The Copywriter Club Podcast

Back by popular demand, Tepsii is in the house for the 76th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. If you’ve been following along at home you know that she was our guest once before (on our 27th episode), but Kira and Rob wanted to follow up and see how her business has changed in the past year. Here's what we talked about: •  how she got started as a copywriter, business coach, and entrepreneur •  how she makes money in her business today •  why she started working with her husband in her business and what he’s doing •  why she wouldn’t recommend that others follow her path and what she thinks you should do instead •  the systems (and tools) she uses to keep her business running smoothly •  why she uses a checklist to move her clients through all the processes in her business •  what she does with her membership community (and the mistakes she made) •  why you shouldn’t launch “cheap” products just because your clients ask for them •  the impact that depression had on her personally and in her business •  the first steps to take to build a compelling personal brand •  why she thinks the future of copywriting is offline, not online •  why she talks about money with the entrepreneurs she coaches Plus don’t miss the moment when Rob accidentally calls Tepsii out on her personal brand and how reframing her beliefs around “rights” helped her share her political beliefs with her clients in an authentic way. If you want to hear this one, you’ve got to click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Tepsii’s first TCC Podcast H&M’s tone-deaf ad DIY The Law Selena Soo Trello Streak CMS Born to Convert Ramit Sethi Jeff Bezos Fabiola Giodani Tepsii.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 76 as we talk for a second time with a copywriter who only needs one name—Tepsii, about what’s happened in her business over the past year; the importance of business systems; why she created a paid community for heart-centered entrepreneurs; and her no-brainer tips for creating a premium brand. Kira: Tepsii, welcome! Welcome back! Rob: Hey, Tepsii. Tepsii: Thank you so much for having me; I can’t believe it’s seventy-six episodes. Congratulations! I feel so honored to be number seventy-six! Kira: Laughs. Rob: Seventy-six and twenty-seven! You were one of the first people who dared to join us when we first started out to talking with copywriters, so we’re excited to hear what’s happened since we last talked. But I think we want to start maybe with just a brief introduction to your story, for those who maybe haven’t heard episode number twenty-seven yet. Tepsii: So my story—when I came here, we talked a lot about how I started my business largely by accident, and how for me, you know, starting this business, I knew I wanted to “freedom lifestyle”. I knew I wanted a sense of connection with, you know, people around me who were like-minded, and I didn’t know exactly what that was going to look like, so I had some stumbles and some hiccups on the way to starting this online business. I was able to start by really saying “yes” to someone who saw talent in me, that I did not see myself. So, they just has this sense, this feeling, that I could be a good writer, a good copywriter, and they took a chance on me and, based on that chance, I have grown a business that has sustained me and my family for the past almost three years in March. And, it’s kind of come full circle with so many different things and skills that I’ve been able to lean into, so, starting with the copywriting, I moved into business coaching when people started asking me, you know, “Why is your business successful and why are you known? Can you help me as well?” So I moved into the business coaching, and I did that exclusively for a while, and I realized I missed the copywriting. I had a copywriting course that I was launching and teaching it, but I wanted the hands-on piece, and my goal this year is to build an agency, and to center and highlight other copywriters. And my biggest interest is getting messages out into the from people of color, because we’re seeing all this hiccups from these companies, like H&M. You know, they allowed a tee shirt to go out that said, “The coolest monkey in the jungle”, or something like that, and with a black kid, which is really tone-deaf, and so totally insensitive, and racist too. And these things are happening time and time again; there was a Dove ad last year, and so to me, this says we need more people of color represented in these spaces, sharing these messages, and being the ones to really filter the messages so that we can have copywriting as more of a tool of understanding, and, you know, the whole point of communication is to share meaning. And so I want that meaning to be something that impacts people positively, so...that’s kind of where I come from, where I’ve been. I hope that’s a good synopsis. I’m based in South Africa: Pretoria, South Africa, and I was raised in the U.S. So, my lens is really an interesting one to look through when we talk about what’s going on in the world right now, and I’m so excited to be here on this podcast. Kira: Yeah, and Tepsii, you’re last interview was one of my favorites, and a favorite for a lot of our listeners and mostly because you were so open and just shared lessons learned, and some of the really hard lessons from starting your business from scratch. So can you just share where you are today as far as structurally, what does your business look like? Like, how are you making your money today? Tepsii: So, my money today comes in a variety of different ways. I have recurring payments from my mastermind, and so the mastermind has people who enroll for twelve weeks at a time. We meet weekly, usually it’s rolling enrollment, so, I get a chunk of money from those people, and what I didn’t like at first was that I allowed people to do a payment plan over, like, twelve months for something that was $5,000 and I thought at first, “Oh my gosh, these payments are going to take forever,” you know, it’s not going to feel like I have real money. But when, you know, different things are happening, and I have these payments come through, it’s so awesome; it’s like “Oh my gosh, Christmas!” Because, I have these recurring payments. So I have a chunk of my business in that way; we have a chunk of business that comes from the copywriting; people have found me really easily through me not even trying. I don’t know much about SEO, I’ve never been really an SEO copywriter, but I’ve got a lot of clients emailing me saying, “I searched for ‘female copywriter’, and you came up. I checked out your work, and I hired you.” So, I am doing copywriting, probably like two-thirds of my business comes from the recurring payments from membership community and from my mastermind, and then one-third comes from copywriting. And, the mastermind—the membership community—is something that I’m...we’re going to talk about later. And something that I might be shutting down and restarting. I don’t know; things are always shifting and I think that’s important to remember as...if you’re working in your business and you’re feeling bad, or something, you know, is coming up for you, because you don’t know exactly where you’re going at the current moment, it happens to all of us. Even people who’ve been around for a little while. Rob: And, I might be mistake, but I think you and Mr. Tepsii have added some systems training to your business as well that he does some teaching for, is that correct? Tepsii: Yes, so he—out of necessity—well, I don’t know. I just kind of like held a—laughs—a gun to his head and I was like, “Listen, you’re going to learn online marketing dude.” And... Kira: Laughs. Tepsii: Laughs. …so he was totally interested in the beginning. But when he saw, like... He likes technical things, and so he learned how to make websites, and he learned graphics, and he learned Facebook advertising, and funnels, and all these things. And he was doing them for me, and they were working, right? I’m having these launches, and they were successful; people are watching going, “How are you doing all this?” And I was like, “I’m doing all of it because of Mr. Tepsii. And so, he’s a lawyer by trade, so he has a business called DIY The Law. And he sells a course, a legal course, and he does trademark and intellectual property for entrepreneurs through that, and then, because he just loved the systems side, we also launched that, which is sort of a plus for the people who joined my mastermind, or my membership community, because those systems pieces are the ones that are toughest for creative entrepreneurs. My mind certainly doesn’t think in terms of systems, and his mind does. He kind of breaks things down logically. So, very natural for him to offer that; as well as we created some WordPress templates, like, website templates for sales pages, about pages, home pages...all the pages you need on your website, and it’s cool because when somebody purchases it, they can get, kind of, the framework that I do copywriting, and they can DIY their copywriting, and DIY their website. And so he created that as well in conjunction with a partner I have, who’s based in India. So, those systems pieces? So necessary. I don’t know where my business would be without him and the systems piece. So, that’s where a lot of us.... because we don’t have systems, we don’t know what we’re doing,

We’re sneaking in an episode between 75 and 76 this week, because copywriter Allison Comotto is speaking at the The Copywriter Club In Real Life event this week and we wanted to introduce her before she takes the stage. She’s given us a sneak preview of her presentation and let’s just say we’re really looking forward to it. In this interview, Rob and Kira ask her about: •  how she got hired as an in-house copywriter right out of college •  the rigorous interview process she went through •  what the day-to-day work is like as a new copywriter at Stansberry •  her advice about how to “get the gig” and what not to do •  the importance of having a mentor as you start your copy career •  the difference between the various Agora companies •  the biggest surprise she’s had since starting her job at Stansberry •  how she’s taken on new responsibilities over the past 8 months •  what her copywriting process looks like •  the place that formulas and frameworks play in the Stansberry writing process •  the big lesson about failure that she learned early on •  how she finds the “big ideas” for her copy •  the size of the opportunity for copywriters at Agora •  what compensation looks like at Stansberry (she shares the numbers) As we were wrapping up our interview, Allison “went off script” and told us what she really thinks about living and working in Baltimore. And she shared an assignment for any listeners who might want work for Stansberry Research. Ready for this one? Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Stansberry Copy Bootcamp Stansberry Research Mike Palmer End of America Patrick Bove Agora Joe Schriefer Agora’s Recruiter Email: talent@14west.us Allison’s LinkedIn Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for a special unnumbered episode, as we talk with in-house copywriter Allison Comotto about how she ended up working as a copywriter, landing a job at Stansberry Research, what she does on a daily basis, and whether the Agora companies really are the mecca of copywriting. Kira: Welcome Allison. Rob: Hey Allison! Allison: Hey, thanks for having me! Kira: It’s great to have you, Allison. So, let’s start with your story, and how you ended up as a copywriter. Allison: I mean, I know that a lot of people say that they kind of fall into a career, especially in something like copywriting, but I mean, there is really no other way to describe the way I kind of fell; it’s a very short, steep hill in me becoming a copywriter. I was a senior at Hopkins last spring, and I was in the thick of the senior-year job hunt, and I was a writing major. So my whole focus was in poetry, and professional writing, which definitely had more of a corporate feel. So I was writing everything from marketing plans to persuasive papers, that kind of thing. And then I did a minor in marketing communication, because I really like the creativity of marketing, how it is constantly evolving...it was really nice foil to all the liberal arts classes I was taking along with them. And as for general work experience, obviously it was limited because I was still in college, but it was all mostly in PR and communications, so I was a PR intern at a local ad agency. That was a very traditional PR, like, cold-calling small-newspapers across the country and getting hung up on. That kind of thing. And then I was a global communications intern for UnderArmor, which was kind of a fancy description of someone who packed up and sent dozens of pairs of shoes to important magazines, and other media outlets all over the world. So I liked PR a lot, and I think it’s a great field for someone who loves people like they do. But when you’re in PR, the story kind of arrives on your lap fully baked, and all that’s left to do it put it out. And I had a much greater interest in crafting the story myself, and this route all four years of college, and, even at these sort of more pigeon-holed internships, I found myself kind of hustling my way into what I realize now are more copy-oriented projects. I wrote blogs for Hopkins submissions; I wrote website copy for Under Armor’s B-to-B websites; kind of of whisked myself onto all the creatives at the ad agency I was working at, so, really anything I could do to take more ownership of that, more appealing storytelling component of marketing PR, that was what I wanted to do. And then sort of out of the blue, thanks to some sort of algorithm, I got an email from Glassdoor about the Stansberry Copywriter Boot-camp. I would strongly encourage anybody to Google that job description because it is straight-up awesome copy. It was essentially a sales letter from Mike Palmer encouraging you to give copy a try, if you were a voracious reader, a really hard worker, a self-starter, an entrepreneur looking for a home...and it essentially sounded like an opportunity to get paid, get your PhD and what’s arguably the most pervasive and lucrative writing and storytelling that there is. And he didn’t mention anything about finance or experience level, which is great, because I had none of that; like, a really high-based salary for somebody straight out of college looking at agency positions. And I remember I sent it to my mom, and I was like, “I don’t have the complete picture, but who does this sound like? I have got to try this.” So I sent him everything and heard back about a week later, and for the boot-camp itself, we had to submit, something like ten ads, and two leads, and flat portrayals for a couple of their most successful packages at that time. I totally thought I was in over my head. I had no idea what an “advertorial” was. I didn’t know a thing about finance or the stock market. I’d been reading poetry for four years in the library. And I was really just doing as much reading and research as I could possibly fit alongside midterms for those two weeks of prep and just got sick, most of it. The boot-camp itself was kind of crazy intense, a two-day affair. It started with a happy hour, and like, there was something like four hundred applicants laying by the back fifteen. And I remember sort of mingling and learning everybody’s name and background and I watched them just kind of write me off as soon as I mentioned that I was still in college and had absolutely zero experience at anything close to writing long-form direct sales copy, especially in the financial sector. Then the next day we took all the work that we had submitted as like, for the back assignments for the boot-camp. And we edited it all in groups; there’s really intense group breakout sessions. And I remember just trying to contribute as much as humanly possible, and I know I really recalled that half of my sessions were marked as either “neutral” or actually having a negative effect on the copy we were reviewing. But it just meant more to get you thoughts and feelings out there, and trying to be remembered after the interview and, we had these speed-dating interviews with every member of the Stansberry copy team; we went to a baseball game... I mean it was really something else, in terms of any job interview that I had ever had. And then, on the following Wednesday, I just got called in for a very intense one-on-one interview with Mike, and that night they offered me the job, and then, I’ve been kind of trying to learn copy and I go that uphill battle ever sense. Rob: So, I’m assuming you had no idea that Agora or Stansberry was this awesome place to develop copywriters, where copywriters around the world really want to work... you just kind of found it through sheer luck, in some ways? Allison: Yeah, and it’s funny because, the summer after my sophomore year of college, I actually worked at an internship at Agora without even really understanding what that meant. It was this editorial position; I did social media, and posted e-letters and stuff like that, for like five hours a day for like three months. And all of their copywriters were freelance, so I just never even looked at copy, touched copy, did not understand that side of the business at all; never watched a BSL... So it’s crazy to kind of put together this picture and be like, “Wait, I ended up back here? And I’m a copywriter here now? And, I’m working in finance as opposed to health?” And so I had gotten this little piece, but it was nothing like what’s like to be a copywriter. That’s the story. Rob: Yeah, I love the story. So, I want to know week one, you know, first day, second day...did you jump into copy? I imagine you’re drinking from the fire hose. Tell us about those first few days. Allison: For sure, yeah. They were definitely thrown into the deep end and start treading water kind of situations. So, we initially were structured where we each had a copy mentor who was one of the more experienced. We called them experience-juniors or experience writers; they’ve been around writing copy for four, five, six years. My mentor was out for the first week. So, I definitely felt like I was sitting there, not really twiddling my thumbs because we had assignments we had to work on everyday, so I wrote a list one day, an editorial the next day, a lead the next day, and we would sort peer review with all of our other juniors there. There are six juniors on the team, four hired from the copy boot-camp, and two others came in a little before that, but we’re all pretty much the same experience level. And so,

Copywriter Brit McGinnis steps out of the club's Facebook group to join Rob and Kira for the 75th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. (Don’t look now but we’re three quarters of the way to 100.) We cover a lot of ground in this wide ranging interview, including: •  how Brit went from journalism to virtual assistant to social media and copywriter •  what her business looks like today (typical clients, typical projects) •  why you might want to work as a virtual assistant •  what you need to know BEFORE you start working with a virtual assistant •  her thoughts on starting and growing a great online community •  how to get the most out of our Facebook group •  the rules of Facebook etiquette that she wishes everyone knew •  what copywriters should do to step up their social media game •  why we should be thinking about Pinterest more than we probably do •  what’s going on with Facebook ads (the ad glut) •  how her business has changed since joining The Copywriter Accelerator •  what copywriters who are struggling with boundaries could be doing differently •  why she stepped into her role as “the horror copywriter” •  her advice to copywriters who are thinking about their personal brands •  what we need to know about the cannabis market We also asked Brit about the mistakes she’s seen copywriters make in their careers—stuff you definitely don’t want to be doing. We say this a lot, but it’s yet another good one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: BlackBow Communications Madmen The Copywriter Accelerator Twitter Kat Wells Brene Brown League of Legends Night Mind The ABCs of Cannibis Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 75 as we chat with copywriter Brit McGuiness about leaving journalism and embracing the strange; what she does for her social media clients; how to not suck at Pinterest; and why she owns two Texas Chainsaw Massacre t-shirts! Kira: Welcome Brit! Rob: Hey Brit! Brit: Hello; good morning. Welcome. Kira: Great to have you here as one of our team members, and the “face” in the Facebook community: the community manager! So we’re really excited, about to learn more about your strange life and Texas Chainsaw Massacre t-shirts! To start, Brit, can you just share your story? How did you end up creating Black Bow Communications? Brit: Absolutely, and first let me say I’m sorry for saying ‘welcome’ just now; I’m very excited to be here, so that just stumbled out! Kira: (Laughs). It’s okay! Rob: We’re so glad to be here on your podcast too, Brit. Kira: (Laughs.) Rob: That’s kind of awesome. Brit: (Laughs.) Well, I love working with podcasts and it’s always fun to see and hear the millions of different intros. In fact—segue—I ended up listening to podcasts all throughout college, and I actually started wanting to work in public radio. So, I took up a great internship there in my college, all the while working in journalism, and just wanting to learn and absorb everything I could about different kinds of media. The first copywriting-based thing I really took on was when I lived in Ireland for a little while in junior year of college. I worked with a media company that managed the content and social media for the Irish government, of all places. And I had this underlying conflict of, “Wow, I love creating content; I love being a journalist, but, I was also the person who would stay up late and play with HootSuite in my dorm room, so, it was always a question of how do I reconcile all of these different interests. And, I really only thought of copywriting as something I could do honestly when I started watching Mad Men in senior year of college. That was about peak Mad Men. And I watched that, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s kind of the perfect marriage of art and content and crunching numbers”, and all that, but I still didn’t work in advertising up until about three years ago. I’d spend a lot of time floating as a virtual assistant, and just again, basically trying to learn, trying to find what I wanted to do, all the while just trying to learn different disciplines because I wanted to give things a chance. I wanted to learn all these different things. So once I made the leap to copywriting, which was right around the time I joined The Copywriting Accelerator, oddly enough, I was ready and I had all these different cross-discipline skills. So it’s great, and I’m really happy to be a copywriter now, but I’ve had a very, very windy path. Rob: What does your typical client look like today, Brit, and what’s the typical thing you’re doing for them, you know, whether it’s copy or social media management; what does that look like? Brit: Well a lot times people come to me asking for advice or guidance on how to—as weirdly enough with my own path—asking how to do I marry my desire to make content or, my desire to have a really connected brand, with this need to promote it; with this need to have a presence.... Basically, what do I need to do within the basic requirements do really just do what I want to do? A lot of times that bloggers; a lot of times that entrepreneurs. I’ve had very small companies come to me. I’m looking to work with bigger companies all the time just because I want to push myself, but a lot of times I find that just smaller companies and even solo-preneurs are the most eager to marry the technical skill with the artistic skill, for lack of a better phrase. Kira: Brit, I’d like to hear about your time as a virtual assistant, and what you learned from that experience that you’ve carried into your business today. Brit: Well, it’s a great career! Laughs. If people want to do a post-college career or if they want to take, basically, try “copywriting lite” I very much suggest being a virtual assistant for a little while, or hanging out with virtual assistants. I actually want to develop resources in 2018 on how to work practically with a virtual assistant. But, I loved it; I was very lucky to work with a community of mommy bloggers and health bloggers, just really be coached into how do you run an online business effectively by these enthusiastic, passionate women. It was 97% women; that whole niche, it’s fantastic. But they were so interested in just making things work, and they’re the most growth-hackery of all