The Copywriter Club Podcast

In the 57th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with Heather Dominick who coined the term, highly sensitive entrepreneur—a name for business owners who are more sensitive to the demands of start-up and freelance work. During our conversation, we asked her: •  what a “highly sensitive entrepreneur is” and whether it’s a weakness we need to overcome •  how to know if you were born highly sensitive—20% of us are •  whether there’s something wrong with Rob who is highly insensitive •  what being highly sensitive means (and the superpowers HSEs have) •  a few questions you can ask yourself to find out if you’re an HSE •  how to work (or live) with someone who is highly sensitive •  how to approach work (and life) as a highly sensitive entrepreneur •  the importance of processes and systems to support your work as a HSE, and •  how to network as an HSE. We also asked Heather about the similarities between HSEs and introverts (they’re not the same thing) and how her business has changed since she started approaching things as an HSE. This discussion is a little different from our typical episode but shines a light on a personality type that many copywriters deal with regularly. To listen, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Ali Brown’s Glambition Radio Quiet by Susan Cane HSE Quiz Heather’s Website 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 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 57, as we chat with business coach and founder of the highly sensitive entrepreneur movement, Heather Dominick, about how personality traits affect business success, what it means to be highly sensitive, how to deal with the sensitive people in our lives, and what this all means for copywriters. Kira: Heather, welcome! Rob: Welcome Heather. Heather: Thank you so much. So happy to be here. So happy to be here with both of you! Kira: Well, when I first heard of you, it was on Ali Brown’s Glambition Radio interview with you. I was on vacation and somehow randomly stumbled upon that particular interview and I remember being like, oh my goodness! This is me! I had no idea that this was a thing and it was kind of like finding out from Susan Cane that I was an introvert a couple of years back when I was like, oh this makes sense! This all makes sense! And then I forced my husband to listen to the interview again so that he would understand why I am the way I am and so ever since then, I knew that we needed you on this show to really help communicate what this is all about to highly sensitive copywriters and copywriters that maybe aren’t as highly sensitive as well. Heather: Fantastic! I love that so much. Did your husband listen to the interview that I did with Ali Brown? Did that help? Kira: It did help. I feel like this is already a couple of months ago, I feel like it’s something that maybe we need to revisit every once in awhile just to be like okay, remember why - this is why I’m doing this this way? So it doesn’t fade away. And I think a great place to start is with your story - just, how you discovered that you’re a highly sensitive person and entrepreneur? Heather: Sure! Absolutely. I’m so happy to share. Well, I would say first that I’m in my 14th year of being self-employed and in the first half of my self-employment career, I had no idea that I was highly sensitive at all. I didn’t even really know what that term was or what it meant and so, the first half - the first seven or so years of being self-employed - I was able to create some significant success in my business. I had brought my business across the million dollar mark at that point and it came at a very high cost. I found myself absolutely, completely overwhelmed, overworked, and over-exhausted. And at that time, I was working with a mentor who I’ve come to understand was mismatched for my highly sensitive nature, and you know, she really pushed her clients to create more and the amount of income that her clients were generating was very important to her and what I’ve come to understand since is that that plugged right into what I now have coined and referred to as one of the HSE coping mechanisms, the coping mechanism of pushing, which was definitely my coping mechanism of choice. What that means is that a person who’s highly sensitive will choose a coping mechanism unconsciously to deal with their highly sensitive nature. And someone who tends towards the coping mechanism of pushing—like myself—versus hiding, which is the other coping mechanism, or what I like to say is combo-plattering, which is swaying back and forth between the two, was someone who will tend towards the coping mechanism of pushing, they will get done what a person who is not highly sensitive can get done but again, it will come at a massive cost because it takes a different level of energy. So, at that point in my business, when again, I had crossed the million dollar mark but it had come at that high cost, I really was thrown into you know, what many spiritual teachers refer to as a dark night of the soul. I really just withdrew from everything at that point except for just continuing to pour the love that I had for my clients you know, into my work with them. But I withdrew from that mentorship, I withdrew from anything and everything on the internet, and I really went deep inside of myself because my question for myself at that time was, what am I doing?! And you know, is this worth it? If this is what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, then I’m not sure I’m up for it. It was in that period of self-discovery that I was brought to Dr. Elaine Aron. And Dr. Elaine Aron is the founding researcher in regards to the aspect of what it is to be a highly sensitive person. And she developed or started that research in the early 90’s and when I discovered Dr Elaine Aron and I took one of her high level assessments and I came to understand what being highly sensitive meant, I wasn’t so surprised that I was highly sensitive, but I was surprised at how highly sensitive I was. And then what I did was I took another one of Dr. Aron’s assessments and I brought it into a high level group of 25 women entrepreneurs that I was working with at the time and lo and behold, every single woman in that room was also highly sensitive. What was really surprising about that was not so much that they were highly sensitive, because I’m a real believer - and one of the foundational principles that I teach - in your ideal client being a version of you. But what was interesting is that not one woman wanted to be highly sensitive. They really saw it as a weakness. That was really my first indication that something was up here. That’s really what dove me into my own extensive research about not only what it means to be highly sensitive, but what does it mean to be highly sensitive as a person who’s called to be self-employed? That is really what began my journey and all of the teachings and trainings and tools that I’ve developed since then to support those of us who are highly sensitive who are called to be self-employed so that we can do what it takes to be self-employed but in a way that really matches who we are so that we don’t have to go into those coping mechanisms of pushing or hiding or combo-plattering, but can actually really be at peace within our business while also creating prosperity. And that’s the scoop! Rob: There’s a lot to unpack there. My first question is, of course, going to be how do we know if we’re highly sensitive? But I’m almost wondering if this is a man/woman thing? Does this skew one way heavily to another? How do we know if we are? Heather: That’s an awesome, awesome question. So first of all, it’s not gender-defined and I also always like to say that if you are highly sensitive, you were born into the world this way. And the basic description or definition of what it means to be highly sensitive is that your nervous system is wired differently than someone who is not highly sensitive. And according to Dr. Elaine Aron there is 20% of us in the population globally who are born into the world highly sensitive. What it means that your nervous system is wired differently is that, for example, something that might not even be stimulating to someone who isn’t highly sensitive like say, maybe loud noises. Right? Like, going to a rock concert. But someone who is highly sensitive is going to take that barely stimulating sensation for an 80%’er and their system is going to register it as extremely stimulating, if not absolutely bowl you over stimulating. So it’s not male or female. However, because of the way that our culture has been created and is understood, it takes a lot more for a man to admit or come to an understanding that he’s highly sensitive. How can you tell if you’re highly sensitive? Well, one of the first ways is to take an assessment that was developed by Dr. Elaine Aron or, if you’re a person who is self-employed, to take the assessment that I developed with Dr. Elaine Aron that helps you understand if you are a highly sensitive entrepreneur. Rob: Is this something that manifests in different parts of our lives? For example, you know, I might go to a movie and get a little teary eyed at the end,

Personal branding expert and talented designer, Sarah Ancalmo Ashman is the guest for the 56th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. She shared with Kira and Rob (and you) how she became a brand expert—she started out as an ad agency designer working with personalities like Madonna, Jimmy Fallon and the rock group, RadioHead. In the podcast she talks about: •  how she developed her unique design style and why she chose branding as her discipline •  the first steps she took when she started her own agency •  what branding is and why it is so important to have a strong brand •  some of the more important elements that make up your brand •  how to identify what make you (and your brand) unique •  what you need to know or work on before you engage a designer •  why copywriters shouldn’t shape their brand around their clients •  her contrarian advice on which formulas you should use for your brand •  how to create a brand for yourself when you don’t have the budget to work with a designer (hint: don’t use fiverr) Rob and Kira also ask Sarah about the things that smart copywriters are starting to do with their brands, where copywriters who want to work in branding can get started and the the text books she recommends you should read if you want to learn branding. 