The Copywriter Club Podcast

For the 67th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob sit down with copywriter and content specialist, Emma Siemasko to talk about her business, working with clients, and the advice she would give to someone just starting out as a copywriter. During our conversation we covered: •  how a trip to South Korea launched her freelance writing career •  Emma’s and Rob’s favorite poets—yeah, this one is a little different •  what she learned working at a bad content marketing agency •  the things she learned from starting her own business •  what she did in those first few moments as a freelancer •  how she landed her first few clients after going out on her own •  her advice to copywriters who are just starting out •  the mistakes she made in her first year that cost her a lot of time and energy •  the boundaries she has set up to keep her client relationships working well •  how her clients have reacted to the boundaries she set This isn’t the first time we’ve talked with Emma about boundaries—she’s really got this down. We also talked about how she packages case studies and sells them to her clients and the opportunities she sees in the future for copywriters. To hear this one, just click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Mary Oliver Sharron Olds Mira Gonzalas Billy Collins Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House On Turning Ten OKCupid Frog2Prince.net Grasshopper Joanna Wiebe Maggie Patterson Roy Furr Stories by Emma The Worst Company I Ever Worked For 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 us episode 67 as we chat with freelance copywriter and content creator Emma Siemasko about her decision to go out on her own, working with clients and setting clear boundaries, writing in the tech space and what she’ll be doing differently in the new year. Kira: Welcome, Emma! Rob: Hey Emma! Emma: Hi Rob and Kira, thanks for having me! Rob: We are thrilled to have you. Kira: (laughs) All right, Emma, a great place to start is, of course, with your story. So, how did you end up as a content writer and then business owner? Emma: Sure! So I have been writing in some capacity basically since I could read, so when I was in first grade, I was writing. Like, I wrote a story about how my grandmother died, which I got a lot of attention on because most six year olds weren’t writing about that... so I was doing some pretty heavy stuff as a little kid... but I went on to study creative writing in college where I specialized in poetry, and after I graduated I actually went and taught English in South Korea for one year. And the funny thing about that was, I was hired to teach, which I did a lot of, but the school where I worked also published their own English language textbooks and I quickly began doing most of the writing and virtually all of the editing for the textbooks because my boss recognized like, whoa, she’s like the best writer that we have, not to be totally braggy, but, so I actually kind of got my first taste of professional writing in South Korea, funnily enough. And when I came back, I worked for a content marketing agency for a little while. I started my own online dating consultancy and then I worked for about three years at a software as a service company and that’s how I got introduced to the tech space. And the company was acquired and I was like, I don’t really want to work for anybody else—I’d been hiring a lot of freelancers when I worked in-house, so I was like, I know that I can do this, so I made the decision to leave and that was you know, two and a half years ago, and so, here I am! Rob: Okay. We haven’t talked about poetry with anybody on the podcast. Kira: No! Rob: And so... I’m going to jump on this and say, what’s your favorite poem or who’s your favorite poet and what kind of poetry did you write? Emma: I feel, when I look back, what I wrote was like, super angsty, college-girl kind of stuff, not to pigeon hole myself too much, but like, I would be like, writing about like, I don’t know—sex on the beach or something ridiculous or like bragging about getting drunk and high in college... I shouldn’t diminish my work THAT much, but I feel like… Kira: Okay, now I want to read your work. Rob: Yeah, this is a little crazy. Emma: I also wrote a lot about—my poetry focused a lot on relationship when I was in college. I was like, trying to figure out how to have romantic relationships but I was also like super reflective on my relationships with my family and my friends so there was a lot of poetry about that as well. And a lot of my poetry was connected to place, actually, so I’m from New England, and a lot of the poems were like very, very rooted in New England. And in terms of poets that I love, I absolutely adore Mary Oliver, who’s like the super popular poet. She focuses really on like landscape and the natural world but also, like, has very heart-wrenching and poignant moments of Oh my gosh, this is what it means to be alive. I also love Sharon Old, she has like really great poems about relationships. Those are like, two of my big favorites. There’s a relatively young poet named Mira Gonzales who actually kind of writes about those collegiate topics; I don’t want to diminish them, but like, getting drunk and high but she does it much better than I did. Kira: (laughs) Those are important topics. Emma: I don’t want to call it collegiate because like, people do that... but I was doing it in college. Her name is Mira Gonzalez and she’s really, really good and she also has an amazing Twitter presence so I think she’s done a really good job of marrying her work with social media and the online space. She’s really good. Rob: I’m going to have to look them up. My favorite poet is Billy Collins and he writes about a lot of like, everyday stuff like the dog barking next door, or you know, the gift a child gives their mother. Like, I especially love “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House”—which is like, if you haven’t read the poem or heard somebody read it. Look it up. It is so good. But yeah, it’s every day stuff. The thing I like about poetry—and I think it’s really applicable to what we do as copywriters—is that, poets have to see the world in a way that’s maybe not just like, a literal description, right? They’re looking for different ways to talk about things that are a little bit interesting and just sort of catch your ear in an interesting way. I think we could learn a lot from poetry, you know, even with the copy that we’re writing. Emma: Yes, especially Billy Collins, I think, because his whole thing—he was the Poet Laureate and he was all about making poetry accessible. Rob: Exactly. Emma: So my favorite poem by him is “On Turning Ten”, which is just like, basically, a heartbreaking poem about like, what it means to grow up. Every time I read that poem I cry. I mean, he’s really good. But that is written in very plain language. He’s not writing poems that are like, super, super highbrow and literary, so to speak. Rob: Yep. No, I think his work is brilliant. Emma: Yeah. Kira: All right, so I want to ask about your online dating consultancy. What? (laughs) Rob: (laughs) Kira: Tell me more about this! Emma: So, actually, this kind of segues into the question of what I learned when I was working at a content marketing agency. And actually, I worked at a really, really horrible content marketing agency. So I think it was 2011 and it was like, still kind of the recession. I had no professional experience and I got hired by this place—we can do more in-depth if you want—but it was so horrible that in my off-time, I was like, I got to be working on something else. And my husband and I had recently met online—we met on OKCupid—and we had lots of friends that were online dating, and they were asking me, as sort of a marketing writer, even though I wasn’t really that yet—hey can you help me with my online dating profile? So I started a little business called Frog 2 Prince—you can still visit the website I think—unless my credit card subscription has run out. (laughs) But yeah, I was charging guys, mostly, and I would help write their profile, I would give consultations, I actually partnered with a photographer and we would take photos of these guys... and it wasn’t a super lucrative business, and also, it was a bit of a creepy business because usually what happened at the end is the guy would go, do you want to go out with me? I’d be like, that wasn’t really... (laughs) Kira: That’s not the service. (laughs) Emma: Yeah, and I was pretty young at the time, I was like 24, so it wasn’t a field that I wanted to go into in depth but I got a really good taste of trying something out on my own and it ultimately helped me get the job at the tech company that I got, because it was like a line item on my resume. Kira: Side note: Frog2Prince.com is currently available... if anybody wants to steal it... Emma: Oh, no, it’s frog2prince.net, and it’s—see, this is like—I was inexperienced—actually it’s the number 2. Frog, the number 2, prince dot net. Kira: Oh no. Emma: Which is like, I mean, you don’t do that. Like, I did it because it was cute at the time... but it wasn’t even cute at the time. I was like, it’s funny, like if you go to the website it has this 8-bit cartoon characters... Kira: It’s great! It’s really great. Emma: I was trying to be “internet: 1998” or something.