growth-hackers. They were always sharing tools; they were always sharing advice; they were sharing updates, just talking really analytically about technical updates and it was inspiring. It was inspiring to see people who were so interested in the process and so interested in helping each other and, you know, you learn fast; you learn how to transcribe, you learn WordPress tricks, you learn how to manage a community.... You do everything that you need to do, because this field really values learning and being agile. So, all great skills that I take with me now. Rob: So Brit, let’s say that I’ve reached the point in my business where I need to hire a VA to help me with whatever the various things are: maybe it’s interviewing; maybe it’s getting control of my inbox; maybe it’s finding leads for me. What are some things I need to know, or be aware of, before we engage to make sure that that relationship works out and that I don’t end up, you know, frustrated and needing to find somebody else to help me two months later? Brit: So, the first thing you need to do is truly assess what you need the virtual assistant for. I’ve definitely worked with clients in my distant past as a VA who didn’t quite know what they needed, or, we started working and then they realized, “Ugh, I really don’t like surrendering control of this one thing to someone else,” and I still see that as a copywriter who focuses on social media. So if you want to work with a VA, just think to yourself, what am I sincerely all right with giving up? What am I okay with if it’s done at 98% instead of 100%? Which, hey, if you hire a good VA then it will be done at 100%, or they’ll tell you immediately. So the control is a huge thing. Another thing I would say is that, you need to think to yourself, what am I comfortable with in terms of someone working frequently? Just because, if someone is willing to be on-call for you, that’s fantastic, but you’re going to have to pay for it. If someone is going to work two days a week, that’s great—that’s probably going to be more affordable. But you need to be okay with them setting their limits and respecting their limits. The worse VA-blogger, VA-entrepreneur, VA-anything relationships I’ve seen are someone expects the VA to be on 24/7 but they’re paying the equivalent of three days a week. Kira: Right. So Brit, you know, you’re the community manager in our Facebook group. There’s nearly 7,000 copywriters in our group; it’s highly highly engaged and, of course we’re biased but we think it’s an excellent group. So when you’re managing a community, what are some of the principles behind it, or do you have, you know, set rules when you’re jumping in there and creating, growing, helping your clients grow community? Brit: Well, firstly, you have to want it. (Laughs.) You have to want to engage the time, and the care, and the answering your questions. It really does take time. Managing our group takes time, it takes attention; it takes editing; it takes thinking ahead. You have to be willing to engage in that and really, really want it. And you have to be prepared to be frustrated.

Copywriter and founder of The Content Bistro, Prerna Malik joins Kira and Rob for the 74th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. And we cover quite a bit of ground as we talk about... •  how she became a freelance content writer (thanks to a family illness) •  how she has grown her business despite living thousands of miles from her best clients •  why she’s only invests in training that delivers a real ROI •  the activities she spent time on to get her first several clients •  how she went from $21,000 in 2011 to $200,000+ this year •  how she thinks about the packages she offers (and how she prices them) •  how she splits duties with her business partner (and husband) •  what copywriters should be doing differently with social media •  how she schedules her week to get things done (the hacks and systems she uses) •  what she’ll be doing differently in 2018 •  the advice she would offer to a “just-starting-out” copywriter, and •  where she thinks copywriting will go in the future Note: Because Prerna lives in India, we weren’t able to use our usual recording software, so the sound has a few hiccups… we’re really sorry about that. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Content Bistro Art of Simple Launch Grow Joy Fearless Launching Mogul Mom AWAIhttp://www.awaionline.com/copywriting/p/ Mass Persuasion Method Copyhackers books 4-Hour Work Week Fully Loaded Launch Miers Briggs 7 Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned in Our 7th Year of Business Biz Bistro Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 74 as we talk with content specialist and copywriter Prerna Malik about creating high-performing content for clients like Amy Porterfield and Katrina Springer; what we need to know about social media copy; what she did to earn $200,000 in a single year; and what’s it like to work with your spouse every single day. Kira: Welcome, Prerna. Rob: Welcome, Prerna! Prerna: Hi! Thanks so much for having me here! Kira: It’s great to have you on the show, and a great place to start is with your story, and how did you end up running Content Bistro with your husband? Prerna: So, I blog; like a regular “mom” blog, it’s called The Mom Writes. And I started it in November of 2008 because I was a new mom. My daughter was nine months old, and while I love being with her, I also wanted something that was creatively stimulating and, you know, I used to read a lot of blogs when—you know—between feeding her and, you know, being with her and all that. So it just kind of started to so make sense to my sleep-deprived brain to, you know, start one! That blog...it started growing, and it led to me getting noticed by small businesses who then started reaching out and saying, you know, “Would you write for us?” That then led to things like social media gigs because, at that time I was super-active on Twitter. Now, I’m not so active, but yeah. I was super-active on Twitter, and then clients starting asking, “Okay, would you manage our social media for us”, you know? Especially Twitter. So I took a couple of courses to be sure that I knew what I was doing, and I started doing very part-time social media management and blogging for small businesses. And things were going okay, and I was you know, having a lot of fun; I was being able to stay at home with my daughter, and I had some creative work. And this was very part-time thing for me because my husband, Mayank, his full-time job was what was supporting us financially. So it was good. But then, around January of 2010, Mayank got really, really sick. He was in a lot of pain, and the doctors just couldn’t reach a clear diagnosis. We were just going from one doctor to the other. We were told we had everything from arthritis to TNJ to gout; it was really crazy, and it finally reached a stage where he was in so much pain that he couldn’t go to work. So, there we were—laughs—no job, no real income, and you know, our savings were getting, you know, not super-fast because of his medical bills. And I couldn’t go back to full-time work. I used to be a communication skills trainer with Dell, and before that with American Express, but I couldn’t because my daughter was real young and Mayank was in no shape to look after her. So, we needed to do something and, we often now look back and say that, you know, 2010 was the worst year of our life, and also the best year, because while we did struggle a lot, we also decided to start a business! Because that was clearly the smart thing to do, I guess...laughs. But honestly we realized that, you know, we had a few clients with, you know....who...to The Mom Writes, and we could just focus on growing this and see how it went from there. I mean, what was the most that would happen? So, March 2011 is when we came up with the name Social Media Direct. Content Bistro happened way later; Social Media Direct was what this current business was called at that time, and we started reaching out to our past clients and our current clients and telling them we were during this full-time now, and we would appreciate the referrals. On the personal front, a writer friend reached out to me and told me that, just get your husband---because I’d been blogging about it on The Mom Writes and talking about his sickness—so, she said that, you know, “Just get his PH levels tested, because I think he’s got chronic inflammation”, and that was the case. He did have chronic inflammation; he PH levels were very acidic. And that kind of what’s started our journey to healthy eating, and eating better, and we started working our diets as well. So that first year, 2011, was a lot about hustle and learning humility. Laughs. Like I said, we had no money, so we—I reached out to a friend of me and asked him to make our website pro bono because, yeah. I had no money. In that first year, all we spent was like, literally $100 or so on hosting from Bluehost. So yeah, that’s pretty much how we started; cold emailing. I sent out tons and tons of emails; I made like a database of businesses, and I reached out to them, and I still remember. On the fourth of March 2011 is when one of the persons that I’d emailed to emailed me back saying, “Okay, you know, I would like to know more about your social media management services”. And, yeah; we were in business. This was a lady who had a doll business, and it was a social media management retainer contract that we signed her on, and by March 2012, a year later when we completed our first year, we made a little over 21K, which I know is not much, but it felt like 200K for us at that time! Kira: (Laughs) Prerna: Because twelve months earlier, we had nothing. Like, nothing, you know? So it just went from there; social media management and then blogging was what I started to be noticed for, and we got the opportunity, you know, over the years to work with some amazing, amazing entrepreneurs, including Tish Oxenreider of The Art of Simple, Andrea Ayers of Launch Grow Joy, Anne Samoilov of Fearless Launching, The Mogul Mom....so many others. So....but, it walled further, and around 2015 is when I started getting a lot of requests to do copywriting for my current clients. And, I’d taken AWAI’s Six-Figure Copywriting. I didn’t really, you know, dive deep enough. But then I also took Mass Persuasion Method by Bushra Azhar, and then I had all of Johanna’s Copy Hacker ebooks. She had this big bundle sale, I don’t know....I still remember I scooped all of them up at that time. And then, I got into copywriting. And we re-branded to Content Bistro in June 2015, so, to include both copywriting and content services as well. So, if you kind of look at it, I’ve been doing copywriting for about two years now, full-time. And it amazes me how far we’ve come from 2010 of course, and even 2015 for that matter. So that’s how we started Content Bistro! Laughs. It’s a long story, but yeah! Rob: It’s an amazing story and, before we go any farther, you know, going from 20K to over $200,000 a year, we need to mentioned you’re doing this from India. You’re not, you know, based in New York City; you’re not necessarily surrounded by the people that we would normally think of are the great clients we should be going after, so how do you do that? How do you do it from so far away? Prerna: The first time that I went to the U.S. was last year! You know I never been to the U.S. before that. And, this was in October, November is when the first time I ever went to the U.S. for a couple of conferences. But yeah, it’s not been easy, but it’s not been as difficult or challenging as well, because I think it all comes down to three or four big things. One is, you know, just showing up. Doing the work. And just, you know, building relationships you know, being present; offering value; doing good work, and...and essentially, being willing to put in the hard yards, you know? I honestly am not a fan of the “four-hour workweek”, and I don’t see that happening for me. It’s my Type-A personality; I do not like four-hour workweeks; I like just doing the work, so yeah. Building relationships, trusting our gut, you know—that really worked, you know! It gets easy to kind of get overwhelmed with all the noise out there, and kind of say, “Oh, you know I should be going out to this, and I should be doing this, and I should be doing that” or investing in this, and that’s a another thing, you know. We are very careful with what we invest in.

