The Copywriter Club Podcast

When you start writing copy at age 16, you've got to connect with prospects and stand out or you won't be able to compete with more experienced copywriters. And that's exactly what Emilia Tanase, our guest for the 399th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast did. Rob and Kira asked Emilia about how she launched her business, how she connected with two high-level mentors, and her approach to writing emails. There's a lot of good stuff in this episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: Get Rich Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Emilia's website   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: Over the past 7 years of this podcast, we’ve interviewed a really wide variety of people who have made a living out of writing copy and content. They come from all over the world and from all kinds of different backgrounds. But I think today’s guest is different from all of them in at least one way—she started working as a copywriter when she was still in high school. She’s taken a pretty interesting path to copywriting success and her early start is just a small part of her story. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder Kira Hug and I interviewed copywriter Emilia Tanase. Emilia has discovered the formula for getting noticed by mentors and figuring out ways to get found by clients without pitching. As you might imagine, starting out in high school meant she’s had to hustle to figure out how to make business work. And there’s a lot to learn from Emilia’s story.   Before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know about an upcoming training happening in The Copywriter Underground that’s absolutely critical for anyone who writes emails—either for their own business or for their clients. Copywriter and email deliverability expert Matt Brown will be sharing his hard won secrets for getting emails into the inbox—rather than the promotions or spam tabs in gmail, yahoo and other bigger email programs. This takes much more than avoiding a few smammy words or reworking your subject lines. And when you know how to do this, clients will hire you to not just write emails, but to manage their web marketing strategy. It could be a game changer for your busienss. But as are most of the masterclasses we curate, this training is exclusively for members of The Copywriter Underground. You can learn more about this upcoming masterclass at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Emilia... Kira Hug: All right, Emilia, let's start with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter? Emilia Tanase: It actually it goes back in time to when I was 16. I started when I was in high school because my mom got really sick and so she was really struggling with keeping up with our bills and holding the household together Unfortunately, at the same time, my dad also lost his job. So she was the sole provider and money was really scarce. And when you're in a small Romanian town, it's pretty hard to find a job right away. So me, a teenager at the time, I was like, hey, how can I make some pocket money, help my parents out, make this a bit easier for all of us, if I can.  I went online and of course I typed in, how to make money in high school. And, you know, there were the typical answers, like, wash cars or walk dogs and whatnot, but these are not really jobs that we do here in Romania. In America, sure, but here not so much. And then I found, be a copywriter or do copywriting work. I was like, what is copywriting? It sounded like, you know, patenting some intellectual property. But I Googled it and I found out it was like this whole thing that people were doing for other businesses.  And when you're that young, you don't think that much about things. So I was like, oh, I can do this for sure. So of course, the next step was like, okay, how do I find a copywriting job fast?  I landed on Craigslist and people are always very surprised when I say this. And I was shocked too, because I didn't know what Craigslist was at the time. So I was seeing these ads for opportunities like, I'm selling a washing machine. I need a chainsaw or something like that. And then someone was like, Hey, I need an about page for, they had this local arts magazine. So I was like, cool, I can do that. I can write. So I sent them a cover letter. It was very cringy… dear sir or madam, I can do this job for you. And I think it was like $40. And I got it a couple of days later. They emailed me. And I'm pretty sure it's because no one else had applied to that job. And that's how I got it. But I got it.  And then I went online because I was like, God, I don't know how to write an about page, let's figure this out. So of course, you know, the internet is filled with articles on how to write copy, at least to start with. So I used that. I did the thing. I sent it out. They were happy, so they hired me for more small jobs like this. And basically, it all started from here. It snowballed because I started making $1,000 per month, which was, at the time, and in Romania, a lot of money. But of course, I also had my studies, so school to take care of. So this is kind of why I was on and off with copywriting, like making bits of money and then making a pause and then going back at it.  Eventually I had to stop, or I thought I had to stop, to go to university because that was the direction everyone was taking back then. And still is, a lot of people consider uni So I did that and then I picked digital marketing because I saw that they had the module about copywriting. So I was thinking ahead. I was like, maybe I can go back to copywriting in the future. Let me learn something here. And that module ended up being one class where I was the only one who knew how to answer the teacher's questions. So it was pretty basic stuff, unfortunately. And time passed, and I realized more and more that I want to do my own thing. I did this before. I'm pretty decent at it, so maybe I can do it again. But the problem was that time had passed, and It was a lot more difficult for me to restart copywriting. After getting that first job from Craiglist, I actually went to Upwork. So that's where I started getting more and more jobs. But now, after a couple of years, there were a lot more copywriters on Upwork. And so I had to find a way to stand out in my proposals, like everyone else, and to start making a name for myself, basically. So that was the big hurdle. And that's also when I had my biggest breakthrough, because I started doing things on the side to grow my brand and grow my authority. But yeah, in a nutshell, that's how I got started. Rob Marsh: So let's talk a little bit about what you did so that you could stand out. Because I think not just you coming back to copywriting, but across the board, copywriters today struggle with this. There are, I think, close to 2 million copywriters on LinkedIn around the world. So what did you do to start to stand out from that group that you were competing with on Upwork? Emilia Tanase: Yeah. First of all, I started creating my own samples because the work that I was previously winning wasn't the work that was being requested those days on Upwork, right? So nobody wanted an about page for a magazine. The jobs I was seeing at the time were for full websites or emails or ads, and I didn't have those things. So I started creating samples for fictional businesses, applying those to or attaching those to my cover letters, and also taking some unconventional directions with the way I was introducing myself. I would look for their names, the client's name, which is not so easy to find, right? Because you can't really see it on Upwork. So I would look through the past reviews they have from people they hired and find their name, or I would start with some kind of silly jokes that I would think of in the moment, because I had learned that the first line in your proposal is kind of the one that determines if it gets read or not. So I kind of started doing these things and some of them worked, some of them didn't. And then at the same time, you know, I was getting better and better at copywriting as well. And I started doing like the typical PAS or using the AIDA model, like just applying copywriting to these cover letters. And then I think I got one big job. It was like a $3,000 or $4,000 job from there. And then I went out of Upwork and just continued with that client for a longer time. Kira Hug: Can you share the timeline? I really need to kind of understand the dates. So if you're okay sharing that, like when you started at age 16 and then any other dates, like when you decided to go back and go on Upwork and give it a go the second time too? Yeah. Emilia Tanase: At 16, I don't remember what year it was and I'm bad at math, but I know that I left for university in 2017. It was my first year of university. So that's kind of when I quit altogether because I was focusing on that. And then in 2020, I remember the year because I registered my company here in Romania. But actually, I didn't do much work that year because I was still working part-time for my university for a job I had. So 2021 really was the year when I restarted my career altogether. Kira Hug: Okay, and so did you finish your college degree or did you not finish? Did you share that part? Emilia Tanase: Yeah, I finished it in 2020, I think. Kira Hug: Okay. Amazing. And so let's just kind of finish the story and we can dig deeper into it. So since 2021, when you jump back in and leading up to where we are today, 2024, um, what are the key moves that you've made that have helped you the most over the last few years? Emilia Tanase: Yeah.

