about the Swiffer Wet Jet, which is a cleaning cleaning product, all the way to—I’ve written detailed software explainers about AI tools that I use in my company. And as an affiliate, you can write about that on Medium. You can include a link to that tool with your own affiliate tracking code. That’s totally fine with Medium. You have to disclose that it’s an affiliate link. But if somebody clicks on that and makes a purchase, then you end up with a commission. And again, thinking about the fact that Medium has a DR 94, it ranks very highly in Google.  If you wrote a great software explainer about some, you know, high price, complex piece of B2B software, even something as simple, you know, in the copywriting spaces, like I’ve reviewed grammarly and talked about grammarly. And how it fits for specific parts of my business and where it doesn’t work and that kind of thing. I’m in their affiliate program. I include a link. If somebody decides to check them out and click through, I got a commission on that. There’s so many affiliate products. And if you write good reviews, not sort of… There’s a lot of affiliate stuff that gets a bad rap, I think, because it’s not well done, but if you write a really good and helpful review and you include an affiliate link and disclose it. And people click through and buy. I’ve had single stories on Medium that have earned over a thousand dollars a month for in some cases, a year and a half, just from the affiliate links in those stories. So yeah, that’s the final piece. So basically partner program, affiliate marketing, thought leadership, building a newsletter, which again, you can then use for all of the above. And then, I think the biggest one, the best one is direct legion. Rob Marsh: Yeah, all of that stuff that we probably should be doing in our own businesses, even if all you do or think of yourself as a copywriter or a content writer, there’s so many different ways that a platform like this can help boost a business. So as you were talking, I noted down a couple of additional questions. You mentioned paywalling your content. Is there ever a reason why you wouldn’t want to paywall your content? Obviously, you don’t make money on stuff that’s not paywalled, I believe. I could be wrong about that. But, uh, you know, is there ever a reason why you would want free content on Medium? Thomas Smith: Yeah. It’s a question I get asked a lot. You know, if I’m doing lead gen, should I still pay wall? I tell people in general default towards paywalling your content. And the reason for that is that I have not seen a big difference in, external traffic to articles that are paywalled versus articles that aren’t. So Medium, like most platforms, is not going to kick out like the Google bot or the bots for search engines or, you know, AI tools and that kind of thing. At this point, they’re going to be able to see the article. They’re going to be able to index it. And most people have a certain number of free Medium stories they can read remaining in their account. And I don’t know how many Medium gives them before they pay wall stuff and sort of make it a hard paywall. But most people can read a couple Medium stories per month, um, before they get sort of kicked out of the platform. They can’t, they have to subscribe to access.  So what I find is that most of the time, if I write a story in paywallet, the people who are coming for that one-off, you know, external view, like they’ve searched the topic on, on Google and they come to Medium, they probably have a free story and they can probably read it and still click my affiliate links and still find my lead gen CTAs and still get on my newsletter. It’s not going to make a big difference, but the people who are within the Medium platform who are in the paying subscriber list are still going to see that story and read it and also get paid through the partner program. So I think of it like YouTube, most people who are on YouTube and are monetized, they’re not making a living off of the AdSense income that comes from YouTube ads from Google. What they are doing is making an income from sending people to their business, any people to their newsletter, you know, getting sponsors, that kind of thing. But the money you get from those ads, those ad sense ads, on there, it’s nice. It’s a little extra bonus, even if you never get any other benefits. You can still pick up a little money there. Maybe it’s latte money. Maybe it’s not, you know, life-changing, uh, income. I would think of it as being very similar to earning on YouTube. And, um, I think that, you know, you’re, you’re still going to make that sort of background layer of income from the partner program. The majority of the income is going to come through those other opportunities in the, you know, in most cases, but just like with YouTube, where if you have a video that really goes viral and takes off. suddenly, you know, those earnings from the AdSense trickle, you know, it’s normally just sort of like supplementary income can become very substantial. And that’s the same way to think about it on Medium, the partner program earnings are kind of that nice baseline, it’s passive income in the long term, it’s a little bonus on top of what you’re going to get through those other strategies I mentioned, but As you know, my $19,000 a month illustrates if something gets really a lot of play, which can happen or in the new environment on Medium, if it gets boosted, then you can really make substantial money just from that partner program. So I wouldn’t cut that off. I would leave it paywall for that possibility that it’s going to go viral and then you can make a huge amount from it or over the longterm, that little trickle. that comes in and cumulatively builds to $1,200 a month or whatever it is for me now. But at the same time, if you do pay wallet, you’re probably not cutting that many people off. The only exception I would say to that is if you’re writing a story where really your only goal is affiliate marketing, we’re trying to rank on Google, you’re trying to bring people in and send them over to a tool that you use or something like that. Sometimes I will take those stories out from behind the paywall, just because that’s my main way to monetize. There’s probably not going to be that much internal traffic to them on Medium. So you might as well just take that paywall down. Otherwise, though, I just encourage people don’t be afraid to paywall it because it really doesn’t seem to turn that many people away. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes sense. So another question, you know, you’re talking about pitching publications, pitching your stories, your articles to publications. Would you pitch old stories? You know, you’ve got 800 stories. Hopefully most of them are good. Would you ever go back and say, OK, well, I wrote this two years ago, but it’s still relevant. It’s still good. Can I pitch that to a publication or are they really only interested in the newest stuff? Thomas Smith: Mostly it has to be, you know, under six months old to get into a publication. It can vary, but that’s sort of the sweet spot. You can actually send a draft to a publication before it has even been published. A lot of publications like that because then they’re sort of the first ones to publish it and get it out there. So ideally you write a draft, you submit it to a publication, they accept it, they actually control when it’s published, and then it goes out and you get access to that audience. One thing that can happen that is another nice thing about Medium If you write a great story and it starts to get traffic on Medium independently of a publication, um, a lot of publication editors were also reading Medium. We’ll see it. And people will actually reach out to you in many cases and say, Hey, I think this story would be a perfect fit for my publication. Do you want to submit it? So a lot of it can actually come about organically just by publishing stuff that you know about and then waiting for, um, for editors to approach you. Rob Marsh: Makes sense. And then are there, uh, rules or, or maybe a Medium culture about submitting to multiple publications at the same time? You know, is it not cool to do that or, you know, how does that work? If I’m a publication editor, am I going to get mad if I see your article show up in somebody else’s publication after you’ve pitched me? Thomas Smith: Yeah. So you can’t submit to more than one at a time. So the submitting to the publication. It’s to get into the publication in the first place. It’s usually a very manual process. It’s literally like every publication is different. Some have a Google form. Some have just an email for the editor. Um, some have submission guidelines. Some of them it’s, you just have to kind of guess. Uh, but you basically connect with the, with the editor of the publication. They can then add you as a writer on me. Once you’ve done that, it’s all on the platform. So you can have your, you can write your story when you’re in the draft, you have a little dropdown and you can choose any publication that you’re a writer for and choose to submit the story to that publication. When you do that, the editor will get that story and they can decide to publish it. They can make edits to it, or they can decide to reject it. If they reject it, it comes back to you and you can still publish it on your own profile or find another publication. But you can’t submit it to more than one publication at a time. So it is this serial process. And, you know, that can be frustrating because, uh, publication editors are volunteers. Some people get a very small stipend to participate as, um, nominators. Medium is very straightforward about that, but it’s, it’s small. Um, so it’s mostly a volunteer opportunity for editors. They don’t get a cut of your partner program earnings either. You still get all of that. So it’s usually sort of a labor of love, um, or, you know, somebody who’s building a publication that relates to their own business. So the times to wait. Depending on the publication can be weeks in some cases. So you do have to prepare yourself for that. Um, but no, unfortunately, you know, you can’t directly send it to multiple publications. One thing you can do, and I encourage people to do though, once something’s published on Medium. You can pitch it to as many traditional publications as a reprint as you want to. Um, so I’ve had a lot of stories on Medium that then end up getting reprinted elsewhere in much bigger publications. And again, if your strategy is lead gen and thought leadership, that sort of follow on effect and ability to double dip, um, can be really substantial too. Rob Marsh: That’s almost my next question. You know, I know that there are some adjustments you can make to a Medium article once it’s gotten its popularity or it’s gotten a lot of traffic where you can adjust the canonical back to your own website if you’re republishing. But, you know, what should I be thinking about as far as republishing? Should I publish on my blog first, publish on my substack second, Medium third, Medium first, substack second? Like, what is the optimal way to get it in front of as many audiences as possible? Thomas Smith: It depends on the story. Medium is, is very okay with, um, posting content that you’ve published somewhere else. So even for boosted stories, it’s not going to hurt you to take something that you wrote on your blog and publish it on Medium. So yeah, some people think, oh, it has to be original. That’s not the case. They’re fine with stuff that’s republished as long as it’s yours. The one thing they don’t want is you taking somebody else’s story and then trying to publish it on there. Um, so that’s the first piece is you can always publish it on your own blog. You can always publish it on your sub stack. And then publish it on Medium. As you mentioned, you can canonical link back. So basically all of the SEO impact of that story will pass through over to your blog. It won’t steal, you know, traffic from your blog, um, to, to republish it on Medium. So that’s the way I see a lot of people do it. They publish on their own newsletter first or on their blog first, then they republish the story over to Medium at 48 hours later, in some cases, uh, sometimes, you know, months or years later, if they’re, if they have a big blog or a big newsletter, and they want to add Medium as kind of a new, like separate channel, they’ll go back and take their back catalog of content and just go through and publish it on Medium, maybe tweak it a bit to fit the audience, throw in some CTAs, submit it to a publication or publish it on their own. That’s a very legitimate way to do it. Another way I’ve seen it done is to write the story on Medium first, publish it on Medium, try to get it boosted, see where you can go from there, and then later publish it to your newsletter or your sub stack or publish it out on your blog. I think if your audience overlaps between Medium and those other places, that’s a better way to do it. Um, because Medium will send the story out to. All the people in, you know, all your followers in their email. So if they do that and the person gets the story and then, you know, you go ahead and take that story and send it later, or you sent it to your sub stack and then they get it on their Medium digest. They’re sort of getting the same story multiple times. And people sometimes unsubscribe or they get upset because they feel like they’re getting spammed. So what I like to do is publish it on Medium first. And then I actually have a tag in my newsletter software that says that the people who are my subscribers on Medium basically leave them off of the email when I send a Medium story out. And that way it avoids them getting the story twice. If you published your substack or your newsletter first, And then publish on Medium, you can’t tell Medium, hey, don’t send it to all the people who are sub stack subscribers. So that’s the one where if you have a very overlapping audience, maybe do Medium first and then set up that manual exclusion. So you’re not kind of spamming people. Yeah, that makes total sense. Rob Marsh: How about like, as far as publishing goes, let’s say that I’ve, you know, published a bunch of articles, I’m getting the hang of it, I seem to be getting a little attraction, should I start my own publication? Or am I better off using other people’s publications as an audience tool? Thomas Smith: What I tell people is only start a publication if you’re planning to A, connect a domain name to it, which you can do, or B, accept stories from other writers. If all you’re going to do is publish your own stuff and you’re not going to connect a custom domain to the publication, then there’s really no reason to do it. You’re better off just publishing to your own profile. Um, if you want to connect a custom domain, which Medium lets you do, that’s great because you can then connect it to Google search console, for example, and see where people, what people are searching for to land at it on it. You can have a, basically a brand that you build around it. That can be a great way to kind of take the Medium platform and use it almost like your own personal blog with monetization and all those tools still enabled. The downside is you lose the SEO impact of Medium’s, very strong domain. So if you’re trying to get stuff to rank on search, it’s not as good of a solution, but again, if you want better analytics and you want to build your own brand within the platform, uh, creating a publication, connecting the domain, it’s a good way to do it. I have one about, um, so DIY life tech. It’s a Medium publication. It’s a got its own custom domain. It’s tied to my YouTube channel in that case. So I’m not as worried about getting traffic within Medium, but it’s cool. I don’t have to run my own separate blog if I want to link to it, you know, from YouTube and I can still monetize on Medium. The second one is if you’re going to get stories from. Other writers. And if you want to do that work and be an editor, um, that’s fantastic. You know, you’re doing a real service to the Medium community by doing that and build up that publication. Pitch, basically go out, find stories you think are a fit, message the author, say, do you want to be in my publication? You can get people in there. Over the long term, it can be a great thing to do, especially if you’re running a business and you can say to your colleagues, hey, you should publish a story on my Medium profile. It’s a great offer for people. It’s a great way to meet new writers and build a community. I run a publication called The Generator about generative AI. It’s a lot of work. It’s fun, but it’s a lot of work. So I would not bite that off until, you know, you really feel like you have the time for it. Um, in the early days, I would focus on submitting to other publications or publishing on your own profile. Again, with the exception, if you want to connect a custom domain. Rob Marsh: Yeah, it makes sense. Okay, we’ve talked about all of the reasons we should be doing it, all the benefits. Let’s do a quick primer. How do you get started? As my first article to publish, what are some guidelines here so that maybe I get a good first bang for my buck and I feel really good about the process and I’m willing to invest in this thing? Thomas Smith: Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is getting started is very easy. You create a Medium account. It’s free. You subscribe as a paying member. It’s $5 a month, so it’s not a big investment. Once you do that and you publish your first story, you can apply for the partner program. You connect Stripe to it. You fill out a tax form and you’re monetized. You can do it in an afternoon. It’s very, very easy. So that part is quite simple. choosing what to write and deciding how you’re going to build an audience on the platform, I think you want to look at what are skills that you have in your professional life or experiences that you have in your personal life that you can write about, you would enjoy writing about, and that other people would, again, get some benefit from. They would level up in some way. They would