Copywriter Jonnie Williams joins us for the 119th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira met Jonnie at Copy Chief Live and they hit it off. We continued their conversation from the conference on the podcast and asked Jonnie about her work. Here’s a taste of what she shared:
•  How she survived a bad situation and launched a solo career
•  The first gigs she landed and what she did to get her business off the ground
•  The crazy stuff that happened at the job she left—really crazy
•  How to deal with a toxic work environment
•  How her business has evolved recently and the work she does
•  When to jump at a new opportunity and how to know if it’s right
•  Her approach to retainers and how she makes it work
•  How Jonnie stays creative — the non-copy stuff she does
•  How a move to tornado alley has created stress and anxiety for her
•  Creating a personal network while living in a small town
•  What’s working (and what’s not) when it comes to creating funnels

To get this one in your ear holes, click the play button below. You can also download it to your favorite podcast app, or scroll down for a full transcript.

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The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Full Transcript:

Rob:   This podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground.

Kira:   It’s our new membership designed for you to help you attract more clients and hit 10k a month consistently.

Rob:   For more information or to sign up, go to thecopywriterunderground.com. 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 119 as we chat with copywriter Jonnie Williams about how her business has evolved over time, what she’s done to uplevel her career, giving up on projects that don’t work, and writing conversion oriented content for the personal development space.

So, welcome Jonnie, it’s great to have you here.

Rob:   Hi Jonnie.

Kira:   As a copywriter I’ve worked with on many projects, I told you so many times I think you’re so talented and we actually got to hang out last week at Copy Chief Live, which was a lot of fun.

Jonnie:          Yeah. Hello Rob and Kira, I am so thrilled to be on the podcast. It’s kind of crazy because this is really full circle for me, I started out writing for podcasts and I listened to your podcast for so long and here I am, so it’s an honor to be here and Kira, loved being able to hang out with you and this is a lot more comfortable for me now that we’ve met face to face, and thank you for the kind words.

Rob:   If there’s any discomfort, it’s because we haven’t met face to face Jonnie, so I’m …… but just carry on, yeah, just carry on without me, it’ll be fun.

Jonnie:          I know you Rob, you’re, everyone’s homie and you have the best gifts ever.

Rob:   Thank you.

Kira:   He’s making me feel uncomfortable, so that’s just normal.

Rob:   There you go, that would not be unusual.

Kira:   Jonnie, let’s just start with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter?

Jonnie:          Over the course of, I’d say probably the last eight years, I worked in two extremely toxic environments and more recently I worked at a small family owned business where I experienced and observed some pretty rotten situations and it was stuff that was kind of so horrific that it felt surreal. It was everything from sexual harassment to extreme verbal abuse and even to the violent death of a coworker who was murdered inside the building so there’s a lot to unpack there. I spent nearly, it felt like every day filled with this kind of fear and anxiety that my manager would get screamed at or one of my coworkers would storm out with tears and so it was just a lot of stress and that eventually bled into my personal life. I’d watched my physical and a health basically deteriorate and my personal relationships fall apart.

I’d always kind of threatened to quit regularly but I’d always find a reason to cop out because I really wasn’t confident that I’d find another job that would cough up the 14.50 an hour so I stuck it out. A little under three years and after a miscarriage, a friend had handed me a Tony Robbins DVD and that was a pivotal moment in my life because it evolved into this like full blown personal development journey. I started doing some self work and listening to personal development, podcasts, reading blog posts, and started valuing myself more. So I kind of developed this awareness to this constant negativity around me and it sounded like nails on a chalkboard, I couldn’t tolerate being in that building anymore. I became more distanced from my coworkers and it was kind of the norm to find me at a bar after work.

One night I was there with my now fiancé and after a glass or two of liquid courage, I was kind of possessed with this sort of strange empowerment that I still can’t really explain to this day. That I had this urge to drive the mile down the street, pack up my desk, and never looked back. I went with it and that was hurdle number one, was quitting the job. Hurdle two, was figuring out what I was going to do next because I just impulsively quit my job and did it without a clue of what I was going to do and where it would lead me but I did know two things. I knew that I needed to find a way to pay my bills really quickly and I’d always been told I was a decent writer, a good writer so I thought I’d live the good life by starting a personal development blog and then monetizing it and that was the dream after reading all these income reports from bloggers who made $25,364 and 22 cents a month.