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 Sarah Ashman, Public Persona Sarah’s Pinterest MirrorBrand B School Bluffworks Lacy Boggs Ash Ambirge Building a Story Brand The Brand Gap 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 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 Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 56, as we chat with branding expert and designer Sarah Ancalmo Ashman about working with entrepreneurs and creatives to create jaw-dropping brands, developing a brand strategy, how copywriters should approach their own brand development, and whether having a nice logo is enough. Kira: Hi Sarah! Rob: Hey Sarah. Sarah: Hello, thanks for having me! Kira: Thanks for being here. I think - I have such a big crush on you because you’ve worked with me on my website and my brand and that’s been one of the best investments I’ve made in my business so I’m glad we can finally have you on the show you can share your knowledge and expertise with everyone at large. I think a great place to start though, is with your story! How did you end up running your creative studio? Sarah: As always, a meandering path, right? My background is actually in, you know, big brand advertising and you know, design studios in New York. And I worked doing that for about ten years and realized that the projects that resonated with me actually the most, were the ones that involved an individual. Clients that were sort of an individual that we were centering a brand around. I found that there were a lot of opportunities to bring out stories and you know, just really focus on their personality and what differentiates them as an individual. And so what I ended up doing was starting to kind of put my feelers out... and started to work with individuals, primarily entrepreneurs, who were either starting their business or wanting to uplevel, and applying some of the same techniques that I used to develop brands for the Fortune 500 for these private clients. And that ended up being viable enough for me to be able to kind of jump ship from the corporate space, if you will, and you know, start to do that on my own. In 2012, I officially birthed, if you will, a public persona! Rob: Sarah, your background includes some fashion work as well, and it seems to me like that might be reflected in a lot of the things that you do. How has that impacted how you look at brands as opposed to, you know, what a lot of other branding experts are out there doing? From my perspective, it seems like you have a very distinctive visual approach to what you do. Sarah: Yeah! It’s funny; I think a lot of that comes from directing, concepting and directing, these large scale photo shoots for commercial productions. And like you said, for a lot of fashion brands. And so, you know, I really love to see that transformation of this “ordinary” person, which in some cases was a celebrity or a model, and see them really transform into this sort of larger than life character on the screen. And I think that’s exactly what I sort of brought with me to the table, so to speak, with my clients. Just really being able to you know, create that level ten of an individual that’s still authentic to someone but you know, sort of heightened visually. Kira: Yeah, and Sarah, who are some of the early celebrities that you worked with? I believe Madonna was one of them, right? Sarah: Yes! I did. I worked on a campaign for Madonna pretty early on, which was exciting to say the least. You know, a lot of musicians a radio had, so for Jimmy Fallon, so those are some of the early folks that I started working with and that’s where I really started to fall in love with working with people, with individuals. Rob: So Sarah discovered Madonna. That’s awesome. (laughs) Kira: Kind of a big deal. It seems like what we could take even just from paying attention to the celebrities and having brand and they’re constantly reinventing themselves, that as business owners, especially for the face of our brand, that we should constantly evolve and continue to rebrand, like I don’t know if there’s every 3 years, every 10 years, but I’d love to hear more about that as far as what should we do as business owners to continue to evolve so that we’re not stagnant and our business doesn’t plateau. Sarah: Right, well I think, you know, just like you’re evolving as a human being, your business is evolving as well and because your brand is an extension of you, that’s something that you constantly have to think about. Does this reflect the best version of me? Does this feel aligned with me and where I’m going right now? And I think that’s why what you see in using Madonna as an example, how she reinvented herself a million times. That’s what really creates that relevancy, for lack of a better term. As the market continues to grow, so you know, it really is important to reinvent. And that could be - you could be a fast iterator - and that could be every year. That could be every three years. That could be every five years, but always just sort of keeping in check: is my brand and business aligned with me? Because again, you are the face of your brand. Rob: So Sarah, can we take a step back? You talked about your early experience in working with these big brands, but even before that, how did you decide that branding was the thing that you wanted to do and that you wanted to approach from the design side? Sarah: Well, it’s funny, my sort of entree was really just graphic design. You know, visual communication. And brand building was something that just kind of happened along the way. You know, that was never something that they taught in school. That was never something that they necessarily you know, called out as being sort of a specialty of the time in the advertising industry, believe it or not, that was just something that everyone sort of did on the side. And what I realized was that I loved being able to take the essence of a client and to help to sort of shape that experience around them. I had a fellow coworker and mentor at the time who said, that is really the heart of branding. And really sort of showed me that that was a specialty of mine without realizing it at the time. Kira: I want to hear about your early days when you really made that transition from corporate to launching your own business and what that looked like for you, especially as far as really gaining traction, getting those first few clients, getting set up and running, so you felt like you could make that jump. I feel like that’s where a lot of us get stuck and overwhelmed. Sarah: Yeah. I will say that was awhile ago so the market wasn’t as crowded, however, what I did was I found my way into B School, which is you know, a lot of people’s story. Kira: Oh, I didn’t know that! Sarah: Yeah, I took B School just because I wanted to have an understanding of what I was jumping into. I wasn’t someone who was trained as a business owner so I thought, well, I can’t afford to go to full on business school, so let me see what I can pick up in that course. And so you know, within the context of B School, started becoming active within the private facebook group, started talking to people, started interacting a lot personally and what I realized and in doing that, you know, on my own as well as just watching other pepople who were sort of rising to success very quickly.. it was really all about making connections. It was really all about creating that trust and that human connection. And that’s exactly how I found my first few clients that enabled me to jump ship and you know, to this day, I remain very active in a lot of Facebook groups because that ultimately is the best business tool, I feel, today. It’s just you know, the human touch. Rob: I love that advice. The power of connection. That’s something that we’ve talked about with several guests but it’s something that Kira and I have both experienced and done. It really is the best way to connect with customers. Sarah: It absolutely is.

Paid search expert (and copywriter club member) Amy Hebdon joins Kira and Rob for the 55th episode of the podcast to talk about search marketing, the tools and skills you need to do it right, best practices for testing and messaging, and whether copywriters can drive quality leads for their own businesses with paid search. Here’s what we cover: •  how Amy went from inexperienced copywriter to web designer to paid search consultant •  what paid search is and the various places you can participate in it •  why copywriters need to know about paid search, keywords, ads and landing pages •  how writing for search is different from typical ad writing •  when you should write for Google and when you should write for people (you can do both) •  why you should work backwards from your landing page before writing your ads •  why traffic and clicks are a terrible metric in paid search •  best practices for testing ads so you get better insights, and •  the tools Amy uses to monitor her accounts and ads We also talked about what copywriters can do to attract clients who understand search (and want to work with a paid search specialist), how copywriters might use paid search to drive traffic to their own sites, and where the opportunities are for paid search today. Don’t miss Amy’s straight-forward perspective on the future of paid search and why there needs to be more collaboration than ever in this area in 2018. To hear 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 Amy Hebdon, Paid Search Magic Find Amy on Twitter AdWords Adsense Joanna Wiebe Unbounce Leadpages Supermetrics DuckDuckGo Indeed Upwork 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 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 Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 55 as we talk with paid search expert Amy Hebdon about search marketing, the tools and skills you need to do it right, best practices for testing and messaging, and whether copywriters can drive quality leads for their own businesses with paid search. Kira: Amy, welcome. Amy: Hi! Good to be on here. Kira: Yeah, thanks for hanging out with us today. I think a great place for us to start is with your story and how you got into paid search. Amy: Sure! So, I am one of those people who always wanted to work in advertising. It’s been my dream career, basically, since I was seven, and I majored in marketing communications in school and I spent the next several years temping, trying to find jobs. At the time, I was living in the Bay area and it was right around the time of the dot com bust, so I wasn’t able to find anyone who wanted to hire a brand new copywriter with no experience. I ended up a few years later... I got a job in New York as a web designer, so I was going to work every day basically hoping that wasn’t the day that I got fired because really, my web design skills were not that great. I was not that good at coding and I had all these design challenges that I had no idea how to solve. Looking back, I don’t think they actually would’ve fired me, like I think it was fine for what their clients needed, but it was really stressful for me to not know what I was doing and not really know how to do a good job with that. Working in this little design agency... it was a really cramped office space and the woman who sat behind me - there was no space between our chairs. So, every time she even stood up, she would bump me and it was really uncomfortable. She was doing adwords and digital marketing and one day, she had gone to this conference, about web marketing, I think. And she had come back and management had asked her to give a report on what she had learned and during her presentation, they asked her what click through rate was, and she wasn’t able to explain it. She didn’t know what it was. Which, it’s pretty essential if you’re doing digital marketing to even have a basic understanding of click through rate... so they fired her immediately after that and they offered me her job. I was kind of in heaven because I was discovering adwords, which it turned out I really loved, and I was able to move in my chair because there wasn’t someone sitting behind me. I think I would’ve liked anything that got me out of doing web design... but I really took to paid search and to adwords, just with how much accountability there was. At the time, Google didn’t even own an analytics tool yet. There was really no good way to test and measure different kinds of optimizations but here was this platform that we could really test everything we wanted and learn what changes we were making that were able to influence the growth of this account and really accomplish what I’m trying to. So, I was really drawn to that and I’ve been really drawn to it ever since. Doing adwords now for 13 years. Rob: So Amy, I wanna be sort of dumb, like that person who was fired and get really, really basic on this. Tell us what is paid search, what does it include, what are all of the moving parts of paid search? Amy: So, paid search has really evolved I would say from those days. Basically, the idea of paid search is it’s a way to show up on the search engines or search engine results pages in a sponsor listing, as opposed to you know, an organic listing or Google just find you. You’re paying to participate and show up in the top of the listings. Now, what a search engine is and does has definitely evolved. So, instead of just having google proper that you go to, well, Google owns YouTube, and so YouTube basically is its own search engine as well, so video ads is a way to participate in paid search. Google owns Gmail, so Gmail sponsored promotions, Gmail ads are another way to participate in paid search. Google offers app ads, they have quite a few apps that you’re able to market on as well as the display network, which is over two million websites that are involved somehow with Google, with adsense, or whatever, that you’re able to run ads on. It really has grown pretty far beyond just the search engine listings and results pages to really help your company get found anywhere on the internet, for the most part. Kira: Okay, let’s say I’m a copywriter who has been doing my