The number of people who have listened to all 400+ episodes of The Copywriter Club is likely small. Probably fewer than 100. But today's guest on The Copywriter Club Podcast is trying to add to that number. Copywriter Lauren Esmay has been listening to every episode and posting about them on LinkedIn. We talked about that as well as how she's built her business over the past few years and what's coming next. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: The P7 Client Attraction System The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: In the next couple of weeks we’ll post the official 400th episode of this podcast. Unofficially we’re already past that number as we’ve had a handful of un-numbered episodes posted between the official one. If you were going to listen to every episode, I estimate it would take you about 14 days or so without stopping to eat, sleep or do anything else. I’m not suggesting you do that… but I’m not NOT suggesting that you do it either. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira Hug and I interviewed copywriter Lauren Esmay. Lauren recently took it upon herself to listen to every episode of this podcast and she’s been posting her take aways from each episode on LinkedIn. Looking back on what she shares has reminded me of a lot of great, forgotten advice and ideas and insights shared by so many smart copywriters over the years. And as you’ll see as you listen to today’s episode, Lauren has used this content tactic to connect with a who’s who of experts in the copy and marketing world. That’s not all we talked about, so stick around to here more about Lauren’s story. Before we jump into the interview, you know I’m going to talk a bit about the best copywriter community The Copywriter Underground. We are working hard to make it the most valuable copywriting community and training vault available anywhere. So we’re constantly adding the latest information and help for our members. One thing that has changed recently is the standard Google, Yahoo and other big emailers are using to determine where the email you send ends up. Sometimes that’s the inbox. Sometimes it’s the spam or promotions folders. And sometimes they decide not to send your email at all. It’s true. You hit send, your email service provider sends your message out into the ether… and Google can simply decide that’s as far as it goes. So we’ve invited email deliverability specialist Matt Brown to share with the members of The Copywriter Underground exactly what you need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen to you… or your clients. It’s happening this month… June 2024. And if you want the latest insights on how to make sure your work hits the inbox, you need to be in this masterclass. We’ve shared some information about it along with all of the other benefits you get as a Copywriter Underground member at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. Let me just add that if you know this stuff that Matt will be sharing, you’ll be a much more valuable resource for your clients than a copywriter who just writes up some emails and hands over a google doc full of copy. In fact, if you add the skills Matt will be teaching to your services, you’ll be more likely to land good, high-paying email clients on long retainers than if you just write emails. Join us at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Lauren. Kira Hug: Lauren, how did you get started as a copywriter? Lauren Esmay: So first, thanks for having me. My way into copywriting is much like many other people I've talked to. There was no linear path. I have several degrees in psychology and I went to med school for a bit. I did a lot of different things that I'm just like, I know I want to help people and this is how I'm going to show up. I tried to find places that I thought could make me financially successful and I just kept realizing that I was not happy in these places. And at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the place that I was working for—we took several different crisis lines including high risk suicide crisis lines and veterans crisis lines. It just became very overwhelming for me. And I also had just started my PhD. I'm like, well, what am I going to do? Like I need money. I can't afford to quit. And one of the projects that I had started for the place I was working, the nonprofit, was putting together a resource list when a lot of the inpatient treatment programs began to get capped for their wait list.  So we had to find plan Bs for these people that needed immediate treatment. And that's when I started looking at these websites and I was like, these people have credibility with their degrees and 20 plus years of experience, but it's 2020 and so much lives online. I don't trust this enough to put this into my resource list. And I was trying to, I've always been a very analytical person. And so I was trying to distinguish, well, what does this website lack that others make me feel like I trust that person? So I'm going through this and I have three different lists of this is definitely someone I'm going to put into this resource list. This is someone I'm going to call and talk to them more about what they offer and how they can help these clients. And then the third list of absolutely not. And around the same time, my husband, who is also a therapist, was beginning to think about going into his own private practice and when I decided that I wanted to quit my job, I was like, well, what if I try to make your website? And he's like, well, I have no interest in that. So if you think that you could do it, I'm all for it. So around that time, just because of algorithms I started getting ads for copywriting courses. I found a really cheap, like $500 copywriting course. And I was like, well, I'm going to try this. And if I decide that I don't want to do this, I feel like at least I can build a few skills. And that was my entryway into copywriting, I started finding a few different other therapists that I knew were transitioning into private practice. And I started writing websites. Rob Marsh: You bounced around a bit, like med school, PhD. Was this just a process of finding the thing that you wanted to do or what else was going on? Lauren Esmay: So it's interesting, looking back at like even electives that I took in college, like I took creative writing courses. I took a lot of statistics courses that I didn't need to take just because I have always enjoyed things like analytics and measuring different outcomes… I took several philosophy courses I didn't need because they were heavily relying on writing and seeing different points of views. I think I'd always been interested in writing, but I grew up thinking you can't make money writing. Anytime I would take time away from work, I'd be like, I don't want to go back to work because I'm not interested in this. This isn't fulfilling to me.  And so when I started doing these projects, and some of the projects, even in the beginning, I was getting paid more for one project than I would get paid in a month at my other job. And I was like, I could easily live off of this just like with the experience I have right now. During this time as well, I've still been finishing my PhD. So I'm in the dissertation part now. It's been a lot of switching from academic writing to copywriting, which I learned is not as easy as some people may think. And so I jumped around a lot. And I think that I used to think that learning was linear, but a lot of times learning now is like learning what you don't want in life to get to where you are happy and to get to the path that you want to be on. Kira Hug: Yeah, and Rob, I don't think you know this, but Lauren and I went to the same college. We both went to Virginia Tech. Rob Marsh: Oh, nice. You were like best friends at school, right? Kira Hug: I wish. No, I was a couple year ahead. Only a few years. Only a couple years. But the statistics classes, I definitely took the only one I had to take, and then I missed the exam somehow. So I was probably in the art gallery at the time, missing my exams. So a different experience there. But I'm wondering if you could just tell us a little bit more about your experience in the academic world, especially since you're currently in your PhD program and wrapping it up. There are probably other writers who are interested. We're all into personal development and learning. And so that could be interesting to other writers. Like, what do you wish you would have known or someone would have told you before getting into that path? Maybe even just with med school to both speaking to both. Lauren Esmay: Sure. I think it's important to know too, that I grew up in a very rural part of the Southwestern part of Virginia. And so it's a place that most people don't get out of, but if you do, you never return. I just knew growing up that if I wanted to be financially successful and in better shape than when I grew up, that I needed to go to college. And also, I think that I entered college right as the recession of 2008 was in its full swing. And so it was, it was heavily being pushed on kids as young as middle school to know exactly what they wanted to do for the rest of their life—I just turned 35—and I think that is completely ridiculous because I clearly had no idea what I wanted at that time.  I actually chose Virginia Tech because they have both a nutrition program and a psychology program, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I went to a school that offered both. So if I switched majors, I didn't have to switch schools. And ironically, I switched out of the nutrition major because they were going to make me take organic chemistry, which I needed to take for med school. So I ended up taking that.