Copy Chief (and copywriter) Henry Bingaman is in the studio for the 66th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. And he showed up with plenty to share—including his formula for writing great sales copy. Kira and Rob took the opportunity to ask Henry about: •  his path from fiction writer and flight attendant to copywriter and copy chief •  not wanting to write for clients and creating his own product (and the lessons he learned) •  how he landed his first client (and learned to write his first proposal) •  the critical copywriting skill he learned as a flight attendant •  what he does to connect with people at conferences •  when you should feel like you’ve “made it” (hint: you’re probably not there yet) •  what he teaches the copywriters he works with (and his role as copy chief) •  how he writes leads that catch attention and shift a customer’s paradigm •  the various copy blocks he includes in his sales pages •  what he learned from breaking down Jedd Canty’s sales pages •  what it takes to create a winning control •  the collaboration process he goes through on every sales promotion •  what separates the great copywriters from the good •  learning from failure (and some of his biggest failures) Plus we talked about where Henry thinks copywriting is going in the future (it doesn’t look good for some freelancers), how his Cross Fit habit is related to copywriting, and what he is doing to improve his own writing. You won’t want to miss this one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: AWAI Six Figure Copywriter Creative Writer’s Desk Wealthy Web Writer Rebecca Matter John Carlton Marcella Allison Boardroom Agora Parris Lampropolous David Deutch Mark Stockman Metabolic Living Jake Hoffberg Copy Chief Jedd Canty Clayton Makepeace Metabolic Renewal Scrivener Money Map Press Brian Kurtz 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 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 the club for episode 66 as we chat with creative director and copy chief Henry Bingaman on working and writing in direct response, how much effort it takes to get a winning control, persuasion architecture, and applying systems thinking to the feedback process and how Crossfit makes him a better writer. Kira: Welcome, Henry! Henry: Hey! Nice to be here. Rob: Hey, we’re glad to have you. Kira: Yeah, so Henry, a great place to start is with your path. I know you have a squiggly path, so where did you start? And where are you today? Henry: My kind of life path is just following the next interesting thing in front of me. (laughs) So, when I graduated in 2007 with a degree in fiction writing, which isn’t really a good degree for a job (laughs)... When I graduated, I went online and there was a job opening for flight attendants at United Airline. So I applied and started flying professionally for about a year. I was an international flight attendant, which was a lot of fun but it paid about $20,000 a year, and I was working up in First Class serving people that paid $20,000 for their seat, so I was a little jealous maybe? (laughs) But I had this writing ability. I’d been writing since I was early high school, just stories and whatnot. My dad actually owned a supplement company when I was growing up. He’d bought the AWAI six figure program at one point and he just gave it to me, he never really did anything with it, so he gave it to me and said, “Here, here’s a way you might be able to make money.” So that’s how I kind of discovered copywriting, and then I started writing on the side while I was flying and figured out I could make more money writing, staying at home and writing emails for people than I could flying. So I pretty much quit my job and started copywriting. Rob: So what were some of those first assignments that you took on, on the side, and how did you get them? Henry: Well, it was interesting... the first thing I did, I actually didn’t want to write for clients at first, I created my own product. The whole big thing back then was create an e-book and sell it on ClickBank or wherever. Kira: Right. Henry: So I created a little e-book about flying; I think it was called the Insider’s Guide to Stress-free Flying, and tried to sell it. I found out a lot, doing that. Mostly that you should really test if there’s a market for your product before you make a product and sales letter for it... (laughs) Kira: (laughs) Henry: Because there wasn’t a market for it. Well, I did all that work and it never really sold. But that was really the first thing I did and then I started a creative writer’s desk, so I think it’s still online; it was Site Build It, if you guys remember Site Build It back in the day. Rob: Long ago, yeah. Henry: So I started blogging and stuff on creative writing and then from there I went to... the way I got clients the first time was live events. So I went to AWAI’s Wealthy Web Writer event and I just started pitching ideas to Rebecca Matter who is one of the higher ups in that company—I think she’s a director. And she just bit on them. She’s like, sure! Send me a proposal! And I was like oh! Alright! And I just went back to my hotel room and I got out my computer and googled “how to write a proposal”! And I sent her a proposal and she goes, oh! Great! Send me an invoice and let’s get started! I was like oh! So I get my computer out again and I google, “How to write an invoice”. (laughs) I didn’t know anything about any of this. So that was my first client, and at the same time, my dad had some local friends in the health industry, so my first real sales letter was for an energy supplement for one of his friends. So I just used the contact I had and reached out to people and worked for really, really cheap and then used that to leverage more and more clients. Again, most of my big clients, I got at live events. You meet them in person. I know there’s a lot of people who do email prospecting and all that but I never had the skills, I guess, to ironically sell myself through email, but I could always talk somebody into hiring me when I’m sitting down face to face with them. Kira: So I want to definitely ask you about how you’re selling yourself at these live events but first, the flight attendant experience. What was one of the biggest lessons you took away from that time as a flight attendant that you use in business today? Henry: So I guess one of the cool things that you learn as a flight attendant is how to take really grumpy people and make them happy. (laughter) Henry: Because honestly, people are having a bad day a lot of times on a flight and you have to-You’re locked in a plane with them, in this metal tube in the air for five or six hours sometimes. So if you can’t make them happy, it’s going to be miserable for everybody. So a lot of times, it’s just a free drink, or a conversation or something, but I probably learned how to reframe people’s problems and shift their state of mind to being happier, which I guess in copy, you shift their state of mind to being more receptive to your message. So I don’t know if that answers the question. That’s an interesting thing—there’s not a lot of skills-building in flight attending. But I guess that would be one of them. Interpersonal skills—dealing with people—is something you learn to do. Rob: You’re probably an expert at handing out hot towels, I would imagine, as well. Henry: Oh. I will hot towel you like you won’t believe. (laughs) (laughter) Rob: So, let’s go back to Kira’s other question. Approaching people at conferences, or in meetings, talking them into hiring you... how does that work? Henry: I don’t know. I just sit down and talk with people about ideas, and eventually, they offer me work. That’s always just been how I kind of operate. I sit down and talk about what you’re doing or what’s interesting, or- talking to people about ideas is easier than selling them. But, if you become that source of ideas and they can see that you just keep bashing them with ideas, they eventually break down I think. I don’t know. I think that really is just networking more than selling at those things. And people, when they want to hire somebody, they reach out to people in their network, first. One of the best relationships I ever made was early, early on, like the second year I was a copywriter. I went to—I think—a John Carleton event in San Diego and I met Marcella Alison, and she has connected me to more people than... (laughs) She’s an a-list copywriter for those people who don’t know her. She has multiple controls with boardrooms, she writes for core divisions; she’s a really talented copywriter. But even more than copywriting, she’s talented at connecting people. So she introduced me really early on to people like Parris Lampropoulos and David Deutsch, who I just got to hang out with early on in my career, which was amazing. She’s the one that—I know this is fast forwarding a lot but—seven years later, introduced me to Mark Stockman, the CEO of Metabolic Living where I’m the creative director now. So, like, she’s just been huge. That one connection at an event, just from talking to people and sharing ideas, and she goes, “Oh, you know who YOU should talk to...” Finding that connector, because I’m not really a connector like that but I find them, and then just you know, being present and sharing ideas and people will help you along the way as long as you’re genuine. Kira: Yeah, so this is getting kind of in the weeds,

In this jam-packed 65th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with author and ghostwriter Laura Hanly about book writing and publishing. We met Laura a few months ago and after grilling her over breakfast, knew she’d be a great addition to the show. In this discussion we cover: •  how she became a book writer and publishing consultant •  what you need to think about before you write your book •  Laura’s thoughts on who exactly needs to have a book—if you are in a commodified service business, the answer is “yes” •  who needs to be on your book writing team and who should be your early readers •  what a realistic timeline for writing a book looks like •  price ranges and what she does to charge $40,000 per book project •  what you need to do to promote your book •  common mistakes writers make when they write their book •  the differences between self publishing and traditional publishing •  how to publish with Amazon Create Space and KDP •  the design options to consider when you’re ready to publish your book •  how to find clients as a ghost writer of books •  whether you should get a byline with the books you ghost write •  the mistakes she sees over and over on book projects We also asked about the rates she charged when she first started out (they were way too low), the mistakes businesses make when they “do” content marketing, who is doing content well today, and what to keep in mind when promoting your content. Ready for this? Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Telling Your Brand Story (Rob’s book) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (Mark Manson’s rudely titled book) The Martian (Andy Weir’s book) Gary V Ramit Sethi Digital Marketer CreateSpace 99designs Laurahanly.com Content that Converts 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 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 the club for episode 65 as we chat with author and book consultant Laura Hanly about the process of writing a good book, how to choose between self-publishing and a formal publisher, what it takes to write a bestseller, and the tactics, strategies, and systems for promoting your content. Kira: Welcome, Laura! Rob: Welcome! Laura: Thank you so much! Very exciting to chat with you guys. Rob: I want to jump in and just say that we met at a mastermind event, and you and I, I think, had the opportunity to sit down at breakfast and for about 45 minutes or so, you sort of walked me through a lot of the process of writing a book and as we were chatting, it was one of those things where like, “Laura, we got to have you on the podcast!” Because there are a lot of people who listen to us that need to know the things that you know! So we are really excited to have you here. Laura: Yeah, I think it’s a big opportunity for a lot of people at the moment so I’m excited to talk about it. Rob: Cool! Well, why don’t we start with your story? Where did you come from; how did you start doing what you’re doing? Laura: So, I grew up in Sydney in Australia. I studied writing and publishing at university and worked at a big publishing house there in Australia for a few years. And I think about 2011, the industry really started downsizing and they weren’t kind of learning the lessons that we had all seen go down in the music industry in terms of, you know, adapting to the new technologies that were becoming available, and I thought, mmmm, I really need to get myself organized and become a bit more independent. So I moved online, sort of started learning copywriting and internet marketing and direct response and all that kind of thing, which was great for a couple of years, and basically started offering content marketing services to ecommerce companies and B2B consultants. And one day, somebody asked if I would be willing to try and write a book with him. Having come out of the publishing industry, I thought, you know, I’ve got a fairly good handle on that process, so we’ll give it a go, and over the last couple of years, that’s become the main thing that I’m doing so at this point, I advise on content strategy for some people, but my main thing is helping people write books about their businesses. Kira: So let’s talk about what that actually looks like when you work with a client. Because to me, it sounds so daunting and huge! Where do you start with your client when they’ve hired you to write a book with them? Laura: So a lot of people really feel overwhelmed by this process of writing a book and I completely understand that because it is a big undertaking, especially if you’re still running a business day to day, or you know, if you’ve got a lot