Wellness copywriter and online branding strategist Blair Badenhop recently made her way to our studio for episode 73 of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We were excited to talk to Blair because we’ve had a ring-side seat as she’s launched her new podcast and built her soon-to-launch course. In this interview, we asked her: •  how Blair went from ad sales to non-profits to health coaching to copywriting •  whether writing in the health and wellness space is really different from writing for other niches •  how she helps her clients get clear on their positioning and branding with her discovery process •  why Blair takes three hours to get to know her clients BEFORE she starts to work •  what she did to create a steady flow of clients from the very start of her business •  how she got herself to the top of Google for her main key word •  the difference between “getting clients” and “making friends” •  her thoughts about what copywriters should do to stand out online •  the place red lipstick plays in her personal brand •  her experiments with Pinterest and Instagram to grow her list •  how other copywriters can use Instagram more effectively •  how she gets it all done—social media, client work, her own course, a podcast and more •  why she launched a podcast and the effect it’s had on her business We also asked, as we often do, about where she sees copywriting going in the coming months and why more people will start investing in it. It’s another info-packed episode. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times... and have fun! Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: TCCinNYC Dress for Success Harper’s Bazaar Parsley Health Nitika Chopra Wellness Copywriter Blair on Instagram Blair on Pinterest Your Wellness Brand (coming soon) Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 73 as we chat with freelance copywriter Blair Badenhop about her path into copywriting, writing for clients in the health and wellness niche, creating a podcast and a course to reach her audience, and developing a brand that stands out from other copywriters. Kira: Welcome, Blair! Rob: Hey Blair. Blair: Hey, thank you guys so much for having me! Kira: It’s great to have you here. So, Blair, let’s start with your story: how did you end up running your own business? Blair: Oh man. It has been such a crazy, winding road to this point. It’s kind of funny to look back on. So, the reason I started was kind of by accident. I wound up losing my last full-time job and I got a severance package that kind of tided me over for four months and so I was like, okay! What do I want to do with my life? And I’d been working in the marketing department over at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition for three years and before that I worked for a non-profit called Dress for Success managing partnerships, and before that, I worked in magazines, most well-known would be Harper’s Bazaar as a sales assistant, learning all about sales and marketing. So I had this kind of like, marketing background and I had a lot of knowledge to leverage but I was really interested in utilizing my health coaching certification because I had gotten it from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition a few years before, so I was kind of like, you know, torn between these two things that I loved, so I started consulting as a way to make money and then I started to build my health coaching practice. And you know, I had no clue where I was going with anything. I was also still interviewing for other full-time positions at other wellness companies. And I kind of had to surrender, like, and just allow things to unfold the way they would, so I wound up getting a part-time position at Parsley Health as a health coach, where I worked two days a week and on the side of that, I started growing this consulting business, which started as like kind of a branding, strategy, social media strategy and support and content development... and soon I just started to you know, get asked by fellow, you know, friends in the wellness industry to help them with content development specifically. And that was really what i loved to do and I should mention that I’ve been a writer, personally, my whole life! And I’ve used my writing talent in all of my jobs and specifically copywriting, I learned a lot about when I was the head of a marketing department at Dress- ah, Institute for Integrative Nutrition. So, anyway, I was just kind of playing around with it, and then copywriting became the area that I was getting the most opportunities and I had a lot of connections in the wellness space because of my full-time job; I was a more public-facing figure, so this whole community of health coaches and graduates of the Institute for Integrated Nutrition knew who I was; I’d spoken at conferences in front of thousands of people, so I had this face that was already recognizable. So it became pretty easy for me to connect with these people, reconnect with people I hadn’t been in touch with in a while, and just start to build these relationships. And over time, I ended up working with influencers in the industry who, then, were referring me to all of their friends and so it kind of all just happened by accident. And I trusted how it all kind of came to fruition—like I just went with it all! Suddenly, I was realizing that this could be a business and that I could actually write for a living, which was a dream of mine because it was what I loved in my life and loved to do and it was how I expressed myself in the best way possible. I’ve journaled my whole life and I’ve enjoyed writing stories and I’ve written articles for different publications over the years... and I just didn’t know that it was possible for this to be a thing. So that’s kind of how it happened and it all started in 2014, and now, here we are in 2018! And it took me 3 years to really make it a really successful, strong, steady business, and having a side source of income, of working as a health coach at this functional medical practice, Parsley Health, really helped stabilize me as I was starting to really put myself out there and had I not had that stability and like, an income stream that was consistent, I don’t know that I would’ve stuck through all the ups and downs of creating it, the business itself. But that’s kind of how it all happened! Rob: So listening to you describe your path, Blair, it makes a lot of sense that you’re writing in the health and wellness space, just because that’s where your experience has been. Have you noticed that there’s a difference in writing for this space versus other kinds of copywriting? Is there some special kind of knowledge that you really need to have to break into the health and wellness area? Blair: Yeah, I think that my background and passion for health and wellness gives me an edge because personally, I live a healthy lifestyle, I kind of walk that talk of, you know, eating really clean; I meditate; I move my body; I put a lot of time and money into investing in my own personal growth. So I think that kind of approach to how I live my life and just kind of perspective on life and the knowledge and education I have has allowed me to really easily step into the shoes of my client’s target audiences and kind of the challenges they might be having, and how to translate where they are to where they want to be, and I just love writing about that kind of stuff so much. It just is part of me. It’s like in my DNA. So it’s really easy for me and I think that, as far as it being different than other kinds of copywriting, I mean, I don’t think it’s really different because we all, no matter what the business is, knowing that target audience and what they need, what their issues are, their challenges, getting into the psychology of that and then making that product or business the solution is the same formula, really, across the board. But if you have kind of a passion for health and wellness and you really love that topic and you have the knowledge, I think that gives you more of an edge and making it more your specialty as a copywriter. Rob: And who is your typical client? What kinds of copy are you writing for them? Blair: So I primarily write website copy and people come to me who are wellness entrepreneurs of some kind, so they might be a health coach or a life coach or an author or a yoga instructor or somebody opening a wellness studio of some kind, or they might have a product that’s maybe really delicious, organic granola, or chocolate, or something like that... and they either are either launching their brand for the first time or they are rebranding. So I help them first get crystal clear on what that brand is, and I really enjoy that discovery process. I’m such a—I don’t know—I’m such a strategist at heart, too, like I really love being a part of the beginning of something and helping somebody craft their vision from the very bottom. And I find that a lot of people don’t spend enough time getting really clear on what they want to put out there and how they want to position themselves and what makes them different and unique. So I do a lot of discovery work to help us both get really clear on that and then, you know, getting clear on their target audience and all that so it really helps me prepare to write the copy for their website in their voice and kind of step into their shoes to create all of that.