learn something new from that. And if you are a copywriter, that could be copywriting. It could be editing. It could be Pitching stories, could be working with journalists, writing sales page copy that converts, building a newsletter. All the stuff you do for your own business is all fair game to write about and would do well. It could be case studies. I did this for a client and here was the outcome. There’s a bunch of different ways to approach that. That would be a great place to start based on your own work experience. Personal stories though can do extremely well too. So if you went through something, if you experienced some life challenge. Um, maybe, you know, your business didn’t go well when you first started it. That’s also a great thing to write about. It really just has to be based on something, you know, in the real world. It’s not like SEO writing where it’s kind of, you adopt this generic voice, you know, it’s not you. It doesn’t have your own voice in it. Medium is very different. People want to hear from you. They want to know about your expertise, your experience, your trials and failures and successes. And they want specific, you know, real world data. So anything where you feel you can do that. and deliver some value to the audience. That’s a great place to start. I also encourage people look at the topic list for Medium. There’s actually a Medium. You can go to Medium. If you search Medium topics on Google is I I’m sure we can include a link too, but there’s a actual list of all of the categories you can write in. Um, and that can give you ideas. That’s how I got started. I went through, I was like, Oh, photography. Yes. You know, art, yes. technology, Python coding, like all these things. Yes, I can write about all of those. So that can provide you some inspiration. And that can get you started. If you can get a story boosted in the early days, that’s a huge, you know, win for for your motivation. But I encourage people to really come in thinking about it as a long game. Yeah, don’t think about it as something where you’re going to get even into the $100. Quickly, it takes time, like my first month on the platform, I made $7. And I probably published like 10 really solid stories. So it’s a cumulative thing. It builds over time. You need that followership. You need the community. It’s not a get rich quick type of thing. It’s not a side hustle where, you know, you can do it, you can launch it and be making tons of money in the first month. Um, it’s something that’s going to be a slow burn and you have to be ready for that and ready to keep publishing. Like any writing, you’re going to get rejected. Things aren’t going to do well. You’re going to write a great story and it’s going to get zero traffic. Um, that’s going to happen. So if you can weather that and keep publishing and keep writing great stuff, cumulatively over time, that’s where you’re going to start to see. Those benefits. And it was probably three years into writing on the platform that I really started to get clients out of it and build that content consulting piece to my business. I’m still earning money from the partner program along that whole, that whole route, but kind of think of it as something you’re going to do over the longterm. And that’s going to set you up for success. And ultimately those bigger wins down the line. Rob Marsh: Two things that I really like about this for copywriters, content writers, is number one, we spend so much of our time writing for our clients and writing marketing materials, but at the same time, we often have ideas of things that we want to write for our own. I mentioned maybe I want to write a Western or maybe I want to write something else. Uh, and, and this seems like the place where you can really broaden your reach of your writing skills and just have a place where there’s an audience to consume some of that stuff. So I love that. And it, it can be done for fun, but also may lead to a little bit of income for you. And then the second thing that I love about this is just the opportunity that’s there. Like you said, so many different ways to grow a business. We’re already writers. We know how to catch attention with great headlines. We know how to write hooks. We know how to hold attention as we write an article or a story or whatever that is. having the extra exposure of a Medium audience over a personal blog where you might get a dozen web visits a month or whatever. It just feels like it’s an opportunity that if you’re doing writing anywhere, if you want a place to explore, this is a good place to do it. Really low risk with the potential, certainly no guarantees, but the potential of a decent reward, especially over time. Thomas Smith: Absolutely. And it’s just very freeing. That was my, you know, the thing that keeps me there beyond the benefits to my business. It’s just that, you know, you write for SEO and it’s, you really, it’s just boring. You don’t know who wants to write a 3,000 word article reviewing, you know, some, some very specific, you know, appliance or something like that. Rob Marsh: Must include this keyword in the second headline and that keyword in the third headline. Right. All of those kinds of things are. Thomas Smith: Yeah. You’re writing for a machine and it just gets boring and Medium is, is so freeing because it’s your voice. you can write about whatever you want you can find an audience is gonna be people on their care about it you build community there’s a lot you a lot of feedback you start a lot of great conversations get people engaging with your work and especially if you’re kind of in the space of just writing for clients. Or, you know, you’re writing for SEO and you’re writing for machines all the time. Uh, just, just try it. And I guarantee you’re going to feel so much better about the stuff. It’s going to engage you creatively in a way that that kind of writing, you know, sometimes does, but often it can become just sort of wrote. And I think it’ll be a better writer across your business. If you have that outlet in addition to, you know, sometimes that kind of writing that you just. sit down and write from the heart or your own experience in your own voice, that ultimately actually drives even more interest in the business. So yeah, it’s very freeing. It’s a wonderful experience just to be on that platform as a writer. Rob Marsh: That makes a lot of sense. So Thomas, I know because of the success that you’ve had and the experience that you’ve got writing Medium, you’ve put a lot of this stuff into a course to help other people do this. Obviously, you’ve given us enough to get started here, but if somebody wants to go even deeper, figure out, you know, exactly step-by-step what they need to be doing to – I guess a great word would be to thrive on Medium, where would they go or what should they be looking for? Thomas Smith: Yeah, so you can go to thriveonmedium.com. That’s the page that I have all about this. And I share a lot more detail there, you know, totally for free. You can go, you can get on my newsletter too. I send out all kinds of stuff about optimizing headlines, choosing topics, finding the niche that’s going to work for you. you know, case studies, like breaking down exactly how much specific stories stories have earned and that kind of thing on there. And then yeah, if you want to dive even deeper, my course is probably 25 video lessons at this point, talking about everything from getting started getting monetized through to pitching publications, how to get boosted, I have a whole module about that. If you sign up on the website, I have a boost checklist where you can check through and see if your story is boost eligible and tweak things and fix them. I have a getting started checklist again, totally for free. So yeah, head over to thrive on Medium. You can access all those resources. And then if you want that really like sequential walkthrough of everything I’ve learned on the platform, those five different ways to monetize exactly how to do all of that and all those case studies. Um, then that’s the, that’s the course. And again, you can access that on the thrive on Medium site. Rob Marsh: Yeah, we’ll definitely be looking at that and I’ll link to it in the show notes in case anybody’s driving and they can’t type that in really quickly. One last question about that, the boost program. So there are these boosters who can find content. Is there a list of these people so that we can forge personal connections with them or is it purely by luck they have to discover you? Thomas Smith: Yeah, so it’s a combination. Um, I would say probably about 80 of the boost nominators have chosen to be public about it. You know, obviously I’m one of them. Medium has a list of all of the boost eligible publications. I linked to it from within the course. I’m sure you can find that the link we can share here too. Um, but you can start there and it has contact info for all of the people as well as what topic their publication covers. And again, it’s everything. Don’t think, oh, I’m, you know, I’m not a Python programmer. I don’t, you know, I don’t do natural language processing. I’m not going to be a fit. There’s boost nominators for every topic you can possibly imagine. Um, there’s also people who are like, you know, the Michelin inspectors of the world who choose to remain anonymous and they will find you, or you may publish in their publication and not even have any idea that they’re the one, you know, nominating your story. Medium also has their own team of boost nominators, very secretive, we don’t know exactly who they are, that go around and look for stories on the platform to boost independently of them being nominated by a subject matter expert. So their own team is out there searching too. And all that’s really just to say, if you write something really great, and it does have to be really great on the platform, it’s likely that that’s ultimately going to be found and boosted. There’s a lot of different ways to get into that program. Rob Marsh: But this gets my brain going, you know, because I’m writing in so many other places. And especially when we talk about repurposing content, if I’m already writing it in one place, why not have it in Medium just in case? And, you know, with all of the potential that’s there. Uh, it seems like a no brainer in a lot of ways. So I just, I want to thank you for sharing so much about, you know, this, not just the platform, but you know, how to get started and your approach to it. You mentioned the Thrive on Medium course, but if somebody wants to follow you personally or see what you’re up to, maybe on Medium, maybe elsewhere, where else can they find you, Thomas? Thomas Smith: So I’m on both Medium and X formerly Twitter as @TomSmith585. So you can find me there. You’re also totally welcome to email me directly. It’s Tom at gadoimages.com. Happy to answer questions. Happy to, you know, send along links and send you over to the course. If you, if you can’t find it, um, or to add you to my newsletter, feel free to reach out anytime, just, you know, directly by email. Rob Marsh: Amazing. And someday we’ll have to have you come back and talk about photography and AI, uh, some of your other expertise, but I appreciate your time, Thomas. Thanks. Thomas Smith: Thanks so much for having me. Rob Marsh: Thanks, Thomas, for sharing so much about how he’s been successful on Medium. This isn’t the kind of thing that’s going to bring you money overnight, but Medium could be a long-term play for you to bring money into your business, especially if you like writing about different topics, or you write fiction, or you just want to get your ideas out into the world and not have them get lost in a social media feed. Now, a few weeks ago, we interviewed Gloria Chow on the podcast. That’s episode 413. She talked about PR as a platform for building authority. And Thomas mentioned something very similar about using Medium for this task.  The one thing that I like about Medium’s potential for this is that they have an engaged audience of readers who are there waiting for great content. They’re not browsing through social media, trying to find something to entertain them, but they’re actually there looking for good content to read. And the audience is so much bigger than you’re ever going to be able to attract on your own blog. And there’s almost certainly more people on Medium looking for your content than people who are going to find you on social media or LinkedIn, where they’re going to see your thoughts before they scroll onto the next thing. Even beyond the potential to earn money, it’s a great place to build authority. And who knows, maybe you’ll get noticed there and be added to an even larger platform. And we heard Thomas talk about that earlier. If after listening to this episode, you try out Medium or maybe you’ve been writing on Medium for a while now, I’d like to hear about your experience. Hit me up at rob@ thecopywriterclub.com and let me know how you fared at Medium and maybe keep an eye out there for some content from me and possibly The Copywriter Club in the future. Who knows? Maybe someday there will be a Medium publication by The Copywriter Club where we can all share and boost each other’s writing.  Thanks again to Thomas. Be sure to go to all of the places that Thomas mentioned where he can be found. We will link to his course in case you’re interested. Those will be in the show notes. Also to his LinkedIn and various places where you can find him.  

Want to write a book? There are plenty of experts who will tell you how. But Allison Fallon has an approach that’s different from all the others—at least, that’s how it felt to be. Allison is the guest for the 418th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast and when you hear what she shares about the process of writing, I think you’ll agree, she does this a little differently—and it might just be the approach that works for you. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: The Power of Writing it Down by Allison Fallon Write Your Story by Allison Fallon Indestructible by Allison Fallon Packing Light by Allison Fallon Allison’s Website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: As a copywriter or a content writer or someone who is thinking about exploring these career paths, you’ve probably toyed with the idea of writing a book. Maybe you’ve got a great story that absolutely has to be told. Or perhaps you’ve heard that a book is the best business card and can open doors with clients who then hire you to write for them. Or maybe you’ve got a screenplay you work on for a few minutes after your client work is done. More likely… you’ve thought about one or more of those things, but haven’t yet put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. I’m always thinking of ideas for books, some of which I have started, others I’ve put away for later. And to help me as I process these ideas, I’ve read several books about writing books… how to do it, what to include, all that stuff. Recently I came across another book about writing books that was very different in its approach. It changed the way I think about writing… books and other things too. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, and my guest for today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is author and book writing coach Allison Fallon. You’ll hear me say it in the interview, but Allison’s book, The Power of Writing It Down, felt more like therapy than another book about putting together your book chapters in a particluar order or writing scenes or character development. After reading it, I wanted to talk with Allison about her approach and what it means, particularly for writers who might be writing to a non-fiction audience. I think you’re going to like this interview. Before we jump in with Allion… Last week I mentioned our special free report called How to Find Clients. And I want to share that again because it features more than 20 different things you can do, starting right now, to find your ideal clients. It also shares the 4 mistakes you absolutely can’t afford to make when looking for clients—if you do, you are dead in the water… and it also shows you five things you need to do before you reach out to the people you want to work with IF you want them to say yes. This isn’t some dainty one page PDF you’ll forget about in a day or two… it’s 36 pages jam packed with ideas that either we’ve used in our own businesses or we’ve seen other successful copywriters use to grow theirs.  You can get your free report by going to thecopywiterclub.com/findaclient   that’s all one word. Thecopywriterclub.com/findaclient. Get your free report now. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Allison… Allie, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. I would love just to start with your story, and I know you’ve got a really great story, but how did you become an author, speaker, founder of Find Your Voice? Allison Fallon: Yeah, I have always wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember. I often tell a story about being in fourth grade, and that was the first time that I really realized that I had a teacher who pointed out a skill I had for storytelling. And I just remember feeling like, oh, I can like something and be good at something and be acknowledged for it. And so that kind of started the spark for wanting to tell stories and in a longer format, like writing a book. I just can, through my high school and college career was always very focused on that I would be a published author someday.  And then, you know, when I was in high school and college, I also had a lot of really well-meaning adults in my life who would say, that’s a great thing that you want to be an author, but you also need a backup plan because writers don’t make any money. And so I, at their advice, got a master’s degree in teaching and started teaching in the public school system in Portland, Oregon, where I’m from, and taught for about three years. My plan was to teach and kind of do the writing thing on the side. I thought like, well, I have summers off, right? Like two months off every summer, which is a misnomer. I mean, for any teachers out there, like you’re saints and you really don’t get – you don’t get that much time off in the summer. You’re curriculum planning. You’re, you know, especially as a new teacher, you’re like setting up your classroom. Like there’s so much to think about and do. And you’re probably working a second job on the side because teachers also don’t get paid very well.  