thing, has not dived into paid search at all—why is it important? Why do I need to know about it, even if I’m not in a role where I’m an expert? Why is it really important for all copywriters today to know about? Amy: I think that if you’re a copywriter who’s involved in landing pages at all, the overlap between ads and landing pages is really significant. Like, I could create the best campaign in the world, but if it’s going to a 404 page, it’s not going to convert. Or if it’s going to a home page that doesn’t have a compelling offer on it, I’m not going to get those conversions. So, it’s not gonna work in terms of the paid traffic that we’re driving, and on the flipside, being a copywriter or being involved in that page can really affect how everything works together. So, everything from the page speed load time can affect the quality score of your adwords campaign, which can affect how much you’re paying and essentially how much traffic you’re able to drive to whether the landing page includes the keywords that we’re bidding on. If there’s a high degree of relevancy, the page is going to do better and convert better, but if you’re not aware of what keywords are being used or how people are finding the page, then the page can’t perform as well. As a copywriter, it really behooves you to understand how the traffic is getting there so you can really speak to those people who are finding you and make sure that they get the best experience possible. Then you’re able to improve conversion rates and frankly, up your pricing and up your game and your performance that you’re able to provide. Rob: So, let’s say that I’m working on a paid campaign, or I’ve been assigned a paid campaign, and I haven’t really done one before. What are some of the basic things that I need to be starting to think through, knowing that I might be working with someone like you who’s going to be managing the ad buy or managing the placements of the different ads. As a copywriter, what do I need to know? Amy: As a copywriter, I think it’s really important to understand the relationship between the keyword, the ad, and the landing page. I think copywriters don’t always think about this, and if you’re a copywriter that does SEO, this probably doesn’t pertain as much to you, but if you’re not SEO, and you’re used to being able to go in and write a headline that’s just designed to capture attention, the importance of including a keyword in that headline and making sure it’s really relevant to the keyword that we’re bidding on for the campaign—it’s gonna make a big difference. You can’t just have a headline that says, they laughed and sat down at the piano, it has to really speak to the query that had someone go to a search engine in the first place and ask a question, then find an ad that looks like it’s going to answer that, and then get on a page that matches that expectation set by the ad. So,

Copywriter Chanti Zak (aka Chantelle Zakariasen aka the Queen of Quiz Funnels) joins us for the 54th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Chanti started her career as a food blogger, racking up more than 50,000 regular visitors and a big email list before transitioning to copywriting for coaches and other wellness-based businesses. During our interview, she tells us about: •  how she went from moderately successful food blogger to in-demand copywriter •  the biggest differences between blogging and copywriting •  quiz funnels—what they are and what they do •  how a quiz can segment an audience—and they don’t even realize it’s happening •  how she’s packaged her services to be appealing to different kinds of clients •  how she pitches and cold emails clients successfully •  what she does to make her emails stand out and get a response •  how she batches her pitches to use her time more effectively •  website shame and what she did to overcome it, and •  the three things she invested in to upgrade her web presence We also asked her what she would do differently if she had to start over and where she thinks copywriting is headed (hint: interactivity seems to be a big thing these days). Plus we wanted to hear more about her stay in India before she started writing and how that experience has impacted the way she approaches her business today. To hear what she told us, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: The Copywriter Accelerator Chanti’s food blog Cosmopolitan Buzzfeed Pinterest Ryan LeVesque ChantelleZakariasen.com Wordpress ChantiZak.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Kira: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Accelerator a three-month program with six core business components designed to help new copywriters lay their foundation for a successful business. Rob: Participants receive in-depth training, coaching, and feedback from us, which means you get access to us in a private community. Registration is now open and the early bird rate ends on October 27th. Learn more at TheCopywriterAccelerator.com. Kira: 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 Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for Episode 54 as we talk with copywriter and quiz funnel expert, Chanti Zak, about creating quizzes that hook potential customers, and to make them want to share going from in-house writer to freelance and finding clients fast, pitching podcasts, and how studying yoga in India has made her a better copywriter. Kira: Chanti, welcome. Chanti: Thank you for having me. I feel so honored. Rob: It’s awesome to have you here. Kira: Yes-yes, so I think a great place to start is with your story. How did you end up becoming a copywriter? Chanti: Well, I started a food blog randomly enough. I had this paleo food blog when my son was a newborn baby, and I really quickly grew it to like 50,000 unique visitors per month, and I was getting featured on like Cosmopolitan and BuzzFeed and all of these really big publications, so from there this whole online world opened up to me and I started getting writing work as a direct result of my food blog, so what I did is I used it as a portfolio of sorts, and that’s sort of how I started freelance writing and copywriting. Rob: I’m really curious you started a blog and grew to like 50,000 people. Kira: That’s a big deal. Rob: Yeah, that’s a dream that a lot of bloggers have been working for years to do. How did you do that? What did you do to grow? Chanti: Well, I think it’s easier with food than it is with a lot of more niche topics because everybody’s got to eat and food it’s like this innate human desire we all want delicious things, so I basically just picked up a camera and started photographing recipes that I would make, and I’ve always been really into nutrition and natural health and I studied that for a long time, so I would sort of weave that in and write on those topics, and then basically it took off. I think one of the main reasons was because of Pinterest. Everything on Pinterest was just going viral like this one muffin recipe to me is really simple and this basic recipe had like 100,000 shares. Rob: Wow. Chanti: Yeah. Kira: Okay, I want that recipe because simple is ideal for me right now. Chanti: Yes. Kira: Are you still blogging on that blog? What happened to it? Chanti: No, I basically like just let it go and surrendered because I didn’t have time for it eventually, and I wasn’t really making money off of the blog directly, like I think to make money off a blog 50,000 visitors sounds like a lot of traffic, but you need more like 500,000 and upwards of that, so I just sort of said, “I’ll work on this later,” and started focusing on growing my copywriting career instead. Kira: So what did those early days look like for you where you were just starting to get the gigs, and realize that this is what you want to do? Chanti: I was so happy just to write that I took jobs for next to nothing, which is probably a common theme with a lot of writers, and I got to stay at home with my son, so I didn’t really care and I knew that there was potential to grow, so at first I was writing these heavy research laden 2,000 word articles, and getting paid 50 bucks. It was pretty bad. Rob: Ouch. Chanti: Then eventually I started moving towards copywriting because I saw that had a lot more potential to actually become a business. Rob: Tell us the next step. How did you get yourself to the point where you felt like you’d call yourself a copywriter as opposed to a blogger? Chanti: Well, from the beginning I’ve relied really heavily on having a mentor and having teachers to help me continually grow and learn and level up, so I worked with a lot of different people in that way, and I really pushed myself to practice and basically learned a lot on the job, but I didn’t make the full switch to conversion copywriting until I’d worked full-time for one company as their main copywriter, and it was at that point that I saw how powerful a well-written funnel is and that my words could generate upwards of 50 grand a month like that’s when it really clicked. Kira: Yeah, and I want to hear more about the in-house gig as far as what attracted you to it because I believe it was full-time and any lessons you learned while you were working there that you don’t mind sharing? Chanti: It was full-time and full-on like I was writing the whole course content, sales funnels, promotional campaigns, blog articles like I was in charge of the copywriting and the content marketing, so the workload was really heavy, but to answer your first question I was drawn to it because I was at this point in my copywriting career where like I had really poor boundaries with clients and I wasn’t charging enough, so I was constantly just sort of flailing and stuck in feast or famine mode so this opportunity presented itself and it was a nice cushy salary that I just couldn’t pass up at the time. Rob: Before we get into what you’re doing now I want to talk a little bit about the difference between writing for blogs and the copywriting you were doing in-house what do you see are the main differences between the way you wrote as a blogger and the way you write today as a copywriter? Chanti: I guess as a blogger it’s more from a perspective of value always comes first, and it’s more so about building those preliminary relationships that happen way before the sale ever happens, so when I was blogging a lot sales weren’t really on my mind, whereas, when I’m writing conversion copy my main goal is how can I write this so that I can inspire people to take action, and ultimately invest in whatever it is that I’m writing for. Rob: So maybe if you had been doing more of the conversion thinking with the food blog you could have gotten more of them to buy. I’m kind of joking around a little bit, but… Chanti: Well, it’s true. At the time like I didn’t really understand the power of email marketing. I had grown this email list of thousands of people and I had no idea like what to even do with it, so it wasn’t until later that it kind of clicked, and I was like, okay, I learnt that lesson the hard way, but I’m going to do it again some day. Kira: Right, so some day is now, right? You were in-house, now you are no longer in-house, so what did that transition look like where all of a sudden like you’re back in the freelance world, and you need to get clients fast what did that look like for you and how did you get those clients and stay afloat? Chanti: It was really intense. I knew that I wanted to leave the company. I was feeling really burnt out. At that point like I knew that I could make more money on my own, so I basically had this like exit plan, and my exit plan got totally messed up because I ended up getting laid off like way before I was planning on leaving, so I was totally terrified. I was the sole provider for my little family, and suddenly I had to start from scratch, so the first thing I did was get support and I joined The Accelerator with you guys, which really was the main reason that I didn’t totally drown like you guys helped me so much, and I just hustled hard for three months. I focused in on the areas that I knew I could get results and stand out in the marketplace, so quizzes for me was the one thing that I’d done a lot of in my in-house job, and I knew that I could get results for people with quizzes, so I rebranded my entire website and my messaging.