Got legal questions? We do! So we invited attorney and online legal expert Danielle Liss to join us for the 72nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We’ve had this episode penciled in on our list for a long time—partly because we know so many copywriters have big questions about legal issues (and often don’t have the cash to ask an attorney for help). Hopefully this podcast answers a few of those questions. We talked to Danielle about: •  how she went from working in construction law to helping online entrepreneurs with legal needs •  the legal documents all copywriters need to have in place (her checklist) •  what you need to know about choosing a business entity (in the U.S.) •  the critical reason you want to choose an entity besides sole proprietor •  what you need to know about contracts and why you should ALWAYS use them •  what every contract you sign MUST have •  should you include your contract with your proposal or keep them separate? •  what could happen if you work without a contract (the nightmare scenario) •  what you should do contract-wise on a second or third project with a client (think MSA) •  why you probably don’t need to worry about changes to your contract •  the three things you need to include in your website terms and conditions We also talked about what you should expect to pay for legal help and Danielle gave us the lowdown on copyrights—yes, copyright, not copywrite ; ) . She also gives a bit of counsel about when you can use ™, ®, or a service mark, and how to handle conflicts and breaches of contracts. This episode is loaded with need-to-know information that will help you protect your copywriting business. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: TCC IRL Dubsado FitFluencial LegalZoom USPTO website Hashtag-legal.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Kira:What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 72 as we chat with attorney, marketing expert, and co-founder of Hashtag Legal, Danielle Liss, about what copywriters need to know when it comes to the law, choosing the right business entity, documents we need to protect ourselves, and avoiding the common mistakes online business owners make again and again. Kira: Welcome, Danielle! Rob: Hey Danielle. Danielle: Thank you so much for having me, I’m really excited to be here. Kira: Yeah, we’re excited to have you, and, we—we just need this conversation desperately! Even as I’m listening to the intro, I’m like, I need to know all of this! So, I’m really looking forward to it. Rob: It’s funny that it’s taken this long to get here too… Kira: I know! Rob: …because when we first started the podcast, we made a list of everybody we wanted to talk to, and one of the line items was an attorney. We wanted to talk to an attorney, and yeah. Now we’re seventy-two episodes in... Kira: Right! Rob: So it’s about time. Danielle: Well I am very glad to be the one to talk with everybody. Kira: Yes, great. So why don’t we start with your story, and I’m really curious how you ended up working in influencer marketing and ultimately creating Hashtag Legal. Danielle: Absolutely. When I graduated from law school, I went into litigation. And I live in Las Vegas, and I did a lot of construction law. Let’s just say that’s not exactly how my brain works. So, it was never a great fit because I just didn’t have the passion that I needed to spend all day fighting about drywall. And... Kira: Laughs. Danielle: And there are people who do; I love them for it, but it was not me. So I also started a blog in law school, and, I always had this sort of duel-life; I have my internet life where I was blogging all the time, and I had my work life, which just seemed, you know—get the joy from the blogging because I can’t get the joy from the litigation career that I have. And it turned into a speaking opportunity, because a friend of mine came to me when sponsored content was really in its infancy and said, “Can you read this contract for me?” I said “Of course,” and I read it, and it was horrible. And I said, “Oh my gosh, please don’t sign this!” She was like “You know you, you could probably speak at conferences and tell people about this type of thing”, and I said, “Really? People care about that?” and she said “Yeah!” And so a speaking career was born, but it still didn’t kind of work with the kind of work that i was doing and I wasn’t sure how to build a practice out of it at that stage. So because of my blogging background and because of the fact that I was doing a lot of speaking on influencer marketing, I ended up leaving and joining Fitfluencer, which was a influencer network focusing on health and wellness campaigns. I went in as chief marketing officer and general counsel, and stayed there for about four years. I left after I had my son because it was—it was a job that was really 24/7, and I wanted to have more time to spend and I had almost met my now-business partner. So, we had realized there is just this sort of gap in our industry where people....I don’t want to say they don’t think that legal is sexy, because I of course think legal is very sexy, but people don’t want to deal with that side of their business so I partner and I said there’s a whole here, let’s see if we can fill and start to make legal a bit more accessible to people in the influencer space and in that, sort of, online business world. Rob: So before we jump into all of the ways that you help clients, tell us a little bit more about who you’re typical client is, and who would come to you for help. Danielle: “Our typical client” really covers a broad range. We deal with people who are just starting their businesses and it may be a side-hustle that’s now grown to something that can be full-time and we kind of come in with them at the very early stages and watch them as they grow their business which is something I love to be able to be apart of as they’re scaling, but we also deal with a lot of folks who are more established businesses. The one thing that most have in common is they are in the online space and some way, whether their business is conducted entirely online, or whether they do most of their marketing online, if they’re an influencer—that type of thing—that’s usually the key thing that everybody has in common. Kira: Okay, so I want to hear about what we need to have when we’re getting started, especially what are some contracts or just basics that we’re missing—that you’ve noticed a lot of us are missing? Danielle: Sure. I think that as you’re setting up your business, there’s usually a few areas I tell people these are the things, kind of—use it as your check list to see if you have these in place so that you know where the holes are in your business. And the first is your entity type, which, when we talk about the entity, we’re usually saying, are you a sole proprietor, which means you’re just running your business as yourself; are you a corporation; or are you an LLC, which is a limited liability company. So that’s one area. Then we get into contracts which I think are absolutely critical, and unfortunately, something that a lot of people ignore because they’re not sure what to be into the contract. Website policies are also really important to talk about; disclaimers and private policies and how you use, how people can interact with your site, and then the last piece is intellectual properties. So those are kind of the four main areas that we always use as our check-up for business. Rob: Okay. So, let’s start with entities. This seems to be a really big question, and I have to admit: every time that I have started a business, I scoured the internet trying to help me decide which one is going to be right for me, you know—S-corp, LLC, C-corp, sole proprietor... Why would we choose one over the other? And I know this could easily be an hour-long discussion.... Danielle: Laughs Rob: But could you give us some bullet points, just, you know, what we should be thinking about when we’re choosing the business entities we’re setting up? Danielle: If you don’t with any type of entity, I could start a business right now and say, “I’m going to be in business doing whatever it is”—you could be a sole proprietor. That’s not typically anything that you have to file with the Secretary of State, although depending on where you are, you may need a local business license, so check on the rules there. But you are your business. You are personally liable for anything that happens. So when we start talking about entities, it’s typically that your business it growing as a sole proprietor, or you know right from the start, I do not want to be held personally liable if something goes wrong in my business, and that’s when you start looking at entities. What I typically tell people is, take a look at what some of your goals are for your business. If you are going into this saying, “I know with the idea that I have, I really want to go seek funding, I want to start pitching investors, that type of thing”, you’re probably going to want a corporation, because then you can issue shares of stock. If you go with a limited liability company, or an LLC, it’s a little bit less work—there’s not as many company formalities that you have to follow. You don’t have to do minutes; you don’t have to do annual meetings; you don’t have to appoint a lot of different roles. But you still get that personal liability protection. So for a lot of business owners,

Copywriter and hypnotist Jesse Gernigin joins The Copywriter Club Podcast to talk with Kira and Rob about his freelance business, creating an online summit, and how knowing how to hypnotize people helps him know how to attract customers and sell more products. In this interview, we talk about: •  how Jesse went from magician to hypnotist to copywriter •  what it takes to bee a hypnotist •  the #1 thing he did that made him a successful hypnotist •  what he sent potential clients when he was cold contacting •  how often he succeeded (and failed) when he was cold emailing and how he increased his chances of success •  how Jesse works with clients to get them what they need (not just what they want) •  what he did on Upwork to succeed •  acting as a strategist in addition to working as a copywriter •  what it takes to assemble an online summit and what has surprised him the most from putting on a summit And while talking about his summit, Jesse let us in on the tools he used to get his summit online and we asked him about the two best speakers he included in his summit. Finally Jesse told us what he thinks will happen to copywriting in the future. To get this one... click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: The Copywriter Club In Real Life Geoff Ronning The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy Vander Meide Ramit Sethi Chase Jarvis Paige Poutiainen Danny Marguiles Joanna Wiebe Thrive Architect Rainmaker Wordpress ConvertKit Teachable Vimeo Natalie McGuire Lianna Patch Hillary Weiss Entrepreneur on Fire Live Gold Rich Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 71 as we chat with copywriter, marketing consultant, and hypnotist Jesse Gernigin about trading his magic act for high paying copywriting gigs, how he finds and lands freelance clients, what goes on behind the scenes of an online summit, and how hypnotism helps him become a better copywriter! Kira: Welcome, Jesse! Jesse: Thank you guys so much for having me! It’s great to be here. Rob: It’s great to have you. Jesse: Yeah, it’s cool to talk with you guys on this end after having you both on my summit, so this is great! Kira: Yeah! So we’re going to talk about your summit in a bit; you’re a first hypnotist on the show! Jesse: Okay! Yeah. Rob: Yeah, we’re waiting for you to say something like “look into my eyes”—follow the watch... Kira: (laughs) Jesse: (laughs) Kira: I’m actually a little nervous now! I feel like you might hypnotize us and make us say something ridiculous. I don’t know. Jesse: No, no, no. (laughs) Kira: All right, Jesse, a good place to start is just with your story. You know, who are you? How did you get into copywriting? Especially with the magic background? Tell us a little more about your story. Jesse: Oh, this is funny. So we’re going to go back to the days of copywriting books—Dan Kennedy’s, I think 1993 book—The Ultimate Sales Letter. So, I graduated college in 2007, so I came out right at the heart of the recession, and nobody was hiring for anything I had a degree in. And I’d been a magician and a hypnotist, and I’d work, you know, shows and make five or six thousand dollars a year just doing it on the side. And my buddy told me, you should just do this full time until a job opens up! So I went out, found an agent, and I was a really great performer. I don’t like to toot my own horn, because I wasn’t necessarily more talented than anybody else, but I have a great personality, which is big as a freelancer, big as an entertainer. It makes up for a lot of shortcomings. So I got on with a couple agents and my whole process exploded! And I was making an extra fifteen thousand dollars or so a year, and since I had scholarships for college I didn’t have any debt. I didn’t live very well; I was getting by on maybe twenty two, twenty five thousand dollars a year, but because I had little debt, and I spent most of my time traveling for shows, I lived pretty well. I realized I wanted to grow my business and there was this big opportunity to become a successful entertainer because the market was just not served by quality entertainers. So I decided to market myself. I had a really great mentor—his name was Geoff Ronning, and he was this amazing stage hypnotist marketer. Which was funny, because he actually left the business too and he runs an online group, I think called Stealth Seminar? But at the time, Jeff was really big on direct response copywriting. And he mentored me to study Dan Kennedy. He told me, “Look. Right now, everyone is moving everything online. And this is the biggest time for you to go into direct mail.” So I actually got my start copywriting, writing for myself, doing direct mail. And so I did postcards, I did—I think they’re called puffy mailers? Where you would send like things in envelopes so people would open them. I would send these massive, massive press kits with all kinds of stuff in it. White paper, reasons you should hire me, and it worked! And as my business grew, I started experimenting with different types of copywriting, different types of sales letters. I moved into corporate speaking, so I transitioned all the clients I had from hypnosis into relaxation therapy, which I did through NPI. I became NPI’s co-chair of communication, so I access to this huge network of people, and I just had this great business! I was hitting between 85 and 105k and that gross, not net. And I was living a great life. But I’d also kind of hit the ceiling. And that’s when I transitioned to copywriting full time. Rob: So I want to ask about the copywriting, but before that, you know, I remember as a kid I remember going to see the Amazing Vandermiede—the magician, or the hypnotist, and seeing that show, and I even bought the book that he sold at the time, you know? Learn How to Hypnotize People. Maybe I thought that I would get my little sister to cluck like a chicken—I don’t know what I was thinking. But, Jesse, how does one become a hypnotist? Jesse: So, now, it’s really not as safe as it was when I started. I actually took three years of training and I became a certified hypnotherapist. So I took two years of training, and then I did a year of mentoring under another expert. So although I never did any hypnotherapy, I could. I could do everything from smoking sensation, weight loss, to this really interesting thing called hypno-birthing, where the woman’s hypnotized for a couple of months before she has the child, and then has the child under hypnosis with no pain medication. Kira: What?! Jesse: Yeah. Kira: Sign me up. Jesse: Yeah, you say that, but it’s an expensive process because you have to see the hypnotist twenty, thirty times, if you figure you’re paying them 125 dollars, 150 bucks a session… Kira: Oh my goodness. Jesse: …but yeah. I started out taking a couple years of classes. Now, I’d hypnotized people before I took the classes—I learned to do it in high school just by reading a couple books. But I realized if I was going to do it for a living, I had to get insurance, I had to be certified. So I became a certified hypnotist, I took the training, I got all the certificates, and now you don’t have to, which is scary. I’m not a big fan of it. That’s one of the reasons I transitioned out of the business, too. Kira: Wow. Okay. So, can you still hypnotize people? Jesse: Yeah, actually, I’ll give you guys a cool tidbit. If you’ve seen a stage hypnosis show, you’ve seen like the hypnotist will invite people on stage, he goes through the process of hypnotizing them, and then he touches them on the head and says, Sleep! And then they go like a ragdoll. The reality is, the people that are going to be hypnotized on stage are hypnotized the second they walk on stage. The hypnotist could sit everybody down, walk down that line of people, touch each of them on the head, and say sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, and everybody that’s going to be hypnotized would go out like that. The reality is, the audience can’t believe that because they don’t have the knowledge to understand how it works. So you actually have to put on the theater of hypnotizing somebody for the audience to believe that the people are hypnotized. Rob: I’m one of those guys that’s not believing that. Kira: I know—yeah. (laughs) Rob: I need to understand the why behind that. Tell us more! Jesse: So, hypnosis is really an instant state. We go in and out of hypnotic states all day. You just kind of get in this pattern, we get in this focus. And what’s really great about the internet is, especially when I was coming to the fro, it was really easy for people to use YouTube to see hypnosis shows. So before, when I started, not a lot of people had actually seen a hypnotist. They might’ve seen them at the comedy club, or at a state fair, but most people didn’t know what happened. So less people than normal would get hypnotized. But when I started doing shows, YouTube was popular, so people would look up hypnotists before I did these shows, so by the time I showed up to do the show, they’d already been programmed to know what to expect and what to react. So when I would go onstage, I didn’t have to explain it to them. They understood, they could read about it, they could listen to lectures, so they had done a lot of what we call “priming”. We had primed their mind to react to the stimulus. And when I showed up, it was already all done.

Agora Financial Copy Chief (and copywriter) Joe Schriefer is our guest for the 70th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira and Rob ask him all about what it’s like to work for Agora, how he landed his job there, how Agora’s writers are paid and a lot more. Specifically we cover: •  how he “lucked” into a job he didn’t want with Agora •  the best advice anyone ever gave him at Agora (and why he became a copywriter) •  his process for finding ideas for promotions •  how he knows when an idea is “big enough” to go with •  how much time he spends researching versus writing •  why he doesn’t ask his customers for ideas for his copy •  his 7 step-by-step system for creating a brilliant sales letter •  the most important question a copywriter should ask (but they never do) •  how Agora Financial compensates their copywriters (they can make millions) •  the three things he looks for when he hires a writer to work for Agora •  how often Agora’s best copywriters write a successful package—it’s less than 50% •  what his team does when a promotion underperforms •  how quickly Agora is growing and why Joe needs more copywriters There’s a lot of solid advice in this one. Do. Not. Miss. It. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: The Copywriter Club IRL Agora Financial Name Bank Bill Bonner Addison Wiggin Byron King Wayne Gretzky Block Chain Win Bigly by Scott Adams Top Gun Joe’s email: jschriefer@agorafinancial.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob: Hey everybody. Before we get into today’s podcast, we just want to tell you about our event that’s being held in New York City on February 15th and 16th, and we want to make sure that you have the opportunity to join us for this awesome, fun party. Kira, let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on at TCC In Real Life. Kira: So, we’re basically taking the podcast, and a lot of people that we interviewed on the podcast, and then we’re putting them all in a room—seventy-five people—and an amazing of line-up of top copywriters like Kim Krause Schwalm, Joanna Wiebe, Ry Schwartz, Laura Belgray, Brian Kurtz, Kevin Rogers, I can go on and on and on. You can find their names and the list of speakers on the event page, which Rob will give you. But I’ve never been in a room with all of these copywriters, online marketers before. And, beyond that, we’re covering these three pillars of copywriters: what it really takes from going from a copywriter who takes orders from clients, to going to a really great consultant who knows how to run a business. So the topics are diverse, but they’re covering basically the three pillars: the offer, the list, and the marketing strategy. Rob: Yeah, this is a copywriting conference, but it’s not the typical stuff that you read about copywriting, you know: “ten new ideas for headlines that pull”, those kinds of things. The people who are speaking have incredible information to share so, Kim Krause Schwalm, for instance is going to be talking about the way that she’s beat the controls that she’s run for companies like Agora and Boardroom; real-life lessons that going to be immediately applicable to the type of writing that we all do everyday. And Jason Henderson, who’s an expert at marketing acquisition and email, the topic of his speech is, three email copywriting secrets I discovered helping porn stars get tan in 1994. Like, you’re not going to find that kind of stuff anywhere else at any marketing conference, but the takeaways are real, it’s the stuff that we can use in our businesses everyday. And really, for me, it’s a huge part of why I’m excited to be there. Kira: And beyond the content, right—like new content our presenters are bringing in, new presentations they’ve never shared before—beyond that piece, there is a whole networking aspect. We’ve built this community; we’ve all helped build this community. And now we get to actually get to hang out in real life. And so, we’re really focused on the social aspect just as we’re focused on the content, and that’s why we’re really excited about a two-hour cocktail party on Friday night... Rob: Party!! Kira: ...it’s so funny—it’s the final day, and the Agora companies are sponsoring this rooftop party. Again, open bar, for two hours. So, it’s a great way to really just meet new people in New York city with a fantastic view of Manhattan. So really the emphasis here is meeting your fellow copywriters and building some real friendships and hopefully creating some opportunities too for your business. Rob: And it’s not just the rooftop party; the first night, we’re putting together dinners