And so when I realized my plan wasn’t going to work very well, I took this giant leap, which I write about in my first book. My first book is called Packing Light. And I took this big leap out of the teaching profession to do the thing that I had been wanting to do forever, which was to write a book. So I didn’t renew my contract for the following year. And I did kind of like a gimmicky, stunty sort of thing with a friend where we both quit our jobs. We sold all of our physical possessions. We packed our stuff into a Subaru Outback. And we spent almost a year traveling around the United States. We visited, we drove to all 48 states and then in the end flew to Alaska and Hawaii to kind of check those off the list and wrote a book about that called Packing Lights. So that was my first, you know, published, published work. That’s how I became an author. And there’s a lot more that I could say, but I’ll stop there. What questions do you have about that? Rob Marsh: I mean, first of all, hitting all 50 states is an accomplishment in itself. Now I’ve got to go back and listen to that book, because that sounds fantastic. But I’m curious, because as a writer today, what are some of the specific skills from teaching that translate directly into writing? And part of the reason that I ask this is, our audience is copywriters, content writers. There are actually a ton of people who have been teachers who move into writing for all kinds of reasons. And maybe one of the reasons is because, you know, copywriting selling in a huge way is actually teaching. Allison Fallon: It is. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, capturing an audience’s attention, I will say, you know, as challenging as it can be to capture your audience’s attention in a book, or if you’re a copywriter, like in a sales sequence or something, it’s easier than capturing the attention of seventh and eighth graders. So yeah, so I took some of the skills that I learned in that teaching profession, I suppose, and transferred them to writing. Although, I will say since my teaching stint was short, it was just under three years that I was teaching. I think there’s a lot that I’ve learned as a writer that I could also maybe translate back to the classroom if I ever wanted to.  But the biggest thing that I did, when I published Packing Light, And it hit the market, you know, as an author, a first time author, like you don’t have any idea what to expect. And so I went into it very blind. The book did really well. Like it’s sold, I think it’s sold somewhere around 30,000 copies now at this point. So it did well. It made the publisher happy, you know, it bought out my advance, all of those things that you want it to do. And what was shocking for me is that even though it sold really well and everyone’s like, yay, and I’m getting all these pats on the back, it wasn’t generating an income for me. And so I was like, oh, maybe all these adults were right who told me you can never make money as a writer. So I was like, I’m going to have to pivot and figure out, even though I was living really lean at the time, I was living like in a $500—I think I was paying like $500 a month for like a tiny 500 square foot apartment in the city. And I was literally sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I was living very, very lean. And I can remember going to Trader Joe’s and spending like $30 for the week on my groceries. And still, whatever royalty checks I was getting just weren’t even, you know, they couldn’t support my life. And so I was like, I’m going to have to figure out a way to generate revenue.  And that was really how I got into coaching and teaching other authors. And that’s where The Power of Writing It Down, the book that you read, that’s where that was born from and where Write Your Story, my most recent book, was born out of that experience because I pivoted to use my curriculum development skills to start teaching other people who also wanted to write books how to do that. Rob Marsh: So let’s talk about The Power of Writing it Down. Before we started recording, I mentioned that this book is unlike any other book about writing books that I’ve ever read. And I’ve read a bunch of them. There are plenty of books on how to write a business book, how to write fiction, all of that. This felt, in a lot of ways, like therapy to me. And I don’t know if that was intentional, but talk a little bit about that book and why you wrote it. Allison Fallon: Well, my dad’s a therapist. So I kind of wonder sometimes if the therapy element of the way that I teach writing comes from just growing up in that environment. So that’s, I’ve definitely, you know, like gotten a little bit of that from him. But also, This is born out of my personal experience because the evolution was that I wrote Packing Light.  It came out. I realized, oh, this is not going to pay my bills. So I’m going to have to figure out another way to generate revenue. So I started coaching and teaching other authors who were either aspiring authors or who had written books before but needed help kind of crafting their outline. Or I was doing some ghostwriting, too. So I was actually writing manuscripts for authors. And one of the things that I realized while I was working with all these different authors is regardless of what you are working on, If you’re working on a business book or a self-help book or a memoir or a fiction novel, whatever you were writing, the writing was having an impact on your personal life. It was like watching someone write a business book and their business suddenly was functioning better or watching someone write a book about relationships and it was forcing them to kind of confront these issues that were happening in their relationships and really getting them to ask deeper questions and have this very transformative experience the act of writing.  And so I started noticing that this was happening. And it was like a flag for me. Like, I was like, wow, is this just, am I just biased because this is the work that I do? Or is it really true that writing about our life experiences actually has an impact on those life experiences? And while that was happening, I also went through a massive um, like upset in my life. I went through a divorce. It was, I was in business with my now ex-husband. And so our business dissolved. It was a really tragic situation at the time. And I started writing about what was going on in my life. I just started like, it was like, I couldn’t stop myself. I was supposed to be working on this other project and I couldn’t get myself to focus on that project. All I wanted to do was write about what was taking place because it was like this life raft for me. It just felt like, This is the only way that I can try to make sense of the absolutely senseless stuff that’s happening around me. And so that experience, which later turned into my book called Indestructible, a memoir about leaving that marriage, that experience really solidified for me that writing about our lives can be deeply transformational and healing and can totally shift your perspective and change the course of your life for good. I mean, I think of that book, Indestructible, of the four books I’ve published has sold the fewest number of copies. I think it’s sold not quite 10,000 copies. And that book is my, it’s my favorite book. It’s the most important book to me because that book changed my life.  I really believe if I hadn’t written that book, I wouldn’t be married to my current partner. I wouldn’t have the happy, like really happy family life that I have right now because that book gave me this opportunity to shift my perspective about what was unfolding inside of my life. Rob Marsh: You actually write a little bit about that in The Power of Writing It Down, how the first draft of that book was not at all what ends up in the last draft of that book, which I found really interesting because, especially when it comes to personal narrative, like the going through it process is very different from the reviewing it process. Will you talk a little bit about that? Allison Fallon: Yeah. So the first draft of the book, what I share in The Power of Writing It Down is that the first draft of the book, which was just like guttural, it was from, you know, like the raw, the most raw part of me just telling the story exactly as I would tell it to a best friend sitting across the table from me. And when I went to go back and reread what I had written, what I realized is the hero of the story, who’s me, but it’s kind of detached from me because I’m telling it on the page… the hero of the story as I’m reading it, I don’t like her very much. Like this horrible thing has happened to her and she’s been victimized in many different ways. But also like she’s complaining, she’s whining, she can’t see the opportunity that’s been given to her. When you’re watching a movie and you just want to scream at the main character, don’t walk down that hallway. That’s how I felt about her. She just keeps complaining that she lost this dude who was horrible to her.  Seeing her as the main character in the story, I really wanted her to take life by the horns and file for divorce and just decide that this is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. And so that really informed the way that I wrote the second draft. It shifted my paradigm so completely that I was just like, oh, that’s the kind of hero that I want to be in the story. And I was able to kind of write her into the story as I was becoming her, if that makes sense. I think that’s how writing, how it has that impact on us is that we both become the character we want to be as we put that character on the page. And then sometimes we put the character on the page or we put the words on the page and we think like, okay, that might be true for me today, but I don’t want to be that person in the story anymore. And it gives us a chance to kind of upgrade the story to the next draft. Rob Marsh: So one of the things that I struggled with as I was listening to and reading this book was the kinds of books that I want to write are definitely not personal narratives. And I started, it’s like, I want to write about a business book, or I’ve got like five different ideas for novels that I’ve sketched out, outlined, whatever. And your book made me stop and think, well, wait a second, you know, maybe I should add in more journaling or more, you know, of my own personal narrative. I wonder, like other people, as you coach them, as you work with them, like, how are they feeling about that same conflict? Because they feel like very different writing styles and processes. Allison Fallon: Yeah, they are. I teach an online course called A Book in Six Months. And in that course, I teach people to delineate whether they’re writing a story driven book, which would be like either a memoir or a novel. or whether they’re writing a content-driven book, which would be like a business book or a self-help book. And there’s some gray area in between, but I can almost always help them divide their book into one of those two categories because they are different. They operate differently. They follow a different narrative arc. And so you need to know up front which type of book am I writing so that you can organize it in a way that makes sense for the reader. I will say, as far as a novel goes, you said you don’t really think of yourself as wanting to write a memoir, but you do have these ideas for novels.  There’s a ton of research that shows that novel writing is as impactful to the human psyche as memoir writing is. In fact, Jessica Lowry wrote a book called Rewrite Your Life that’s all about how writing fiction has an impact on our actual lives, that as we write about these characters, that we actually transform and change as people too. And I believe from 10, 12 years of doing this work, that writing content-driven books is the same. You know, you – even if you think you know what you want to say, you don’t really know what you want to say until you put it on the page. And sometimes you put it on the page and you think like, I thought that’s what I wanted to say but that’s actually not right at all and I need to edit it and upgrade it. And sometimes you put it on the page and you go like, oh my gosh, I didn’t even know I thought that or I believed that. But yes, that’s exactly what I’m trying to say. And it just shows you. It’s like looking in a mirror and this is what I talk about in Write Your Story, which is my most recent book.  In Write Your Story, I talk about how putting your story on the page is like looking in the mirror and seeing yourself clearly, sometimes for the first time. Sometimes we’ve looked at ourselves like in a foggy mirror or like in the window of the car where you can sort of see your reflection, but not totally. And when you sit down to write whatever it is you’re working on, a business book or a story, you see yourself clearly as if looking in the mirror for the first time. And so sometimes you go like, oh, my eyes are blue. They’re not green. All this time I thought they were green, but they’re blue. And so that self-awareness and ability to adjust and upgrade the paradigms that we bring to our writing and to our life is a big part of why I think writing is so transformative. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. And I think you make it absolutely clear in the books that you write, like how transformative it really is. Some of the examples you share are really amazing. And a big part of why I wanted to chat with you today, because I just think that even as a writer, you know, like I’m a copywriter. I write every single day. I write emails. I write for clients. But most of that writing isn’t all that introspective. I’m selling things, that kind of thing. And so again, this is where I think your book really shifted a lot of my thinking around, maybe I should start writing down pieces of my life story for my kids to read. And I’ll share this—yy dad wrote down his life story. It’s an amazing book. It’s like four hundred and some odd pages long. And it is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. I mean, his life story is great. Nobody would look at him and say, you know, it’s anything special. But obviously it’s special to me. But I will say the amount of things that he accomplishes in his life as I’m reading through it, I’m like thinking, wow, I’m a schlub. I haven’t done half of what he’s done. You know, I need to step it up. Yeah. I’m not really sure where I’m going with that comment. But, you know, again, just this introspective angle that you bring to, you know, what we should be doing as writers and the transformative power of that. I just it has my brain spinning in a lot of ways. Allison Fallon: And, you know, to answer your last question more pointedly, I would say I am a big believer that what fuels your creativity is your story. It’s your personal experience. It’s your unique vantage point. It’s your, your, your 100% unique perspective. Like our perspective is as unique as our fingerprint, you know, no other person on the face of planet earth who has ever walked here or will ever live here in the future can have the exact same set of circumstances that you’ve had in your life. And so because of that, you bring this unique viewpoint to the world. And if we want to fuel our creativity, however, we’re, we’re, you know, using that creativity, if it’s toward copywriting, or a business book, or something altogether different, like, you know, maybe you’re not even a writer, you’re doing something different.  But fueling that creativity comes from understanding our stories. I really believe that. And so even when I’m working with someone on a business book, a lot of times, we’ll have this cool moment where we’re like mapping out the book together. And they’ll be telling me this story about something that happened to them when they were four years old or six years old or something. And it’s like, oh, that’s why you do what you do. Now it makes so much sense. That experience that you had made such an impression in your physicality that it is fueling you. And sometimes we discover those things and we go like, oh, maybe I should heal that wound because it’s fueling me in a way that I don’t really want to go.  Or sometimes we go like, oh, no, that just makes everything click because it makes sense why I would care so much about this cause or be working on this other thing. And so I think, you know, touching, touching into like your personal story and even what you mentioned about reading your dad’s story, when we start to understand how we’re connected to the greater, you know, family tree, the tree of life, that also helps us understand our place in the world. You know, like I mentioned a minute ago, my dad’s a therapist. It’s like, well, no wonder I’m so fascinated about people’s internal environments and what makes them tick because I grew up, you know, like I can remember being in fifth and sixth grade pulling books off of my dad’s bookshelf that were like on intimacy and marriage. And I should not have been reading those books, but I was always really fascinated by it. So I mean, some of that’s probably genetics and some of it’s been passed down through example, but understanding that connection that I have to, to my relatives can help me understand my place in the world. Rob Marsh: So let’s say that I’m ready to write a book, right? I’ve had the book project in the back of my head for a long time. I know this is very common for people who come to you for help. How do we get started? Where do we need to be in order to start mapping out what does a book look like and what is the story I want to tell? Allison Fallon: Yeah. A couple of things that I teach right off the bat is the first one is the controlling idea of the book. So we really need to understand what is this book actually about. And this will surprise a lot of people who have not written a book before, but a book can only be about one thing. Seems crazy that it can only be about one thing because it’s, you know, 50, 60, 70, 80,000 words. And that’s a lot of ground to cover on one topic, but it really can only be about one topic. If it’s about more than one topic, it’s not really a book, it’s a collection of essays or – I mean, you could pull a collection of essays together into a book and it still would need to have some sort of controlling idea that holds the whole thing together. So it’s not like – I think a lot of people have this mistaken idea, and this was true of me before I ever wrote a book, where like if I just write enough blog posts, I can kind of print them off and put them together and that’ll be considered a book. It’s not about getting to word count really. It’s about really understanding what’s the one thing that I’m writing about.  