Ryan Johnson, Head Copywriter at IWT (short for I Will Teach, Ramit Sethi’s company) steps up to the microphone with Kira and Rob for the 53rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. This interview covers a lot of ground, including: •  how after a grueling interview in his car, Ryan failed to get a job with IWT only to get hired a few months later (never give up) •  how to get inside the head of your client so you can speak with his or her voice •  his process for laying out all the moving pieces of a launch, and •  how he maps emotions to his launch plans so customers can’t wait to respond •  the 7 deadly email funnel sins •  two reasons to use long-form sales pages •  the “leap stacking” technique he uses to help his writers uplevel their skill (and what doesn’t work when trying to improve) Plus Ryan shares the “copy levers” that Gary Bencivenga used to get better at his craft, how he avoids writer’s block, and the one thing he would do if he had to start his career all over. Lots of good stuff packed into this episode. To hear it, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Ramit Sethi The Briefcase Technique Jay Abraham IWT AIDA Gary Bencivenga Abbey Woodcock Justin Blackman The Headline Project 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, and 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 53 as we chat with in house copywriter, Ryan Johnson, about he became a copywriter and landed a job writing for Ramit Sethi, how he tackles a massive launch, capturing the voice of your client, and how long it takes him to write a 50 plus page sales letter. Ryan, welcome. Rob: Yes, welcome Ryan. Ryan: Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Kira: Yeah, it’s great to have your here, and I think a great place to start is just with your story of how did you end up becoming a copywriter? Ryan: It was kind of a circular process to copywriting. I didn’t even know what copywriting was at the very beginning. My original interests were in film and creative writing, which led me into a delightful career waiting tables. After a few years of that, my first real job was in instructional design, and I was editing textbooks, and building training programs. I actually ended up designing an associates degree in business. I packaged and edited textbooks on business, and economics, and entrepreneurship before I realized that doing that was with no experience was totally crazy. But it was a good baseline. But while I was doing this, I can still remember. I was in the middle of editing this 500 page textbook on economics, which is about as exciting as it sounds, and my wife was working as a creative copywriter, and she was getting paid much, much more than me to edit this glossy one page ad. It looked like so much fun and so much easier than what I was doing. I’m like, “I’m doing something wrong, ‘cause there’s clearly a cap on where I am, and there’s no clap over here.” So shortly after I figured out how I could transition into marketing, into copywriting. It’s been a race every since. Rob: You’re working as an in house copywriter, but what does that look like today? What is the day to day ... How do you spend your time? What are you working on? Those kinds of things. Ryan: Yeah, so with Ramit at IWT / Growth Lab, I am the head of the sales team and the editorial teams. I oversee all of the in-house copywriters in all these different facets, all the material that we produce. All the blog posts, emails, sales pages, up sale pages, all the little copy that you don’t think about, but ties all this stuff together. Rob: And how did you connect with Ramit? Ryan: I was a longtime reader, I’ve been with Ramit for over six years now. But back in the very beginning, I was just reading his blog, and he had an advertisement for a case study writer, just a freelance position a few hours a week, and I applied for it. It was the most grueling application that I had been through. There was multiple rounds of tests I had to go through, samples I had to do, interviews. Actually, I took the interview, I took it on a lunch break at work, it was in the middle of the summer. I’m in my car, it’s 100 degrees, and I’m just roasting in the car. And he asked me, “Hey, give me an example of somebody that’s doing copywriting well, content marketing well.” And my mind totally blanked, and I knew instantly, I just lost this, it’s over. And sure enough, I didn’t get the position. But I had been reading Ramit for a while, and I knew about his briefcase technique and a lot of the great material he had, so I called in sick the next day, spent the whole day preparing a briefcase to sell Ramit on why I was the right guy. And I ended up doing that twice with two different proposals for Ramit. I still didn’t get the position, he hired someone else. But that person fizzled out. He called me a few weeks later and said, “Hey, you still interested, you want to give it a shot?” Absolutely. So I started writing case studies for him, and that quickly turned into other types of blog posts. And yeah, six years later, taking on more and more. Kira: Wow. Okay, cool. So I’d love to hear more about the path copywriters can follow - and I know it’s different for everyone, but for a copywriter that’s listening that wants to become a top, high-performing copywriter, or even potentially in-house managing a team, where should they start early on? Ryan: I don’t think there’s one path that you can take. There’s definitely threads that a lot of the successful writers have in common. My path is a bit unusual, because I started in literature and film and storytelling, and then I was in instructional design and product development. And it was only after years of that, that I moved into copywriting and direct response, and I was writing ads and sales letters and brochures. That foundational experience has really impacted how I approach copy. And most copywriters don’t come in with a foundation in product development, really thinking about the product. They look at it, and think okay, what are the benefits of this? But not the impact on the person actually using it. And I did sales copywriting for a while, and I kept running into blocks. Challenges like man, it would be a whole lot easier to sell this if the product was a little bit different. Or, if our brand had a slightly different position. Setting things up to make it harder to sell. And I could see this in other businesses as well. And that led me into brand and into strategy, really trying to get to the root cause of a lot of these things. And those in turn were very powerful in the copywriting that I was doing as well. So I became a Swiss army knife, where I could come in and look at a piece of copy, as direct response. I could look at it as editorial. I could think about the brand implications of it. It allowed me to be versatile in a way that a lot of copywriters aren’t. A lot of copywriters are very, very specialized. “I write sales letters for the financial industry, in this one format. And if you want that I can do a pretty good job, but if you want anything else, if your brand is different in any way, eh, it’s going to be hard.” So what I think helps a lot of writers who really make it to that top level is, yeah, be good at what you’re doing, but also try and get out of that bubble that you’re in. Look at different types of copy. Build that versatility, because the best can take those core lessons and apply them to other things. Rob: Let’s talk about that just a little bit more. Obviously a lot of the stuff that you’re writing on a daily basis is not in your own voice, you’re working for somebody else, and it’s in his voice, it’s his products or at least the brand he’s built around himself. How do you get yourself into another person’s shoes in order to create copy that reflects, like you’re saying, their brand or their personality? Ryan: For me, a lot of it is acting. With my background in screenwriting, one of the things I had to do was write a lot of screenplays. There’s a lot of different characters in a screenplay, that means I’m writing dialogue for different people. I’m writing dialogue for the husband, dialogue for the wife, dialogue for the villain, dialogue for the hero, dialogue for the child. To do that, I would literally stand up, pretend to be that person, and act it out, and try and even do it in their voice. That’s hard at first, but it gets easier and easier, and pretty soon you can start to feel what that person is feeling, think what that person is thinking. The same is true in copywriting. If you have a client with a particular voice, it’s about getting into their mindset and being able to pretend that you’re them. Reading all their material, watching all of their videos. How would they think through this problem? How would they express this? And you can shortcut it, but looking at what they say over and over and over again - what’s the phraseology that they would use to describe x? And you can collect some of those things, start to build a map for how they think about it. Kira: I like that idea of acting it out, I can say I have never done that and I really need to do that to embrace the voice of my clients. And it could be really fun, right? Get costumes, wigs,