I thought that was the only way to monetize my writing other than a book which would take me way too long in my dire situation. I just remember how frustrating it was to go and read a description of a podcast episode when I was going through my journey and there was like a sentence or two and maybe not even that and like I really wanted to know what it was about so that ended up kind of leading me on a path to Upwork and then positioning myself as a show notes writer, podcast show notes writer. It didn’t even take me two days to hear back from my first two clients who were just launching a brand new podcasts and both of them were in the online marketing space and one was more content and strategy and the other one was more transformational life and business.

I learned their brand voice very well and I learned about online marketing strategy from their podcasts so they both started hiring me for more copy based projects. I remember getting hired directly from my personal landing page from one of them and like I think I teared up because he offered me like $150. That led into more podcast clients that your job’s more referrals and eventually transitioned out of show notes completely to pursue copywriting fulltime.

Rob:   There is a lot to unpack here for sure. First of all, I want to know what was the Tony Robbins CD that started the whole transformation, which one was it?

Jonnie:          Oh gosh, I can’t tell you the name of it because unfortunately, and I hope Tony is not listening.

Kira:   He doesn’t listen to our show.

Rob:   He’s one of our biggest listeners actually.

Jonnie:          It was burned, it just said Tony Robbins on it and a black sharpie.

Rob:   Okay, fair enough. Let’s jump forward then to those first writing gigs, how did you position yourself? Like, what were you doing on Upwork, what did you say, what was the offer, for people who are just trying to get started and think, ‘Hey, maybe that’s a viable path for me or to offer something similar’? Walk us through. What were the things that you did to land two jobs that quickly?

Jonnie:          I wish I could remember all the granular details, but I just remember there wasn’t a lot of people that were offering what I was offering and it was … I very much kind of listed out that I was in personal development and platforming myself as someone who is really familiar with podcasts, which I was, but I think it was such a rarity for people to come across just someone who specialized. I found my own little niche, you know, or niche as you guys like to call it niche or niche. I found my own little cove and it worked out really, really well for me and if we’re talking price, I had no idea what I was doing at the time. I had no idea how to price anything or what my time was worth, how good I really was but eventually I negotiated what I thought was fair at the time and we just kind of went from there.

Kira:   I want to back up and ask about your story and I can’t help but ask about the murder, which, if it’s too sensitive to share, can you just share a little bit more details about the toxic environment and even anything related to that, how did this all happen? Because it sounds so out there and hard to believe but I know this was your reality for I think three years?

Jonnie:          It was surreal and sometimes when I reflect on it, it’s surreal still and to kind of give you the nutshell version of it, I pulled up into the parking lot like it was any other Monday morning, it was snowing outside it was in February, and seeing like CSI events outside, like they literally said CSI, I was like oh that’s a thing, I guess. I thought it was just to show this whole time but yeah, there was like people there and there were a couple of cop cars and obviously I had no idea what was going on and I panicked and kind of almost slipped on ice walking into the office building and next thing I know I walked into the lobby and all my coworkers are sitting on the couch with their heads in their hands and they just were looking very somber and my face just drained of blood and I was pale white.

They pulled me into the side room and said this person is dead. I don’t even know what you would say in that situation … I still don’t know what you would say in that situation if someone told me like the reaction is kind of vague to me. I just remember feeling shocked, I mean I don’t really know what you can say in that situation other than just shock, it was a lot to take on and very traumatic for all of us and it was a case of just things escalating where they shouldn’t have been. Particular individual, my coworker was working late one night and he was by himself. Unfortunately the building unlocked and he had walked in on someone writing very awful things on our basement wall in sharpie and he was familiar with one of the staff members. This person was kind of involved with one of the staff members and my coworker had walked in on him, this person did not want to get caught because it was after hours. Caught him by complete surprise and made sure that he was not going to talk to anybody.

Kira:   This is an extreme toxic work environment and it’s hard for many of us to even imagine a scenario like that. What advice would you give to a copywriter who is maybe dealing with a toxic environment or even a toxic client and maybe it’s not as extreme as that, but it’s just negative or maybe they’re just attracting those clients for some reason, there must be something attracting them, what advice would you give to them to get out of that situation or cope with that situation and make a change?