And so helping people define that from the very beginning of the process is super important to helping them craft the outline and then helping them complete the manuscript. And what I teach people to do, this is unique to what other writing coaches do, but I teach people to write their book to what I call one perfect reader. So sometimes in publishing spaces, you’ll hear people talk about demographics, like, what are the demographics for this book? What’s the target market that we’re trying to hit? And I just find that in the writing phase of things, in the marketing phase of things, it helps to talk about demographics. In the writing phase of things, here’s why it doesn’t help to talk about demographics. Because if I put you on a stage in front of 1,000 people who were all of a similar demographic and told you to tell your story and put a spotlight on you so you can’t see anyone’s face and the whole audience, you’re gonna have a hard time knowing where to start, knowing what details to include, knowing how, you know, what is the narrative arc that I should follow? Versus if I put you across the table from your brother, or from your neighbor, or from your best friend, or from your grandmother, and say, now tell your story.  And it’s one person who you’re looking at, and it’s someone whose face you know, and whose name you know, and who you recognize, like you understand how this person operates and you know them very well, you’re going to have a much easier time telling the story. And I just find working with authors that when I can help them write their book to that one perfect person, who maybe is representative of a target market, but when we write the book to one perfect person, it’s just much easier to actually execute the manuscript. Rob Marsh: So to make this really understandable, can we talk through just a couple of examples of the controlling idea So for instance, your first book, which is Packing Light about traveling around the country. I mean, obviously the controlling idea isn’t just travel or travel with a best friend. How would you describe that idea? Allison Fallon: The structure for the controlling idea that I teach is this story is about, or this book is about, and it’s a little different for a story-driven book versus content-driven, but a quick controlling idea for Packing Light, which I didn’t, I wrote Packing Light with no controlling idea. Rob Marsh: Right. So this maybe came before you figured this stuff out. Allison Fallon: Yeah. But it would be something like this story is about a young woman who is dissatisfied with her life, who decides to quit everything and go on an epic adventure to see if she can find herself. Rob Marsh: Okay. Allison Fallon: Then if you wanted to add to it, you could say what she discovers is that life is – I don’t know. Let’s see. The resolution of the story usually comes at the end of the controlling idea. What she discovers is that life is much more complicated and beautiful than she ever imagined. So it’s really, I mean, Packing Light‘s really a coming of age story. And then Indestructible would be the stories about a woman who leaves an abusive marriage, you know, dissolves her entire life only to discover that she’s stronger than she ever imagined. Rob Marsh: And then a book, like your latest book, right? Your story, how would you define that controlling idea? Allison Fallon: Yeah. So this story, I mean, I have a controlling idea for it somewhere. I would say this book is for, usually with content-driven books, you say this book is for. Okay. This book is for, oh, you’re putting me on the spot here. This book is for anyone who believes that there’s more to life than meets the eye and is willing to follow a trusted path to uncover the depth and beauty of their story. Rob Marsh: OK. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And so again, when I think about the books that I want to write, which are probably more content books or more business type, like let me show you how to do this thing. That controlling idea is going to be related to both the person who’s reading it, but also the thing that I am teaching. Allison Fallon: Yes. So the controlling idea is built around the problem, the one big problem that your reader is facing, the path out of that problem and the resolution. So yeah, if you’re writing a business book, it’s like this book is for any small business owner who’s stuck at under a million dollars and wants a trusted process to triple their revenue or quadruple their revenue or whatever it is. Rob Marsh: Which is actually a pretty familiar formula to a lot of copywriters because it’s basically a sales page. You’re talking about, here’s your problem, here’s the solution, the way you solve it, and here’s the result. Allison Fallon: Yeah. And I mean, the skill of copywriting is such an amazing skill to bring to book writing. I really like how I was trained as a writer and my natural bent with writing came more from poetry and essay writing and storytelling. And I think, especially in my early years as a writer, I leaned more on the beauty of the prose than actually making a point in the story. And so that was a weakness for me as a writer, that I had to learn along the way. I had to learn how to be like, well, what’s the takeaway for the reader? What’s the point that we’re making here? What’s the moral of the story? Because the story has to be pointed somewhere or people lose attention, no matter how beautiful the prose is.  Now, on the flip side of that, if you’re a copywriter, if you’re trained as a copywriter and that’s your skill set, you almost have an advantage to me because you come at this understanding the structure of how a chapter should be put together, of how to keep, you know, capture and keep human attention. And when you understand that, anybody can go back through and make the prose sound more beautiful or add more stories to make it, you know, flow a little nicer or make it more interesting or whatever. But understanding the structure is, in my opinion, really the hardest part.  And so I teach this to a lot of writers because a lot of writers come to the process of writing a book and they think, oh, I could never write a book because, you know, I don’t have a degree from a fancy university or I don’t, you know, I’ve never been published before or I’m really not that great of a writer. I’m not good with grammar. I’m not good with spelling, whatever. And I think that’s actually a huge misnomer, that if you understand the structure of how to capture and keep human attention, and you know how to put a chapter together, that’s really all you need to know to write a book. And everything else along the way, in my opinion, can be learned. I mean, even the structure can be learned. I teach a lot of that in my courses, too. But it’s the first thing that has to be learned. Rob Marsh: OK. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. So let’s say I have a controlling idea. I know who my perfect reader is. What comes next? Allison Fallon: So the next thing I would do in my courses is put together a robust outline. Okay. And that’s a really involved process. I use three by five note cards with my clients when we put together outlines for books. And we do that by writing a paradigm shift for each chapter, the controlling idea for each chapter, a paradigm shift, what stories we’re going to tell in the chapter, what the takeaway for the reader is. And I have a formula that I follow that we put that all together. So once you have the outline written, the writing of the manuscript actually becomes quite easy. I share this story in Write Your Story, but when I first wrote Packing Light, I wrote the draft to that book and threw it away probably three times. Well, maybe two. So wrote it, threw it away, wrote it, threw it away. And the third time I wrote it was the draft that actually went to the publisher. A big reason for that is I didn’t know where I was going with the book. I just knew I liked writing. I had a story I wanted to tell. I was like, I knew these interesting things were happening to me, but I didn’t really understand what the point of the book was. And so understanding what the point of the book is, is a major obstacle to overcome. Rob Marsh: Yeah. That’s the whole reason to do the outline is the point of each chapter of the point of the entire book. Exactly. You put it together. And then like you said, once that’s done, the writing part should be easy. Do you have tips or tricks for the actual, okay, I got to put my butt in the chair and I got to crank out, you know, a thousand words today or 4,000 words or whatever it is. Allison Fallon: Yes, my first tip is to implement your writing time into your schedule long before you are on a deadline. So essentially, to have times of day and times of week that are dedicated to your creative writing or to this project. So if you have times of day that you’re writing for copywriting or writing for your job or whatever, that’s not the same as writing for your book project. So I tell people to keep this really achievable. So don’t say to yourself, I’m going to get up every morning at five o’clock in the morning. I’m going to write for three hours before I go to work because you’ll think you’re going to do that. And maybe you do it for one week or if you’re really disciplined, you do it for two. But then you start to falter and fall behind that insane expectation for yourself.  And then people get in this cycle with themselves in book writing where they’re just like, I’m not disciplined enough for that. I tried to do that once. And, you know, I told everyone I was going to write a book and I was a complete failure. Instead, say to yourself, OK, what can I realistically do inside of the life that I’m currently leading? Could I realistically write one or two days a week? Could I realistically write for an hour at a time? Maybe I do set my alarm earlier one morning and get up at 6 and write for an hour before I get my day started. Or maybe I choose one day a week. Maybe it’s a Saturday and I write for three hours at a coffee shop while my spouse handles the kids or whatever. Build that writing time into your schedule now. Before you’re on a deadline, you’ll be much more likely to succeed when the time comes to actually complete the manuscript. Rob Marsh: Yeah, to me that feels like one of the biggest challenges because like you said, life happens, all of those good intentions, you know, I’m going to be writing it and suddenly you’re so far behind and maybe even it’s worse if you don’t have that deadline with a publisher, if it’s just your own personal project because it’s so easy to let ourselves off the hook for doing that. Allison Fallon: Yeah, I teach my writers to put it on their calendar. Like whatever system you use for calendaring, I use iCal, so I’ll put my writing time in my calendar. And if my writing time is in my calendar from 7 to 8 o’clock, then that’s what I’m doing during that time. And I teach my writers to treat that time just like you would any other appointment in your calendar. So you know, you and I had this scheduled, I don’t know, four weeks ago, five weeks ago, something like that. And unless I’m sick, or my child is sick, or there’s some other kind of emergency, there’s no way that I’m gonna text you or email you and say, I’m so sorry, I’m not gonna be able to make it to the interview today. I just didn’t feel like it. Just I slipped in instead. You know, So treating our writing time just like we would any other appointment in our calendar, where of course there are times when you cancel it. If your family member passes away, you cancel it. If you have an emergency work trip, you might cancel it. If your kid is sick, you might cancel it. But otherwise, you show up, and you show up for yourself. And I also teach people, because people will say, well, I’m feeling really stuck in my writing, so I just didn’t do my writing time today. And one of the things I teach people to do is if you feel like you genuinely can’t make progress in your writing, you do something that feeds and nourishes the writing. So maybe that’s a walk. Your 7 to 8 AM is scheduled, and that’s your writing time, and you honor it. Maybe you don’t feel like you can get any writing done, but maybe you just go for a walk. Or maybe you go for a drive. That’s something that my husband will always do when he’s feeling stuck on something. I like to go to a yoga class, something that kind of clears my head. Maybe you sit at your computer and just have the discipline of sitting there even though you don’t get any words on the page. I’ve had it happen before where I think I’m stuck on a writing project and so I just force myself to sit at the computer even if it’s for 30 minutes. And at 28 minutes into my 30 minutes, I have an idea and I write for 45 minutes and make some progress. So, you know, any little thing that you can do that feeds or nourishes the writing is considered, you know, part of that writing time. Rob Marsh: I don’t know if this is an apocryphal story or not. I think it was told about Alexander Dumas, who when he would sit down to write, I think he would take off all of his clothes and leave them outside of his office so that he couldn’t leave the room because he’s naked. Like I said, I’m not sure if it’s a true story or not, and I’m not sure that I would recommend that to anybody either as a writing practice. But if that’s what it takes to get you to sit down and actually do the thing, maybe there’s some value in… I love just… If you have to sit and look at a blank page for 30 minutes, then that’s what you’ve done. I just think that’s a great practice. Allison Fallon: And just keep in mind, this is one of the things that I’ve really come to recognize over the years of working with hundreds or even thousands of people. is everybody processes really differently. And so when I first started doing this, and I was young in my late 20s, I, I was a very disciplined person. I would have classified myself that way. I didn’t have any children. I wasn’t married at the time. And so my way of processing information and my way of you know, executing on a writing project was very specific. And I taught other people as if everyone else should sort of like fit into this little box.  And one of the things I’ve learned with just working with so many different people is everybody’s different. Everybody’s life circumstances are different. And we have to find a way to make writing fit inside of the circumstances that we’re actually experiencing. So I’m not saying that it never makes sense to change your life circumstances. But, you know, like, for example, I have kids now. I have two little kids who wake up super early in the morning. And I don’t set an alarm clock because they wake me up. I mean, sometime like between 5.30 and 6.30 is when they wake up. And I used to do my writing time first thing in the morning. I was like, I was very disciplined about it. I would get up, I wouldn’t touch my phone, wouldn’t touch my computer, wouldn’t talk to anybody until my writing was done. I’d make myself a cup of coffee, I’d sit down, I’d write for two hours, and that was what I did every morning. And now that’s just not accessible to me.  So instead of being like, well, I guess I’m not a writer anymore, I can just decide like, oh, what works for me is to drop them off. I drop them off at 8.45. I come home and I’ve got, you know, some time from 9 to noon where I can get some writing done. So you have to figure – and another example of this is I used to book a cabin somewhere or, you know, like I’d go to the beach or I’d go to the woods for a couple of days to get a writing project done.  That’s how I wrote Indestructible. I booked a little condo at the beach for 10 days. and wrote almost the whole manuscript while I was at the beach. And I used to really like proselytize that, like, this is the way to do it. It’s the way to get your writing done. And now I’m like, as a mother, I’m like, I could not disappear for 10 days. Like, what would my family do for 10 whole days? I mean, they would survive physically, but I think it would be a big strain on the family. And for me, you know, it just wouldn’t work for me to – I don’t want to be gone for that long from my kids right now. So it doesn’t have to happen that way is my point. It can happen a lot of different ways. And I want people to hear that and know that whatever life circumstances you have, and however you process information, some people process information better when they’re not sitting at the computer. Maybe you’re walking around your backyard and you’re voice to texting, and that’s how you write a chapter. That’s fine. There’s no one right way to do this. Rob Marsh: Do you think that everybody has a book? I believe everyone has a book in them. Allison Fallon: I’ve been strongly refuted on that by other podcasts and stuff that I’ve been on, but I believe everybody has a book in them. Rob Marsh: Let’s talk about that. Why? I don’t have a strong feeling one way or the other. I feel like I’ve got 30 books in me that would love to come out if I will let them, but I can imagine that there are people who think that they don’t have anything to say. Allison Fallon: Everybody has something to say. Everybody’s fascinating. I mean, it all has to do with the way that you look at the life that you’ve led. And sometimes people will come to me and say like, you know, everyone tells me that I’m supposed to write a book. Some people just have details to their story that are just extra fascinating. It’s like they’ve been through, you know, so many different wild things and so many synchronicities have happened to them. Some people just have life stories that are like that. Some people have life stories that are a little more vanilla. But it’s a matter of how you look at it and how you structure the story, what you focus your attention on.  