of demands on your time. Or even if you’re in that stage where you’re really hustling to get more clients and you know that a book would help you do it but you just don’t know how to find the time to get it done. So the first thing to kind of cut through that sense of overwhelm is to identify what function the book is going to serve in the business, how you’re going to use it as part of your marketing, and how customers are going to be more interested in working with you as a result of reading this book, and then, start developing a structure. So we’ll go through and talk about this sort of 10-12 key points that you want to touch on throughout the books, the main lessons that you want people to go away with, and then break those down into sub-categories and those will become the chapters and the themes for each of those chapters. So once we’ve got all of that mapped out, the next step is to start doing a series of interviews. So normally the interview process is sort of 10-15 hours worth of calls between me and the client, and I will ask them everything I can possibly think of about all of those things that we’ve outlined together. My role at that point is to be an advocate for the reader, so to find out all of the information that business owner knows, all of the experience they’ve gained over the last few years working in their business, what differentiates them from their competitors, the things that make them really unique and worthwhile for their customers to know. Once we’ve sort of gone through all of those interviews and I’ve asked them a million questions to the point where they’re just absolutely sick of talking to me, I will go off and write, separating all of that material into written formats. I kind of go through all of that with them and then I do the actual technical work of putting it together. Rob: So let’s say I had an idea for a book that I wanted to write. You mentioned identifying 10-12 sub-categories that become the chapters. Is there a formula for that kind of a thing? Like, you start out with the first couple are origin-oriented and then the next couple are maybe more informational and then the next couple start to be more teaching; is there any kind of formula like that or is it just sort of what you know and getting it down? Laura: It varies, but I think that model is kind of a good rule of thumb, so having an origin story, then having a theoretical stuff, more sort of information driven, and then moving onto actionable teaching material is great. Or you can do that sort of within each chapter, so introduce a concept, give some backstory about where that lesson came from, and then be actionable toward the end of each section. It sort of depends on the actual material of the book as to how it will end up being structured, but if the client is looking to have a book that’s more of a teaching tool, then certainly, I try to have lessons in each section, whereas if it’s more say, a life’s work, or they’re trying to write the definitive piece of content on a particular subject, then it’s going to have that longer arc in the teaching material will be more towards the end. Kira: So Laura, I’m wondering if you think everyone should have a book? Every business owner should have a book under their name at a certain point? You know, maybe within five years of their business; should I have a book as a copywriter to help grow my business? Is it a staple that is really critical after a certain point? Laura: I think it’s critical for people in some categories. I wouldn’t say that every business owner needs to have one, and certainly if you’re in the B2C space, I think it’s less important just because consumers say if you have, you know, a clothing brand, the consumer is unlikely to read the story of how the business got started in book format from the founder, because the founder is not having a direct impact on that customer’s experience of buying from the company. So if you have a B2B business then I think it’s definitely much more important because you are probably having interactions personally with the clients. You’re probably charging a lot more, which is a factor in—books are a great authority piece, which make people much more comfortable paying higher price points because they can see that you’re an authority and that you’re an expert, so it’s a way to build a bit more rapport and a bit more trust with a client than you would normally be able to just in your general interactions. I think, if you have a service business, and you work with other businesses, particularly if you are in a slightly commoditized market, which content and copywriting are sort of becoming, I think it’s a really powerful way to differentiate yourself and take your service from being a commodity to being a specialty again. But as I said, you want to be fairly well established,

For the 64th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob bring copywriter Paige Poutiainen into the studio to talk about how she’s grown her business from Upwork to online funnel specialist. It’s a great conversation in which, Paige talks about: •  becoming a copywriter because she doesn’t speak Finnish well •  how she has succeeded working with clients found on Upwork •  why she shifted from content to conversion copy to funnel strategist •  what she’s doing to avoid funnel fatigue for her clients •  why creating a funnel is a bit like dating •  her basic process for creating a funnel for her clients •  what she does to make sure her funnels are set up to succeed from the beginning •  what had made the biggest difference in her business this year •   why she is using video more and more in her business And as we often do, we asked Paige what she thinks other copywriters are missing out on (her answer covers stuff like owning a niche). Plus we asked what she’s learned living in Finland for the past five years (while working with clients in the USA). It’s a great way to kick off your new year. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Accelerator The Copywriter Think Tank Danny Marguiles Freelance to Win Joanna Wiebe Hillary Wiess Funnel Fatigue article The Copywriter Club newsletter No BS Pricing Strategy by Dan Kennedy TheImpactCopywriter.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 the club for episode 64, as we chat with copywriter and funnel specialist Paige Poutiainen about finding success on Upwork, building effective marketing funnels using video to build a reputation, and what she’s done to accelerate her business over the past year. Kira: Paige, welcome! Paige: Hi, thanks for having me. Rob: Hey Paige! Kira: We’re so excited to have you! So we met Paige in the first beta round of our Accelerator program and now you’re in the think tank, so we get extra, extra time to get to know you, and also to see how you’ve grown your business over the last year. I think a good place is just with your story and how did you end up as a copywriter? Paige: Yeah, that’s a good question! I think I was writing copy or content you know, starting at age twelve. I started blogging. That’s what I would do—I was a nerdy child. And you know, other kids are outside playing or doing whatever and I was upstairs, like, blogging about boys that I liked and all this kind of stuff teenagers go through. And I’ve had several blogs over the years, just kind of as a hobbyist kind of thing. And then, when I was in grad school, I got a job as a content marketer, but my official title was CMO. I was NOT qualified to be a CMO, but you know how startups do those fancy titles and stuff. So I was doing like, blogs, general content there, and I actually had to do like landing pages and opt-in pages, so that’s where I first dipped my toes in copywriting. Then, you know, for several reasons, I didn’t enjoy that kind of working setup, it didn’t work for me, and because I was living in Finland—and I do not speak Finnish well—it is sometimes difficult to get a job, so that pressure to find work kind of pushed me into the freelancing. I had heard of Upwork, I had done some research, and you know, it was the meeting points—or, that was the catalyst. Those pressures from me deciding to leave my job, having not any other options available, I was like I have to do something. So I started on Upwork. I took Danny’s course, the Freelance to Win course. I started writing content, e-books mostly, and then I decided that sales copy was really where the money was at, I mean, that’s not why I stayed there but that was what kind of attracted me me to sales copywriting. I actually enjoyed being really close to the sale, so you know, doing the emails and the landing pages because for me, it was like the most strategic place to be, and I’ve got a strategy brain, so yeah! So now I’m here. So I moved into sales copywriting and started learning more about it and slowly kind of made the transition into funnels! Rob: So let’s go back, Paige, to when you were just starting out on UpWork. We interviewed Danny for a previous episode of the podcast, and got his take on how to succeed there. There are a lot of people in the club that I think try to go to Upwork, and fail—they can’t make it work, they’re finding ridiculously difficult jobs, offered at you know, $15 or $20 for projects that take days to do. How did you succeed? What was the secret that helped you succeed where so many others have failed? Paige: Yeah, well, he covers a lot of stuff in his course, so I wouldn’t say it’s one thing, but I would recommend doing his course and I know when you’re starting out, it was like $500, I think, when I first took it—I’m not sure what it’s priced at now. And now, he even has like a copywriting course. And it seems like a lot of money when you’re starting out—you don’t have any income, you maybe don’t have a job or anything like that—but for me, it’s really worth it because it’s all about the mindset. You learn how to screen clients, and you learn just how to ignore like—and it makes you angry to see people asking for blog posts at $5 or something, but you know that that’s very likely a bad client. And you just ignore them. Like, they’re going to get what they pay for in most cases. So, you know, I get offers every day that I charge well above what most people on the platform charge and I still get like, crappy offers too, and I just immediately decline them. I’m not going to waste time on that. So I’m not an affiliate or anything, but if you want to succeed on Upwork, if you’re not a natural and you’re struggling, his course can definitely help. Kira: Well, let’s say someone listening can’t take the course, for whatever reason—he shuts it down tomorrow and they can’t take it—what would you say is the one thing they can do if they’re on Upwork right now, they’re getting loser clients, they want to get better clients; is there one thing they can do tomorrow? Paige: Oh, that’s a good question. Of course, your positioning, I mean, you have to kind of take a stand, not in a bad way. Even when I was you know, first on the platform, I was always at the high end of the bid, because I used to pay for the Pro account so you could see what people were bidding. I think it’s like taking this problem solving approach. I always get the most responses when I’m leaving proposals, if I’m looking at it like a consultant. And that takes time to learn. But if you’re studying your craft and you kind of know like, the questions to ask, like what’s their problem, why do they need this, just basic things that we take for granted now because we do it all the time. But not just you know, taking orders, be invested in what they need and in their goals. I think that helps set you apart, instead of just trying to pitch. I see it as a conversation—you’re trying to open a conversation—and you’re not really trying to pitch yourself. Kira: It sounds like doing your homework, and actually understanding the client—what the client prospect may need and then problem solving. But maybe not everyone is willing to invest that time in doing that. Paige: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s true. Kira: Okay, so I want to hear a little bit more, just about your transition from writing content to writing sales copy. It seems like, as a strategic thinker, you realized okay, there’s potentially more money in sales copy, and then it hooked you; but how did you actually make that transition? Because I know of a lot of copywriters that are trying to make that transition and it seems a little tricky if your background is in content and all your projects are in content; what’s the best way to really jump in? Is it just landing that first project and just like, jumping in? Paige: Yeah! I use the crystal ball method, which is another tool of Danny’s—and it seems like I’m promoting him hardcore, but I did find his stuff really helpful—so basically, it’s like you create spec work. So when I was first trying to break into sales pages, or it was more like, medium sized landing pages, I just took some fictional businesses and created landing pages for those. Copy, and I also did a design, because I’m of this opinion that everything looks better in a frame, and I think it changes their perception when they’re looking at something that looks clean and somewhat put together than when they’re looking at a copy document. So that’s what I did first. I just made some spec pieces. And I didn’t like, lie to the client and say these are spec pieces—if they would’ve asked—but I didn’t come out and say these are spec pieces. I was just like here’s some proof of what I can do, and it was pretty easy that way actually, to land a client. I mean, of course, I wasn’t charging as high as I do now, but I was still charging more than the bottom tier. So I think my first sales page, or kind of landing page, was like a $500 landing page, selling a e-book. So, created a launch for an e-book. Kira: Okay. So we kind of have this debate whether or not it’s good to start on Upwork. Clearly, it worked for you and you started on the high end. Do you think it’s where every copywriter should start?