Jonnie:          I would say that what kind of threw me over the edge and had me walking out of there was to remember your own value. There are plenty of people out there that would appreciate you probably way more than whoever feels the need to treat you like crap, and it was very empowering knowing that, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know there’s someone or something out there that will appreciate me so much more in telling me so much more than what I’m getting now. It’s absolutely rang to be true, it resulted in nothing but confirmation of that. I hope that answered the question.

Rob:   Yeah, I think it does. Let’s jump forward to talking about your business as it is today. You started out doing show notes, but how has your business evolved since then? What are the kinds of projects that you take on and the clients that you work with?

Jonnie:          Well, I’ve got my hands in two wildly different industries. In one corner I’ve got my official title as a digital marketing badass, which is marketing speak for part-time copywriter and strategist for Just Sell Homes and we specialize in digital marketing for real estate agents and teams. There I write B2B and B2C and do everything from ad copy to landing pages, email sequences, newsletters, lots of lead gen stuff, lead generation. Then in the other corner I write sales copy for entrepreneurs in the personal development space, namely for like service and digital product launches, that’s what I’m doing now.

Kira:   Awesome, okay. I know we want to dig into that, but you’ve come a long way and just what you’ve shared with us so far. What is the one thing that’s helped you up level your copywriting career the most?

Jonnie:          I trust it all back to my intuition and that kind of ties in with being able to take it a blind leaps no matter how difficult they were. Everything from quitting a job that made me miserable to saying no to difficult clients even when I could have really used that cash, to letting go of a retainer client, even though I loved the stability, so it’s also guided me to kind of step outside my comfort zone and reach out to others. I’ve always been an independent person and that kind of conditioned me to ask for help as a last resort. For my first two years of freelancing I hardly said a word to anybody and I’d look in forums and groups and subscribe to blogs and listen to podcasts, but kept to myself a lot. In fact, I was listening to one of your earlier podcasts when were you interviewed by and I think you asked him a question about what he would do differently and he said that he would have reached out a lot sooner and that really hit home with me.

Then there came a point where I attended this Webinar for this program called The Copywriter Accelerator and I had just bought Copy….

Rob:   Tell us about that program.

Jonnie:          It was fantastic. I had just bought Copy School which had been like my biggest business investment after that point and I felt so awful that I knew that I couldn’t afford it at that point because the podcast have taught me so much, your podcast is just amazing and I felt like a total learning leach. I definitely wanted to learn from you guys and show my appreciation by investing so when you guys sent your follow up email to the Webinar, like you nailed it. I couldn’t tell if it was a broadcast or if it was an email that was just for me, and I had this like undeniable urge to respond to at least tell you why I couldn’t buy in and express my gratitude for delivering the value that you do through your podcast. The next thing I see is an email from here going, ‘Oh my God, we need to work together.’ And by the time I was like, Whoa, this is like one killer autoresponder sequence.

But seriously, I had no idea that that one simple email that I almost did not send would be the connecting piece to not only one of the coolest chicks I know and an amazing friend, but other opportunities for growth. I had a similar experience when I signed up for Copy Chief Live this year through TCC and Kevin Rogers who founded Copy Chief, has an incredible team who are very active and involved in the copy chief member’s forum. Alex reached out and sent me a really cool onboarding message that opened up a dialogue between us and then that kind of led to a deep discussion with Angie, who I vibed with really well and I felt like I could tell her anything.

Just that relief of explaining my story business blocks lifted a weight off my shoulders and between them and The Copywriter Club I feel really understood and just really empowered and more confident than I’ve ever been. As I like to say, achievement unlocked, so I’m living proof that if you trust in your intuition and trust that the universe has your back, then you’re going to be unstoppable. So don’t ever lose sight of your intuition, go with it because it’s rarely ever wrong.

Rob:   I love this whole idea of taking big leaps or other writers have called them quantum leaps and I think part of the problem with these kinds of leaps is they’re not always obvious. It’s sort of that subtle feeling that like maybe you should be doing something differently or maybe you should pay attention to this thing or that person. How do you, yourself Jonnie, when you’re thinking about these leaps, so you’re going to take like, how do you know this is the one to jump forward? How do you sort the one or two from all of the potential opportunities that are out there?