Over the past few years the ways we work have changed. And the work we do has changed too. In the 397th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with copywriter and regenerative business designer Helen Tremethick about navigating the changes and creating a business that works for you. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman Helen's website Helen's Cuppa Link (talked about on the show) The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: For a lot of freelancers who write content and copy, work has changed pretty dramatically over the past year. Some of us, especially those who are just starting out have been impacted by tools like Claude and ChatGPT. While others may be struggling a bit thanks to layoffs in niches like tech and SaaS. As opportunities change, smart business owners change along with them. And relationships become even more important than ever. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira Hug and I interviewed copywriter and regenerative business designer Helen Tremethick. Helen has worked with several business owners as they’ve transformed the work they do. Sometime changing up their deliverables. Other times switching niches or the focus of their work entirely. As we spoke, we kept coming back to one idea… relationships. They’re more important than ever, and that’s one thing that probably won’t change in the near future. Before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know about an upcoming training happening in June in The Copywriter Underground. If you listened to last week’s episode, you learned a bit about the technical things you need to do to ensure the emails you write get to the inbox and not the spam folder and then get opened. But it can be hard to see exactly what to do as you listen to a podcast… it’s audio only, so seeing where to find the tools and settings to adjust, well, you just can’t. So we asked email deliverability specialist Matt Brown to demonstrate exactly how to set up your ESP and google postmaster tools so your emails have a better chance of getting where you want them to go. This is a skill set that clients need desperately. And when you can bring them along with your writing skills, you have what it takes to land high paying email retainers that can last for months or even years. But to get this training, you must be a member of The Copywriter Underground. Learn more at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu.  And with that, let’s go to our interview with Helen. Kira Hug: All right, Helen, we are not going to start with your story, because that's where we started last time, which we figured out was episode 176. And you figured out it was mid-March 2020, so right before the world changed dramatically. So it's good to be with you again. And I think a good place to start could just be around a line of copy on your website, on your home page, there's a line of copy that says, burn it down isn't good business strategy, but when something's got to give dot, dot, dot, and then you go into your brilliant copy. But that grabbed my attention because I feel like I've heard a lot of people around me recently talking about burning it all down and a conversation with neighbors, business owners. And so from your perspective, Where do you feel like people in the online business space, copywriters, where are they at right now with what they're feeling, what they're doing in their businesses? From your experience coaching them, what are you seeing and feeling right now? Helen Tremethick: Oh my goodness. You know, I actually just had a call this morning where I was talking to somebody about exactly this, where it feels like there's a little bit of a different flavor in the air right now that's different from what we knew before. And maybe this is before the last time we spoke, which was before the world shut down, or maybe it's been gradually moving toward that. I'm not exactly sure, but there is a little bit of a different flavor. The way that people want to work with each other is different, the amount of connection that we want is different, and that I think is more and more connection, more community, more togetherness. And opposing that is that the conversation I'm having a lot lately is that people are having a hard time stretching that dollar the way they used to. Grocery bills have gone up. Everything has gone up except for wages. And so as a small business owner, often we are the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak. So we see this ripple effect before a lot of the rest of the world does. And there's an opportunity there as well, not to silver lining being the canary in the coal mining, but there is an opportunity there for us to start changing and start navigating new ways of working together beforehand. So it allows us to be a bit more agile. The fact that we know then see these things before. Rob Marsh: I'd love to dive into what you think that opportunity is and what that looks like, because I have recently seen a lot of copywriters. Well, maybe not a lot, but a few copywriting gurus suggest that this is a really bad time for people to become a copywriter or to even start your own business. Or they're saying, you know, there are different things we should be doing. So yeah. What does that opportunity look like? Helen Tremethick: Oh, I think it depends on the person. So I'm not going to opt out of that question at all. But it depends on what is really, really relevant. And it's relevant to a lot of the work that I do. Just like we wouldn't want everybody's about page to look exactly the same, or everybody's homepage to look exactly the same, everybody's website to look exactly the same. We also don't want our businesses to be exactly the same. So what opportunities are there for you are going to be different from what opportunities are there for me. So for me, for example, I do a lot of coaching. I was doing this four years ago. I was doing this eight years ago and really still heading in that direction. What I've noticed on my end is that people really want to connect with each other. They really want spaces where they can share more openly and they really want to talk about things that are not just business. They're really recognizing that business is affected by the personal. And so that comes into a lot of the conversations that we're having. Even though the end goal may be copy, a lot of the way that we get there is very, very personal. Now, for somebody else who is going fresh into copywriting, who really wants to get into the typey typey, they're really interested in writing. And of course, writers never stop writing. I still write as well. I think at that point, there's an opportunity there to really lean into done-for-you services for a very specific niche and really lean into that. I think it's going to depend, the solution is going to depend on the person according to their capacity, according to their lifestyle needs and wants, according to the way their brains work. So it depends. And also with a little bit of kind of uncovering and diving in, we can often find an opportunity there that works for everybody. Kira Hug: Yeah, maybe we can talk a little bit about this old way and this new way, you know, the new way being more connection, more community and how you are changing in your business, maybe how you show up, how you help clients, maybe even how you market yourself. If you can make that comparison with the old and the new. Helen Tremethick: Yeah, I think Well, okay, so I've been doing this since 2011, which, you know, makes me officially internet old and If you recall, there was a lot of emphasis on building your list and getting the most followers. And that, I would say, is very old way. And we touched on this four years ago where we were talking about what is the future of copywriting? What is the pattern that we see going forward? And the three of us agreed that relationships were that, that we were going to see a lot more connectivity. And this was just about the time that you had done your event or about to do your event. So you were really leaning into that as well. And I think there's a lot more of that. It's a bit more difficult. COVID isolated us and still is isolating us. And, you know, there's an epidemic of loneliness. And so we want to see that in our businesses as well. How I've been marketing is I've really pulled away from that one to many kind of marketing that we saw in the old way, get my freebie for your, in exchange for your email address or, you know, giant webinars. And I've really started speaking specifically to people, really building on the relationships that I already have, whether that be complimentary service providers or my referral network, or my old clients, my current clients. and really crafting solutions that fit for those people. So that's the way that I've been shifting toward is something that's a lot more grounded, a lot more personal. And frankly, I find that much more interesting as well, because it means that I'm having different conversations and hearing people's different perspectives as opposed to speaking into an echo chamber. Rob Marsh: Yeah, I tend to agree. And that one on one relationship thing is obviously something Kira and I have leaned into for a long time. But also, as I think about this, or if I'm listening to this, you know, as a new copywriter coming into the business, and I'm hearing somebody say, well, you've got to do it differently for every instance, or everybody's different. That becomes really hard to wrap your arms around because, and this is why I think people sell formulas and swipes and whatever, because if you can repeat the process, it makes it a lot easier.

We've been talking a lot about email on the podcast lately (see the last four or five episodes). But getting your emails opened takes more than good copy. So for the 396th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Rob spoke with copywriter and email deliverability specialist, Matt Brown about all the non-copy things you need to know about getting your emails opened. And...how to add deliverability and ESP management to your services so you can attract long-term email clients. This is a good one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Stuff to check out: deliverabilitynow.com The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: Looking back at the last four or five episodes of this podcast, you might notice a theme. It wasn’t intentional, but somehow the last several guests have all focused on email, email strategy, and creating or running a business focused on a regular or daily email. For some reason, email seems to be having a moment. Maybe it’s the rise of new email platforms like Substack and Beehiv that make writing emails and growing an audience easier than before. Or it might be the fact that it is getting harder to connect with a regular audience on social media… posts, tweets, reels just don’t reach as many people as they used to. And paid ads on those platforms are getting more expensive and less effective. So attracting an audience that you can connect with regularly with email is as important—maybe more important—than ever before. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I interviewed copywriter and email deliverability expert Matt Brown. I wanted to talk with Matt because it’s one thing to write and send emails and quite another to do what it takes to make sure those emails actually arrive in your reader’s inboxes and get opened. It happens less than you think. And Matt knows how to fix that. He shared a lot of technical stuff that you have to get right. If you know this stuff, you can be far more valuable to your clients that if you just hand over a google doc with the text of your emails. This is a skill set that can result in long term relationships with great clients. So stick around.   Before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know about an upcoming training happening in The Copywriter Underground on this very topic. After recording today’s interview, Matt mentioned that it can be tough to wrap your head around some of the ideas he shared without a demonstration where he opens up an email account and shows you how to make adjustments. So he offered to show us exactly how to make sure your emails land in the inbox in a training for members of The Copywriter Underground. If you’re listening to this episode and think, I need to know how to do this, or I want to be able to offer this skill to my clients (and earn thousands of dollars from them in the process), then this training is for you. Go to thecopywriterclub.com/tcu and join the Underground today. And we’ll send you details on how to access this incredibly valuable training. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Matt. Matt, welcome to the podcast. I reached out to you because we've been talking to so many people about email. I feel like there's kind of been a change around the way people are thinking about email with all of these new tools that have come online in the last couple of years as far as managing email newsletters and that kind of thing. So I thought it'd be really helpful to have you on, but before we get into all of the things we want to talk about email, tell us how you became not just a copywriter, but an email deliverability expert and copywriter. Matt Brown: Yeah. So I'll give you the long story since we're on a podcast together and it has the inciting incident from a story and then the point of no return. I think this was back in like 2019, I kind of got my start in marketing and SEO and content writing, and then I wanted to learn more about copywriting. And I kept learning about that. And then I started working with people who were doing course launches and sort of Jeff Walker style product launch formula emails and for a few years, I was working with people where I'd write my 12 emails, 15 emails in a Google doc, and then just send it over to the client and say, Hey, here you go. Let me know what you think. Let me know if you want any edits. And then we'd work on the copy from there. And then either they or their team would load the emails into whatever email platform they were using. And I was like, great. And after the launch, we’d check in like emails did great. We loved it. Yada, yada, yada, that sort of thing.  But I was working on a launch—'ll have to go back and figure out exactly when this was, but it was 2019, 2020—and my client was like, Hey, Matt, our ActiveCampaign person just bailed on us. Is there any way you can build the automations and load these into ActiveCampaign? I had never done that. I had used other tools like Drip and MailChimp and ConvertKit and stuff like that. I'm pretty technically savvy and I wanted to help the client. I was like, sure, yeah, no problem. Not realizing that this was its own skill set and this was like its own thing that people paid for. And I just did it for free. They gave me the login credentials for ActiveCampaign. I went in, I figured out how to use it in a basic way, built the automation to deliver the emails.  Because of that, once the launch started, I had access to the backend metrics, which I had never really looked at before throughout a launch. And I think this person's launch list was around 15,000 people. And I was like, Oh man, we are going to crush it. This is going to be awesome. It was a really great offer. And he already had a super successful business. And so I knew that the launch was going to perform well. And I was kind of like, Oh, I'm going to turn this into a case study and I'm going to do all these cool things. And we went through the launch and at the end, the launch did very well for this person. So he was selling an annual membership that was billed monthly. So people were signing up for an annual commitment, but it was split up into 12 payments. And he ended up adding about $20,000 to $21,000 in monthly recurring revenue to his business. So that was like a really solid lift for him. And so I was like, okay, that was great. But as I was looking at the email metrics, I was like, man, these emails got a 7% open rate or a 10% open rate, 8% open rate, like what is going on here? I had really no idea at that time what the factors were that impacted email performance and placement and deliverability. And so that was the moment where my eyes really opened up into, okay, we did well with this launch, but what if we doubled the open rate? Or what if we got the open rate to 30% or 40%, how much better could we have done? That's when I started going down the rabbit hole of, What, how do you increase the performance and open rates and click rates and visibility and all of that? And then there was a year-long exploration process there. Then I had a conversation with Brian Kurtz, who you actually have had on this podcast a couple of times. Rob Marsh: Brian's an amazing mentor and friend. He's great. Matt Brown: I love Brian. Brian has sent me a lot of free stuff over the years. He's just such a good guy. So this is my moment to pay it back to Brian. Thank you so much, Brian. I was interviewing him for a podcast I was working on at the time. I was kind of doing a pre-interview, information-gathering sort of thing. We just started kind of talking about some of the stuff that I was doing and thinking about and I was talking to him about things like list management and email lists because I knew he had a background in mailing list management and then he just gave me this whole download. I wish I would have recorded it because I now just kind of have to remember it in my memory.  But he just gave me this whole download about the importance of lists and list management and all of this stuff. And I was like, OK, there's really something here. So that's when I shifted my focus to trying to do everything I could to optimize this performance email deliverability. And from there, I took a lot of courses. I've talked to a lot of ESP support people, tier two deliverability support people. And there was a time where I'm having more conversations with active campaign deliverability than I am with my own family. It was a lot of learning. And it was around 2022, I think that I developed my own process and I started working with people almost strictly in an email performance optimization capacity. Rob Marsh: Okay. So as I listened to you talk about looking at the numbers, the metrics and seeing, okay, they're not that great. Most copywriters would respond, well, let's try a different headline or, let's try a different topic or maybe, that idea was wrong, but there's a whole bunch of stuff before we even get to the copy that impacts deliverability and whether people are opening or not. Let's go through these almost item by item. And in some ways, I'm almost asking for a 30-minute webinar or podcast-inar about all these things that we need to do to make sure that our emails not just get to the inbox, but get opened. Matt Brown: Yeah, absolutely. As a copywriter, I tried all of those things, you know, I was like, okay, maybe this subject line isn't working. And then I would do split tests, and then maybe the preview text wasn't optimized. And let's try a trick in the preview text line. And no matter what I tried from a content perspective with the from name, the subject line, the preview text, it never significantly moved the needle. So that's when I discovered deliverability and placement,. There are levels to a deliverability problem,

The demand for emails is enormous. And there are probably more copywriters writing emails than any other product. But that doesn't mean those emails are great. Some are barely readable. Others go straight to the junk folder—where they belong. There's never been more need for better emails than today. So for the 395th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we asked email strategist and copywriter Donnie Bryant to share what he knows about email. Donnie is the author of Subject Line Science, a short book that will help you get more emails opened. If you write emails for clients or your own business, you'll want to lick the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript now.   Stuff to check out: Subject Line Science by Donnie Bryant Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown SubjectLineScience.com The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: Let’s talk about email. When copywriters reach out to us, they often ask what’s the best way to learn how to write emails and probably more importantly, land clients who need help with regular emails. And it kind of feels like there’s been a sea change around email over the past couple of years. Maybe it’s because email is a great way to connect one on one… or at least in a way that feels one to one. OR maybe it’s the shift in buying behavior that’s happened over the past decade. I’m not sure… but what I am sure about is that email isn’t going anywhere. It’s getting more important, not less. And it’s a great service to offer for clients who need ongoing help… that is the kind of clients you can work with long term. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I interviewed copywriter Donnie Bryant.  Donnie recently wrote a book about subject lines and what it takes to write them, so he was the perfect guest to invite on the show to talk about email, strategizing a campaign—which I asked him to walk through step by step, as well as what it takes to break into the financial copy niche. If you want to write emails as part of your business, you’ll want to listen to this episode until the end. Now before we get to the interview… you’ve heard me talk about the copywriter underground and what it includes. If you’ve been thinking about joining this amazing community, I want to give you two reasons to jump in now. The first is a limited time Client Emails Masterclass with copywriter Michal Eisik. Michal launched her business after completing the copywriter accelerator and think tank. What she’s built is amazing. We asked Michal if she would share her masterclass with The Underground. But because Michal actually sells this to her own email list, she asked us to limit access to just a couple of day in May.  Which means if you want to get the Client Emails Masterclass for free, you’ve got to jump into The Underground now. NOTE: Sorry, this bonus is gone. We also have a second bonus… it’s the strategic plan that copywriter Daniel Throssell used to make his client’s book a best seller in Australia. Daniel has only shared this plan one time… to subscribers who paid to recieve his newsletter. It’s not currently available anywhere. Even new subscribers to his newsletter don’t have access. But he offered to give this strategy—completely free of charge—to members of The Copywriter Undergound. And like the Client Emails Masterclass, this member exclusive is only available for one week during the month of May—and only for members of The Underground.  If you were to purchase these bonuses sepearately, you’d pay more than what you pay to join The Underground for a single month. Plus you get all the other training, coaching, and community stuff that comes along with your membership in The Underground. There’s never been a better time to visit thecopywriterclub.com/tcu to claim your free bonuses now. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Donnie. Donnie, let's kick this off with your story. How did you get to be a copywriter? I think you've been described as one of the best email copywriters, sales copywriters out there. So tell us your story. Donnie Bryant: Yeah, well, it didn't really start out that way. Right. I think I feel like a lot of us copywriters kind of stumbled into it. When I was a very young boy, I always wanted to write. But I really thought I would write science books or some kind of nonfiction books. I often tell the story. My grandmother had, in her house, 25,000 books—kind of like your wall there. That's nuts. Rob Marsh: People won't be able to see it because we don't have the video here, but yeah, there's a lot of books behind me. Donnie Bryant: Okay. So I grew up loving books. I thought I would write them, but it's kind of a childhood dream. I also wanted to be an astronaut, but that didn't happen. Getting into regular life, I went to college, got married, and then got into the working world, retail, to provide for the family. And over time, I continued to find myself in roles where I was doing marketing and or communications for the companies I was working for, even though that wasn't in my job description or anywhere near it.  But these opportunities kept bubbling up. And my wife, being the intelligent person that she is, she said, you always said you wanted to do something with writing, so why don't you just explore that? And I did. And so in 2007, while I was working 70 hours a week at Kmart, for everyone who remembers Kmart. There's a handful of them left. Rob Marsh: Blue light specials.  