This one is a bit of a holiday gift for you all... so many good ideas and a fantastic guest! For the 63rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with Margo Aaron, a copywriter and psychological researcher with an impressive range of experience and know-how. During our conversation, Margo shared: •  how she went from academic researcher to copywriter •  the importance of psychology in copywriting (and life) •  why you need to listen to people don’t say in addition to what they do say •  what to ask for to get good feedback •  how copywriters can use the skill of listening and use it to their advantage •  how she built a business that she hated—and stopped taking clients •  Product Founder Fit—what it is and why it’s important •  how to learn the stuff that isn’t written down •  why we are all so scarred of breaking the copywriting rules •  what copywriters do that drive her crazy •  where the money is in marketing (the answer isn’t your list) We also asked her about what goes on in the altMBA, but while most of the content and assignments are secret, she shares just enough to whet our appetites. She also talks a bit about how to write an email that people actually want to read, the future of copywriting—it will become more important than ever—and a few strategies for communicating more clearly with your clients. Want to hear it (or read it)? Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Margo’s website Honest Selling Secrets for a Dishonest Man The Arena Work Week Lunch Jeff Walker altMBA Hillary’s Post on What’s Not Working @margoarron 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 sixty three as we chat with psychological researcher, strategic planner and copywriter Margo Aaron, about changing the world and making a profit, what copywriter’s absolutely must know about psychology, what it’s like to hang out with Seth Godin in his altMBA program and how to learn the stuff that isn’t written down. Kira: Welcome, Margo! Rob: Welcome. Margo: Thanks you guys, happy to be here. Kira: Great to have you here! Rob: We are so excited! Kira: I secretly want to be friends with you, so by the end of this need to be friends. Margo: I’m in. I’m in. Kira: When are we getting coffee? Or tequila? Rob: Margo, you came to our attention because somebody posted your website in The Copywriter Club Facebook group and immediately there were like forty comments about how great your website was. And literally within a couple minutes people were saying we’ve got to have Margo on the podcast! Got to have Margo on the podcast! So we reached out and made it happen. Tell us how you got to the point where everybody wants to know about you! Where did you come from? Margo: (laughs) Honestly, when you find that out let me know. I have you all deceived! The short version is I sort of fell into marketing and copywriting by accident. I started my career as you said as a psychological researcher: I was working in a lab for depression-anxiety patients and you guys, had I known then what I know now the amount of people we could have helped—you can’t even imagine. I didn’t know it at the time but it was kind of my first introduction to funnels because I was the person on the phone... like, I was in charge of what’s called recruitment and screening so it’s effectively tofu and mofu, like I have to get people in the door and then I had to qualify them for different studies and around that time I realised how there was a huge disconnect between what we know and what we do. And I was frustrated with how limited our exposure was as a clinic, like we weren’t really able to help people the way I wanted to be able to help people and I was really really obsessed with this question of how do you get people to care? And I went to graduate school and in the middle of graduate school I realized that the academic life really wasn’t for me and I got introduced to this world of online business, which I’d never heard about before and in fact would have been very embarrassing for an academic to even associate themselves with... but I was fascinated by how effective  it was and you guys know as copywriters, I mean, it’s effectively just psychology and so I sort of went down this dark hole of learning about direct response copywriting. And a mentor at the time told me that I had skills and whatever was called market research and I’d never heard of that before and so I took a job as a market researcher... Ended up working in-house in a marketing agency for a few years before jumping off to start my own consultancy and the rest is history. Rob: That’s great history. I love like, the psychological background, which is critical for everything, certainly in the direct response copywriting area but even in content creation, just knowing and understanding how clients react. It feels like every copywriter could benefit from a course, or even a degree in psychology. Margo: Absolutely. I worry about telling people to learn psychology because I think a lot of it is ingrained in who you are and how you interact with the world. Like, the more you learn to pay attention to the people around you, what they are not saying is arguably a more important skill than learning the science. I know a lot of copywriters who tend to be perfectionists; we get obsessed with funnels, we get obsessed with systems and optimization and automation, and we forget about the human being that’s on the other side of our copy and I think that’s the piece that’s most powerful and when you say psychology a lot of people go to the academic version of it, the testing and the studies and the rules and I think for copy especially, the more important piece is recognizing that there’s a human who is driven by emotion behind the scenes, and tapping into that, which you can do when, I mean, if you guys are married... Rob, you say you have a kid; you’re using that psychology every single day as you negotiate, you know, how to get them to eat vegetables or why they shouldn’t come home late. All of that is using the same kind of persuasion techniques and psychology that you would use in, say, a sales letter. Rob: Yeah, yeah. So I’m really intrigued with this idea of the things that people aren’t saying. I mean, in addition to sort of just, you know, the life skills and psychology, what do you mean by that? Margo: So this is something I learned in the clinic and, funny enough, from my father. So in the clinic one of the things we had to assess for was demeanor, and so you would listen to people’s faces. So some of this is body language, but some of this is also learning how to hear rationalizations, and learning how to hear social norms, and learning how to hear when people aren’t just lying to you—but lying to themselves. So when I say listening to what people don’t say, it’s kind of like asking someone, “what did you think of my essay?” and if I’m your friend I might say oh, it was great - you did great. And what you’re listening for is their tone - the context in which they said it. Did you ask the question in a way that actually lends itself to an answer? Because what you’re really hearing when you say it was great is, “I don’t want to fight with you.” That’s the actual answer. Because a real compliment sounds different. A real compliment sounds like, “wow, this argument you made in paragraph seven was really strong because what you said about trees and snails really compelled and changed my view on this, this, and this. That’s a real compliment. Someone saying, wow, it was great - I liked it - that’s your friend trying not to hurt your feelings. Rob: This sounds like every conversation with a client. Margo: Yes! Rob: You know, yeah I like your copy, you know, or yeah, the copy is great, or even worse: I don’t like it, you know, it’s not right, you know, without that in-depth feedback. Margo: Oh yeah. I always tell future freelancers and consultants to never ask a client what they like, because what they like is irrelevant. It’s, “did it work?” Is this effective? Did we achieve our objective? If you start asking what someone likes you’re going to get twenty five thousand opinions and they’re not qualified to give them to you. You’re the expert. Kira: So how does this come into play as copywriters? How can we use this? Is it just getting, you know, as we’re interviewing customers and doing research, is it getting people on video calls so that we can kind of read their face? How can we use this to our advantage? Margo: That’s a great question. Developing the skill of listening takes time. I think it starts with—this is going to sound silly—but it starts with actually shutting up. So oftentimes, when we sit down—I certainly I’m guilty of this—when I first sat down with clients, I would ask them maybe one or two questions and then I’d verbal vomit all over them about why I could solve all their problems. And I never closed any sales that way and it wasn’t until I would learn to how to ask questions and really listen and just get comfortable with the silence and get comfortable with letting them talk without necessarily expressing my views, or having known what I think, that starts to develop that muscle of being able to listen well. That’s step one, is sort of silencing your inner voice and stop thinking about like, how am I going to respond? And it doesn’t have to just be in a client interaction.