Jonnie:          The leaps that I have been most scared to take, those are the ones that I lean into and I know that sounds super wow wow wow like oh, you know, good for you, but it’s true. It’s the ones that are the most discomforting and the ones that really just makes your palms sweat but knowing that there’s something on the other side that could be really, really juicy and really rewarding, I think those are the ones that I tend to take more than anything. Whatever that thing that is you’re afraid of, that’s the thing you need to do.

Kira:   Yeah, and I think, I think what you’re saying here is really about showing up, so showing up for you has been and attending Copy Chief Live and building a ton of relationships. Then showing up can be as simple as responding to an email, like a mass email from us and just responding and typing out a really nice email and how that could just start a relationship or like you said, start a conversation and trying to start conversations when it feels like it’s a good fit. That seems like it’s worked really well for you.

Jonnie:          Yeah, it definitely has.

Kira:   Hey, we’re just jumping into the show today to tell you a little bit more about The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob, what do you like best about this membership?

Rob:   This membership community is full of copywriters that are investing in their businesses and taking what they do seriously. Everything is focused around three ideas, copywriting and getting better at the craft that we all do, marketing and getting in front of the right customers so that you can charge more and earn more, and also mindset so you can get out of your head and focus on the things that will help you be successful at what we do. There’s a private Facebook group for the members of the community and we also send out a monthly newsletter that’s full of advice gain, on those three areas, copywriting, marketing and mindset. Things that you can mark up and tear out, put it in your file, save them for what ever and it’s not going to get lost in your email inbox. Kira, what do you like about The Copywriter Club Podcast?

Kira:   I love the monthly hot seat calls where our members have a chance to sit in the hot seat and ask a big question or get ideas or talk through a challenge in their business as we all learn from those situations. Then I also feel like the templates we include in the membership are valuable because who wants to reinvent the wheel and Robin and I end up sharing a lot of the templates and resources we use in our own businesses, so I would definitely want to grab those.

Rob:   If you are interested in joining a community of copywriters that are investing in their business and in themselves and trying to do more, get more clients, earn more money consistently, go to the copywriterunderground.com to learn more. Now, back to the program.

Kira:   Let’s talk about growing your business with retainers because as you mentioned, you have a great retainer right now, you’ve had a couple of retainers before, can you just talk a little bit about why the retainer is working for you and maybe also what doesn’t work as far as retainers to and why you stepped away from this second retainer?

Jonnie:          The retainers have been … they’ve been really good to me and they have … stepping out from that nine to five life and transitioning into freelance life, that’s one of the hits you take, that stability and that assuredness that you know and your bank account’s going to be filled at Friday at midnight or whatever. That’s a huge risk that you take and I wasn’t very fond of that feeling especially since I’d spend a lot of my savings on just paying for medical bills, it was just like I need to find something and I need to find something stable. The retainer has always been good for me, it’s always beneficial, but I’ve kind of been learning pros and cons to growing your business with retainers. Like when you migrate away from that nine to five and in the freelance world it can be serious source of stress, especially when you’re just starting out.

In order to kind of weave that warm security blanket, looking back, I almost unconsciously pursue these long term opportunities. I had this business kind of fueled by nothing but long term clients and referrals who ended up becoming long term clients themselves. I got really familiar with them and really comfortable, but I didn’t experience some of those typical growing pains when you’re kind of forced to stand on your own two feet and learn your lessons, quote unquote like the hard way. I know that might sound good at face value and it definitely had its perks, but I dealt with the blow back of knowing nothing about how to run a business properly because I trusted all my clients and their referrals had trust sort of grandfathered in.

I only dabbled in agreements and asking for a deposit felt awkward and insulting so it kind of never did and I really didn’t have any concept of boundaries and no onboarding process or systems in place because everything was totally routine and the soap lines are always blurred. So I ended up doing way more than I’d originally anticipated and way more than I ever should have done for whether it was charging. I had no clue how to negotiate and that was shy about asking for more money even if I was 100% certain that it was all warranted. Being a copywriter made me painfully aware of like a lot of my money blocks, which I still struggle with today but it was … I kind of reeked of newb and I was taken advantage of by my own doing.

