TCC Podcast #296: How to Use the C.O.U.R.S.E Framework to Launch Your Offer with Grace Fortune - The Copywriter Club
TCC Podcast #296: How to Use the C.O.U.R.S.E Framework to Launch Your Offer with Grace Fortune

On the 296th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Grace Fortune joins the show. Grace a copywriter and course strategist for copywriters who are looking to launch a digital product. She uses the C.O.U.R.S.E framework to guide her clients through the launch process, and in this episode she gives our audience an inside look at how it works.

Here’s how the episode breaks down:

  • Grace’s transition from virtual assistant to copywriter to course strategist.
  • How she overcame her fear of calling herself a copywriter.
  • How she used her virtual assistant experience to carry over into the launch and marketing world.
  • Why she decided to start controlling the narrative and how it’s helped her grow her referral network.
  • Grace’s ‘why’ for helping copywriters create offers.
  • The C.O.U.R.S.E framework and how you can use it for your own offers.
  • When should we launch a course or digital product?
  • Is it ever too soon to launch a product?
  • The importance of collecting the right data and knowing your target audience.
  • The mistakes copywriters are making when it comes to creating and launching a digital product.
  • Why we shouldn’t let tech get in the way of launching and overcoming the perfectionistic tech mindset.
  • What Disney does well and how we can implement it into our business.
  • How to keep up with client relationships and keep people coming back.
  • How to create a better client experience – Is it as difficult as we think?
  • The secret to better client communication and avoiding scope creep and sticking with boundaries.
  • How to overcome burnout as a copywriter.
  • The process of growing a microteam and communicating with your contractors.

Check out the episode by hitting the play button or read the transcript below.

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

The Accelerator Waitlist
The Copywriter Think Tank
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
Grace’s website 
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Free month of Brain.FM
Episode 255
Episode 271

 

Full Transcript:

Kira Hug:  A lot of copywriters help their clients sell courses. Some copywriters have created their own courses and still, others help their clients create courses to sell to their customers. If you do any of those activities in your business or want to do them in the future, you’ll want to stick around for this episode. Our guest today is Copywriter Grace Fortune. Grace is a copywriter accelerator graduate, a Think Tank member, and an expert in course creation. In today’s episode, she walks us through her process for creating a course and shares a ton of ideas you can use to build your own copywriting business.

Rob Marsh:  There’s some good stuff in this one, but first this episode is brought to you by the Copywriter Accelerator. That is our program that’s designed to give you the blueprint, the structure, coaching, and some challenges and community that will help you put together the pieces of your business and really create something that will continue to grow in the future. If you’ve done programs like Copy School or RMBC, you’ve done copywriting training and you know what you are doing as a copywriter, but you need help building the business side of your business.

This is the program for you. It will help you go from overwhelmed freelancer to a fully-booked business owner. And we’re going to be launching it again, this coming August. If you want to be told about that program when we launch, make sure you get on the waitlist so that you’re first to hear about the details. We’ll link to the wait list in the show notes.

Kira Hug:  Let’s jump into our interview with Grace.

Grace Fortune:  The way that I got started was actually a few years ago. I started out as a virtual assistant working for a friend of mine who owned her own virtual assistant business. So I went on as her executive assistant, and then I basically learned so much from her. I learned all the backend things on how to run a business, including working with some copywriter clients. Working as a virtual assistant, I actually learned about you guys from one of your alumni from the Think Tank, Chanti Zak.

And I started following you guys, watching what you do. And it just, it really inspired me to want to become a copywriter on my own as well as the clients that we had worked with. But I found a big fear of mine was actually calling myself a copywriter. I felt like copywriter was for the term copywriter was for people who had already achieved success, not for people who were waiting in the wings to achieve success. So as you know, when I first came into your network and joined the accelerator program, I was afraid to call myself that. And Rob, I still remember you talking sense into me and telling me that it was okay to call myself a copywriter, even though I hadn’t achieved the success levels of people like Tarzan Kay or Laura Belgray, or even you guys.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. So, well, I’m glad that what I said helped bridge that gap. I’m curious, what were you doing as a VA, Grace, and how as you made the shift, as you gradually started calling yourself a copywriter, how did what you do change?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah. So I’m glad you asked that because as a virtual assistant, basically everything that I was doing for my clients that I loved involved the course launch base. So I worked with a financial advisor, in fact, I’m still working with him and he is also a coach for other financial advisors. So what I’ve done on the backend for him basically taught me the entire life cycle of a launch. So I was able to incorporate that into what I learned and what I’m still learning as a copywriter. So it was just like a really, really sweet marriage of everything that I had been doing and everything that I have enjoyed so far.