For the 62nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob brought former screenwriter, movie producer and copywriter Jamie Jensen into the studio to talk all about her copy business. She shares the good and the bad and why she decided to shut down her agency just as it was really taking off. We also talked about: •  how her dad unknowingly put her on the path to copywriting as a kid •  why she left Hollywood to make her own movie, then jumped to copywriting •  what she did early on to attract clients to her business (her no-strategy strategy) •  how she developed a unique brand voice (Hollywood helped) •  the systems and processes she used to connect with her customers •  the place honesty and enthusiasm plays in attracting clients to her •  why she decided to grow a micro-agency instead of staying a sole proprietor •  the challenges the come with running an agency—she shares the dark side We also asked Jamie about what she’s doing today, the course she just created and launched, and her one word tip for course creators. Lots of laughter in this one and some painful lessons. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Hannah Has a Ho Phase Uncage Your Business Heather Dominick Story School Your Hot Copy 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 can hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits. Then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work. That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 62 as we chat with copywriter, filmmaker, and storyteller Jamie Jensen, about going from Hollywood to hot copy, the importance of storytelling when it comes to writing copy with personality, working with a team of writers, the ins and outs of creating courses, and how making a movie made her a better copywriter. Kira: Jamie, welcome! Jamie: Thank you! Thank you so much for having me! Rob: It’s great to have you, yes! Kira: Yeah! You were on our list early on as someone that we wanted on the show and it’s nice to have a fellow New Yorker on the show, as well! So a great place to start is, you know, you went from Hollywood to hot copy. So we want to know, how did you even get into copywriting? Jamie: Sure! Well, what’s interesting is for me, for my story, is that my dad was an entrepreneur, so I actually grew up with a lot of like, copywriting things around me already, meaning, not just like, from the sales perspective of reading books about sales and marketing and all of that stuff, like, they were always around the house because my dad was marketing his own business, and doing things like buying domain names up and coming up with catchy things that he wanted to trademark for his business. And even like, direct mail was still a big thing then, so I would even help him like, review mailers that he was sending out to his physical mailing list, because that was a thing, you know? And so I actually grew up exposed to a lot of that to begin with, and the way that I made the transition from Hollywood to hot copy was I had made a film. So you know, I left Hollywood, I’d kind of had enough, came back to New York City where I’m from, and my producing partner and I decided at the time that we were going to just make our own film. So I had already written the script and she had been working on it as a producer and we decided like, you know what? Forget guys, by the way, because at this point we had both had a lot of negative experiences with men in the entertainment industry; we were like, we’re going to shoot this movie—no offense, Rob— Rob: Well, I was going to say, it’s not like men in the entertainment industry have a bad name or anything... Jamie: I mean... no! They’re so respectful to women! Have you watched the news lately? (laughs) It’s so great! So, we were like we’re going to make our movie ourselves, we’re going to have a fully female crew, it’s going to be amazing, so we did and that was amazing. And ultimately, it ended up being digitally distributed, so we got a digital distribution deal with one of the digital distribution companies and that really taught me a lot about like, digital marketing and you know, we had started working with this one consultant... who... I don’t think that it was very helpful actually, when we worked with them, but we just had to figure so much out about like, okay, well, we’re going to be on iTunes, and what does that mean, and how do we launch? Just all of the things that come with like, launching a piece of content digitally that weren’t things that we necessarily thought about or had learned in grad school with producing, because we had learned like, the business of the entertainment industry. And so, kind of making that transition and having to think through the marketing process like, even just putting my head into it kind of got me more thinking about you know, digital marketing and like, what room there is for different types of content on the internet and what the value of content on the internet is and how it all works and where those things cross over. I had to write copy, we had to write copy for our film. We had to write like, descriptions, and we had to create a website, and it’s funny looking back now, now that I know what I know, also if I could go back in time, what I would do differently with that as well. But just figuring out that process kind of got me into thinking about like, just writing other types of things for hire. Kira: Interesting, and so, what would you do differently if you looked back on that time when you were marketing your movie? Jamie: I mean, the website wasn’t very awesome. (laughs) Kira: Can we see it? Is it something that we can find? Jamie: It’s not! We actually like, gave up, we shut down; we still have the domain, but we shut down the website about a year ago and the movie is still on iTunes and it’s - so you can go and watch the trailer, it’s around, but the website is not still live. It’s just looking back now, I think we could’ve had a lot of fun marketing the movie and kind of developing more of an audience for it before we released it, you know, and obviously foresight is 20/20, but we were so focused on creating the project and that was so much investment and so much work and time and energy that I don’t know that it would’ve been possible to do more, but I wish that we would have. You know? Rob: We’re going to link to like, the IMDB page, so that everyone can see your movie. Kira: Yes. Jamie: Okay! Sure! (laughs) Kira: What is it called? Jamie: It’s called Hannah Has a Ho-Phase. Kira: Oh! Right, okay. So, you realize that there’s other opportunities for copywriting, marketing opportunities; how did that turn into your business? Is there a rough year you can give us because I want to dig into those early days in your business. Jamie: So, I had actually, there were a few different ways that I had kind of, ran around and ended up—Hot Copy became a business. And so, initially, when I decided to branch out and start my own business, I was interested in copy. Because I was doing it for free for people already, like I had friends that I went to high school with who were creative entrepreneurs and they were starting their own businesses and they were coming to me to help them with their about pages and they were coming to me to help them with their website copy. And so, I wasn’t even considering that that was something that people could pay me for, it was just the person people came to for that. That was a hint that like, you know when like a guy is interested in a girl, and it’s really obvious to everyone but the girl? It’s like, that was my relationship with copy in the beginning. It was like, oh yeah, totally, like this is so the thing that I do, but total unawareness around the fact that it’s a valuable service to offer someone, so I actually, when I first branched out into having a business, I was excited about coaching writers and working with writers, particularly after leaving Hollywood and developing more of what I consider life-balance for myself as a writer. So I was excited to work with other writers who were doing time in Hollywood and help them kind of design more of a lifestyle that was healthy and look at other streams of income that they could be creating for themselves while they were kind of waiting for their projects to pop, essentially. So, that was kind of when I first started my business, I want to say that was like 2012. That was what I intended on doing. What’s funny is, that’s ultimately what my agency ended up becoming anyway. So, that was what I intended on doing and I did coach a handful of writers in the beginning and it was only through like six straight months of considering building a business and not really going full time and figuring it out and then it dawned on me that I was writing copy for free. And writing my own copy as I was building my own business and realizing like, oh, this is the thing that I actually want to be doing that feels really good and exciting. Rob: So Jamie, I think a lot of copywriters would be very envious to hear that projects were just falling into your lap, almost, but you must’ve been doing something to draw attention to what you were writing or the clients that you were working with that brought in additional clients, so you know, what was it that you were doing that was attracting them to you? Jamie: Well, I didn’t fully open up shop.