Let’s be real, business owners aren’t going to come up to you and go, ‘Oh wow, are you crazy? You should really charge me more for what you’re doing,’ no matter how pure they are. Fortunately, aside from kind of hunting down payments from dodgy clients, I attracted mostly good people and they never really totally screwed me over. Up until just recently, I juggled another retainer client with Just Sell Homes and that combination filled every inch of my bandwidth. It was a weekly newsletter and eventually, it evolved into this massive beast and I totally reached code red like serious burnout.

I started resenting not only having more time to myself and my family but not writing the copy that like truly fills me up the most, that fun, witty personality driven copy doesn’t really align with what I was doing. That was kind of clawing at me, the steady pay was awesome and there were clients of mine for over a year, so we’ve been a part of each other’s growth, but I was asked to kind of cannon ball back into what I loved and I knew I had to let them go.

Rob:   When you talk about all of these processes that you struggled with or you didn’t have in place, what have you done to fix those kinds of things so that you show up not as a newb anymore but as a pro?

Jonnie:          I’ve met a lot of adjustments, I’m still with Just Sell Homes and since I do so many different things there, it’s kind of hard to really nail down a singular process for the whole thing. But what I’ve learned is that … I have a whole library of customized templates, my gallery saved and that always streamlines the process. Also, working with Kira, I’ve seen how she operates, her research process and kind of being able to just observe it from a high level kind of taught me a lot as well and I was really pleasantly surprised when I logged in under The Copywriter Underground saw all of the templates there. So it was like wow, this is really going to help other freelancers streamline their process too.

I was really excited to see that you guys had included that but in terms of just processes I use a lot of tools, I use a lot of templates and formulas but I always make sure that I make them my own and make them in the voice of the client, those are staples for sure. I also have a really awesome tool that I use as a bookmarking tool called start.me and you can make notes in there and they have an extensions, I would highly recommend checking out the bookmark tool and of course Air Story. Air Story has been awesome with gathering customer data and doing review mining, and my newsletters as well. Tools and templates are the key for me getting my systems and processes kind of down to a science.

Kira:   Now that you’ve got processes down, how do you stay creative? I know we had talked about this at Copy Chief Live because you have so much personality in your copy and I love it so much but I also know it’s not always easy to just kind of whip that out whenever you want. So what do you do to stay creative and to tap into that?

Jonnie:          We did have this discussion quite a bit with other copywriters at Copy Chief Live and Justin Blackman, I know you guys are very good friends with them and we’re just kind of talking about how he stays for free of and we have to tap into another source of our brain in order to be creative because in my mind we’ve got a copy of brain and we’ve got the creative brain and they tell you a lot not to really marry those two, but you have to be creative when you write copy especially if you write personality driven copy. I would say that to keep that activated, do something else that you like, hobbies. I play guitar, I could probably pick it up again, but Justin just joined a comedy group that he is going to start performing with and Kira I know that you, you also recently took on something yourself, right?

Kira:   I’m starting my violin class. My first one is tomorrow yet I don’t have the violin yet so we’ll see how that goes without a violin but yeah, I’m doing it for the same reason. It’s to take on a new challenge but it’s also to stay creative.

Jonnie:          So do something else other than writing, pick up that instrument or go for a walk or you know, I love to meditate and that keeps my brain active. As counterintuitive as that sounds, it all contributes to my creativity in some way.

Kira:   We have a lot of copywriters that we know who have moved this year, I know you moved from California to Kansas a couple of years ago. I’m not sure what year. Can you just speak to like how that impacted your business in your life and how other copywriters can deal with a big change, like a move?

Jonnie:          I spent 28 years in California and it was my comfort zone, lots of friends, lots of connections and everything was in walking distance and the weather was beautiful. Along with that I found myself partying a lot and constantly on the go and I always felt obligated to do this and that and I was in the spotlight a lot. I studied radio and television broadcasting in college, had my own radio show, interviewed local bands and that kind of eventually evolved into interviewing top bands and influencers in front of the camera to promote various shows and this was for San Diego’s number one music venue. I loved it, I loved everything that I did there. It was so lively it was energetic, it was definitely on my level, but I kind of started getting curious about how life would be if it were a little simpler and I slowed down. I got the opportunity to do that a lot quicker than I thought I would and it was very unexpected, but I went with it and that was about five and a half years ago now.