When we launched The Copywriter Club Podcast, we made a list of copywriters we wanted to interview and the guest for episode 51, David Garfinkel, was at the top. Known as the World's Greatest Copywriting Coach, David is a world-class copywriter who regularly consults with clients like Agora Financial and GKIC along with several high-level copywriters to help improve the performance of their copy. During our interview, David talked about: •  how he got his start as a copywriter •  a “this will only work for me” method for finding your first project •  the story behind his $40 million dollar sales letter •  the mistakes he made as he was just starting his business •  how he made the shift to coaching and what he does as a coach •  the three things to look for in a copy coach •  how to overcome objections with your copy •  what mistakes he sees over and over again that you will want to avoid •  the importance of “relevant credentials” when making any sale •  when you should start coaching other writers •  the two or three things to go from good to great as a writer Plus David talked about what his business looks like today and he shared details about the breakout hit song he wrote for the urology department at the University of California’s Centennial celebration. (This is stuff he hasn't even shared on his own podcast.) To hear it, you need to click the play button below, or scroll down to read a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory McGraw Hill World News Gary Halbert’s Newsletter Aaron Sorkin Barbara (Bloch) Stanny Jay Conrad Levinson Jim Camp KOLBE Copy Chief Breakthrough Copywriting Garfinkelcoaching.com Kevin Rogers Scientific Advertising The Billion Dollar Copywriter Peak by Anders Erickson Agora Financial Fast, Effective Copy Homespun.com David’s Facebook Page The Copywriters Podcast 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 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 52 as we chat with the man who has been called the world’s greatest copywriting coach, David Garfinkel, about the lessons he’s learned coaching and working with so many copywriters, what it takes to be truly great as a copywriter, how his life away from copywriting makes him a better writer, and how to do an effective copy critique. Kira: David, welcome. David: Thank you. I’m glad to be here. Rob: Yeah, we’re excited to have you. Kira: It’s an honor to have you. Yeah, this is the highlight of my day. David: I know I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now. Kira: I feel like every time I think of you, David, I think of the beach because I listen to episode 13, Why Customers Buy, while I was running on the beach on vacation last month. I’m just happy anytime I hear your voice because it takes me back. David: Yeah. I think you mentioned that in an email to me. Which beach? Because I’m about six blocks from the Pacific Beach in San Francisco. Kira: Oh, this was Myrtle Beach. David: Oh. Yeah, I went there when I was in high school. I grew up in Maryland. We went there in the spring break or something. It was a very nice beach. Kira: Yeah, it was great. Rob: A great place to do some running, some copywriting learning. Kira: Exactly, yeah. David: Well, everyone has their own use for the beach. I think that’s a good one, frankly. Rob: Yeah, exactly. David, we really like to start a lot of our episodes with a story, your backstory, how you came into copywriting. Tell us where you came from. David: Well, I had been a business journalist. My last corporate job was as the San Francisco bureau chief for McGraw-Hill World News, which is like an internal news service for McGraw-Hill’s business and trade magazines, and it came time to leave. I was doing well, but I wasn’t happy. I knew if I wasn’t happy, I was going to find a way to screw it up. It’d probably be better just to leave. I was wandering around looking for what to do and had a lot of false starts. I co-authored a book and then I created a little audio program called Referral Magic: 17 Ways to Let Your Clients Do Your Selling, and I didn’t have the skills to sell it. I was, believe it or not, teaching public speaking at the time. My business partner got one of Gary Halbert’s newsletters as a six-month gift subscription. I remember looking at the first issue. He said, “Davis, this isn’t for me, but it might be for you.” I looked at it, I said, “What in the world is he doing? I don’t know what he’s doing, but I’ve got to do this.” Sooner or later, I found out about Gary and I found out about copywriting. I said, “This is my next step. This is my path,” and then I just dove into it. I love it. I love copywriting. I love what you can do with it. I love the fact that it uses a very basic emotional language, and it can be so powerful for a business. It can help the business grow. For an individual who knows how to do it, you can buy or earn or acquire freedom and control of your life like with nothing else I know of. I got hooked. Kira: What did those early days look like for you when you knew you wanted to get into copywriting and then you figured out, “Well, I need clients”? How did you get your first few clients? David: The early days looked like a lot, a lot, a lot of work and a lot of frustration. I think I got clients by referral. I was big in the speaking world at the time, so I used to go to all these National Speakers Association meetings and all the speakers needed help promoting themselves. Just through networking like that. At that time, I would take anything, I would do anything. If you don’t call it copywriting, if you call it advertising, and if you call it advertising, that actually gets people, clients make sales. People are interested. I just fumbled my way from one thing to another until I started figuring out what I was doing and having a lot of success with it. Rob: David, I’ve heard you talk a lot ... Well, not a lot. I’ve heard you talk occasionally about this letter that you wrote. I believe it was for a travel company that was like a $20 million successful control, something like that. How do you find a client like that? Tell us the story of how that all came together. David: Okay. I’ll tell you the exact method, but I’m not sure anyone else can do it. You need to have a girlfriend in Phoenix named Sally, who knows the owner. Rob: We can work on that. We’re adding that to our ways to find copywriting jobs list. Kira: Right. David: Number 133: have a girlfriend named Sally who lives in Phoenix. Yeah, it was a referral. That was an interesting story because they had this beautiful, slick, heavy, well-designed glossy brochure that could have, as I often say, hung in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Everything was great about it except they weren’t getting any clients with it. They were getting all of their business through referrals. This was fairly early in my career, and I had some of the skills, the information-gathering skills, the interview skills, the research skills, but I really didn’t know how to write copy. Fortunately, I had a mentor who helped me. I remember completely rewriting the letter seven times. Actually, that’s nothing compared to what some people go through, but I mean if you’ve ever seen Aaron Sorkin talk about his screenplays, he will retype the screenplay three or four times. This is a 120-page document. But I didn’t know about that at the time, and I just kept going after we put together a terrific offer. They got a really good list. I used what I’d learned from Gary Halbert about white male, which is something that was stamped and it had a return address, but not the name of the company so someone opens it out of curiosity or out of worry that it might be something that they really missed out on if they hadn’t seen it. It worked. Their unit of sale was an ongoing relationship with an entrepreneurial businesses that did a lot of travel and would like to have the capability in-house. In those days, unlike today, you had to go to a travel agent or at least you had to have a ticket printing machine in your business. The two owners, Bonnie and Dwayne, had both worked for several airlines before. Well, I’m not sure Bonnie had, but Dwayne had been a vice-president of two different airlines and Bonnie knew the travel business inside and out. They were able to offer ... I mean it sounds easy now. It sounds easy, but getting all that information out and then getting them convinced to present it and then figuring out how to actually present it that way, it was a lot of work. Actually, it wasn’t $20 million, it was $40 million. Bonnie was a CPA. The CEO was a CPA, too. She calculated it and then wrote me a testimonial. Just brought in these big clients, and they stayed with them for years. Kira: Wow! David, I want to back up because you mentioned that you wrote the book Referral Magic and that you landed a lot of those early clients through your referrals, through your girlfriend. A lot of our copywriters in our community are new and they struggle to even get referrals. I know you can’t share the whole entire book with us, but are there some tips to help us land the referrals? Maybe it speaks to what you said about don’t call it copywriting, call it making sales. Maybe we’re just positioning that wrong. David: Yeah.