Think about when you’re putting a book together, you get to choose as the author what details you want to include and which ones you want to leave out. And so you get to decide what the reader is going to pay attention to. And I think that there’s something to be gained for each of us in taking a look at our life setting, like, you know, what have I experienced in my life? What have I been through? What’s happened to me? What have I accomplished? And really thinking through, like, what would I want to put someone’s attention on? What do I want to be remembered for? What parts of my life do I want to remember? What parts of my life are most important? And not everybody’s going to want to do that.  And again, as I’ve matured, I feel like I’ve moved away from convincing people who say they don’t want to write. I don’t feel that I need to convince them that they do. But if someone comes to me and says, listen, I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I’m not sure I have anything interesting to say, I’m like, try me. Let’s talk about your life. I promise you, I will find something interesting. And people inevitably, it’s like human nature, people bury the lead to their own stories. They’ll tell you the 10 most mundane details of their life first. And then you’ve been talking with them for an hour and they finally drop the one nugget that you’re like, wait, what? An hour to tell me that part of the story. That’s definitely the most interesting part. So we just have a way of burying the lead or not seeing what’s most interesting about us. And I think that’s the thing that, you know, if we’re all given like a gift, a thing that we’re good at, you know, in this lifetime, I think my gift is being able to see what’s most interesting about people. and really believing everybody is interesting and being able to find that nugget. Rob Marsh: I think from the standpoint of the person who may be thinking or who isn’t able to say that most interesting thing early on, it feels to me like fear is a really big here where sharing something, even if it’s an amazing thing, amazing accomplishment or experience or whatever, fear holds us back in so many ways. Allison Fallon: 100%. Yeah, I mean, people are scared. What’s wild is like the thing, I believe the thing we want most, the thing we’re most hungry for as human beings is connection. And connection comes through vulnerability. So it comes through me showing you the truth of who I am. And also showing you the truth of who I am is the most terrifying thing I could ever do. Because it’s like handing you the weapon to say, here’s the most tender part of me, if you really wanted to hurt me, you could now because I’ve shown this to you. And so I think we’re terrified of that. And also, it is the window to being connected to others. And I think that’s a lot of what I’m teaching people when we’re working together on a book. Not every person I work with finishes their book. And sometimes people will get really hard on themselves like, you know, I put all this money and time and effort into this and I I did never publish the book. And it’s like, well, did you transform? Did you change as a person? Oh, yeah. I’m a much better leader. I’m a much better dad. I’m a much better person because I wrote that book. Well, then, you know, it wasn’t a wasted investment just because it didn’t hit the New York Times list. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that’s a whole other reframe, I think, when it comes to, you know, if you’ve read a book, you kind of want to see it on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, which, again, is terrifying, but also exhilarating, right? So we’ve talked a lot about the stuff that we should be doing or should be thinking about if we want to write a book. What are the things, the big mistakes that we make as we approach these kinds of projects that hold us back or keep us from succeeding? Allison Fallon: Okay. Well, the biggest mistake, I talked about this briefly earlier, but the biggest mistake that I think a lot of authors make is not understanding if they’re writing a story-driven or content-driven book. And like I said, there is this kind of weird gray area in the middle where it’s harder. Like there are some books that are very obviously story-driven books. Any memoir, any fiction book is obviously a story-driven book. Yeah. Harry Potter, story-driven. Wild by Cheryl Strayed, story-driven. Then there’s books that are obviously content-driven, like any, you know, leadership book, textbook, business book. If you go into the business section, every book that you pull off the shelf there is going to be content-driven. Then there are these, middle ground kind of books, like a collection of essays, I would make a strong argument that a collection of essays is usually content driven. Even though the essays are stories, the collection is making a statement about a topic, which is content driven. Another example would be like, Glennon Doyle, her book, Untamed, is one that a lot of people mentioned when they’re talking about a story driven book, and I would argue that book is content driven. Even though it’s, I don’t know, 100 chapters of various little short and longer stories from her life, it is a book that teaches the reader, you’re tamed, you shouldn’t be tamed, you should be untamed, and here’s how to become untamed. So I would argue that that’s a content-driven book. And making the decision about which category your book falls into is the first choice you really have to make in order to know how to structure the book. Rob Marsh: Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I don’t know if you’ve ever read that book, but that sort of feels like a story-driven content book as well. In fact, it’s got to be one of my favorite books that I’ve read and shared. Allison Fallon: It’s definitely a content-driven book, yeah, but it’s through the lens of storytelling. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s good to know. Any other mistakes? Allison Fallon: People make the mistake of not writing the book that they want to write. So people write the book that they think the market is asking for, Which, you know, I, I’m hard pressed to call it a mistake because there’s some value to writing the book the market is asking for. In some ways it can get you in the doors of publishing so that it opens doors for you to write, you know, whatever you want to write. So in some ways there’s value to that. You can, you know, write the book that the market is asking for. It opens doors for you in publishing. You can get a publishing deal. You can get, you know, the book in bookstores and that may open the door for you to write the book that you want to write later down the road. But I just find that authors will have a lot of regret about wanting to write one book and a publisher, you know, they have some connection with a publisher that wants them to write some different book. So they end up writing that different book instead. And then this book that they wanted to write just never really gets legs or gets off the ground. And I’m of the belief that when a book idea comes to you, it’s like the Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic idea that like, it’s going to visit you. And if you don’t take it, it’s going to take off and visit somebody else. And so, you know, you may not get another chance to come back around to that book. I don’t, I don’t know. And I’ve worked with a lot of people who have some regret about wishing that they would have written the one book that they wanted to write instead of the one that the market was asking for. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that feels like a really easy thing to do too. I mean, even if you don’t even plan on publishing or you’re only sharing it with your family or friends or whatever, writing to please them instead of the story that you want to tell feels really big. Well, I mentioned that I had read your book, The Power of Writing It Down, but you’ve got this new book, Write Your Story. Tell us about that book, what it’s about. I mean, it’s already on my list of things to read, so you don’t have to convince me, but I’m curious what else is in it and how you describe it. Allison Fallon: Well, I wrote Write Your Story because I was teaching these workshops with Donald Miller. He and I together were teaching these workshops called the Write Your Story Workshops. And we started doing these workshops because we were meeting a lot of people who felt they had a story that they wanted to tell and they weren’t sure where to start. And some of these people had aspirations to publish a book, but not all of them. Sometimes people were just like, listen, one of the women was like, I adopted my two daughters. They’re twins. And she’s like, I want them to know their story. I want them to know where they came from. what was going on in their mom’s life that made them, you know, their adoptive mom’s life that made her want to bring them into her world. I want them to understand their biological mom and where they came from and all these different elements. She’s like, I could never tell this story publicly, but I really want this story to be passed down to my daughters. And you’d be shocked how many times I hear that from people who say, I could never publish this story, but I really want to share this story with my family and friends. And so Don and I just started feeling like there was this need, this hunger from people who wanted to share their stories and just wanted to know, like, how would I structure this? Where would I start? What’s most interesting about this? So we started teaching these workshops and, you know, like 50 people at a time would come and tell their stories. And it was so inspiring to watch these people take stories from their lives and put them on paper, even if they had no plans to publish. And so I wanted to take the concepts that we were teaching in that workshop and put them in the book. So that’s what the book is. It teaches you a structure that literally anybody can use to take a story from your life and put it on the page. And it works if you’re wanting to write a book to publish, and it also works if you’re just wanting to tell a story to pass on to your grandkids. Rob Marsh: I love that. Like I said, it’s on my list, and hopefully a few other people will add it to their list as well. If somebody wants to follow you, learn more about your processes for writing, maybe even engage you for some of your coaching services, Allie, where should they go? Allison Fallon: The platform where I’m most active is Instagram. So my handle is at AllieFanelon on Instagram, A-L-L-Y-F-A-L-L-O-N. And I will post about all the different products and services that I have. to offer there and any new workshops I’m doing or where to get the book, all of that should all be on Instagram as well. Rob Marsh: Amazing. And I mean, people can find your other books at the library, at the bookstore, wherever books are found. Yeah, it’s like I said, The Power of Writing it Down was a real paradigm shift for me as far as writing goes. And it just made me think about writing, the process of writing, the benefits of writing differently. And as soon as I saw that, I’m like, yeah, I want to chat with you on the podcast because I think it could be the same for a lot of other, those of us who do marketing writing all the time, but maybe there’s some other story to be told. Allison Fallon: So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Rob Marsh: I appreciate it. I want to thank Allison for sharing her process for writing and thinking about putting a great book together. If you like what she shared, you should definitely pick up her book, The Power of Writing It Down or her newest book, Write Your Story. I still haven’t read Write Your Story, but it’s on my list and I’m looking forward to that one. We also talked a little bit about Indestructible and Packing Light, a couple of her other books, which you might be interested in reading as well. I will link to those in the show notes, so you can check them out if you want to.  What Allison shared about using writing as a tool for personal discovery, even for business books and other nonfiction, is, I think, unique. Sharing what you know, whether in a book or some other platform, isn’t just about landing a client or selling a product. Rather, it’s often about something deeper and you can’t discover that until you start writing. And it’s got me toying once again with the book or the books that I keep telling myself that I am going to finish. You should definitely look Alison up online. She’s at alisonfallon.com and you can find all of her books at Amazon and other bookstores. I’ve linked to a few of them in the show notes of this episode to get you started.   

In the 417th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with case study copywriter Dana Owens… and of course we talked in depth about writing case studies. But as we talked, Dana shared her connection secret for getting plenty of leads for the work she wants to do. It’s a great idea that any copywriter can borrow and use to grow their own business. But to get it, you’re going to have to listen. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: Dana’s Tools for Case Study Writers The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: One of the client finding ideas I like to talk about is making connections with other service providers. Instead of thinking of other copywriters as the competition, think of them as business associates who can support you in all kinds of ways including by sharing leads. I’ve mentioned more than once that copywriters have shared leads with me that have resulted in more than six figures worth of business over the years. With results like that, of course you should connect with other copywriters and content writers. But there may be an even better group to connect with when it comes to getting clients. It’s just one of the things we cover on this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, and my guest for this episode is case study copywriter Dana Owens. We covered a lot of ground in this interview including how Dana kind of stumbled on this perfect partner for leads in her busines. If you write case studies it’s a connection idea you can steal and use today. But if you write any other kind of copy, you can use this idea as well, you’ll just have to figure out who your perfect connection partner is. So stick around to hear more about it. Before we jump in with Dana… It’s been a little while since I’ve mentioned our special report called How to Find Clients that features more than 20 different things you can do, starting right now, to find your ideal clients. It also shares the 4 mistakes you absolutely can’t afford to make when looking for clients—if you do, you are dead in the water… and it also shows you five things you need to do before you reach out to the people you want to work with IF you want them to say yes. This isn’t some dainty one page PDF you’ll forget about in a day or two… it’s 36 pages jam packed with ideas that either we’ve used in our own businesses or we’ve seen other successful copywriters use to grow theirs.  You can get your free report by going to thecopywiterclub.com/findaclient   that’s all one word. Get your free report now. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Dana… Hey Dana, it is so great to see you. Welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. You know how this goes because you’ve been part of The Copywriter Club world for a long time, but let’s start with your story. How did you become a copywriter? Dana Owens: Well, first of all, I’m so excited to be here. I actually learned that copywriting was a real thing from the Copywriter Club podcast. Seven years ago, I remember taking a road trip with my husband. And that was like back in the day where I had to connect his iPad to the car through a USB cord. And I had like 10 episodes of The Copywriter Club Podcast downloaded. And throughout the road trip, we listened to the episodes. And that’s when I realized copywriting could be like a real career and a real business. And that’s when he also learned it. So the fact that I’m talking to you today is just like, I don’t know, a funny, funny, full circle moment. Rob Marsh: So that’s amazing. Dana Owens: Yeah. But I started, um, I got involved in copywriting. Like I wish I would have started so much earlier than I did, but I graduated with a journalism degree and became a journalist for one year. Um, I went to work for a local, I’m from Michigan. So it was like a local small town paper and was the police reporter into the police beat. I was so naive. I mean, I had my trusty journalism degree, but had no idea what I was doing. And it was kind of a bust that first year there. I have a lot of funny stories, but I realized I did not like journalism because basically, especially as a police reporter, all I was doing was reporting on bad news. And so I’m an optimist. I wanted to report on only good news. And I was like, Dana, you are so naive. Like, how are you ever going to get a job just reporting on good news? But what I learned through that job is that I loved interviewing people. So I took that. And then I actually went, I moved to Chicago and I started to work as a creative writer for an advertising company, just a little teeny advertising company. And, um, that’s where I kind of started to figure out that copywriting was actually a thing. Although it took me another, I mean, so several years to actually start to, um, start doing copywriting formally. and start to really turn my attention directly onto writing for sales and marketing. So I got my start indirectly through an entrance through journalism and advertising. But it was really when I had had my kids and was like, I’m looking for just a little something to do on the side that I was contacted by an old boss of mine who really was the one that pulled me into copywriting. And that was, gosh, 10 years ago. It’s only grown and grown and grown since there. Rob Marsh: So what kind of work were you doing in the agency, in the small ad company that you were working for as a writer? What were you writing? Dana Owens: I was primarily, this sounds so boring now, but I was primarily writing like website copy, but really product descriptions for, they were a professional photography company. And so every single thing that I was writing about had to do with some type of professional photography equipment. And that was, again, just so not for me. I’m super creative, and I want to be exploring big ideas and positioning things in a picture-particular way. And it was definitely not a position that I was going to be able to stick with long term, but it really did set the foundation for the work that I do today. But that was it. There was no way I was going to be a pro at professional photography equipment, but I started learning about the sales and marketing world in that way. So it was beneficial. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Especially when we talk about high-end equipment, you know, that you have in the, the, you know, the world of photography, like everything looks the same. Obviously it’s not the same. And so being able to sell one product over another does become a, I mean, that’s a skill and being able to identify how they’re different and who they’re for, I think could be incredibly useful. Dana Owens: Well, it, it, that is a really good point. And also it was so highly technical because the people that the audience that I was writing for, they understood the differences between the brands of all of these different lenses and all of these different light boxes. And they understood the outputs and all of this technical stuff. And so I really had to learn it myself and it was so boring to me at the time, but what it has really translated for me. in, you know, when I started in the areas of copywriting that I was really interested in was how to take technical information or complex information or even jargon from that that was well known, you know, in one industry and how to make it more palatable and understandable to different audiences. So now that you’ve brought me back to those days, like it’s it the connection is very clear that, you know, Having to specialize in an industry like I did for that amount of time, I think it was like four years I worked in that job, it really did start to build that skill of being able to communicate things, communicate complicated ideas and technical ideas in a way that people liked to consume it. So that was helpful. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I had a similar experience early on in my career. I worked for a day planner company, imagine writing about day planners for four years. It’s like, OK, well, this year’s edition of the day planner is blue as opposed to black, or this edition of the day planner has quotes. And yet it’s that repetition actually polishes your ability to connect with an audience and figure out what it is that they need to know about in order to buy. So, yeah, those It feels boring. It feels repetitive, but it also develops a really important skill set for copywriters. Dana Owens: It totally does. And I think, you know, I was like new out of college. Rright out of college, I had gone and I worked at the newspaper and on the police beat for a year. And then I moved from Michigan to Chicago. And then I had for four years, this job writing about professional photography equipment. And like, I think those intro jobs, those getting started and like, figuring things out on your own. I mean, sometimes you’re like, Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to get out of this job. But I haven’t had, I look back on those experiences as absolutely critical, like building blocks for what I’ve been able to create today. And so, you know, earlier on in my career, I’d look back and be like, Oh gosh, I hated that job. But now I look back and I’m like, I’m really thankful for that job because it was tough to get through. And I didn’t want to go in there most days, but there was a purpose to it. So it was all good, you know? Rob Marsh: Yeah, it’s a good place to learn the basics. So you started kind of your side gig when you had your kids and an old boss reached out to you. Like, talk a little bit about that process, because again, this is, I mean, you know this from experience. This is one of those things where copywriters have a difficult time figuring out where do I get clients for my side gig? How do I create these relationships that turn into work? So yeah, how did that work for you? Dana Owens: Well, it’s kind of funny. We talked about my job writing about professional photography equipment, my boss at that job, he was like in charge of our entire marketing arm of the business. And so, you know, he had been my boss for four years. I had actually, after I left that job, I did a total career change and went into elementary education of all things. It was a seventh grade teacher and a second grade teacher. for many years. And that, again, like you would think, what does that have to do with copywriting? But it actually, again, taught me how to take complicated ideas and topics that they were complicated to a seventh grader or complicated to a second grader, and really figure out how to talk about it in a way that they could understand, cut through all the noise and go right for the main message. So I did that. And then I had by that point, I’d had two kids, I was a stay at home mom for a while and just kind of figuring out like, what do I do? I want to be home with my kids for as much as I can. And the boss that I had from that professional photography writing job, he reached out to me. He sent me a Facebook message and he’s like, Hey, I know, you know, we haven’t talked in like years and I am no longer with this company that we worked together at, but I have my own, he’s a designer. He had his own design and branding company. And so he was looking for a part-time copywriter to help him out. Just at that time, it was like. Little teeny projects. Like I’ve got like one or two little projects a month and you know, I, I hear that you’re, you know, you’re got two kids, maybe you’d have time to do this on the side. And at that time, I really was one looking for ways to just to start working again. But also I missed writing so much after spending some time in education. And so it was like, how can I say no to this? Like, this is super easy, no problem. And so That’s how it started. It was just this little invitation. And really, when I got the message in my Facebook inbox, I just remember reading it and being like, oh, this just feels kind of meant to be. This is perfect for me. I want a way to get back into writing. Here it is, an old connection of mine. I’m not starting from scratch with someone I barely know. I don’t have to go out there and get my own work. This guy is literally just dropping it in my lap, these small things. And so it started for the first six months, it really was like these one or two little teeny projects that I could do around my kids. And then he took on a much bigger client. It was a coaching company who at that time specifically did leadership and development for middle managers, which was at that time kind of a niche of theirs. And so he took on this client and all of a sudden there was like tons of writing work just for them. So he kept coming back to me like, hey, I got a little bit more for you. Hey, I got a little bit more. I got a little bit more. And all of a sudden, my two little projects a month went to very steadily like quarter time work. And I mean, it wasn’t like maybe a year after that. I was working like part time for him just on this one client. but doing all types of different work. I was starting to do all of their marketing collateral, starting to do, like they were doing curriculum design and I was writing some of that and all kinds of, all kinds of stuff. And then I remember at one point I started to, um, they already had case studies in place, but I was working to kind of beef up their case studies. And it was through that client in that. intro to copywriting thing. And with them, I worked maybe for three years. But that was the first time I realized I put the pieces together about what a case study was and like why companies needed them and why this coaching company in particular desperately needed them. And so that was like the seed that kind of turned into the passion that I have now, but also like just me launching off and going. I was still working for him. And with this coaching company, but I started to take on my own clients on the side and see like, Hey, this has been a great launch off point to work with him, but I’m a very independent person. I don’t want to just be his, like I was, I was a contracted person, but like I did it, I felt like an employee and it was like, I really want to go off into my own now and start to build. The business that I want to run the one that I want to create. And so, but that was the start of it all. Rob Marsh: And did I hear you right? You said you’re still working with him today. Dana Owens: No, I’m not. No, I actually… I feel so bad, but in the process of my growth, I had to… It was one of those situations where he had literally given me this opportunity when I was a stay-at-home mom, and we had so much fun together. Our personality, we were both goofballs, and we just laughed so much. We talked every single day for years around projects, and we had a blast. But his, we just ended up having different philosophies on the types of clients that we wanted to take on. And I had a real, I developed this real line in the sand around. I knew that as I developed in my business and as a business owner, that there was a real line in the sand of, I am a consultant first and foremost. That’s how I feel. It’s really developed as my specialty and like what I love. about my skill set. And he, because of that nature of mine, like if someone wasn’t going with my strategy enough, like it’s one thing, you know, I know, I’m going to present my strategy at the end of the day, it’s what the client wants to do. But if there’s too much of a misalignment, I am going to say that we’re not a fit, whereas he would have continued the relationship much longer than I would have. And so we never had any disagreements or anything. It was just like a different philosophy. And so I was like, you know what? I think we just, it’s time to move on. And he was fine with it. But I mean, we worked together for a good seven years. Yeah. Rob Marsh: I seem to remember. I mean, it might’ve been a different client, but when you were in The Copywriter Accelerator, you were working through some of this stuff and trying to figure out like, what am I going to be building and what am I doing? And really trying to figure out how you were going to niche your business. Dana Owens: Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And when I was in the accelerator, it was, I mean, I think the one thing that if I would go back, I mean, cause that was like seven years ago. If I would go back as me now and talk to me in The Accelerator, I would have just told myself to chill out. Like I was so interested in like, I’ve got to find a niche or what am I doing? Is my writing perfect? And how do I, you know, get away from this client that I feel like I’m spending way too much time with? And now at the vantage point that I have, it’s like all of what was going on in there and all of that angst and like, it was all for such a purpose. And I wish that I would have just looked at it as like everything that was coming into my work world and every day with my clients and all of these challenges and things that I was working through, like it was all leading me to the place that I’m at now, which is total freedom. But I was just like, Oh, I just want to get there. Like I just, I just want to skip over what has become seven years of experience so I can just get there like right now. And That would have been a huge disservice if I would have just gotten there immediately because I’ve learned so much along the way. But yeah, I was totally wrapped up when I was in the accelerator and feeling like I was devoting way too much time to this guy. I wasn’t spending enough time on building my own business. But the funny thing was, is I had no idea what I wanted to do within copywriting. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Dana Owens: And so I had a whole lot of generalist copywriting time to go before My niche found me. I didn’t go out looking for it. It literally found me and it was like, oh, this is totally it. But I wouldn’t have found that if I would have gone searching for it on my own. Rob Marsh: So I want to come back to that. But you mentioned needing to go through these steps, the accelerator, and then really figuring it out. What are some of those steps that you went through over those years before you landed and said, yep, this is the thing? Dana Owens: Like I just needed experience. Like I, so I was working for that guy with the old boss, you know, and, um, so I was doing a whole bunch of different types of copywriting for him, which was great, but it was really primarily focused around this one client. So I wasn’t getting a whole breadth of experience as far as client diversity goes, but I was getting a lot of experience as far as deliverables go. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Dana Owens: So while I was working for him as well, I found another web design and branding agency that I started. I came on as like a contractor as one of their copywriters. And in that one, I still actually got a very good breadth of deliverables. Like I was doing a website copy. I was doing sales emails. I was doing, oh gosh, sales pages, just. social media content, like anything you could think of really. But with that, um, with that opportunity, I was also getting the breadth of clients. So whenever a client would come in, it would be all of these different industries. And then I would get paired with that project and what I would receive. I wasn’t doing, I wasn’t doing anything. Well, I guess I was kind of doing client facing work. I think at one point in the process, I would be able to speak to the client But most of it was reviewing transcripts where the business owner had interviewed the client, talked about the business strategy, what they were going to do with the new website. So I was listening to a strategist strategize with the new client, which was so beneficial. And then I would get all of these notes about how to position the website copy and or how to position a sales page. And so then I would take that and I would write, you know, create the deliverable. And so that was just like, if my working with the, you know, my old boss was like level one, this other opportunity was like level two. So, but it was those steps where I was still during that time being like, Oh, I just want to build my own business. Like I want to get out from underneath these people, but it It was all foundation that I needed and experience that I needed to figure out what types of copy I liked and what types of copy I didn’t. Sometimes the types of copy I was good at, I didn’t really like writing. And some of the time, the stuff that I thought, like I wrote it and I was like, Oh, this is crap. I’d turn it in to get reviewed. And they’d be like, this is amazing. Zero edits. And so I needed to go through all of that, all of that trial and error and getting used to getting feedback and being reviewed. And at first I was terrified of that. And now I’m like, just tell me, you know, like, I don’t have time to worry about what the feedback is. I gotta, I gotta get on to other things. So here’s what I did. Here’s what I’ve done. Give me the feedback and let’s go, you know? So I had to learn how to accept feedback. I had to learn. what types of copy I really loved, which ones I was good at, when to use what, you know, what types of copy are effective in different situations. I had to learn how to write for different audiences in different industries. I mean, there was just an infinite amount that I had to learn in those years that has served me great now. Rob Marsh: Yeah. I mean, the process really is, you’ve got to get through it. And when you do and you succeed and you have clients, it gives you the confidence to do the things that you love. And speaking of the things that you love, you landed on case studies. I mean, in my LinkedIn feed, in my world, you’re one of the two or three uh, copywriters that I know that are entirely focused on case studies and it’s your thing. Let’s talk about that. How did you figure out that this is the thing you loved and you wanted to do for, you know, the, maybe not the rest of your life, but for the foreseeable future? Dana Owens: Yeah. Well, there were two things that happened and The Copywriter Club is so instrumental to this. So at the time that I realized what case studies were was when I was working with my old boss and we were, you know, doing all this work for this coaching company. And so for the longest time, this coaching company, who I sat at the time, really was focused on providing leadership development for middle managers. They were very niched in working with middle managers, and they weren’t, they didn’t have a lot of competition. So they were used to you know, pitching these larger companies or having people come to them and they would explain their offerings and they would close the deals. So that’s how it was for like the first two years that we worked with them. And then after about two years, there was this influx of companies