The first year I moved to Kansas it must’ve been … I was asked a million times, why the hell would you make that move? Like why are you, what’s wrong with you? I got a lot of strange looks and I still do to this day and sometimes I question it myself, but for a while I hated it here and if I’m being honest, I still feel like I’m definitely adjusting. I live in a small town and there’s one sit down restaurant, one grocery store, and about 14 churches, so yeah, huge adjustment and being in my early 30s, not having any children kind of makes it difficult to find common ground with people here.

Another thing that’s impacted my stress level here is the weather, up until last year I had severe anxiety during severe weather season and that goes from early spring until around early summer. I also live in a place called Tornado Alley and we definitely get tornadoes here and the next town over had been hit hard just a couple of years ago with one, you know, in my first year here, my car was totaled by hailstorm followed by a tornado so there was a lot of anxiety here and I wanted to move quickly out of here, but I know the moving here was what I needed because I’d had the time and space to focus on me and just sit down with myself and the quiet and get to know myself a little more because that concept of self didn’t exist to me up until a few years ago. And I know there’s no way I would’ve picked up copywriting and been able to grow my business with all these distractions.

I’ve gone a little introvert and which is a far cry from my extroverted nature but I’ve kind of spent the last few years of my copy cade and I’m still working on adjustments, but there’s really a lot of opportunity within these small towns and a lot of character. I think that if you have your mindset right and you kind of reach out into the unknown a little bit and really start to spark conversations with your neighbors, it can really contribute to your life in a really meaningful way. I know that’s easier said than done, but also use the quiet and the peace to enjoy your work and be able to get stuff done too. That’s what I’ve used it for a lot and write about it, write about your experiences, tell other people, share with other people because there’s a lot of other people in our shoes as well and you can even bond over that over being alone and there go, you have a friend.

Rob:   One of the things you mentioned earlier when we’re talking a little bit about the big leaps and also the fact that you were hanging out with Kira last week is basically getting together with other writers and that seems like a pretty good way to overcome being alone in a small town or even being alone in a big city. Talk to us about your experience as you’ve started to hang out both online and offline with other writers.

Jonnie:          I’ve known, I’ve become very introverted and so taking that big leap to go to this live event, Copy Chief Live was a way that I knew I had to challenge myself because being so introverted and not really getting out there, it can be really mentally damaging and it can really stop your growth and your creativity both as a person and just as a copywriter. I knew that there was a point I couldn’t stay in my copy cade forever, I could not do it. So being able to reach out and talk to these copywriters both online and in person because there’s really no replacement for what you get out of somebody when you talk to them face to face and that energy exchange, just being there and seeing their mannerisms and being able to see them smile.

It’s just a different feeling than just being able to virtually chat with somebody and it’s a good way to keep yourself healthy because it could get really, really lonely. We all know how lonely our jobs can be, our careers can be, and events can really help you just kind of animate yourself and put yourself out there, make connections and just have a little fun too. It was really awesome being able to fly over the water and see Florida and just be by the water again and talk to other human beings. It’s a good way to reach out and just extract that part of yourself and connect with other people.

Kira:   And you’re coming to New York City in March, correct?

Jonnie:          I will be there, absolutely. I’m really looking forward to it. I am getting the New York itch, I can’t wait.

Kira:   Okay, awesome. I want to ask you about building funnels because you have this retainer client, Just Sell Homes, what have you learned because you’re deep in that world and building out their funnels, what is currently working that you want to share with all of us?

Jonnie:          It’s demanding and it’s challenging, but I think that’s what I like about working at Just Sell Homes the most. The founder, Andrew Fogliato, and I we’re total marketing and strategy neurons, but we’re on the same page a lot and he trusts me, which has really allowed me to kind of step into my role as a copywriter and the in-house specialist. It sounded so foreign at first, but it really just kind of like I put on the belt and I wore it really proudly and now I’m relieved there and able to help people grow their businesses. Since we offer these done for you services, when we strategize with our clients and build out these actual funnels from start to finish, even the simplest ones have a lot of moving parts especially when you’re moving cold traffic from a Facebook ad to a landing page to a thank you page to an email sequence.