Direct response copywriter and video sales letter expert, Valentina Volcinschi, is in the house for episode 51 of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira and Rob ask her about how she became a direct response copywriter and how she developed her skills—she’s written a ton of successful promotions including one that pulled in $7 million in 5 months and saved a company that was headed toward bankruptcy. She also talks about... •  how musician Jack White landed her a job in direct response •  the “secret” 1000-page book that helped launch her career •  how she injects emotion into her copy •  her “puzzle structure” for sales pages •  how to get started working in the survival niche •  the biggest differences between sales pages and VSLs •  the EPW writing process that you probably use but don’t know it •  how she researches for her assignments Plus Valentina goes deep on how feeling your customer’s pain can make all the difference in a sales message and how she entertains with her copy (she looks for wacky characters). We also asked her what she charges for sales pages, emails and VSLS and her advice for new direct response copywriters. As usual, lots of good ideas and advice.  Click the play button below to listen, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Jack White Madonna The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach (no longer available) Ry Schwartz Daniel Sanchez Copy School Ben Settle Valentina’s website 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 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 51 as we chat with copywriter Valentina Volcinschi about entertaining your customers with your copy, writing with emotion, video sales letters, and what it takes to break through in hypercompetitive markets like survival, health, and sass. Rob: Hey, Kira. Hey, Valentina. Valentina: Hi, guys. How you doing? Kira: Welcome. Thanks for joining us. Valentina: Thank you for inviting me. Kira: A good place to start, Valentina, is just with your story, how you ended up as a direct response copywriter working on VSLs and even in the survival market. How did you get there? Valentina: Well, it’s quite a funny story because I actually owe my debut in direct response copywriting to Jack White from The White Stripes and The Dead Weather. Rob: Okay. This sounds like a good story. Valentina: Yeah, kind of. I started as an agency copywriter. I worked at a local agency for a couple of years, but then I had to switch cities. I moved to another city, so I had to look for a job. I found an internship as a direct response copywriter and I was like, “What is that? I had never heard about that before.” I read about it. I found it very interesting and I thought that is a very good opportunity to learn something new. What I did was apply to that copywriting internship. What I didn’t know was that the person in charge of the applications was the secretary of the company. What she did was check every single person who applied on Facebook to see if they have the same taste in music as her because she had no girls on the team. There are only guys and no one there to, I don’t know, share a common interest with her. She looked at my Facebook page and she saw that I had liked Jack White’s page. She was like, “This girl, I want this girl on my team.” Yes. She went to her boss and she oversold me on the whole thing. When I went to the interview, the guy was so excited to talk to me. I felt like I was Madonna. He was like, “Oh my god. I heard so many wonderful things about you.” I was a rookie copywriter who had no idea what direct response copywriting was, but I got the internship. I didn’t know that they worked with a certain niche, which was survival. I was used to work in an agency where you just worked on whatever account the agency got. I was very surprised that my first copy project was for an info product, an eBook called Survive Apocalypse. I thought it was a joke. I was absolutely convinced it was a test, the kind of test that you get in copywriting interviews here they say, “Imagine we’re in the desert and you’re selling sand to me.” I was absolutely convinced it was one of those tests, like Survive Apocalypse was ridiculous, but then I got an email from my boss with the eBook Survive Apocalypse and another book that was called The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach by Clayton Makepeace. If you’re not familiar with that book, it’s a great book for direct response copywriters, but it is 1,068 pages long. I was supposed to finish the sales letter not knowing not even how to begin a sales letter or what a sales letter was while reading that book to understand how the process works. I don’t think I’ve slept eight hours in a month, but I managed to do it and it got a great conversion rate. It got like 12% on a first test on a small email list. It was right. I got hired and that was my debut in direct response copywriting in survival. Rob: That’s nice. Valentina, you mentioned that there was a bit of a mind shift for you when you went from your first copywriting job to direct response. Would you tell us about some of the differences that you saw between the copy you were writing before and the copy that you were writing with the direct response opportunity? Valentina: Yes. The agency that I used to work at was the typical super Bohemian place where you just brainstorm the whole day long and drink a beer and worked on very small accounts. The income wasn’t great for me or for the agency. It was a very small agency. When I got to this company, I saw budgets of like a million dollars per month and I was shocked. Everything was super structured. The company was very well organized and even the copywriting process was much better organized and structured than I was used to. I used to just brainstorm ideas and here I had two copy trainers, which was amazing. Each of them had a different style and I was very lucky to get those trainers because I learned how to write copy and edit my own work at the same time, which is very hard for a rookie. It was a mind shift as in I suddenly had to become a lot more organized, a lot more structured in my writing. I went from writing slogans and naming products and writing, I don’t know, 400 word website pages to writing 6,000 words video sales letters. The style was definitely different because at an agency normally you don’t write sales copy. You write stuff for brand awareness. You write advertising campaigns. The mind shift was radical for me, but it was very useful in the end because I got the business end of copy, which helped me a lot in my freelancing career. Kira: Let’s talk about that first month when you’re working on Survive Apocalypse sales letter and you have this Clayton Makepeace book and you’re just figuring it out. How did you download the book? How did you make it happen? Did you have anything that worked, didn’t worked during that time because I think we can all relate to that where we take on a project that’s out of our wheelhouse or a little bit more challenging than what we’re used to and we just have to figure it out within a matter of weeks or days? Valentina: Honestly it was a nightmare. Really it was a nightmare. I never thought that I would actually get the job because when I was working on the project, I was an intern. A future job depended on this sales letter and on the results that I would get. Pretty much all internships are the same like, “Okay. Let’s see how you work. If we like your work and if you’re doing a good job, you’re going to get the job and you’re going to get paid in everything.” I was so stressed because the book was absolutely massive and I swear to god I was reading it during the night so I can apply what I read during the day. I was sitting with like a small flashlight in my bed and I was reading and crying at the same because I had no idea. It is a super detailed book. For a total rookie to jump from not knowing what direct response really is to this is how you write a price justification, I had no idea how I managed to pull that through. I was lucky that I had these trainers that helped me through. I’ve done the job mostly myself, but it was a nightmare. It was horrible. I didn’t understand a word of it. Last year I read that book again and I was like, “Oh, so that’s what it meant. Oh okay. Now I get it,” because back then I had no idea. It’s not a book that I recommend to total rookies when it comes to direct response copywriting. Maybe after a few months, maybe, I don’t know, half a year of experience that would help you get your copy to the next level. Otherwise, it can be overwhelming. Rob: A lot of our listeners are probably googling right now for a link to Clayton’s book so that they can learn lessons that you picked up as you went through the book at night. Valentina: Yeah. I think you can find it in PDF form online. It’s not very heard to find. Rob: Valentina, as you started writing direct response sales letters for this company, how did you learn to use your copy to entertain? How did you inject emotion into the page? Obviously it’s different from what you were doing with your branding copy. Valentina: Yes. Yes. Totally different. The emotional thing kind of comes naturally for me.

For our 50th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we’re doing things a little differently. Actually, quite a bit differently. We’ve flipped the microphone and invited Ry Schwartz back for another visit—but this time to ask questions of copywriters Kira Hug and Rob Marsh (your humble hosts for all the other episodes). Ry does his best to get the goods from us. In the process we cover... •  Rob’s advice on how to have a happy marriage (obviously he hasn’t had to give it a lot of thought) •  how copywriting applies to marriage •  the nicest thing anyone has ever said to Kira •  what Rob and Kira would look for if they were hiring a “copy cub” •  what they do to learn new things every day •  the music they listen to (or don’t) when they write—you may be surprised •  what Kira and Rob would do right now if they had to rebuild their businesses from scratch •  what they’ve learned as they created a coaching program •  what they would do if they couldn’t be copywriters any more Plus what they think is the most important thing for copywriters to do today, Ry’s better-than-expected-but-still-bad Irish accent, a few music clips and more. If you like 80s hip hop, Disney mermaids and great copywriting advice, you’ll want to click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Narcos Chuck Taylors James Wedmore The Voice Hillary Weiss It’s Tricky (Run DMC) I Love You (Climax Blue’s Band) The Things You Never Remember (Dave Brubeck ) Genie in a Bottle (Christina Aguilera) Hips Don’t Lie (Shakira) Ry’s announcement episode Rob’s book The Copywriter Think Tank Tanya Geisler on the Imposter Complex The Copywriter Accelerator Rick Steeves Under Pressure (David Bowie and Queen) The Little Mermaid 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. Ry: Hi, all right. I’m interviewing you guys today, that’s fun. Kira: I’m a little nervous. Ry: A little nervous? I have some good questions here, I watched Narcos all weekend, so I have a lot of drug-related questions. Kira: Oh, my god. Ry: Yeah, it’s just where my brain is going. This almost blends perfectly well with my first question, but we haven’t done the actual intro yet. I’m going to do it in a British accent. 