that came in all doing L&D, all doing it for all types of different managers, middle managers included. And they had this real, oh man moment where they were like, We’re, the marketplace is becoming flooded and we’re going into, and some of these competitors are amazing. Like they, their board of directors is like they’re celebrities on the board of directors. Like they are so dialed in. They have so many features that we don’t have. We still stick by our process and our product, but we are drowning amongst these competitors right now. And so they were going into these sales meetings and they were like, We’re having such a hard time closing these deals. Like what is going on? So my old boss and I started to really think about what we could do to help them, what collateral they really needed in these sales meetings and how they could position themselves to get back to closing these deals easier. And I remember at around that time I had been, I mean, I was like in the copywriter club one night, I’m like scrolling through the Facebook group. And I remember somebody posted a question and they were, they were like, or they were kind of doing event session. And they were like, I mean, I was talking to this prospect today and like their website is terrible. Like the design is terrible. And the copy on it is terrible. And I was trying to like tell them why they needed really good copy. And they basically ignored me and rolled their eyes or whatever. And they’re like, why do some people refuse to update their websites? Okay. And there were all these different comments and the people were saying like, I know it’s so infuriating. Like people don’t understand the value of good copy. And they were just going off and sympathizing with this person. And then there was this one guy that just posted this very simple comment. And he said, results sell. And he said, If their copy is crap and their design looks super old and outdated, but they are producing results, they don’t need to change their copy. It’s not at the top of their priority list because the results are selling itself. And I was just like, results sell. That is exactly it. It was like this eureka moment for me. And it’s like, duh, of course I know that. But it was just the simplicity in the way that he said it. And I related it right back to this coaching company. And it was like, they are not doing enough, if anything, to really hone in on the results. They need to lead with their results. And if they can do that, they can cut through all of these other companies. Because they were seeing good results. So that all of a sudden it was like this little like switch turned in me and I became so passionate about helping. I wanted to help them package up their results. And I knew from looking at some of their previous case studies that their case studies were not compelling. They weren’t well done. They weren’t adequately showcasing the results that their clients had seen. And so I, I’m very passionate. Like when I find something that I’m passionate about, I am like, Watch out, people. I will be heard. I don’t care if I’m this peon copywriter. I’m going right to the CEO. You’re going to know that I’ve got a great idea for you. So I went charging in there. We’ve got to focus on your results. Please, I want to rewrite all your case studies. I want to interview your clients. And I even went so far as to start thinking, how can we set? They were just starting a new, nine month coaching engagement with a very high profile brand. And I was like, we have got to set up this coaching engagement. So you are actually getting the data and the feedback from the client. Periodically throughout this engagement to write, to create video and written the most killer case study, because it’s going to be your best sales enablement tool going forward. So I am flying in there with all these ideas. This is what I want to do. And I was so disappointed because it was totally met with not entirely deaf ears, but they, this is where I’m talking about where the philosophical differences, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was a huge missing piece for this company. And they loved everything I was saying, but they weren’t, they didn’t have I don’t know, courage, that sounds like the weird thing to say, but it’s like they weren’t willing to shift their processes to gather the information to really create compelling case studies. And so that was one huge thing where I was like, okay, that’s fine. If you guys aren’t on board. Totally cool. But because I’d been doing so much web copy work with this other, uh, web design and branding agency, I was seeing over and over again. that the coaching company wasn’t alone. I was talking to so many other companies and I was starting to say how I want to take a results driven approach with your website copy. I want to go in talking about your results. I don’t want to go in talking about what you do and the features and benefits of your products and services, even though that’s super important. I want to lead with your results. What insight do you have from your customers that can help you do that? And so many companies, basically everyone was like, we don’t really systematically gather anything right now. We have some good testimonials. We can give you testimonials, but we don’t, we’re not tracking and measuring the outcomes that we want to be known for. We, we don’t have any case studies to share with you that you can riff off of or incorporate into your website copy. And it was like. You know, I went through a five companies like this and it was like, this is a huge hole that I saw. And I was like, I love, I, I’m so passionate about this. I want to just do this and only this, because there’s not literally a business that’s in operation that cannot benefit from this. And I’m going to hang my hat in this niche and go for it. And then I have, that’s what I did. Rob Marsh: Yeah, this is amazing. So I can, you know, believe that there are other copywriters out there thinking, okay, well, yeah, results driven approach leading with results. This sounds great. Maybe I should be doing case studies, or at least be encouraging more of my clients to be doing case studies, but they don’t know how to do it. So I know you’ve got a very detailed process. In fact, you’ve got some templates that you share with copywriters to walk us through all of that stuff. But will you give us the basics on what we need to do for writing case studies so that they actually do the thing they’re supposed to do? Dana Owens: Well, do you mean from like the, if you’re a copywriter and you want your clients to be, you want to be, do more case study writing for your clients or for you to be, do you mean for copywriters who want to niche like I did exclusively into creating case studies. Rob Marsh: Let’s talk about doing it for clients, you know, so that we’re helping them. And, you know, if we want to extrapolate from that, OK, this is how we would also do this kind of thing. We can do that. But yeah, how do we help our clients create great case studies? Dana Owens: Yeah, well, so the first thing is, I mean, like I said, there’s not a business in operation that cannot benefit from case studies, from having them as sales enablement tools and marketing tools in their business. That goes for product-based businesses, service-based businesses. If there’s a company, even a business owner who’s just getting started and they have one happy client, they have someone to create a case study around. So it’s really applicable to anybody and any business. And so from the standpoint of a copywriter, let’s say you’ve been hired on to do anything. You can always suggest an additional product. or an additional, you know, deliverable to a company that you’re working with, like, Hey, have you ever thought about creating case studies? So it’s a great way to continue working with the company that you love and just add value for them. Because I’ve, you know, even though case studies is like a buzzword and you go to so many websites these days and you see there’s like a case study tab on their web, their website. It doesn’t mean at all that the case studies up there are well done and done in a strategic fashion. So for any copywriter, it’s the chances of you being able to add value to your client by creating case studies for them is like almost assured. But the way to do it is just, you know, when you’re in there in a copywriting project, you have access to a lot of typically client research. Sometimes you’re doing your own client interviews, all of that stuff. You’re literally sitting right there at the front door of being able to take what you’re learning about their clients and turn it into a case study. So the first thing is just whatever it is you brought in to do, whether it’s a sales sequence or it’s a sales page or it’s, you know, a website copy, or even just a one sheet on like a company’s product or whatever. If you have any access to client feedback for any of those projects, look for the wins, look for client quotes or client feedback about the experience they’ve had with the company itself, with the product or service, and then just look for, can you kind of piece together the story arc of Where the client was, you know, was there a picture of what life looks like before the product or service came into their life? Do you, through the active working with the company and learning about their services, can you kind of see what, what is unique about it and how clients have used it or experienced it? And then are you starting to see the outcomes that a client has had through you know, working with the company and their products and services. And if you can see that story arc, it’s such an easy pitch just to say, Hey, can I put this together in the form of case study for you? And, and you can use this as a sales announcement tool or however you want. Um, so that’s what I would get started. Really. It’s just looking at the story overall of the product or service within a company. And if you can figure out these are the common challenges, this is how the solution fits into solving them. and these are the common outcomes and results that a client typically has, boom, like walk through that door and create a case study about it. Rob Marsh: So where are, I mean, you mentioned everybody can use case studies. There are case studies out there, but a bunch of them aren’t that great. Where are people making mistakes with case studies? Like what separates the good from the bad? What is it that makes it bad? Dana Owens: Yeah, okay, I am super passionate about this. Number one, there’s like, just the word, like when you hear case studies, it does. And I hear Joel Klettke talk about this all the time. Like case studies just sounds so clinical and it’s true. It really does. Customer success stories. It’s like, there’s so much, it’s so much of a better, friendlier term. And I try to use that wherever I can, but I’ve recognized that like most people do know the term case studies. And so. So many times when I try to shift the language to use customer success stories, people still bring it right back to case studies. But when you think about case studies and just that term, it sounds so dusty and boring and often jargony and clinical. And so. The bad case studies are all that, all of that boring stuff. But one thing is to make case studies truly compelling. I’ve been so passionate in my process. hinges on having a direct interview with whoever my clients’ clients are. So the biggest mistake that I see companies making with their case studies is that they try to create them in-house. And, you know, of course, like you’ve got copywriters on staff sometimes or content writers on staff or anybody on staff. Sometimes people, you know, put VAs in charge of this or whoever is available. And they’re like, Oh, let’s create some case studies to give to the sales team or to use like, you know, for the business owner to use when they’re in sales calls. But the biggest mistake is creating your own case studies in house. When you have an out, and this is an opportunity for any independent copywriter. Who’s not on someone’s staff. When you have an outside person who knows what they’re doing, mind you write and create your case studies for you. You are. bringing a neutral third party in with a totally neutral ear, one, to help you gather insights from your customers. That’s one big benefit. But also, it just puts your client, whoever you’re interviewing, at ease because it’s so much less awkward for them to talk about the service or product that they’ve used. Typically, when you’re talking directly to the company about the service, You wanted to talk about all the good stuff. Rob Marsh: Yeah, you can’t be honest. At least you feel like you have to put a good spin on it, right? Dana Owens: Yeah, but when you’re talking to someone like me or another copywriter who’s not associated with the business, I’ve learned that there’s a lot more comfortability and there’s so much more candid in what they say. So rule number one is when you have someone outside of the house doing your case studies, you get so much better insights that make the case study more compelling. But you’re also able to tell the case study from the vantage point of the customer instead of the company. So the biggest thing is when companies do their own case studies in-house, it’s yet another way that the business is talking about itself. And that is what just gets my goat because it’s like companies talk about themselves all day long in everything they do. They talk about themselves on their sales calls. They talk about themselves on the website. They talk about themselves, you know, in all of their marketing collateral. And case studies are one avenue. If you do them through the vantage point of the customer, that you have a tool that can connect peer to peer with your prospect. So don’t give up that opportunity. And so compelling case studies are told through the customer’s perspective. So you do have that connection point with your prospect. That’s number one. The second thing that makes for a good case study is making sure that it is formatted in a way, if you’re doing a written written case study, where it’s even a video case study where it’s actually consumable. So much of the time I’ll see that someone will take the time to have a case study created and then they put it up directly on their website as just this giant wall of text, super small font. And it’s like, no one is going to read that. Rob Marsh: Or it looks like a white paper, you know, maybe they create a PDF or something and it just looks like a white paper. Dana Owens: It’s so boring. There’s no graphics. There’s no like, oh yeah, it’s. Boring things don’t get consumed. It goes back to even if you have a one page case study, if it’s super boring and not told through the perspective of the customer, like it’s not going to get read. And then same thing with video. If you do a video case study, but the case, the video is like three minutes long and it goes into every, there’s not a lot of flow or story arc to video. It’s someone’s going to watch 20 seconds of it and be done. So compelling case studies actually get consumed. But the last thing about a compelling case study—and I’m sure we can talk more about this—is compelling cases actually get used. They get used as sales enablement tools. And so what I see so much is people will take the time to create the case study, but then they slap them up on their website. And sometimes they beautifully build them into their website. So I don’t mean to say they always slap them up, but they put them up on their website alone and think, okay, case studies are meant to live on your website. But when they’re up there, you are literally hoping that someone finds it and clicks on it. And my whole thing with my case studies, these are sales enablement tools. First, I’m going to teach you how to put these things in your sales process and use them. How so that you can close sales, not use them the first and foremost as a marketing play and pray that somebody connects with it. And so another, the third biggest mistake is that people only associate case studies with marketing and not with sales. Rob Marsh: So let me ask you about that. So as a copywriter, do you actually jump into Salesforce or any of these other sales tools and say, this is where it goes. It’s going to be sent out at this point in the sales process. Like you’re getting that deep into the sales conversation. Dana Owens: That’s where my work has gone. I didn’t start out that way. Five years ago, when I put my flag on the case study planet, I wasn’t, and now I’m going to become a sales enablement consultant. In the beginning, it was like, oh, companies need a way to showcase the results that they’ve had and case studies can do it. Everything was just about talking to you know, running these client interviews and creating the case studies. And then I would say, there you go. Look at this amazing case study. Like, let me know if you need anything. And then I would disappear and people would be thrilled to have this case study. But I realized over time that I was like, wait a minute, like they’re only putting these things on their website. Like these can help you close sales. And so it was over the course of, you know, the first two years of me doing case study work that I thought, Oh, and this is another thing to talk about, like the evolution of any form of copywriting. When you, this all comes with experience too. Like you started out saying, I love to do sales pages and I want to do sales pages. Or for me, it was, I love case studies and I want to do case studies. When you really start to specialize in one area. You go in with the vantage point of, for me, it was all about the case studies, but, but as you go, you start to see all of the gaps that come up. either their front end or the back end. So the first thing for me was, oh, companies not only need these tools, I got to teach them how to use them. I can’t just hand them off and like think they’re going to use them effectively. And my results that I can use to market my own business and sell my own case studies rely on my