Welcome to episode 61 of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Today Kira Hug and Rob Marsh talk with freelance copywriter Alaura Weaver about how she’s grown her business, often working at night to get things done. During our discussion, we covered: •  how she went from acting to sales to copywriting •  how theater and acting has made her a better copywriter •  what she did early on to get her first clients and her advice to new copywriters •  how she saw herself as a business owner, not a freelancer •  her thoughts about seeing customers as humans, not consumers and living your message •  how copywriters can live their own message and values •  how to develop buyer personas and why you should use them •  how she gets to know the customers she is profiling •  the trap of writing for everybody and reaching nobody •  how she sells her clients on creating Avatars as part of her projects Plus we also asked Alaura about how often you should create new customer profile, what she’s doing to share how you can define your own customer personas and how she juggles family, course creation, and business and makes it all work. Want this one in your ear buds? Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Textbroker Neil Patel Joanna Wiebe The storytelling post on CH Hillary’s coaching post Xtensio Alaura’s website @wordweaverfree 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. Rob: What if you can hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits. Then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work. That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 61 as we chat with freelance copywriter and storyteller, Alaura Weaver, about how she became a copywriter, creating customer personas, and her course about them, juggling work and family, and various other products, and making business personal. Welcome Alaura. Rob: Welcome Alaura! Alaura: Hi! Thank you! Kira: Great to have you here, so I think a great place to start is with your story. As a storyteller, can you tell us your story? Alaura: So, it’s really ironic is that my verbal, like, speaking storytelling skills are a little bit off, which is why I like writing. But, I’ll tell you how I started. I’ve actually started in the theater. I was a child actress and, that’s what I thought I was going to do my entire life. I was on the stage, I literally grew up on the stage. Kira: Wow. Alaura: And I went to the Baltimore School for the Arts for high school. I majored in theater in undergrad and got my graduate degree in acting. So, it was kind of like, that was my path; I was going to be a professional actress. I focused on the creation of original works, so I did have that writing element in there. But, life is a lot harder—laugh—than your dreams, right? You know, the reality is most actors are unemployed for the majority of their careers, and I had to find a way to pay back those student loans and pay bills and be an adult. And so I got into sales. I got into business-to-business sales. One of my first jobs was actually on inside sales for a start-up, and I liked that environment a lot, of that small team, that kind of feisty, scrappy team, building and growing that business, and it felt like a good place to be. But then I got an offer to start selling, advertising for the Yellow Book.—Laughs—If you remember...do you remember the Yellow Book? Rob: Let your fingers do the walking, absolutely. Alaura: So you can guess how, um—clears throat—old I am....but yeah, unfortunately I got into Yellow Page sales, advertising sales, just as smart phones were starting to take off. And it was also right as the economic crisis happened. So, there was like a—this, terrible, perfect storm of economic downturn for small business owners who were the majority of my clients. And then of course, on how people find information about doing business with people, Google—you know, Google was king, but actually Google, on a local level, hadn’t really taken off, until right as, like, 2008. You know, just as Facebook was happening and more people were talking about things on a local level, and so I got a lot of pushback and I had to kind of fight through and learn how to sell. And then, I fortunately got a better job as everything was falling down, and then, I got married and got pregnant, and had to kind of had to re-evaluate everything. So, I decided I wanted to stay home with my child. I was actually given the opportunity by the company that I worked with to stay home and work from home, but, that was a pilot program, they’d never offered that before, and realistically, trying to sell on the phone is...kind of impossible around children, as you probably both know. Trying to have any kind of phone conversation is impossible around children. Kira: Right? Alaura: So, I also had a really bad case of postpartum depression, and it kind of forced me to dig deep and take a look at what I really wanted from life, and, what I didn’t want from life. And what I didn’t want from life was having to be beholden to someone else’s dreams. And honestly, I wanted to make an impact and a difference in this world. After having a child, it put into perspective that I want to, in some way, help improve lives for people who need a hand up. And so, I kind of was taking a look at what I could do, and what I didn’t want to do, and at the same time I was trying to out-mom every mom that had ever “mommed”. Kira: Oh, wow. That’s hard to do! Alaura: It’s a lot of pressure, when you’re dealing with depression especially, so I was turning to, you know, those Facebook groups and the moms’ groups, and everybody’s talking, and subtly competing with one another with how great of a mom they are. And then finally somebody had this discussion of “look, I’m finding it impossible to find work that I want to do other than, you know, selling gadgets or romance...supplies?....or, kitchen gadgets” through MLM. You know, that’s like the classic stay-at-home-mom-job, right... Kira: Right! Alaura:  ...is to be the Mary Kay supplier. And, she said, that’s not what I want to do, I hate doing it. What do you do, that isn’t that, and earn money?” And, one of them mentioned “I do content writing on the side”. And so I looked into that, and I had discovered Text Broker. I got signed up at Text Broker, just to kind of take a peek, dip my toes in, and I started doing just little blog posts with 24-hour turnarounds and getting really good at it. And in fact, it was paying like two cents per word, and I wasn’t making much, but it was still a space of my own that wasn’t being a mom, that was just doing the things that I love like researching and figuring out who those readers are, and also sprinkling my own point of view when it comes to how information can be given to people without overloading them, without selling them too much. And my clients responded really positively to me, and one of them actually said, “You’re better than this place. You need to get out and do your own thing.” She says, “I hate telling you this because we’re not supposed to even contact, you know, the writers outside of this platform. But, girl, get out!” Laughs—And so, I did. I started my own website, and I started looking, you know, learning just how a lot of your listeners do, it’s just learning the ropes: listening to podcasts, looking at blogs....some of the blogs that I really attached myself to were Neil Patel’s blog and Copy Hackers, and I started learning what was really involved in content marketing and copywriting. And I started developing a even more-focused point of view when it comes to how I think business can be done in a really positive way, and I think that storytelling is at the center of that. And we can talk about that a little bit more, but, eventually, I started kind of developing that brand, that point of view, and reaching out, and creating, like, a social media presence. Nothing huge, just letting people know on Twitter, you know, this is what I’m about. And, people started coming to me. And eventually, I decided I was going to take the leap and offer to guest post for Johanna Wiebe at CopyHackers, because I had noticed that she—and most blogs had done this—they touch on storytelling, and I’m using air quotes right now, on like, oh I’ll have a middle, beginning, and end, but they didn’t really talk about the mechanics of storytelling, and how to do it, and how to apply it in a copywriting and content writing framework. So, that’s what I did, and I ended up writing this massive seven-thousand-word post for.... Kira: Oh wow. Alaura: It was like my manifesto, you know? It was like everything that I cared about, why I cared about storytelling, why it was so powerful. Just poured my heart into it, and it was a huge hit. It’s like, it still gets shared, I still get fan mail over it. You know and I think that people think I’m a little more influential than I think that I am—laughs—because of this one article that ended up kind of, just, “this is me, this is what I stand for, this is what I’m picking a fight with”. And the clients followed, you know, by putting myself out there and defining what I wanted to do in this industry and the type of clients I wanted to work with, I very rarely have to go after clients now, they come to me. Kira: Wow. Alaura: That’s why I’m here now, I’m talking to you. Rob: So much to unpack from that answer.

For the 60th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob opted not to invite a guest on the show and instead take your questions and give our off-the-cuff, no-preparation answers. We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we did our best with what we have. We talked about: •  where we got our first clients (and where we get some of our clients today) •  why relationships are so critical especially for freelancers who never leave the house •  how copywriting has changed since we both got started and what that means to you •  what we expected The Copywriter Club to become when we first started out •  how we keep all the plates spinning (Rob has dropped a couple) •  what comes first the club or clients (don’t let our clients see this) Plus we also talked about where we find the most satisfaction in our work and our thoughts on LinkedIn and Medium and which one is best for sharing your work. We don’t have a guest to carry us on this one, but to hear everything we shared, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Hillary Weiss Laura Belgray The 50th episode Ry Schwartz The Copywriter Accelerator Joanna Wiebe Michal Eisikowitz Luke Traser Momo Price Serial CrimeTown Tim Ferriss 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 can hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits. Then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work. That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 60 as we answer your questions about copywriting, fitting it all in, choosing a niche, our processes and what we find most rewarding in our businesses. Hey, Kira. Kira: Hey, Rob. How’s it going? Rob: It is going awesome. Mostly awesome, how about yourself? Kira: Is it really awesome, Rob? Is it really? You just told me you woke up at 5 a.m. to workout and so… Rob: That’s correct. Kira: You’re feeling good? Rob: I am feeling good. I was up a little late doing client work where I think we’re going to talk about that here in a second when we ask, answer a couple of questions and you were doing the same. Kira: Yeah, we were both emailing each other at midnight while working in client work so that’s how I spin, but yeah. Rob: Exactly. Kira: I’m excited to answer some questions. For this special 60th episode, we asked the club members in the Facebook Group, what questions you have for us and we have a nice range of questions we can tackle here, but I feel like we should say that normally, we like to prep. We are preppers and think through our responses and even type them out. Today, we are not doing that. We are going to wing it. Rob: That’s right. Kira: I don’t wing things well so this will be interesting. Rob: It’s all of the cuffs so it’s not sugarcoated. We’re going to tell you the truth, but it may not be quite as well thought out as it might have been otherwise so. Kira: Right, this will not be poetic today. Okay, so why don’t we jump into the first question. Rob, you can choose. Rob: Yeah, so I’m actually going to choose Heath asked a couple questions and I think these area good questions that a lot of people in the club are thinking about. This is the first one. How did you get your first clients when you’re starting out? Kira: Okay, well, first I want to say shout out to Heath. I love Heath. He always makes me smile in the group. My first few clients, I was at Ace working at a startup, actionablebooks.com as the marketing director and I’ve been there for a couple of years. While I was working there, you know you did everything in a startup. I was writing a lot of copy and so at that point, some of the consultants I was working with asked me to work with them and they offered to pay me to write copy for their websites as they were growing their businesses and that’s kind of when I clued into this and a couple of them said, “Why don’t you start your own copywriting business? You know you clearly have this entrepreneurial drive. This could be something that make sense for you” and so that was the light bulb moment for me. Rob: My very first copy assignment was from a friend that I had met, I don’t remember how I met her but she was doing freelance copyrighting. She had an assignment and asked me to help out on and I did that. I thought this is interesting. I can make money writing. It hadn’t really occurred to me before. It should have, but for whatever reason, I just hadn’t considered that as an option. I was planning on going to law school at the time, and then I got a job in house writing copy and spent about four years doing that. I moved to an ad agency and spent about four years there and then I moved to another company in house, for again