Donnie Bryant: That's right. I started to study while I was working. There was a library directly across the parking lot from the Kmart I worked at and Bob Bly’s books were over there. So I just went over and started to study and that's where that's where it all began. I love the written word and I like selling. And so the two married pretty nicely. Rob Marsh: So it's one thing to love that and to think, “Hey, I want to do something with writing.” It's quite another to start making money at it. So as you discovered, what this thing is, how did you turn that into a business opportunity? Donnie Bryant: This is funny. I don't remember how I discovered this, but at least back in the day on Craigslist there was a little section at the bottom called gigs and in various cities they would have gigs and I would just look for writing gigs. Anyone who I thought I could help or who I thought I could convince, I sent messages. And because you instantly know or quickly know, if I ever want to have a crack at this, I’ve got to start making some money. So I probably started soliciting clients before I was responsibly capable of earning their money. Actually, that may not be true because some of my early projects I think turned out really well. But I started very quickly trying to solicit clients. I began through Craigslist and I looked at some job boards, but the first clients came through the little gigs section on Craigslist. Not long after that, you know, as you study, you see the experts say you got to have an online presence. So I started doing a blog, and I started my own email newsletter. And I got on LinkedIn, which seemed like ages ago, must have been about 2010. Started spending a lot of time on LinkedIn, and things kind of developed from there. Rob Marsh: Cool. So again, I just kind of want to follow the career path. With those initial gigs, if I remember right, and I was writing way back then as well, a lot of those were like $15 jobs, $25 jobs. Basically, you'd spend three or four hours or maybe even longer writing a project and make less per hour than you might at a retail job. What was it about it that made you think, “hey, this is what I'm going to lean into and I'm going to make this work?” Donnie Bryant: I think it was something that I could see and control because job boards—it's the same—but everything else was different. A mystery to me. I didn't know anything about promoting myself. I didn't know anything about outreach or anything like that. But I knew that these jobs existed. People were paying people to write. And so, like I said, I don't remember how I found out about it. Maybe someone mentioned it. But yeah, I remember I got some very tiny projects. I did an eight-page sales letter for $25. And the client paid me $35 because he gave me a tip for doing a good job. And he actually ran that sales letter for at least three years. So I have no idea how much money he made from it. Rob Marsh: That's like $7.70 per page, and probably less than that per hour. Donnie Bryant: Yeah, it was bad. And it wasn't a topic that I wasn't super well versed in, so I had to do some research. I just was reading his material to get a hang of it. I think it performed well. Otherwise, he wouldn't have used it for three years. And that was how it went.  The breakthrough job for me, it was similar in the pay per project thing. It was a very small payout. But they had an unlimited number of pages that you could do. You got paid per page. It was actually for speed dating. Speed dating, I think, was a new phenomenon at that time. And we needed to do SEO. And we had speed dating pop-ups in every city in America. So unlimited may be a stretch, but there were thousands of sites, geographically, specific sites, and they all needed four or five pages. And so it was like, write as much as you want. And I would work all day and come home and write all night. And I was able to start making some good money and gain some confidence that way. But you're right, they were small paying jobs. But I also met a great client. The first person who told me “You need to charge me more than you asked me for this.” But he was a consultant who used to work at Microsoft. And I met him on Craigslist, surprisingly, and turned that into a long-term engagement with higher-paying projects. You kind of build brick by brick,

Someone's got to be the best. And at least a few people believe that Daniel Throssell is Australia's best copywriter—even if only because Daniel told them he was : ). In the 394th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob brought Daniel into the studio to talk about his email strategy, world building, and how he turned a children's book into Australia's best selling book. And Daniel got real when it comes to what a day in his life really looks like. This is the second time, Daniel has been on the podcast (the first episode is here). Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript of today's appearance on the show. Stuff to check out: Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks Tough Titties by Laura Belgray A great book (Dark Matter) by Blake Crouch Master and Commander by Aubrey Maturin Stop Reading the News by Rolf Dobelli The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Daniel's Website Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  If you’re going to say you’re the best at something, eventually you’re going to have to back it up. The late Gary Halbert once sent out a newsletter titled “why I am the best copywriter alive”. Of course, any one can make a claim like that. But eventually you have to back it up… and at least when it comes to Gary, he had the clients, the sales, and the results to make a pretty strong claim on the title. Which brings me to the guy that many people call Australia’s best copywriter. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder Kira Hug and I interviewed copywriter Daniel Throssell, who has been called Australia’s best copywriter by many in the marketing world. But does he have the chops to back it up? Indeed he does. We covered a lot of ground in this interview—we went really deep on his approach to email, which in many ways he treats as if he’s writing a novel. He also shared a few of the details about his strategy for pushing several books to #1 on the best seller list, a strategy by the way that works for all kinds of products, not just books. And Daniel got real when he talked about what a typical day looks like for him. We think you’re going to like this one. But before we get to the interview… you’ve heard me talk about the copywriter underground and what it includes. If you’ve been thinking about joining this amazing community, I want to give you two reasons to jump in now. The first is a limited time Client Emails Masterclass with copywriter Michal Eisik. Michal launched her business after completing the copywriter accelerator and think tank. What she’s built is amazing. We asked Michal if she would share her masterclass with The Underground. But because Michal actually sells this to her own email list, she asked us to limit access to just a couple of day in May.  Which means if you want to get the Client Emails Masterclass for free, you’ve got to jump into The Underground now. We also have a second bonus… it’s the strategic plan that today’s guest Daniel Throssell used to make his client’s book a best seller in Australia. You’re going to hear a little bit about it in this episode, but Daniel only scratches the surface here. Because the only other time he’s shared his strategy was with his paying subscribers and he wants to make sure to honor them by not sharing it elsewhere. However, he has made one exception. He’s sharing it for a limited time with the paying subscribers of The Copywriter Underground for just a few days in the month of May. If you want to learn more about the strategy he teases on this episode, jump into the underground today so we can share the details of how to get your hands on the whole thing with you. There’s never been a better time to visit thecopywriterclub.com/tcu to claim your free bonuses now. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Daniel. Kira Hug: All right. Welcome, Daniel. I want to kick off with a question about the last year in business. So we can zero in on the last six months, last year, but I'm curious, what has surprised you the most about your business in particular over the last year or so? Daniel Throssell: Wow, that question kind of hit me. That's the most surprising. I was not ready to answer that. The last six months. Kira Hug: I don't think I've ever asked that. Daniel Throssell: So yeah, I wasn't even expecting that as the first question. I thought it was gonna be like, Daniel, nice to nice to finally get on the podcast with you.  So okay, last six months, what's happened? Honestly, what has surprised me? I don't know how relevant this is going to be to people. But I'll just be honest—how well my monthly subscription has gone. I don't follow a lot of news, but I've heard people saying, you know, bad economy, whatever. People are not spending as much. I literally have a zero news policy. I don't watch anything. There was an eclipse, not the one you saw, Kira, recently. There was one last year and the eclipse went over Perth and I didn't know everyone in Perth knew and I was sitting in my house and I was like, Why is everybody outside looking at the sky? The sun's dying. Well, no, no. I was alone. There was no one there. And I was like, I think the sun's dying. Because I've just been listening to some sci-fi Audible books. I was like, maybe this is like Project Hail Mary. This is really bad. What's going on? Because the sun just went dark. It wasn't a circle. And so that's the only thing that has been a negative out of my no-news policy. Otherwise, I'm a happier person. But the point is, I just don't know.  I have heard people saying the economy is no good, whatever. I have personally found that my business has done really well the last six months and again, I don't know how relevant this is to your people but, it does make me think there's a lot of people who get really caught up in listening to what other people say about the economy or no one's hiring no one's buying, people are being more conservative with their purchases or whatever.  All I know is that by keeping my head out of that and just focusing on what I'm doing each day, which is nurturing my list, working on good products and selling them as best I can, I have not seen any big hits. And supposedly, as copywriters, we should be really exposed to that sort of thing because we're intimately connected with the selling of stuff. So if people aren't buying stuff, they don't need sales copy. And my market is entirely copywriters.  So that's been the biggest takeaway for me for the last six months. I'm just not noticing whatever other people are saying about an economy being bad. If you just keep your head down and focus on what you're doing, it seems to work out really well. Now, I don't know if that is just going to come off as like, you're so insensitive, because everyone's losing their jobs. I'm just being honest. I got hit with this question out of the blue first on the podcast. So I hope that was insightful. Rob Marsh: Fair answer. The last time that you were on the podcast, I think it was 2020, just coming into the pandemic, if I remember right. Well, I should have looked it up before we started recording, but I feel like it was spring of 2020. And so maybe in case somebody hasn't gone back and listened to the entire back catalog or heard our previous interview with you, Daniel, maybe just break down really quickly what your business looks like and exactly what you're doing. Those who know you are probably going to know you do a daily email. You're widely known as the self-proclaimed Australia's best copywriter, although there are a few people who seem to agree with you. But yeah, tell us what your business looks like. Daniel Throssell: Yeah, so like my business model, what I'm doing. Rob Marsh: Yeah, or just the pieces of what's going on. Daniel Throssell: Well, just a quick backstory kind of thing. I was a freelance copywriter for several years. I started copywriting in 2016. And so I worked for a long time freelancing first, and then I worked with an author called Scott Pape for several years. I was kind of the right hand man in his business from maybe 2016, 17-ish until he shut down his newsletter in 2020, I think. So, after 2020 is when I started building my own brand. Before that, I'd never really done anything for myself.  And so, I think you had me on shortly after that, maybe a year after I started. It might have been 2021, I think, Rob. And so, I just started building my own brand, which is just kind of teaching the things I had learned And that's mostly what my business is now. Like I don't do any client work anymore. I create copywriting training and sell it. So I write a daily email. I'm very inspired by Ben Settle and what he did. He was a huge influence on me. So his business model, I've taken a lot of that and applied it to myself. So it basically revolves around publishing a monthly newsletter, selling courses, and I sell them with a daily email to an email list. It's a very simple business model, but it's very fun, very effective for me. Kira Hug: Okay, so you mentioned building your brand. And I think when you were on the show last, you were building it, you were becoming well known. And since then, you've become a bigger name in the copywriting space for sure. So when you look back, are there certain ingredients that you think have helped you build that brand that you'd recommend to other writers? Daniel Throssell: Well, one of the biggest things I've done—and you know, it's just a very unpopular message. I talk about it all the time, but I've just continued to write that email every single day. I have written something new to my email list and I did it from very early on when no one was watching. No one was paying attention. I had like 40 people on my list that had opted in for some old lead magnet and I was, it was like a dead list.