customers using them correctly. So I can’t just deliver the case study and say adios, like I’ve got to help them use them effectively. Then it became, oh, these customers are coming to me and saying, I love what you’ve done. How can we make the case study even more compelling? How can we include data? And then it was like, well, what kind of data have you been collecting? And they would say, no. Rob Marsh: Yeah, of course. Dana Owens: So then it was like, oh, another opportunity for me to add even more value for my clients. I can help them recognize the outcomes that they want to be known for to differentiate themselves. And then I can help them think of simple systems that they can put in place that will gather data that we can use in our case studies. And that’s kind of great work stability for me, too, because the more data they’re collecting, the more results they clearly see, and the more case studies they need me to help them with. So it works both ways. Going back to your question about how to use the case studies, that was what resulted over the couple of years of me starting to do this. And I became really passionate about helping companies figure out what, and this was so interesting because you just, I just thought naively like, well, of course every company knows what their sales process is. You’re like, they’re in business. Right. And then, and then I put myself through this process and this is how I developed the process at all. And I was like, Well, what’s my sales process? And then I thought, well, I’m sure I’ve got one here somewhere cause I’m making sales, but like, what is it actually? So I really sat down and plotted out and it turned out there were like three different sales processes that I had given how people find me. And I took myself through the process. And then I asked myself, well, where, if someone is going to fall off of one of these processes, where do they fall off? And there was typically one or two big spots where they were going to fall off. And it was like, okay, that’s where my case studies go to help to move, continue to move the conversation along or provide that, you know, the proof that somebody needs that I’m legit or whatever it is, you know, whatever buyer hesitation there is, the case studies, you implement them there to remove that hesitation. And so I just use that same process with my clients. where it’s like, okay, here are your case studies. Please don’t just put them on your website and think that’s the only thing to do with them. Let’s, now I do a call at the end of my process and it’s like, let’s really map out your sales process. No, I’m not, I don’t call myself a sales consultant. So like a sales consultant is going to go way deeper into this than I would. But as far as the case studies go, I have them, let’s map out even just one of your sales processes. Let’s highlight if someone’s going to fall off, where do they fall off? And then let’s put a process in place for where you insert your case studies into that and what you say specifically. That gets these in front of people’s eyes, you know? And so, um, yeah, I teach them that too. I don’t want there to be any holes from somebody saying, Thank you so much for your product. And then when I follow up with them and I say, well, how’s it been working for you? And they go, I don’t know. I do not want them to say that. Rob Marsh: I love this. I mean, you know, because you went through the process with us, but in The Copywriter Accelerator, we talk about the different ways that you can show up in your business as a partner for your client or as an order taker at the low end or at the high end, really, as a consultant, as a partner who helps figure out solutions to big problems. And it’s really easy to say, well, I write case studies and that’s a solution to a problem, but you’ve gone wider to identify what’s the real problem, which is they need sales. And yes, a case study will help them get there, but if they’re not using it, It doesn’t help them all that much. And so I think it’s genius to jump inside the tools that they’re using. Not only that, though, of course, you’re writing case studies and you love that. But if you’re in a Salesforce tool and you’re looking at the entire sales automation process, you can say, wait a second, why isn’t an email going out between week one and week five? Why would you let a whole month go by without reaching out to a hot prospect? And you can start to say, well, OK, maybe it’s not a case study that fits in here, but we need to start telling them about this demo that we have or talk about some of the benefits that they’re going to get. And so it’s an opportunity to create a ton of work for yourself if you want it. And you said you don’t call yourself a consultant here, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. Dana Owens: Oh, no, I do. I do. Now I do. Rob Marsh: OK, good. Dana Owens: Now I am a hundred, like, that’s like my biggest joy is being the, as getting in there in the strategy. But I couldn’t have done that in the beginning because I had to work with all of those clients first. And I had to have, start with the, it was all about the deliverable, but that’s, that’s the, you’re in, you know? And it’s like that with the deliverable is what I loved, but in going through client after client and getting inside their business, That’s where you, over time, you start to see where the holes are. You know, you think your deliverable is filling the biggest hole and maybe it is, but when you’re in there, you recognize, oh, there’s this issue that needs to be fixed and this, and then all of a sudden you understand the full picture. And that’s when you become the, that’s when I became a strategist. I won’t speak for anyone else. But one thing that you said about, you know, you. When you’re in there and you start to take on more of the consultative role, You definitely, and you’re, you see the gaps that need to be filled and how they can be filled and you create more work for yourself. What I’ve learned you also can do, and this has been so huge for my business is you also. Find really great, like collaborative partners for yourself, strategic alliances. So I never went into this thinking that my best collaborative partners were going to be sales consultants or sales coaches. They absolutely are. And so now I’ve learned to, when I network or I’m talking to people or who I reach out to, to just start conversations with on LinkedIn or wherever is I am a perfect pairing with the sales coach because they’re, they’re the ones that do the deep nitty gritty with the sales process. And I don’t really want to get in there and dig through your CRM as much as I want to help you strategically select the right clients. to get insights from and leverage in your case studies. But like for sales coaches, they’re in there. They’re in this business working on the sales process. They’re the ones that say, oh my gosh, you’ve had X, Y, and Z amazing client result. We need to bring in Dana to help you package these up. And then she’s going to work side by side with me in the sales process to figure out how to use these tools and the right way to get these prospects from a maybe to a yes. And so these, like aligning with just a couple sales consultants has changed my business because I just, it’s them and growth strategists. I just get the steady stream of referrals from these people because it’s just such a natural way for them to add value to their clients by bringing me in. And I, um, I can seriously help their process by doing what I do. Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes total sense. The one other thing that occurs to me as you’re talking about this entire process is that clients may think that they can use an AI tool to write a case study, but very few clients are going to be able to figure out how to use AI to go through the entire sales process and identify, okay, here’s a need here and here’s a need here. I’m sure that there are tools out there that can do it, but stringing them together to produce the result would take way more work than hiring Dana to come and do this for me. And so it just makes so much sense as a service offering for a copywriter who does the work that you do, case studies. Dana Owens: Yeah. Well, I still like when I think about AI taking over case studies and customer success stories, it makes me sad because I would never like there is so much benefit to a business by having an actual human being talk to their clients. And, you know, of course, like, that’s one thing I just AI or not, like, you should never outsource that to Yeah, to anyone because or I mean, outsource it to a human, like, you should never like circumvent that. and not have a human being to do it just because it builds trust. Like it makes your client feel so valued. The company itself gets these valuable insights and then you have an actual human strategist who’s putting all of these connections together for you. But yeah, you can feed this transcript into AI and have AI generate the case study for you. But I just, I like anything. I mean, it’s efficiency sake, heck yes. You know, like you could generate a whole bunch of case studies that way. And that’s if that benefits your business, then more power to you. But I’m all about really strategizing, not having you don’t need to have at least not the companies I work with have a million case studies. You really can can do so much with just a strategically created three to five that are very specific and targeted. And I still feel like it is so so helpful to have a human being putting together. If you do have that small collection, having human right position, connect with those stories, like AI cannot do that yet. Cannot connect in that way. So yeah, that’s all I have to say about that. Rob Marsh: Yeah. Until then, until then we need more Dana’s out there doing this stuff. So, just a last point of discussion. When it comes to copywriters charging to do this work, I’ve seen a really wide range. In fact, I’ve experienced a really wide range. I’ve done case studies, I think, on the low end for like $750 for two to three pages. I’ve charged $5,000 with one company for a case study that I did for them. Big executive coaching company, right? It was totally appropriate. but there’s this massive range. What should most copywriters expect to be or where should they be when they’re talking to companies about, well, B, I’m wording this terribly, but what should they be charging and how much can they make? Dana Owens: Well, I think if you’re just getting into it, like I think when I just started doing this, I remember I was working at Amy Posner. She was my writing coach at the time. And I remember her saying, well, what can the market bear? And she threw out there, 750 bucks. And I remember thinking, Oh, gosh, I hope that’s not like the going rate for case studies, because I’m not going to be able to do this for long. But I think I did start out charging $750 per case study. And it was probably like a 1200 word, you know, case study. That was a great place for me to start. Because I look back on my entry level case studies, and they’re so much more in depth now not and I don’t mean long, I just mean juicier and what I pull out of my client interviews is so much juicier and the design is improved and the positioning is improved. But to get started, I felt like it was, I felt really good about 750 and it wasn’t so much that I felt like it had to be this Pulitzer prize winning case study. But I, once I, once I started to get really good feedback, like, dang, this is great. I started to increase, increase. And so. I would say like a really solid rate for a case study, again, in like your first year, 18 months would be like 1500. Now I’m easily charging 25 to 3,500 for a, I call them full story case studies or like the more in-depth case studies. Um, but I, now I, everything for me is about working with companies who are ready to jump in and do a collection of case studies. And so those projects for me are, you know, anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 for a collection of case studies. And now I, I feel like I’m being paid for my strategy. I’m being paid for my interviewing skills. I’m being paid for my writing and project management skills. And like I said, helping them insert that these, these tools into their sales process. So, so the sky’s the limit really, because everyone says you want it as close as you can get to the sale. That’s like the best place to be. And case studies, if you position them, which I do for a sales enablement tools, you are right there in there with the sale. So you, this, you can charge a lot as long as you have the experience, you know, you gotta, you gotta hone your, hone your skill first. Rob Marsh: I mean, in a lot of ways, case study is just sort of a mini sales page, right? It’s not 15,000 words. Well, I guess a case study could be 15,000 words as long as it’s that compelling and there’s all that information that needs to be shared, but probably not. But yeah, it’s a mini sales page and if you can tie it directly to the sale, you should be able to charge more for it. So that’s awesome. Dana Owens: Yeah. Rob Marsh: So I know you’ve got a resource that might help out some copywriters who would be interested in doing more case studies and doing them professionally, not just handing over a Google Doc saying, here you go. Tell us about that and how people can get a hold of that if they’re interested. Dana Owens: Yeah. So I just wanted to, this was like two years ago now, I wanted to create a resource that, because I was getting so many questions from copywriters about, hey, what interview questions do you ask? And can you tell me like how you How can I help companies strategically pick the right clients to feature in case studies? So I was getting the same questions over and over. And so I decided to put together a do it yourself. It’s a digital workbook. It’s actually interactive and it takes, it’s my whole process, but it’s, it goes through, um, an interactive worksheets and it teaches you all of the different portions of my product, my process. and basically teaches you how to write your own one page case study. It was a little bit too difficult to figure out how do you teach someone to write a 1500 word case study, but a one pager is a great place to start. So it’s a, it’s a self paced, but it’s a digital interactive workbook. And it’s kind of cool. Like it teaches you how by section, how to write the case study. And then at the end of the workbook, it spits out your case study text. So not only can you create case studies for your own copywriting business, but if you’re a copywriter who wants to incorporate case study writing into your bag of tricks, it teaches you my process that you can use with some of your copywriting clients. And it’s at a really, you know, approachable price point. And the best thing about it is you can take yourself through the process. And then at the end, you can hit clear. All the copy is cleared and you can go back and use the workbook again and again. So, um, yeah, you can find that on my website. It’s nextlevelcopy.com. And I’m always, my inbox is always open to talk to anybody about the workbook. If you go through it and you have questions, like I, my inbox is free to anyone. And I love to respond because I love to talk about case studies. Rob Marsh: That’s awesome, Dana. We’ll make sure that people go check that out. We’ll link to it in the show notes in case somebody’s not able to scribble this down while they’re out running or driving or doing something else. But make sure that people can check that out and your website, Next Level Copy. Is that the best place to find you? Should we also be looking on LinkedIn? Dana Owens: Yeah, my website is a great place emailing me. I’m, you know, an avid emailer. So that’s Dana at nextlevelcopy.com. And then I’m also at LinkedIn. on LinkedIn and my handle is nextlevelcopy, all one word, all lowercase. Rob Marsh: Everywhere you are. Thanks, Dana. This has been amazing and really enlightening, actually, especially on how copywriters can expand out of that doing the work, just showing up to be told what to do and actually start to advise and consult with clients in a bigger way. So thank you. Dana Owens: Yep. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been fun. Rob Marsh: That’s a wrap on the interview. Now, you obviously heard about how Dana is connected with sales enablement coaches to get the kind of work that she wants to do. You may not want to work with sales coaches yourself, but what about SEO strategists or launch managers or email list managers or any of a variety of other marketing jobs that help define what kind of content needs to be created for a client, but they may not have the time or even the skills to do that work. If you can connect with three or four of these people, you’ll have more work as a copywriter than you can actually get to. And then you’ll be the person that’s sharing leads with other copywriters. Partnering with the right people is a game changer for copywriters. In fact, it’s one of the 20 plus ways that we share in the ways to find clients in that free download that I mentioned at the top of the show. If you’re looking for other ways to connect with your ideal clients, go to thecopyrighterclub.com forward slash findaclient to get your report now. Then try the different ideas and see what works for you. That’s thecopyrighterclub.com/findaclient. Thanks again to Dana Owens for sharing so much about her business, how to write case studies, what exactly the niching has done for her and her business, and so much more. You can connect with Dana at her website, nextlevelcopy.com. She’s got a freebie on her site, but it’s not really for copywriters. It’s because she’s a true expert. She understands that her clients don’t want stuff about copy. They want to understand how to use the work that she does to help them grow. So the freebie is all about how to use case studies to promote your business. You can sign up for that if you want, or you can find her on LinkedIn where she posts from time to time.  

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