another four years, so by the time I was ready to branch out on my own. I built a network of people who I had worked with in the past, and so when I went out on my own, I basically approached several of the people that I had worked with and said, “Hey, I know you need help with content, with copywriting. Let me help you out.” I landed a few assignments and it just grew from there. The other big place though, and I think we’ve talked about this a lot of times, the other big place where today, where we get assignments is from other writers and referrals from other writers. Get in groups, network with other writers because oftentimes you will be around writers who have too much work and they’re more than willing to pass on an assignment or a project to somebody who’s capable and can get things done. Kira: That’s a really important point. Beyond so, you’re talking about your network, that’s really where I started too, with a network of people where I was at the time, who was asking me for help at the time. I don’t necessarily work with any of those clients now, but beyond that, when I realize this is something I want to do, how do I grow, that’s when I really started to follow the copywriters I respected and found online, the names that you already know, like Hillary Weiss, Laura Belgray, and some others and I reached out to them. I remember I pitched Laura on why I should be her apprentice, and Hillary as well, and so I reached out and just put myself out there with people I never met before to ask them how I can just get in the door and help them in some way, and that turned into building relationships with them and also I got a couple of leads from both of them early on that just helped me gain some traction, build my portfolio and the niche I was focused on at the time. Rob: In our 50th episode, Ry Schwartz asked us both what we would do if we had to start over, so I don’t think we will answer that question but if we were starting over with no network, we talked about what we would do differently, so go back to the 50th episode if you’re interested in how we would start over from scratch. Kira: I think that the key for both of us, what we’re saying is it’s about relationships and I think that’s what we based everything with The Copywriter Club on, our relationships and strengthening those, building those and then also with our copywriting businesses, starting with the relationships, building the trust and credibility. I mean we both have been writing for years and years and years but that wasn’t really enough if you don’t have those relationships and the people who trust you who are sending you work and that never ends. I’m constantly focused on building relationships. Rob: I think that’s great advice, really good. He also asked how copywriting has changed over the years and I started writing in 1994, so for me the biggest change is that we have the internet. When I started writing, we had email. The internet was just barely starting to be a thing. It wasn’t really a commercial enterprise yet and so there’s a ton of writing that happens online that just wasn’t around 25 years ago. That really has been the biggest change, but as I think about the kinds of assignments that I was doing back then versus what I’m doing now, the other changes that I’ve seen is the measurement tools online are far better than what we had offline before. When it comes to things like conversion copy or direct response copy, the tools in order to measure effectiveness and to get better are just a ton better than they were in the past. Having said that though, human nature and the reasons the wise people respond, that hasn’t really changed at all, so a lot of what was applicable back in the 90s when I started is every bit applicable to the kinds of copy that I write today. Kira: Yeah, so I’m not going to go as far back but I will say when I was at school, I’m from Virginia Tech, I was on the newspaper staff and writing copy for ads and designing ads and so again to me, it’s all the same stuff. When I connect the dots and I’m sure all of us can connect the dots when we look back and we’ve been writing copy and advertising and positioning for years when you can really see that when you stop and connect those dots, but to me, it’s the same. I’m doing the same thing. I’m just doing it in a different medium now, but what really stands out to me today that’s changed even over the last few years is how crowded the marketplace is now, which we all know, with lots of copywriters, with lots of people who are kind of jumping into the space, for good reason. There are many reasons we all get into it, so now how do we really stand out in a crowded marketplace,

For the 59th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, in-house copywriter and creator of The Headline Project, Justin Blackman, is in the house to share how writing 100 headlines a day for 100 days changed his writing and his business. (We recorded this one a couple of months ago and are just getting around to publishing it now—apologies Justin.) In this episode Justin shares: •  his path from sports and field marketer to copywriter •  what his job as an in-house copywriter involves from one day to the next •  why he started a side gig as an outlet for his creativity •  how Shel Silverstein helped launch his first side gig—try, fly or walk away •  why more copywriters should consider in-house gigs instead of freelancing •  what in-house copywriters can expect to make (yep, we asked this question) •  what made Justin decide to write 100 headlines in 100 days •  some of the “tricks” he used for brainstorming to stay prolific •  how his “creativity muscle” grew as he did the work every day •  how he found motivation from the people he said he couldn’t do it •  how the Headline Project has helped him grow his business and list Plus we asked Justin how in the world he balances his work along with his side projects with his family duties, and we asked his advice on what copywriters should do to move their own businesses forward. To hear his answers, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Accelerator PT Barnum Bill Veeck Lianna Patch Copyhackers Shel Silverstein Hippo’s Hope The Headline Project Laura Belgray Tackle Your Tagline cheatsheet Joel Klettke PrettyFlyCopy.com Justin’s Twitter 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 and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 59, as we talk with copywriter Justin Blackman about his journey from marketing manager for companies like Red Bull and Five Hour Energy to copywriter and content manager, what it’s like as an in-house copywriter, balancing in-house work with freelance work and a family, and what he’s learned from his 100 day headline project. Kira: Justin, welcome! Justin: Hi! Kira: Thanks for being here. We’ve had a chance to get to know you better in The Copywriter Club and The Copywriter Accelerator and I think it’d be really fun to just start with your story and maybe parts of your story that we don’t know, specifically how you went from sports marketing to content creator to copywriter. So, can you share that path with us? Justin: Yeah! It’s kinda one of these paths that seemed obvious to everyone but me. I went to U Mass for sports marketing, mostly because I wanted to work for the New York Rangers, which was pretty “high school” of me but I had a good time there and learned a lot. The biggest change was that I had one professor there that talked about P.T. Barnum and Bill Veeck, who was a baseball promoter—he owned the Chicago White Sox and the Cleveland Indians—and really, focused more on big-time promotion and making the game fun. And these guys didn’t sit in the skybox, they were down in the cheap seats with the bleacher creatures and just having fun and talking to the people. So, I realized pretty quickly that as much as I love sports marketing, it was more the marketing side that I liked, and that branched me into field marketing. And field marketing is essentially a fancy way of saying “consumer sampling”. So, anytime you go somewhere and they’re handing out different promotional items—could be drinks, or Chapstick, or anything if you’re going to a concert or even just walking through the street and they’re handing out different items, that’s field marketing. I was super fortunate to land jobs with companies that understood field marketing for the right reasons. It wasn’t just about getting people to try out your product, it was really more about getting the chance to explain your product to people. So, I worked for Plymouth for a bit and that was geared toward running shoes. We went to long distance runners and marathons and really got a chance to spend a lot of time talking about the products with people. And I just knew that that’s what I really wanted to do. I love talking to people, I love getting the feedback, I love just finding ways and hooks to talk to people. That would end up leading to Red Bull, which is pretty much the ultimate field marketer in the entire world. Absolutely amazing brand, fantastic product, and they didn’t just hire college kids to go out and hand out cans and I know that that’s what it can look like from the outside, and they actually do a little bit more of that now, but when I was there, it was all about the right message, the right person, the right time, and really building their brand through one-on-one communication. And they didn’t care if one single interaction took 45 minutes—if that’s what it took to get a customer, that’s what you did! I had a fantastic time doing that, which is where i learned a little bit about improv training, which I know you’ve had other writers talk about that. Lianna Patch, specifically, just being able to think on your feet, and as I was managing that team, I was in Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, and I was running the Red Bull team there, I was noticing that essentially what a lot of the team would be doing is they would be talking about what’s written on the can. And it would have things on the back and it would say like, “It stimulates your metabolism.” So, after lunch, we’d be going around and saying, “You’re going to want to drink this now because it’ll stimulate your metabolism!” The average consumer had absolutely no idea what that meant, so we kind of followed it out by saying, it basically means you’re not going to get a food coma after you eat. And they’re like, OH! Great! Fantastic! I always get that. Yeah, I’ll try it. So I created a training program that took a few months to develop—we called it Cause and Effect, where we’d always say this will cause your metabolism to stimulate so you won’t get a food coma after lunch. Looking at it now, I can clearly see that that’s benefits over features, but I didn’t know that because I wasn’t studying copywriting at the time. It was just something that I kind of developed and ended up creating a national program out of it, so I did really well there. 5 Hour Energy was pretty much the next step for people that got too old to work for Red Bull. It’s essentially the same product, but without the branding. And a lot smaller. But, it was kind of like home, though. Everyone at 5 Hour were former Red Bull people, so it was a natural fit. Continued on with that, and after 5 Hour, I was kinda out of work for a little bit and I said you know, I understand field marketing and I get this and this is probably what I should do—I’m gonna give it a go! So I created my own business and I must’ve spent 3 months figuring out how to build a website, and discovered Copyhackers, and just fell down the rabbit hole. I was like, this is what I want to do! But, the problem was, I spent so much time reading and learning and building out my website that I never actually marketed myself, and ran out of money real fast. So, wound up looking around and landed with IHG, and they were looking for someone in content. I went in for a few interviews and really connected with the boss, because we were just talking about writing in general and she was a former newspaper editor and magazine editor and just were talking about content and really it it off and I’ve been there ever since! Rob: So Justin, I gotta know—did you get to drive the car with the big can of Red Bull on top of it? Justin: Yeah, I did! It was fun, man! Mini Coopers are small, and when they have a big can on the back, they’re not very aerodynamic. Rob: Everybody’s seen the car, that’s for sure. Kira: I actually tried out—or auditioned? I feel like you have to audition to work with Red Bull—in college, and I got rejected! So I don’t drink Red Bull because of that. (laughs) Justin: (laughs) I understand! That’s the kind of lasting impression we want to have! Kira: Okay, so now that you are in your current job, what are you focused on there? What’s your day to day like now? Justin: Well, I’m a content manager for loyalty and partnership. So, IHG Rewards Club, just the general loyalty club, the points running program about reward nights, and all the things that you can earn. I create a lot of the content for that. And that could be anything from blog posts to email to the merchandising and banners that you see on the web. We have a lot of industry jargon for it and a lot of acronyms. Essentially, I talk about points a lot. Yeah, I put out a lot of emails. We’ve got a list of over 7 millions people that we can reach with a single email and that’s kind of intimidating but I do get to write out to them. Kira: Wow, no pressure. Justin: Yeah, no pressure. I’m very happy that the first time I wrote an email that went out to the full list, I didn’t know. Kira: (laughs) So, I want to back up a bit. You mentioned that you know, after your field marketing jobs, you were out of work for a little bit and created your own business, ran out of money... What did that time really look like? Why didn’t it work? Was it just in retrospect you realized, Oh, I should’ve been marketing and when I was in it, I didn’t realize it was important?