where people can go to dinner together in, sort of, small groups, and chat and get to know each other. We have a killer “schwag bag” full of books and other things that our presenters have offered to share. The value or the schwag bag alone is over $200 when you start to think about, you know, all the things that you’re going to learn from the event, from the speakers, the things that you get free, you’re definitely going to want to be at this event. Kira: And beyond that, you can meet the hiring managers at the Agora companies. So they’re there, and they’re excited to meet all of you, and there’s a great opportunity if you’re interested in direct response copy, you can meet with them and figure out you know what opportunities they have and how it overlaps with your business and you goals. Rob: So we can talk about this all day but you’re probably better off just going to the page to learn more, where you can buy your ticket. Go to: bit.ly/TCCIRL19. You get all the details there, you can buy your ticket; you can even sign up for the extra event that we’re having Saturday morning. It’s just going to be a fun hangout in New York City with your fellow copywriters; it’s all there. Find out more about it, and we look forward to seeing you in New York City February 15th and 16th with the rest of The Copywriter Club. --- Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 70 as we chat with copy chief Joe Schriefer about working for Agora; what he looks for when he hires copywriters; how he and his team come up with big ideas that connect with potential customers; and his tips for writing better sales copy. Rob: Hey Joe! Joe: Hey guys; well thank you very much for having me on. I could talk about this stuff for hours, so you’re probably going to have to limit because this is what I’m most passionate about other than my family in life. Kira: Laughs Joe: You tell me where you want this thing to go. Rob: Yeah, let’s give it our best shot, right? Joe: Laughs. Kira: Alright Joe, a great place to start is just, you know, how did you end up at Agora; what was your squiggly path like? Joe: Yes, so I tell this story a lot, and I’m going to try to make it as brief as possible. Agora has really been the only job—the only real job—that I’ve ever had, and I got really lucky to find myself here so I’ll tell you the quick story. I worked full-time to put myself through college at a local, kind of sports retail place called Sports Authority. Many people may know it; I think it subsequently went out of business. I like to say it’s because I left… Kira: Laughs Joe: ...even though I know it’s not true. But I, you know, I got outta college and I had a shiny new marketing degree, and I was young and terribly stupid and I thought I’d earn all this money by going to work in the corporate world. So I get out of college and I say “Okay, no more retail for me”—at least I hoped no more retail for me. I wanted to stay local in Baltimore, that’s where I’d been born and raised. For some masochistic reason I wanted to stay here locally where my family and my friends were, but I interviewed at three different places in the same day here in Baltimore. One was Agora, one was a headhunter that of course would place my resume out there for many companies looking for somebody, and then the third was a doctor’s office basically to be a marketing assistant for a physician. And, for whatever reason, that was the job I wanted. That was the job that—again, I was young and dumb and I thought titles matter, and now I’m like so anti-title now in my life, but at that point I was like, “Oh that sounds like a fun title! You know I’d be a marketing assistant for a physician. That sounds prestigious and fun to tell my friends.” And that was the job I wanted. I didn’t know what the hell the headhunter was talking to me about because obviously there was no specific job I was looking for there. And then there was Agora, which was just weird. You know I went there; it was a weird office location, it’s in a cool little area of Baltimore I had never really been in in my life with this amazing building, but I really didn’t want that job because I didn’t know what the hell they were doing. Like I got there and I went through an hour-long interview, and I’m like I don’t know what this job is... Kira: Laughs Joe: I don’t....again, they didn’t have any fancy title for me to have at that point in my life, so that was the job I didn’t want out of the three of them. As fate would have it, that was the only place that offered me a job. Rob: Yeah, of course. Joe: And they offered me a job paying $25,000 a year, and I was so disappointed. Kira: Laughs Joe: Because again—young, dumb—you know I’m like, “Oh I thought I’d be making like $60,000 a year out of college” or something. But, $25,

Copywriter, marketing strategist, and CMO-for-Hire, Myrna Begnel joins us for our second episode of the week (our 69th overall) to talk about her copywriting business and how she became known as “the client whisperer” among the members of The Copywriter Think Tank. In this episode we cover: •  how Myrna went from selling elevators to agency strategist to writing copy •  what she learned from her career in sales that applies to copywriting •  how you create a relationship with a client so your projects succeed •  how to recreate the “sales conversation” on your sales page •  the questions she asks to understand her client’s customer needs •  what a discovery call with her looks like •  how her processes help her repeat and scale her business •  the “grandma’s house” approach to setting boundaries with clients •  how to get started with processes, then how to improve them •  the lessons she has taken from working with agencies inside and out •  what it’s like to completely start over in business •  why it’s important to focus on mindset and not just skillset We also asked Myrna about what her projects look like as a “CMO for hire” and how she packages her services, and charges a high price for them. Say this next line in your best stadium music voice: “Are you ready for this?” Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: The Copywriter Club IRL Doberman Dan Amy Porterfield Artessa Marketing Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea to inspire your own work? That's what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 69 as we chat with copywriter and marketing consultant Myrna Begnel managing clients so they want to keep working with you, what we can learn from the agency world, how she has structured her business and her time to get more done, and what it’s like to start over after building a business with others. Kira: Welcome, Myrna! Rob: Hey, Myrna! Myrna: Hey, guys! Thanks for having me! Kira: Or should we call you Kitty? Myrna: Kitty! Yes. You can always call me Kitty. Rob: I'm not sure why I can't get over that. It's like, to me, you're Myrna, and to Kira, you're Kitty! I guess we're just going to have to live with that. Kira: You know what, though? It fell apart, so Myrna joined our think-tank and I was trying to stick with Kitty and now you have become Myrna and I can't go back to Kitty, so... I'm sticking with Myrna. Myrna: I know. You know, my high school friends all call me Myrna B. My maiden name was actually Beals, but... as if there are other Myrna's, you know... Myrna A, Myrna Z... Rob: (laughs) Yeah, we have to make sure we don't get you confused with Myrna D and Myrna J. Myrna: Yeah, exactly. When you have a unique name like mine, you know, you kind of got to overcome it. Rob: I love it. Kira: So, Myrna, let's start with your story! How did you end up here, and I'm pointing at the spot where you're sitting right now. Myrna: (laughs) Well, it's kind of a convoluted story because I come into copywriting, a lot of the people that I know, they've always known they wanted to be a copywriter, they've had a very direct path into owning their own business and being a copywriter, and I think I come from a very convoluted path just based on my history. Probably my third career. So I started off selling elevators and escalators right out of college and I did that for 6 years. I was the first female sales manager in the company's 150-year history. One of the things that—you know, I'm starting to date myself—we didn't have digital back then. There was a very different way to sell and communicate. We had an internet to do email, but we didn't have Word programs. We actually dictated sales and letters and proposals. So, it was back in the days of three-piece suits and you go to construction site in a business suit; skirts every day. And so, from that world though, one of the things about it is that you always were writing, you were always thinking, you were always communicating and there wasn't this digital world to distract you from everything. There was always that writing in my background. I quit that and actually became a stay at home mom for a couple of years, which is a totally different switch. And I got really bored with that so I was always looking for, what was I going to do next? I went back to school and I got a Masters [degree] in writing. This is probably in my 30s. And totally shifted and started my own business and started a small freelance writing company. At the time, it was focused on, digital was really just coming out. And I was focused on websites and I started building websites and started figuring out technology and I realized that you can apply a lot of the same processes in project management of the elevator world to the exact same thing that you're doing in building websites and writing copy for websites. That was where I first got introduced to a really huge project that changed my trajectory of my career, which was a digital agency hired me to do a huge, huge project for H&R Block. I ended up staying at the agency doing a lot more than copywriting for the next 8 years, and that's really where I learned just about everything that I know about strategy, about how to manage projects, how to be the client whisperer, how to communicate. I got to write in so many different ways. I got to write video scripts that I never even knew I knew how to write, I got to write websites, I got to write emails, I got to create email programs. I talked about all sorts of different kinds of marketing and putting entire marketing plans together. I sold anything from small websites all the way up to $150,000 websites. Really got a lot of exposure and tons and tons of cross training. How I ended up where I am today was a little bit of a fluke. I restarted the company because, once an agency grows from five people to fifty, it becomes a very different animal and it wasn't really fun anymore. So I wanted to go back to what I did before, which was get back to the writing, and it's something that is my passion, it's what I really love to do. So I went back to starting my own company and I was doing that for about six months and writing and doing some of my strategy work as well and I got hired on by another agency—they just made me an offer that I could not refuse. It was literally making 75% more than I was at the old job. And when you're making that kind of money, you think that there's some stability and security in it. Well, it wasn't really a good fit, and the agency wasn't going in the direction that I think I was going in personally, and sometimes the universe just knows what to do, even though you don't. Fourteen months after I had this job, and I was just struggling with it—I hated it. I hated every minute of it. I really was trying to get back to what I wanted to get back into, and fourteen months later, they laid me off because I'm the most expensive employee and they wanted to go