I’ve personally been able to up level, not only my copy skills but I’m super familiar with different email service providers, different software setting up Zaps, all the back end stuff and I’ve kind of like a virtual Swiss army knife or like a jill of all trades. To be honest I think with all that said, I think the most challenging part of it all is kind of having to communicate with a remote team and that gets a little frustrating. No matter how many tools you have under your belt, it’s still difficult and you still don’t have that one on one or in person interaction rather. But yeah, it’s been an awesome experience and I’m going to visit them very soon again. I fly up to Canada a couple of times a year and I’m excited about it.

Rob:   One more question about that when you’re talking about funnels and those kinds of things, what kind of mistakes are you seeing people make? Like when you see funnels out there or the mistakes that you’re able to avoid, things that you’re able to fix for your clients, what kinds of things should we be aware of so that we don’t make those kinds of mistakes? Are there any, maybe there aren’t any I don’t know.

Jonnie:          I can’t really say mistakes. I don’t really see a lot of mistakes because I think that different funnels work for different people and I don’t really know the back end piece of what other people are doing. I know personally the mistakes that I’ve made with this funnel kind of pacing these funnels together is severely underestimating the time and the energy that they take to put together because there are so many hurdles that you come across like not having your clients log in Info or the zap’s not working properly. It’s just all these fine tiny pieces that if not glued together perfectly, then nothing works. It could be one tiny little cut in the hose, we’re losing all the water and it’s just being able to have a checklist from start to finish and knowing what you’re doing and not just depending on that routine and relying on that to carry you through, but actually making those checklists to make sure everything’s connected is probably the number one piece of advice I would give that any copywriter looking to build out funnels.

Kira:   That’s great advice. I want to ask you about the future of copywriting before we wrap this interview, what do you think the future of copywriting looks like?

Jonnie:          With the way jobs are going and more and more people kind of standing up for themselves and not taking that toxic job, people are going to discover copywriting as something appeals to them and we’re going to start seeing a lot more copywriters. If not … We’re headed in the direction anyways, but I think that there’s always plenty of work for everybody and there’s always going to be the need for that. I kind of crack up when I hear people talking about AI and how much that’s going to affect it and all these auto copy, I don’t know if you guys heard anything about that?

Rob:   Oh yeah. Yeah, we have. In fact the next newsletter for The Underground talks all about that.

Jonnie:          I have personally tried out any of these AI services, these automatic copy generating software, but they’re missing the component of the human touch no matter how great your algorithm is or how much you’ve got it on lock. No AI Service is going to be able to interview a human and get out what we can get out of, let’s say a research process so I think all in all people are going to start following copywriters even more so in the future and I think that it’s nothing but good from here and that’s just not my positive mindset going on. I really think that we help people, we help business owners and there’s a lot to be said about that, so I don’t really think replacing that human aspect is possible by anything Ai.

Rob:   Cool. Thanks Jonnie, I think we’re just about out of time. Awesome advice in your experience and when we just really appreciate you coming on to share, it was fantastic. If people want to connect with you, of course you’re in our group, but where will they find you online?

Jonnie:          You can go to Jonniestellar.com or you can … also I’ll have a little freebie download if anyone wants to learn how to kind of build their business on writing show notes for a podcast, which is like a bigger industry than ever. They can go to Jonniestellar.com, J-O-N-N-I-E-S-T-E-L-L-A-R/TCC.

Rob:   Awesome.

Kira:   Awesome. All right Jonnie, thank you so much for being on the show and it’s just really great to have you on here and to have finally met you last week, so thank you.

Rob:   Thanks.

Jonnie:          It was my pleasure. Thank you.

You’ve been listening to The Copywriter Club Podcast with Kira Hug and Rob Marsh. Music for the show is a clip from Gravity by whitest Boy alive, available at iTunes. If you like what you’ve heard, you can help us spread the word by subscribing in iTunes and by leaving your review. For show notes, a full transcript, and links to our free Facebook community, visit thecopywriterclub.com. We’ll see you next episode.

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