For the 58th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira Hug and Rob Marsh sit down to talk with financial copywriter, Jake Hoffberg about all kinds of things related to writing copy in the financial niche, including: •  his first exposure to direct response and how he got into internet marketing •  how he was rejected by every division of Agora but one before he landed his first project •  the terrible cold email pitch template he used (we share it, don’t use it) •  his contrarian “I want to make money” path to copywriting •  the kinds of projects he willingly took on just to get started •  how he leveraged his new relationships into more jobs and more clients •  the real value that copywriters provide their clients (it’s not writing copy) •  the process for pitching new ideas and getting the next project, and •  how to double your income in 6 months Plus we also asked for his thoughts about getting royalties, which clients will pay them, and how to structure royalties the right way and he shared the advice he give other writers about how to get into financial copywriting... hint: don’t think you should start at the top. All that and more is in this money-packed episode (not literally). To hear it all, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Eban Pagan Jeff Walker Agora Financial Motley Fool Dent Research Sale of a Lifetime Freelance Financial Copywriter Group JakeHoffberg.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. Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal and 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 58, as we chat with financial copywriter Jake Hoffberg about his path to becoming a copywriter and choosing the financial niche, writing long-form sales pages and VSLs, what a new writer should do today to break into financial copywriting, and advertising to the affluent. -- Rob: Welcome, Jake! Jake: Thank you for having me! Kira: Yeah, it’s great to have you here. Rob: We’re excited to learn a little bit more about you and your niche and how it all came about, which is probably a good place to start. Let’s talk about your story and how you became a copywriter. Jake: Sure. So, I guess the story probably actually starts in 2008... 2009... and I had a copy of Eban Pagan’s Get Altitude Training—I forget how I got it, but I did—and that was really my first exposure to direct response. This whole world of people that were making money on the internet and running these virtual businesses and putting boards together and getting paid and I just—I thought that was fascinating. I was in direct sales at the time and I was knocking on doors and doing it the hard way and man, it was just so awesome sounding. So I probably spent the next five, six, seven years on and off trying to get into internet marketing and figure out how to run an info-product business and kinda went down that rabbit hole for a long time and tried a lot of things that did not work over the years. This is all while I was doing sales, and switched sales jobs a couple times, and think it was two years ago—something like that—it was July of 2015—I was running a consulting business and I had that moment that everyone has at some point in their life where they’re just like, F it! I’m done with this! I’m tired of this crap! And I had a not so friendly conversation with my boss, who was my only client at the time and I was making good money and I basically fired myself after that conversation. I had some cash saved away and I was like, all right! I’ll figure something out and I don’t want to go back and do sales; I don’t want to get a 9-5 job or do any of that stuff so I just need to figure this stuff out. I knew firsthand how hard it was just to run a business and how hard it was to try and build websites and all this other stuff, and so somewhere along the way it just clicked where, okay... I can sell, and it’s made me basically employable for every company ever because I can do that, so if I can just figure out just the sales part on the internet, and I can just learn that, I can just get paid to do that, and I don’t have to mess around with all this website building or any of this nonsense. I can just start there. That was how I figured out that copywriting was a real thing. That there are people that make lots of money and all they do is write copy and they don’t do anything else. I thought, that sounds really good! Let’s try that! You know, I bought all the courses and read all the books and did all the things and after a couple of months of doing that... I was like all right. I just want to make money! So where is that? And it was financial. That’s where everyone said it was—in the financial niche. And so I was like, all right! I’m just gonna do that. It was SUPER duper hard getting started—I knew nothing about finance. I could work an excel spreadsheet kind of okay and that was about as good as my finance skills were. But I was determined to make this happen! There wasn’t really another option for me at this point. So, I got a bunch of books on investing and started reading the financial news and was going through whatever swipe files of things and I kept seeing these sales letters from Agora and all these other big financial publishers and so at one point I was like, I wonder if they’re hiring copywriters? They probably are. I kept hearing about how much money these people were making and so I basically just cold called Agora—like all the franchises inside of Agora, there’s probably about twenty of them, Motley Fool, all the big names, with no experience, no portfolio, I had never written copy. I think I had had like, one other fifty dollar job I got off of a job board, it was something like that, right? And I went from that to somehow managing to convince Agora to hire me, freelance, and remote, which is apparently not a thing that happens ever... Rob: So wait so wait. You had not written any other copy and you got hired by Agora just from a cold pitch. Jake: Yeah. Rob: Wow, crazy. Jake: So, that’s what happened. Essentially what wound up happening was I asked if they needed speck work and basically everyone said no and one person was like, yeah! We could use some stuff so they said, can you write advertorials? And I was like, yeah! I totally can! No... never written one. So I said, can you send me an example? So they sent me one; I wrote I think four things and they liked some of them and they were like yeah, we see some potential, and I basically just bugged them and sent them new ideas and like, copyedited pages and found spelling errors and I just was like a dog with a bone. I just wouldn’t let it go. And I think I just wore them down. Kira: They’re like, this guy Jake! Gosh! Just say yes! Jake: After two months of basically just like working for free and sending them all kinds of stuff, they were like alright, I’ll pay you for real. And then I got a contract and that was literally how I started freelancing. I just didn’t give up and I was super persistent and that was how I got hired. Kira: Okay. Rob: Wow. Kira: There’s a lot here; I know we both want to unpack everything you just said. So, for specifics, when did you start pitching Agora? You said two years ago? Or is this already a year ago? Jake: So, it would’ve been like, December 2015—that was when I was like, alright, I’m gonna do financial. And then I started to cold email and cold call—just doing whatever I could do to talk to someone and then in January was when it kinda took about 30 days for them to go from, yeah we could use some stuff! Because you know how that is, right? They’re super busy and it’s not personal, they just don’t get back to you because they have other stuff to do. Rob: Right, I mean, you’re not even on their radar; I mean, you’re barely there, right? Jake: Right. So January or February was just comprised of me trying to hustle and stuff and then March was when I started to actually get checks in the mail from Agora. Kira: Okay, so once you realized, “I want to go into financial”, and you find Agora and you know you want to work with Agora, what did it look like when you jumped into this pitching process? To even get the right list of names? What did you have to do behind the scenes to make this happen? There are so many questions! What did you say in that pitch email? I have like five other questions, so that’s it for now. Jake: it’s gonna be really dumb and really simple, what I’m going to say, which is why most people just won’t do it... so, what I do because that’s how I did well in sales. I typed in Agora or whatever, and if you work hard enough you kinda know who’s got a publishing company- you just kinda search for them. And I looked up like, publisher, marketing director, anything that looks like that. I also reached out to people that were copywriters at those franchises as well, just to try and you know, work it that way. I think this was the email: Hi, (name)— I’m a direct response copywriter. Do you hire freelancers? Jake And that was the email. Rob: Wow. Kira: Brilliant! Rob: It hardly even feels like a pitch! Jake: Some people responded and I got the, “We don’t really but if you’re super good” kind of thing. “We only hire in-house”—which is really code word for,