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 stealing an idea or two to inspire your own work, that’s what I get to do today at The Copywriter Club Podcast. I also get to put on a terrible Irish accent and I’m doing it because we are flipping the microphone, that’s an awkward thing to say; but we’re turning the microphone on the other side of the virtual table. I get to ask Rob and Kira the awkward questions about life, business, copywriting, and all the amazing things in between. Thanks for letting me do this and thanks for being on your own show, guys. Rob: Yeah, you haven’t even told us who you are yet. Kira: We’re just supposed to know after that brilliant accent. Ry: I’m a ghost, I think we should only reveal it at the end, to see if people could guess who this has been the entire team. Kira: That’s a good taste. Ry: Hint, it is Rob’s younger self coming back. Rob: Much better looking, much smarter, younger self. Yes. Ry: Yes, who initially turned older Rob on to wearing Chuck Taylors, so it’s is not old Rob, yet. Yes, thanks for being here. That’s an awkward transition. I don’t know how you guys do segues so much better than I just did. But, we will start off by talking about Kira’s wedding anniversary because that is currently happening. So, talk to us about the last six years. Kira: Oh my gosh. Ry: I mean, we’re starting off light. If you could write a headline for the last six years, what would it be? Kira: Oh my lord, my armpits are sweating. I feel like I’m in the hot seat, it’s terrifying. Ry: This is like an underhand soft pitch. This is the warm up round. Kira: This is a bad idea. Whoever came up with this idea, very bad. Yeah, I’m happy to have hit my six year anniversary with my beloved, so. We had a great weekend and just reflecting. I feel like with the start of the school year, and the fall, and change of seasons. I don’t know I’m feeling this change within my business and within my life of just kind of wanting to figure out where I’m going next. So, this conversation comes at a good time. Ry: Amazing. Rob, if you were to give Kira any amount of advice, being married for twenty plus years now- Kira: I like that. Ry: What would that be? Rob: Man, that is… Kira: Yeah, Rob. Come on. Rob: So, this is a little bit unfair, because when we have guests on the podcast, we actually prep them with questions. We actually send them a few questions and say, “Hey, we might talk about these things.” You haven’t done any of that for us. Kira: We should note that. Just that our answers may not be as great as they could be, but we’ll still answer these questions, right? Rob: Yeah. Ry: Yes. There’s no escaping it, so. Rob: It’s sort of weird for me to answer that question because I don’t feel like I’m a counselor and I don’t feel like Kira’s and my relationship is one where I should be giving her marriage advice, so. Kira: Oh, you should be though. You should be because you’re my life coach. Rob: Yeah and it’s not going so well. Rob is the worst life coach around. Okay, so how to have a happy marriage? Kira: Yes. Rob: Marry the right person. Marry somebody that you actually like and who likes you back. That’s probably the number step, right. Kira: Okay, say I did that part though. Rob: Give each other space to do your own thing. I think my happy marriage is because I just married such an awesome person. We’re just really good partners. We don’t fight very often. We sort of have a lot of things in common. Things have just sort of worked out. I’m not sure that I’ve given the thought into why it’s so successful other than I just have a fantastic wife. Ry: All right. Let’s make this a little more specific then and transition into the copywriting game. When has your skill as a copywriter lent itself to your marriage? Rob: Well, let’s see. Copywriting is all about understanding the emotions and getting the response you want from the person you want across the table, right? That’s really ... that’s marriage. You need the other person to be able to respond in certain ways to different things. You know, you want help with this or that. So, understanding how my significant other feels or thinks, I think, is immeasurably helpful in trying to get things done. Within our family, within starting businesses, whatever that ends up being. I think that part of copywriting for sure lends itself. What do you think, Kira? Kira: I would say that I’m a big fan of social proof and all. I constantly send emails and reminders to my husband about how awesome I am and- Ry: Oh, I thought you were going to say that you sent him like testimonials and case studies from previous relationships. Kira: No, but I want him to know what’s happening in the business because it does pull me away from the family quite a bit. So, I think it’s good to remind your partner of what you’re building because ultimately it impacts everyone. He gets to experience the hard times with me where I’m stressed out, I need advice, so I do try to go out of my way to remind him of the good things. Like, “Hey, this person just said something nice about me.” Or, “Here’s something good that happened.” I got to share that. So, I have to remind myself to share that stuff too. Ry: Yeah. Kira: Because that is key to… Ry: So, what is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about you? That has just stuck. Kira: Copywriting related? Or just in life? Ry: Yeah, let’s start copywriting related. Kira: When I’ve been called weird. I will think of James Wedmore called me weird and said he wanted to work with me originally because he picked up in the brand and the vibe that it was just about embracing who you are. He kind of dug it, so I think anyone identifying me and saying, “Hey, I think you can bring this out in me, too.” Connecting on that level of just playful, fun, weird vibe. Ry: Yeah. Kira: I think that’s a big compliment because it’s a challenge. It’s hard to embrace myself. So, if I can do that and it pulls the right person in, I feel like that’s a huge win. Ry: Yes, love it. Totally agree. I have a crush on James Wedmore. I just had to say that out loud. I had to say it out loud. No one actually knows who this is yet on this interview, yet so I can say anything. Kira: You can confess everything during this episode. Rob: To me, the interesting thing about calling Kira weird is, Kira’s not that weird, right? Kira: No. Rob: But, you’re really good though at connecting with everybody. You can relate to the weirdest person or to the straight laced person. It’s like you sort of cross all of those personalities or whatever, so. You’re not that weird, but you’re really good at understanding other people’s weird. Kira: That’s what it is. People think weird, you have to have bright pink hair and lots of tattoos, whatever weird is to you. For me it’s not that. It’s, yeah, accepting people for who they are. Ry: Right. Kira: Liking them and I just, I typically like most… Rob: You’re really good at that. Kira: People. When you like people, I think then they may like you back or not. But, I just really like people, a lot. I really like you two. I like both of you a lot.

For the 49th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Sean D'Souza is here to talk about about the psychological tactics that get people to respond to your sales message. Kira and Rob go deep with Sean asking about how he started his business and what he wants from it today. Sean talks about: •  how he got into copywriting, then out, then back in. •  how a short presentation inspired by Jay Abraham inspired The Brain Audit •  the seven “red bags” of The Brain Audit and how they work together •  the questions he asks when creating a sales page •  the “x-ray vision” problem that books and courses suffer from •  why teaching is the best kind of selling •  how to establish yourself as an expert •  what kind of testimonials you should have on your sales pages (would you believe they should be 1500 words?) • and more... Perhaps most importantly for overworked copywriters, we asked Sean how he manages to take three months of vacation every year and how his morning routine helps him maintain his energy and effectiveness. These are ideas we need to try. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Leo Burnett Psychotactics Good to Great by Jim Collins Jay Abraham The Brain Audit 5000 BC Superman Article Writing Course Six questions for testimonials Mixergy interview Michael Phelps Bob Bowman The Three Month Vacation Podcast 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 hangout 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 49 as we chat with author, speaker, cartoonist, and copywriter Sean D’Souza about psychological triggers that get customers to say yes, creating brand fanatics, how to become an expert in any field, and why he takes so much time off to recharge. Welcome, Sean. Thanks for joining us. Rob: Hey, Sean. Sean: It’s a pleasure to speak to both of you. Kira: Well, we’ve love to start with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter and a business owner? Sean: I always wanted to be a copywriter. When I was in university, that’s what I wanted to do. I had this goal, when I was going to be 30, I was going to be in this agency. I was going to be creative director of that agency. So it was very clear to me, which is why in university when I was studying accounting and stuff, my grades started to go down for the first time in my life. As soon as I left university, I went to Leo Burnett, which is the … I lived in Mumbai, India, and the kind of branch of Leo Burnett that was there. I went and spoke to the creative director, and she said, “You know you’re just a cartoonist. You’re not a copywriter.” I said, “Yes, I know that, but here’s what I’ll do. I’ll work with you a month and at the end of the month, you decide whether you want me to stay, and then you pay me. Or you know if I don’t like you after a month, then I’ll leave.” So it was pretty brash, but they took me on and that was the start of working with several advertising agencies. We’re going back now to 1995, I think, so it’s a long time ago. So I worked in a couple of agencies, and then, at some point, I started thinking, “Well, this is not what I want to do,” and I went back to cartooning. At that point, I was drawing cartoons for these magazines, but also for these organizations. What I found was their copy was really bad, and that my cartoons were getting kind of mutilated or defaced or destroyed because of their bad copy. That’s when I got back into copywriting and I started enjoying myself. I didn’t think I would enjoy myself as much as just drawing cartoons, but I started enjoying myself. Then, once again, I just started doing that for a living, and I left the country. I left India and I came to New Zealand in the year 2000. At that point, I had no interest in copywriting. I had no interest in anything, but cartooning again. So it’s been pretty much a rollercoaster ride before we started up with Psychotactics. Kira: Why did you leave copywriting twice? It sounds like twice, or maybe more than that, and go back to cartooning. Was it burnout or were you just kind of tired of it and wanted a change? What triggered those changes for you? Sean: I always follow the things that make me happy and I’ve always had that deep within me. That I need to do the things that make me happy, not that makes everybody else happy. In the first agency, I just jumped ships really. I just went to the second job because it paid more. But in the second agency, the reason I left was because I had went through this workshop and this guy said, “You can write TV commercials and you can do it very quickly,” and he was showing us this stuff. I thought, “You know really this is what I want to do,” and then I joined him and I started writing TV commercials. I did that for nine months, and then I was sitting on a beach one day and thinking, “Well, if I were to die this weekend,” this is without reading any self-help book, by the way. “If I were to die this weekend, what would I rather be doing?” The answer was, “I would rather be drawing cartoons,” so I went back into cartoons. Then, just as easily, I’ve been jumping back and forth. But it’s not like I leave it. It’s almost like I went for a great meal, now I’m going to take a break, and then I’m going to go back to that great meal. There wasn’t any specific strategy. I don’t think you have that kind of mentality when you’re just out of university and stuff. You don’t have that, “Oh, what’s the long-term strategy here?” Rob: So it sounds like it was sort of serendipitous, following your bliss. How did you come to start your own business? Sean: So we got to New Zealand and I read a book by Jim Collins called Good to Great. He said, “What can you be the best in the world at?” I thought, “You know what? What I’m the best in the world at is retaining clients. I’m very good at getting a client and then keeping that client for literally for life.” But then, I didn’t have a very long life back then. That’s what I decided to do. So I called, and this is the whole kind of thing that comes to haunt me every time. The first company was called Million Bucks. It shows you my mindset. Right? Because now I am so far away from that point, as in, that’s not my goal. It’s just happens