What is the difference between showing up as a copywriter and showing up as a strategist? In the 393rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with Eman Ismail about how she changed her title and the work she does to reflect a new and more satisfying role of "email strategist". Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Stuff to check out: The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  When we coach the copywriters inside the copywriter think tank or in our group coaching groups—which by the way are open now and if you’re interested you can learn more at thecopywriterclub.com/coach—sorry didn’t really mean to take that tangent… but when we coach copywriters one idea that comes up a lot is the need to not just show up as a writer… an order taker… or as a vendor, but rather you need to be a problem solver. And often that means taking on the role of a strategist in addition to the work you do as a writer. But how do you do that? It’s one thing to say, I’m a strategist and quite another to actually do the work that strategy requires. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder, Kira Hug, and I interviewed email strategist—not copywriter—Eman Ismail. Eman share why she rejects the title of copywriter today and what it really means to show up as a strategist. This might not be the kind of thing a beginner can do, but if you’ve got some experience creating copy and serving your clients, you may be picking up the expertise you need to show up as a strategist for your clients. Be sure to stick around to hear how Eman does it.   Now before we get to the interview… you’ve heard me talk about The Copywriter Underground and what it includes. If you’ve been thinking about joining this amazing community, I want to give you two reasons to jump in now. The first is a limited time Client Emails Masterclass with copywriter Michal Eisik. Michal launched her business after completing the copywriter accelerator and think tank. What she’s built is amazing. We asked Michal if she would share her masterclass with The Underground. But because Michal actually sells this to her own email list, she asked us to limit access to just a couple of day in May.  Which means if you want to get the Client Emails Masterclass for free, you’ve got to jump into The Underground now. We also have a second bonus… it’s the strategic plan that copywriter Daniel Throssell used to make his client’s book a best seller in Australia. Daniel has only shared this plan one time… to subscribers who paid to recieve his newsletter. It’s not currently available anywhere. Even new subscribers to his newsletter don’t have access. But he offered to give this strategy—completely free of charge—to members of The Copywriter Undergound. And like the Client Emails Masterclass, this member exclusive is only available for one week during the month of May—and only for members of The Underground.  If you were to purchase these bonuses sepearately, you’d pay more than what you pay to join The Underground for a single month. Plus you get all the other training, coaching, and community stuff that comes along with your membership in The Underground. There’s never been a better time to visit thecopywriterclub.com/tcu to claim your free bonuses now. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Eman. Kira Hug: Let's start with recent moves you've made to level up in your business. Because when you were here last, we talked about your origin story in your business and how you were leveling up at the time. And what I love about you and just watching you and, and, um, hearing from you is you're like constantly leveling up in big ways. And so why don't you just describe maybe the most recent changes that have helped you get to that next level? Eman Ismail: You know, I'm going to say really thinking of myself as a strategist and positioning myself as a strategist. So I have always loved the copywriting aspect. Obviously, I am an email strategist and copywriter, so I do a lot of emails. But, you know, it took me a while to get out of the idea of, only I can do this. You know, this is why I can't hire anyone else, because only I can do it, how my clients want me to do it. It took me a while to realize this, but finally realized that's not true. There are plenty of amazing email copywriters in the world who can do what I do and who can support me and help me help my clients.  So I've I've actually leaned into the strategy role even more and got help and hired writers to help me with the execution so um that means I get to do more of what I enjoy which is the like the putting the pieces of the puzzle together and figuring out what the sequence needs um and then I get to hand over my email strategy to someone I work with or someone that I hire and let them know okay this is what we're going to do and then they do it and it's just it's amazing it's amazing because well yeah I get to focus on what I enjoy most and then also I get to hire another copywriter which is fun and I enjoy doing that and then I get to come back in and copy chief at the end which is something I really enjoy doing as well. Rob Marsh: Eman, let's go deeper on that idea of being a strategist. Could you walk us through a sample project, or maybe even make one up as you go along? We often talk about how, as copywriters, we need to take more of a strategy role. I think with the emergence of AI, that's becoming a really common theme to hear in the copywriting world. But a lot of people may think, okay, but how does that differ from just being a copywriter? So walk us through a project and how you see it, how you approach the strategy, the kinds of things that you're thinking about as you put the pieces of the puzzle together, as you said, so that we can see what that really means. Eman Ismail: Yes. Before I do that, can I tell you what I used to do and then tell you what I do now? Because I think the difference is just so stark. So what I used to do was, my clients would come to me and say, I need five emails on you know whatever it is that we're trying to sell. And I would say okay, great five emails cost x amount and then I would do that and they'd pay that and then they tell me exactly what they want me to write in each email and I remember at one point a client giving me what they wanted me to write and thinking this is terrible. But I was so early on in my career as a copywriter that I didn't have the confidence to say to them, this is terrible. We probably shouldn't do this.  But I realized that was really to my own detriment because not having the confidence to tell the client this isn't a good idea meant that. They put the emails out there. They were happy with my work, but then they put emails out there and then, it didn't get the great results that we wanted. And that was no shock to me because I knew the strategy wasn't great.  And I realized that actually what my clients need from me is they need me to be a leader. They need me to be able to give them kind of constructive criticism and let them know when something's not working. That's what they pay me for. That's what they prefer. So I ended up just finding a bit of confidence somewhere in me and telling clients that the strategy piece was no longer an option like they they cannot come to me and say oh we don't want you to work on the strategy we just want to pay you for the copywriting which was what was happening a lot of the time like in their minds they'd separate this the strategy and the copy so that they could pay me less basically and so I stopped I stopped doing that I told them that's not an option anymore in order to work with me so that I can help you get the results that we want I need to do the strategy and I need to do the copy and um initially well that meant my prices went up and so I did lose some clients. But I gained better clients which was very exciting. So that was the change.  What happens now is well my clients come to me and they know that they're getting the strategy and the copy and if anything My clients probably value the strategy side more because they can convince themselves that they can go and write a sequence. And they do. Before they've hired me, I know that all my clients have tried writing their own sequences and they've probably done okay. Like I'm working with a client right now who can write pretty well. I was reading over some of the emails that she'd written for a previous launch and the emails are pretty good. But she has no idea why she's done what and you know, the strategy piece is really what's missing for her. And so I know that my clients really value that the idea of hiring an expert to figure it out to do all the like the brain work. And so that's, that's what I do now.  And I've been able to charge so much more because of it and also get really high quality clients who appreciate the work that goes into the strategy side of the email. Now, I mean, I always start off with audience research. So I have two different packages. Generally, all my packages come with customer surveys. So at the very least, the client will get customer surveys. I'll also pitch them on a bigger research project with customers, with voice of customer interviews, so we can do like the whole thing. And so we either way, we always start off with research. And then my job then is to is to either go through the research myself, if we're doing surveys, if we've done interviews, I hire someone else to come in and do all the interviews. So they actually present to me the findings, which is amazing. So all I then need to do is read through their, their report, their messaging report and understand what's going on with all the, with all the voice of customer data.