Kira Hug:  And how did you make the pivot Grace? So once you’re like, “Okay, I know I want to be a copywriter. I’m not quite ready to call myself that yet, but I’m going to start moving towards that type of business.” What are some concrete steps you took?

Grace Fortune:  The biggest thing was just starting to call myself a copywriter. I had joined last year’s TCC and IRL. And one of the things I believe it was Eman Ismail, I did a presentation and she was talking about controlling the narrative and how people start talking about you. So that was a really, really big shift for me. But concrete steps were really the obvious, starting to convert over how I talk about myself on social media, and how I started talking about myself to my clients. So I really stopped talking about myself as a virtual assistant. I just started talking about myself in terms of copywriting and launch strategy.

Rob Marsh:  Again, as you’re making this shift and talking about things differently, did you make a change in how you found clients and what you were doing to get in front of the right people for a different kind of project?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah, so a lot of my clients are basically referral-based. So my biggest client, the Financial Advisor, was never afraid to talk about me. And he also referred me over to his existing network and I helped them with their own course launches and started talking to copywriters even more than I was before. So really I became very passionate about helping other copywriters launch their own programs and courses. So that was the biggest thing for me is just talking to people more, getting in front of the people that I wanted to start working with.

Kira Hug:  And Grace, so what does your business look like today? What type of offers? Do you have a team? Can you just talk about where you are today?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah, I can. So I am still doing some work as a virtual assistant for that client I was just telling you about. But right now, my offers are specifically geared toward copywriters, that’s where I’m pivoting my business to. So I’ve just been inspired by one of our alumni from the Think Tank, Grace Baldwin, who when I was in a hot seat on the last day, talking about how to convert my offers to make them more relevant to copywriters, she had mentioned and most people had agreed that my offers weren’t really speaking to copywriters where they are in their journey. So my goal is to help copywriters who have not launched products or courses before to do that. So my newest offer, I guess I’ll just give you kind of a rundown of how it works. So the idea is that you come to me, we have a strategy call with some homework from the copywriter and I come up with several ideas on how to launch these ideas for products that they could potentially launch based on their audience, where their strengths are.

And then I analyze the data for them and then give them basically a big package where they have products that they could potentially launch. There are also templates for sales emails they could write, social media copy to help promote the course, landing pages, sales pages, all sorts of different templates that they can use. And there’s also, and this is an area that I’ve found during my research that really a lot of copywriters need help with is the technical aspect of a launch. So like they could, it would have a technical item, how they could launch a product and say, “Good job, you’re teachable or gum road.” Once I analyze the data, whatever I think would be best for them, there would also be a marketing plan guide with funnel map samples that they could use, all sorts of different email templates for purchase confirmations, welcome sequences, and even how to relaunch it in the future.

Kira Hug:  And I remember that hot seat because it was a month ago. So I should remember that hot seat was not that long ago. I remember that hot seat because you talked about the why behind your business. And that’s something that we often overlook when we’re talking about business and our offers. Can you just share your why and why it’s so important to you to help copywriters package their services and create evergreen products and courses? Why is it important to you?

Grace Fortune:  Oh gosh. Yeah. So this is so important to me because I’ve seen so many times copywriters talk about how overworked and overwhelmed they are and how oftentimes they feel like they’re just a content factory. Their value is based on what they can write and all the work that they put into it. So, and this is something that I’ve experienced myself, it leads to massive burnout and you just feel just like a content mule and that’s really, really bad mentally for, I know for me and I’ve seen other copywriters talk about this as well. So knowing what I know based on the work that I’ve done, if I can help copywriters break out of that cycle and have income that does, excuse me, doesn’t require them to work so hard and burn their brains out, doing it. I would consider that a huge win. So that’s probably my biggest goal and my biggest why, just the burnout is real. And if I want to help as many people as I can get over that.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, I like that. It’s a good why. And a good reason to keep going. Grace, you’ve created some frameworks around the process that you follow. And I know you just kind of walked us through what that process is, but will you tell us about the frameworks, why you came up with them, and maybe step us through them so we can understand even deeper what you do when you’re working with copywriters to help them create courses?