to be that we earn more than enough, but the point is that that’s not the mindset. So I started that company, and I was wondering why nobody seemed to sign up, obviously. From there on, we started up Psychotactics. Now Psychotactics was literally a presentation. It had nothing beyond that. I sat down one day and trying to figure out how am I going to get this message across? How am I going to write this copy? Why is it that I struggle every single time I sit down? Why is it that I’m struggling? By that point in time, I bought a lot of stuff from Jay Abraham, and he used to sell enormous amounts of stuff. The internet was just barely started at that point in time, so it was all direct mail. So I’d go through his sales letters, and I’d buy a lot of his stuff. We bought probably $15,000 to $20,000, maybe even more … $15,000, $20,000 worth of stuff from him. So it would come in these big boxes, and I’d go, “Why do I get so excited with these boxes? Why do I get so excited with all these sales letters?” So I started to deconstruct everything and when I deconstructed it, I realized that there were just a few things that were really pushing all those buttons. When I put those few things down and gave a presentation, and at the end of the presentation, someone came up to me and go, “Can I have the notes to that presentation?” I said, “No, I don’t have any notes. It’s just a presentation.” She said, “I can’t remember what you just said.” So I sat down. I wrote it in a PDF. Gave her 16 pages. That was the start of The Brain Audit. Today that’s sold well over a half a million dollars worth of just The Brain Audit. Rob: So without going into too much detail about The Brain Audit, what are some of the things that you had deconstructed, that you shared in the presentation, that were so impressive to people who heard it? Sean: I was trying to find how your brain goes through the decision-making process. That’s really what I was trying to do. I was trying to say, “What are the steps?” If I could freeze-frame those steps and they’re really: the problem, the solution, the target profile, the objections, the risk reversal, testimonial, and uniqueness. Essentially, what happens is the first half or the first half of this brain audit is all about getting the client’s attention. The second half is just mitigating or reducing or eliminating the risk, and then that final little box is, “Why you?” I said halves, but let’s say thirds. So getting the client’s attention, getting rid of the risk, and then saying, “Now that I know this stuff, why should I pick you?” Rob: Obviously, you’ve done a lot of work in developing The Brain Audit since then, and a lot of other products. Are there other psychological triggers that you like to talk about or write about that get customers to say yes, when you’re selling a product or a service? Sean: There are lots of things that actually end up causing the customer to buy. My goal is to find out how … See the thing that crosses my mind a lot is that as a copywriter, as a marketer, I want my stuff to be redundant,

Copywriter Marcella Allison is the only person who has “cubbed” for the biggest names in copywriting including Parris Lampropolous, Clayton Makepeace, David Deutch and Mark Ford. And she’s learned a lot along the way. Marcella stopped by our virtual studio to chat with Rob and Kira about: •  how she got started as a copywriter (twice) •  whether copywriters can develop a talent for writing about complex things •  how an unexpected kiss from Marty Edelston transformed her career •  the importance of mentorship in building your career in copywriting •  the top lessons she learned from two of her mentors •  how to effectively use the feedback you get from a mentor, and •  the lesson David Deutch accidentally taught her about ego. Plus, Marcella shares the “beginning painter” learning trick she recommends if you want to break into a copywriting niche. This episode is another good one you won’t want to miss. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Most of the people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Ry Schwartz Brian Kurtz F&W Publications Schaeffer’s Investment Research Money Map Press David Deutch Parris Lampropolous Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain AWAI Agora Financial Kevin Addington Bottomline Lori Haller Marty Edelston Mark Ford Clayton Makepeace Stansbury Research Chris Alsop Advanced Bionutritionals John Carlton’s Simple Copywriting System Kevin Rogers Ask Method Product Launch Formula Early to Rise Hay House Natural Health Sherpa Titanides.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 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 48 as we chat with freelance copywriter Marcella Allison about how she became a copywriter working with A list mentors like Parris Lampropoulos and David Deutsch and her secret for landing a steady stream of clients without a website. Kira: Marcella, welcome. Marcella: Hi, guys. I’m going to be notorious for that now. Like everyone’s going to be like, “I can’t believe she doesn’t have her own website.” You guys are going to hear about that. Rob: You’re actually not our first guest that didn’t have a website. Marcella: Oh good. Rob: At least until they got on the podcast. Ry Schwartz is a copywriter in the internet space, didn’t have a website last year when we talked to him. He does now finally so maybe this will be the spark that gets you a website, Marcella. Kira: Or maybe you just don’t need it because you’re that good. Marcella: I don’t know about that. Kira: Marcella, I think a good place to start is we had met at our titans masterclass, Brian Kurtz’s group and you were my advocate during the hot seat session and I think you were the best. I forget if we called it an advocate. Basically, you were representing my needs and you were the best one there. So I oh you big time and I’m excited to dig more into how you got into copywriting and hear more about your experiences so far. So I think a good place to start is with just your story. How did you end getting into copywriting? Marcella: Well, one thing, I have to I’ve a big shout out to Brian Kurtz because I have to say the reason I was a good advocate was I had trial by fire at his titans event being an advocate for 30 people that day. Kira: That makes sense. Marcella: I did have a bit of practice. I did have a bit of practice. Kira: I did not know that. That makes sense. Marcella: That’s a whole another podcast story, believe me. So really, I had two entry points into direct response copywriting and it’s kind of come back around full circle which is very funny. So when I graduated from college in 1987, there were no jobs for love nor money as my mother would say because we’re right in the middle of the recession and I had an English degree which was even harder to find a job. Since then, we’ve kind of come around to the idea that we’re sort of these nice, well-rounded humanitarian people. But back then nobody knew what do with an English degree. So my first job was actually running a book club that was called The Graphic Artists Book Club for F&W Publications in Cincinnati back in 1987 and I wrote the little blurbs, these were book clubs where you got a little bulletin each month and it would tell you about the books and you would get a book auto-shipped to you every month. Even though it was called The Graphic Artists Book Club like we had maybe one or two books on doing graphic design on your computer, this was before any of these programs existed. So I did that for maybe a year and a half and then I left direct response and I didn’t come back until 15 years later. I ended up writing copy for option traders at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. That’s sort of the start of my second career. So that was about 2003. The funny thing is that right now, I work on retainer on the financial side with the Money Map which is run by a man named Mike Ward who worked with me at F&W Publications in 1987. He was the book editor. Rob: Wow. Marcella: So it always comes all the way around, right, which I think is pretty funny. Rob: Yeah, never burn a bridge. You never know. Marcella: That’s right. But the way I got back into it was that in between time, I had done a lot of stuff. I had run a contemporary art gallery. I had gone back and gotten my MBA. I had worked as a venture capitalist. I had worked for a nonprofit. At one point, I had a friend of mine who was marketing consultant with Schaeffer’s Investment Research and he was desperately trying to find someone who understood options, sort of the math of that and the left brain side of that. Again, this was 2003 so options hadn’t really become as mainstream as they are right now. Really, Schaeffer’s was one of the only games in town in terms of newsletters that offered a substantial amount of options services. This friend of mine was working with them and he could not find a copywriter who could understand options and translate it into copy in a way that made sense to people. So he needed someone who really could do both left brain and right brain and I think that is one of my sort of super powers is that I tend to be good at translating complicated information into something that people can understand and so that kind of became the launching of my second career in copywriting and I’ve been doing it ever since. Rob: Marcella, would you say, maybe I already know the answer to this question, but would you say that all of those things that you did leading up to copywriting made you a better copywriter or was it just sort of a journey through all kinds of options till you found the right thing for you? Marcella: No, I think I was really using the same skillset. I talk a lot about how ... So the venture capital firm that I worked for did early stage medical investing so I would literally be sitting down with say a scientist who might even still be in the lab at a university because we were going to be the first venture capital investment and pull that idea, right, out of the university and set it up as its own company. So I was a financial analyst. I’d be sitting there with him saying, “Okay, so explain to me how this cancer therapy works. What are all the steps,” and then I’d say, “Well, what do you do next?” He might say something like, “Oh, I go put it in a centrifuge.” “Okay, well, we’re going to need to buy one of those because you won’t be able to run over to the university and use theirs, right?” So like I would help him understand how this thing that he was doing turned into numbers on a page that turned into a business that could then be evaluated. So when I’m working say with option traders, I’m sitting down and I’m asking them to explain to me say a very technical model of how they find a trade, right, “Well, how do you know this is going to go up? What are you looking at?” Then I’m trying to take that and turn it into something that I can translate that other people can understand and buy into. So I think that ability to sort of sit down one on one with people and understand what they’re doing, especially in finance, right, it might be this option trading model. On the health side, it might be having a deeper understanding of how inflammation works in the body and all the steps of that and how do I make that understandable to someone in such a way that they can grasp the advantage of the solution that I’m offering. Kira: Is that a skill that we can all learn as copywriters? Or some people are just more gifted with that ability to connect and translate information or is it something that we can all learn over time? Marcella: That’s an interesting question. When I was in my MBA program, we did this funny exercise, I’ve never been able to find it since, where you answer like 70 questions to say how left or right brained you are and then it actually turned into coordinates and we had this white painter caps and markers and we drew our brains on them and could see the people who were so left brained, it looked like an arrow, right. It was so narrow, it was like all left, right? Mine was this big square on the top of my hat. I was literally almost 50% left brained and 50% right brained. So I was like, “Oh well, that makes sense,” right, that I find a career like that. But the people who are at the extremes, right, like an incredibly talented artist, right,