in a different direction. they wanted to do business development and that's not what I wanted to do. A month later, my mom gets ovarian cancer and I end up not working for about a year and a half, other than like a 12 week contract stint because I ended up taking care of her. In the meantime, my fiancé—he's a consultant—he loses his job. We go through a 3 or 4 month span where we don't have any work at all, no income, we're living off our savings, and I'm freaking out over that... He gets a job out here in California—we lived in Chicago before—and lo and behold, in the middle of this chaos, I'm moving, I'm dealing with my mom passing away, I'm traveling back and forth, and I'm trying to start a business because I'm going, well, what else do I know how to do and I don't want to go work at an agency ever again... So I've been here about a year and a half and it was great because it was like the giant etch-a-sketch of life! I got to basically start over and decided to build my business exactly the way that I want to, which is why I said the universe decides—you get what you need. Instead of what you want. And I needed to be shaken out of my comfort zone and I needed something there—and that's what I got. Rob: I love the story, and the philosophy—both. But I want to-before we dive into all of the agency experience and what you're doing right now—I want to go all the way back to that first sales job, selling elevators. Myrna: (laughs) Rob: This is-yeah, first of all, not the typical thing that you know, people would normally sell! But, talk a little bit about your sales experience and how that has informed the other things that you do, especially in your writing. Myrna: Yeah! Well, you know, it has a lot to do with relationship building, because selling elevators and escalators is not—you don't just pick up the phone and go cold call somebody and pitch someone and go hey, you want to buy an elevator?? Rob: Yeah, right! Nobody is buying an elevator every week or every month! Myrna: No. Kira: I'll buy one. Myrna, Rob, Kira: (laughs) Myrna: I don't think you can afford it, Kira. (laughter) Myrna: Yeah, it's a lot about building relationships ahead of the sale and it has a lot to do with planning and knowing exactly what somebody wants and what they need. For me, that really translated a lot into process, infrastructure, and doing a lot of legwork upfront before you ever take on a project,

Copywriter and calligrapher Ashlyn Carter joins Kira and Rob for the In 68th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast and wow, does she deliver. In just a couple of years, she's built a six-figure business that is growing like crazy. In this interview, she shares: •  how she went from agency consultant to PR publicist to freelance writer •  what she learned from working with companies like Delta Airlines and Chick-Fil-A •  the difference between working with corporate brands and personal brands •  her struggle to do everything right, the repercussions, and how it led to the work she does today •  the process she used to break away from the negative behaviors that tied her down •  what happened when she chose a niche and had to fire some of her clients •  how she had to adapt new processes as a business owner (as opposed to being a freelancer) •  when she knew it was time to create a digital product •  the questions she asks to keep her team focused on getting things done •  how she organizes her time to get more done •  her onboarding “magazine” that sets boundaries and outlines processes And as we often do, we also asked about a couple of her non-copywriting hobbies. She sold us why she does calligraphy in addition to working as a copywriter, and the lessons she learned from dancing that have made her a better copywriter. To hear Ashlyn tell it, click the play button below. Or scroll down to read the transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Toggl PowerSheets Strengths Finder Rest by Alex Pang Jenna Kutcher James Wedmore Todd Herman's 90 Day Year HoneyBook Amy Porterfield Anne Lamott Chuck Close Malcolm Gladwell AshlynWrites.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join us episode 68 as we chat with copywriter Ashlyn Carter about what she learned managing crisis communications for brands like Delta and Chick-Fil-A, how choosing a niche has affected her business, the process she used to break her own negative behaviors, and how dancing has made her a better copywriter. Rob: Ashlyn, welcome! Ashlyn: Thank you so much! So excited to get to talk to y’all today. Rob: We’re excited to have you! Kira: I know, I know! All right, so, Ashlyn, I think a good place to start is with your story, of course, and how you ended up getting into copywriting! Ashlyn: Yes, so it turns out that if you chronologically file magazines under your bed growing up, you’re a shoe-in for a journalism major, so I went into college, like, no doubt what I wanted to be. I wanted to work in magazines. I wanted to do editorial stuff. So I was a print major in the journalism school in 2009, which, I’m sure all of us who work in this industry—that was a tough year for publications. So I promptly went back from my senior year, switched to the publications track, and knew that that’s what I wanted to do. Right out of college, I worked as a traveling consultant for a women’s organization. I worked the ultimate dream of working in—I grew up in Alabama so the big city of Atlanta is where I wanted to be—I wanted to work an agency life in Atlanta, so I did that! And was in agency for about four years all together and worked as a publicist as well for a chef and his slew of restaurants and then I moved on to working on my own! There are a lot of ups and downs and valleys but that, in a nutshell, is what happened. Rob: So I’m curious about your agency experience. The kind of clients that you were working on, the kinds of projects you did there... was it PR focused? Was it copy focused? Tell us a little bit more about that. Ashlyn: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, I look back on agency life and I loved it so much. It’s like an incubator of sorts and it teaches you so much. You know, I wasn’t there that long all together, but it was a full service firm, so we did everything in-house, from public relations and pitching to more marketing-driven campaigns to experiential events for our clients and also, being in Atlanta, I was primarily on the Delta Airlines account, Chick-Fil-A, those kind of brands—Coca Cola in-house. So those were what we were working on. And I did a lot of customer communication for Delta Airlines, so crisis communication there is really fun because you’re planning for things like, what if an airplane crashes? What are we going to do? What’s our game-plan? But also, high-value customer events, which was really fun planning those—I really enjoyed it. But my favorite part, which I didn’t even realize that it had a name, being copywriting—it was just writing marketing words, right? But crafting the email communications that we would send out to SkyMiles and Value members and writing the website for the Delta.com relaunch when we did that a few years ago, and other SkyMiles program initiatives. That was primarily my wheelhouse and what I was working on, but I did get my feet wet with some pitching. Kira: So what did you learn from crisis communications at Delta and the customer communication during that time, working with these big brands like Delta, Chick-Fil-A, that you KNOW that you’re using today in your own business? Ashlyn: Yes, so one of the biggest things that I think that agency teaches you, and I know that there’s other fields that do this, like law, but tracking your time. I think as you move into an entrepreneurial space, our time is money! And when you have to bill time with the quarter hour and you do that year after year... I still keep timesheets for myself and my business. I’ve used Toggl before—there’s tools out there—but to me it’s just easiest to write it down. And if nothing else, it keeps me accountable. And it helps me measure how long client projects take. That was one of the biggest lessons—I do think there’s like a post-traumatic period where you have like, I remember folding laundry at times after working in agency and being like, I bet I can do this in a .25, you know? Kira: (laughs) Ashlyn: And that’s not helpful for anybody. (laughs) But it did stick with me. So that was one thing that I learned. I also learned quickly how to voice switch back and forth which, I think is integral as a copywriter with multiple clients. You quickly have to be able to chameleon brands and brand voices. I didn’t realize that that was part of my education until I had this student ask me one time, “How do YOU switch?” and I was like, I have never really thought about that! You just switch. But that is something I think that I didn’t realize that I learned. I learned a lot about project management and I think the biggest takeaway though is, how to behave as a business owner. Like I said, I can’t speak highly enough for that agency—it’s, the name of it is Jackson Spalding—it’s a mid-sized communications firm—locations all over the US, but based out of Atlanta. But the founders there just had an expectation of behaving that I just watched from afar and it really got engrained in me. We had our core values on our desk—everybody did—in a little frame, and one of them, I remember, was “We tell the truth.” And I think that just sunk into me over time. And even now, as a business owner with a team, you know, it’s so easy, especially online to you know, just shore up that email with a few extra things, I think, but I constantly remember that and I can’t shake Jackson from my head and what he stood for and I do think that I learned that if you don’t cast a crooked shadow, it’s a lot easier to operate your business and go to bed at night without any regrets about the way that you’re running things. There was just a lot that I learned from watching him. Those days were hard, though, I do think I got bosses that edited, you know, like any job where you have an editor and you get it torn apart and it’s bleeding and it’s like a murder scene, but you learn how to write. Rob: So I’m curious if you saw a difference in working in PR with companies and then working with the celebrity chef, you know, where you’re working with a personality. Is there a difference in the kind of things that you do for a personal brand versus a company brand? Or is it basically the same process? Ashlyn: That’s a great question. So, when I switched from being more agency-based to being more in-house, yes. I think I learned what it’s like to work for a personal brand, right? And that was everything that Ford would do, I was constantly watching, you know, how is he going to say-what is he going to say in this interview? Have I prepped him well for this? It kind of takes everything that was going on in a corporate setting and pushes it into just, one single focused point and that was this man. He was the brand. And all the restaurants were built around him. So I learned how to market a brand and a personal face, so that was really different for me. I’d never really done anything like that before. It came with its own set of challenges, but yeah. I would say that that’s the biggest difference: going from having the opportunity to have lots of different stories to tell to learning that you’ve got to get really good at the stories that go with this person and making him—pushing him forward as you know, the face of the brand—and having a good relationship with him. Because I’ll be honest, there were times when I had to, you know, (laughs) he’s a classic entrepreneur type.