When it comes down to it, the thing most copywriters want to build is a business that is high-margin (it makes money) and fun to run (it's enjoyable). But achieving that goal is harder it appears. So we invited Ian Stanley to join us for the 392nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We asked Ian about how he did it—created a business that is profitable and fun. We also asked him about sales coaching, breaking up his partnership, his approach to email and his new comedy special. To hear what Ian had to share, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Stuff to check out: The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: How do you create a high-margin company that is fun to run? That’s pretty much the goal we all share… earn enough money for the lifestyle we want—however you define that—that’s the high margin part. And enjoy life doing whatever it is you do, from work to whatever you do in your personal time—that’s the fun to run part. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder, Kira Hug, and I interviewed copywriter, entrepreneur and comedian Ian Stanley. This is actually Ian’s second appearance on the podcast, so we caught up on how his business has changed in the past couple of years. And as we talked about that, we asked Ian about sales training, breaking up a partnership, commedy and buidling a company that makes money and is fun to run. One caution about this episode, Ian likes to swear. We’ve cut most of that out of the interview in order not to offend the censors at Apple who like to put an explicit label on anything rated higher than PG. But if we missed any, we apologize. That’s just who Ian is and how he shows up.   One other thing before we get to the interview… you’ve heard me talk about the copywriter underground and what it includes. If you’ve been thinking about joining this amazing community, let me give you two reasons to jump in now. During the month of May we have two incredible bonuses for members. The first is a limited time Client Emails Masterclass with Michal Eisik. Michal launched her business after completing the copywriter accelerator and think tank, and will be sharing this usually-paid masterclass with members of the underground… but only for one week in May. And we have a second bonus… it’s the strategic plan that copywriter Daniel Throssell used to make his client’s book a best seller in Australia. It works for non-book products too. Daniel has only shared this plan one time… to paid subscribers to his newsletter. It’s not currently available anywhere. But he offered to give it—completely free of charge—to members of The Copywriter Undergound. And like the Client Emails Masterclass, this member exclusive is only available for one week during the month of May in The Underground. If you’ve been thinking of joining, these are two very good reasons to jump in now—if you were to purchase either one of these bonuses sepearately, you’d pay more than what you pay to join The Underground for a single month. And I haven’t even mentioned all the other training, coaching, and community stuff that comes along with these two bonuses. Visit thecopywriterclub.com/tcu to claim your free bonuses now. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Ian. Kira Hug: All right, Ian, let's jump in, not with your story, because we know part of your story from our last interview, but let's just start with changes, at least one change you've made over the last four years. Maybe we talked to you four years ago, Rob, do you know? We'll say four years ago. Ian Stanley: Something like that. Kira Hug: Over four years ago. Rob Marsh: I mean, it was definitely, it was what? Episode 208. So it's closing in on four years anyways. Kira Hug: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So what is one big change you've made to your business since we last chatted? Ian Stanley: To my business? I feel like little businesses like this change constantly. So honestly, the biggest change that's happened is my business partner and I, so basically I was living in LA. I'd gone there to pursue standup. And then this COVID thing happened and stand up itself was, you know, in question. Cancel culture was at its absolute peak. I had a guy tell me that I was, I said in an ad, I said, I'm a white man. Not exactly. And he said, you can't say that. And I went, I, what do you mean? That's a fact. What am I supposed to say? Um, and that's when I was like, Jesus, this is getting bad. While I was in LA watching nonviolent protests, violently, uh, protest from my actual window. Um, and so I was like, I gotta get out of here. So I left LA and I mean, it sounds weird to say now, cause I feel like standup is almost bigger than ever in certain ways. Um, But it died off for a while there. And I think that the worse the world is, the more important stand up is. Because it's just funnier in ways, too, because things are so insane. It's easy to write material when the world itself is a ridiculous place full of people getting mad at white men that say that they're white. So I moved to Idaho and said, OK, I'm going to focus on business now for the next little while here, because There's no standup. And so my business partner and I went hard into like, let's build a big business. Let's do this whole thing. So we ended up with, you know, selling high ticket stuff over the phone. We had, you know, six or seven phone sales people. We were running a bunch of traffic on YouTube.  I was coaching the sales team, which I'm very good at, but I despise. It's basically like being a therapist. And basically if one of your phone sales people,, if his wife says something mean that morning or he doesn't sleep right, you lose money, you know, and, and you realize that like every, or they just have one bad call or whatever. And it was just not for me. So, uh, And I know this is a slightly longer story than you may have asked for, but it's a pretty relevant one, I think. So last March, about a year ago, my business partner and I had been watching The Office for the, I don't know, sixth time all the way through. And I had this thought, what would happen if we were in an office for eight hours a day? Like, how much would we actually get done? How good would that be? And so we had rented this house we called The Hoffice. So it was just like a home office that two of our employees lived in and that we would work at. So we did this. I was like, let's just try it for a week.  So we go in Monday. We had a great time. I'm like, oh my God, we got so much done. This was really cool. We go in Tuesday. And by the end of Tuesday, I'm like, this is perhaps the worst thing I've ever experienced. I hate this. I hate this so much. And because and there's only like seven of us, but they'll ask me questions, ask Kim questions, who is my business partner and you don't get anything done. And I went home and I was like the most tired I've ever been. And I understand that for anybody here, they can make Europe pathetic. How can you not work one eight hour day? I don't, I've never had—the closest thing I had to a real job—I would be there for like five to six hours and I was writing copy and I would, you know, I figured out my schedule in a way that worked for me. And I was just so exhausted and depleted and annoyed. And I just, I was like, there's something's wrong. Like, this is not right. And the phone sales is such a nightmare. I would recommend most people, if you want to do a high ticket phone sales program, just understand that either you will be miserable for an extended period of time, and then And then you maybe will have a sales manager who will do it for you. And then they'll probably quit. And then you'll lose all your money. And I wasn't actually miserable. I'm a very happy person. So it's very relative. But for me, having to do one hour of coaching calls a day is like a non-negotiable. I can't do it. I just can't do that part of it. And so that night, I was just like, something's got to change. And I was so tired. It was like my bones we're giving up.  And I was just thinking like, someone's got to change here. And I wrote out this plan for how my business partner and I could split up the business and we could stop doing phone sales. And I  had all this energy, like a huge burst of energy at like nine at night, just like, Holy, this could be it. This could work. But then I'm like, Oh my God, I got to tell my business partner that I don't want to do this anymore. And we're best friends. And so the next day we go to the office at the end of my K let's, uh, Let's go get a drink. And we go get a drink. And I'm like, hey, man, I don't want to do this anymore in this way. And he's like, oh, my God, me neither. That's so exciting.  And so we basically just realized that because we were doing a few hundred grand a month and but the margins are never that like, you keep growing and you're like, why don't we have more money? Like, I'm making less money working six to eight hours a day sometimes than I was making when I was working an hour or two a day and had all this free time for these other things and didn't have all these people to manage. And so we figured out this breakup plan and he took the email list management agency and I took back the company and it was glorious. Beautiful. And so since May of last year, so nearly a year now, I've been running it on my own again. It's been super easy and fun and profitable. And then I recorded my first comedy special in November. I released it five days ago. It premiered. And so that's a huge, that's like, you know, as a comic, that's kind of what you work towards. After taking basically a couple years off from LA to move here and not really having places to perform, it's a completely changed trajectory.

We've talked a lot about building your authority and finding clients on LinkedIn on this podcast. But I don't think we've ever spoken with anyone who built a six-figure copywriting business entirely on that platform—without a website or any other social media presence. On the 391st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we spoke with Alefiya Khoraki who did exactly that. And if you're looking for clients on LinkedIn, you're definitely going to want to listen to this episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Stuff to check out: Sell Like Crazy by Sabri Suby The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: After recording almost 400 episodes of this podcast—the official number 400 will be released in about 9 weeks and that doesn’t include several unnumbered bonus episodes we’ve recorded—but with that many interviews under out belts, it gets pretty easy to identify trends and shifts in the copywriting world based on what copywriters tell us about how they find clients, the services they offer and the struggles they go through. And one of the trends we’ve heard about over and overa again in the past year or more is how effective LinkedIn is for finding clients. Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder, Kira Hug, and I interviewed copywriter Alefiya Khoraki. She’s built a six figure business in less than a year, primarily by posting content on Linkedin and commenting on other content there. That’s pretty good for someone who got her start trying to raise $800 for a project while she was in school.  But before we get to that, if you’ve been wondering how to use AI in your copywriting or content writing business, I’ve got something for you. A couple months ago i shared the way I use AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT to write bullets, headlines and subheads with the participants of a copywriting summit. It’s a simple google document with the exact prompt I use to write hundreds of great headlines and bullets in seconds. Plus instructions on how to go back and forth with the AI model you’re using to get even better results. You can even add a short ten-ish minute video training where I show you how i use it. If you’re new to writing with A.I., this is a great way to get started. And if you’ve been using A.I. for awhile, this training may open your eyes to what’s possible with a megaprompt. The document is free. And you can get it at thecopywriterclub.com/aiwriter. And with that, let’s go to our interview with Alefiya. Kira Hug: Let's kick off with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter? Alefiya Khoraki: So it started in a very weird way. You probably hear this a lot from copywriters. Back in COVID, I started my bakery business because I was still in university and for the final year, we had a very special ceremony for which I needed to raise 800 USD. And I was like, OK, let's try something. So every day I was trying new things. Let's try selling cottage cheese one day. Let's try selling this. Let's try selling that. And then I ended up starting my own bakery because I was working. I was studying in the morning, so I had time for myself in the evenings. And then I started running Facebook ads for that. And I was like, oh wow, I really enjoy this part.  I didn't even know what copywriting is. I didn't even know what A-B testing is. Because for my bakery business, that was the first time I downloaded the Instagram app. So I was very far off from the whole online marketing world. And then a lady was introduced to our community and she hosted a workshop. And there, she introduced me to Boss Babe. Boss Babe is Natalie Ellis and Danielle Canty. And they were doing a summit with Tony Robbins, Young Guys EOC, and all that. And then at that time, to learn all these marketing skills for my bakery business. And I was studying Sabri Suby's book, Sell Like Crazy, and I was like, I really enjoy this. But I didn't have the courage to quit my bakery business because people started calling me the brownie queen of Kampala. This was back in Africa. So I was doing all that, and I was really enjoying it. And then I had to travel to Pakistan for six months to my grandparents' place. And I was like, oh, shucks. OK, now my pocket money's stopped, and I need to do something. So what I did is I pitched, like, 50 bakery owners that, hey, let me be your bakery consultant, and let me help you grow your business. Nobody replied. And then I was like, OK, I've got to do something in this marketing thing. And somehow I came across Alex Cattoni’s YouTube channel. And I was like, OK, this is something called copywriting. And if I want to pursue marketing and I have to write for that, OK, maybe I was writing my Facebook ads. So how hard can this be? And that's how I started writing on LinkedIn. And yeah, I became a LinkedIn ghostwriter. And that's about it. And then things kept happening. Rob Marsh: We'll get to the “things kept happening” part in a second. I'm curious…  pitching a ton of potential clients, no responses, what did that pitch look like? And as those responses didn't come in, did you make changes to your pitch or how did you adjust your approach? Alefiya Khoraki: I don't even remember. I didn't even know it was called a pitch. It was sending random emails from my Gmail account. I don't even know if I was searching the right email addresses and probably going to support. I didn't even know there are tools built for scrapping email addresses. I’m a rookie who doesn't have any idea about this whole online marketing world. And of course, many things change after that. Like currently, my biggest source of client acquisition is Pitching and LinkedIn, obviously. But I don't even remember what those pitches were. Probably just sharing that, OK, I made this much money from my bakery business. And I was supposedly called. It was bullshit. So that's what the responses I got. Kira Hug: OK, do you have your baking business anymore? Or is it shut down? Or you ended it? Alefiya Khoraki: It is shut down. I was doing this in Uganda where I had a whole monopoly for the bakery business. I was charging $200 for a brownie tray and my parents were like “you ripping people off.” I was like okay. My brother is a photographer so I had elite photography and very shitty packaging but the photography did the job. I had a nice Instagram page. I was looting people left, right, center. And I had like $300 cakes, $200 cakes. There's no chance I can charge that much money in India now that I'm married and living in India. So that's why I chose not to continue my bakery business here. Kira Hug: Got it. OK, well, are there any other lessons from the bakery business that you have pulled into your copywriting and marketing business? Alefiya Khoraki: Everything. Customer care, how to handle crises. I remember when I was charging this much money and then a lady called and said, “hey, I think you're just too overrated.” And I could get these cookies for free or for cheaper from this XYZ bakery. And then I was like, OK, let me just return you and replace you with more cookies or I can just refund your money. And then she came in and she said, I've raised these complaints to many, many places, but I've never heard a response back. And that's the same thing I carry back to my copywriting business. If a client is not satisfied, I will do everything in my control to make that client satisfied. If it calls for more free work, I'll do that because it's like my first year, right? I can afford to do that. If it calls for doing more… I remember one of my early clients said she was not happy with the tone of voice. Immediately I DM Justin Blackman to help me with this. I'm really terrified, send me a course. Let me do this in two days. I did that. I was like I told this client that I'm new and I just took this course, so let me just cover this and you won't have a tone of voice complaint ever. So that's the thing. I know many small entrepreneur lessons and people ask me how I've picked up so fast. It's because I had this bakery business background of running an actual business. Rob Marsh: Yeah, which helps for sure, right? So you grew pretty fast as you launched your business. If I'm not mistaken, you were having six and seven thousand dollar months in the first six months of your copywriting business. So going from bakery business to copywriter, how did you make that happen? Alefiya Khoraki: So I was in Pakistan for six months, and that was the transition period where I was figuring out, OK, what do I want to do? Then I came to India, where I am today. Now my husband lives in India. And at that time, I forgot about the business. All the ambition went down the drain. It was the honeymoon period. And then my husband traveled to Saudi Arabia for 40 days. And I had nothing to do because I don't have any family here. And I had to do something. I wanted to do something. So that's when I started binging all the other copywriting stuff, and started writing on LinkedIn every single day. And I landed my first client for $30 within like three days. And then I started improvising and doing small things. But because I wrote those Facebook ads, I had the idea of copy and how to do A-B testing. I still remember when I used to launch those two campaigns, one campaign was how I catered men. I was targeting men and selling like, okay, treat your pregnant wives with a box of brownies and attracted lots of men from there. So at that time, I was not sure what I was doing, but when I find a winner from the campaign, what does it feel like? So I had those certain elements which I was bringing in and I was not doing copywriting per se, like when I started on LinkedIn.  At that time the whole LinkedIn vibe was ghostwriting, ghostwriting, ghostwriting.

Former dentist turned copywriter Kieran Drew shares insights on growing an online presence to earn six figures annually. Topics include social media strategies, client-finding tips, transitioning careers, achieving work-life balance, and creating engaging content.