Grace Fortune:  Absolutely. So, because I love acronyms. The framework that I have come up with is called, it’s just called COURSE It’s a course framework. So I’ll go through each phase kind of step-by-step. So phase one, it’s just you just spell out the word course, it stands for Collect, Orient, Undertake, Refine, Set up, and Execute. And just to break it down for you, the first phase is collecting your data. And I firmly believe that this is the most important stage of it. So what you’re doing here is, you’re gathering data on your ideal clients, organizing it, and discovering trends that create the common theme of what you should be launching.

The best way that I think to complete this phase is by talking directly to the people that you want to serve all about their wants, what they’re struggling with, who they serve, and their desires. So I find that a lot of people create an arbitrary avatar, like a six-figure business owner. But if you don’t have clarity on what problem you’re actually solving for them, your course is going to end up being a lot of work on your end and probably disappointing with the outcome.

Kira Hug:  Grace, are you able to provide an example as we walk through your framework, just an example from a client, you don’t have to name the client or some example for each step in your framework?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah, I’ll do my best to do that. So for example, I’ll go back to my financial advisor client. So he has found that through this collecting and research phase, he has found that, what he originally thought is that his financial advisor network basically was struggling the most with getting new clients. But it turns out that through the market research phase, they were actually having the biggest struggle with creating systems and processes to make their financial firm more profitable. It wasn’t just finding new clients. So the whole point of this research phase is to uncover the actual problem that your audience needs to solve.

Rob Marsh:  And so let’s continue with that story. And then, how did you apply that? What did you do in order to take them from, okay, I discovered this real problem that you’ve got, now let’s get it fixed.

Grace Fortune:  Yeah. So what we ended up doing is creating a brand new product that answers that. So there you literally have several systems in this product. Unfortunately, I can’t go into too much detail on it because it’s proprietary, but it actually offers ways that you can set up offers for financial advisors in their business so that they can generate more income. Also, how to go through your business, analyze it from a high level, and get rid of anything that’s not needed. So most financial advisors, for example, think that they need a big office with four or five employees like a customer experience manager, all that stuff. And a lot of the time that’s not really true. A lot of the time they can actually do very well with just maybe one or two employees. So that helps dial up the profitability and trim the access. But through the research, we were able to come up with this product that financial advisors actually needed.

Kira Hug:  So Grace, where does the O fit in? Can we jump to the O?

Grace Fortune:  Sure, exactly. So in this phase, what you’re doing is creating your compass that’s going to guide the rest of your launch. And how you’re going to position it. So you would choose your course, title, your price, the positioning, the target audience, also the plan that you want to implement to market it, and your tech stack that how you’re going to actually create everything where you’re going to host it, all of that stuff. So an example of that is a copywriter client that I’m working with now. I’m basically coaching him and mentoring his team through their course launch. He’s actually a sustainability copywriter. So with this process, he did the research and now what we’ve done is we’ve created his title for the course, what’s in the curriculum, how much is going to cost and we’ve come up with his marketing plan.

So we were actually able to come up with some really, really creative ways for his first launch to make it even more profitable than he thought. So originally his goal was to only sell five of his programs. And so I’m like, eh, let’s try to do better. So I was able to talk to him about getting in touch with his network and who to speak to about how to package this and sell it. And as it turns out, he’s in a really good position just by talking to one of his existing clients to sell 30 of this course, right off the hop to her team, to his client’s team, which is really cool.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. Let’s keep going through the rest of the framework.

Grace Fortune:  So the third stage is Undertaking. So right now this is probably the biggest chunk of work. This is where you’re actually going to be developing and creating all the assets that go with your launch. So in this stage, you create the design of your course, video training slides, PDF downloads, basically everything that makes your course come from your head and into the hands of your students. So for example, the course material that you would need to create are like the outlines, the notes, presentation slides, and video recordings, obviously not exhaustive. It depends on what you’re putting in this course and how you want to present it. So this is where you also want to create your copy. So curriculum handouts, landing sales pages, emails like promotional emails, thank you emails, confirmation onboarding nurture emails, all of that stuff, as well as social media posts. It also includes all of your design elements.

So how do you want your course platform interface to look? So for example, if you use Kajabi like the client I was just talking about, you need to get to know that tool first so that you know what it’s capable of so that you can control what it looks like. Right. There are so many different design elements to think of as well. So how do you want your sales pages to look? How do you want the handouts to look? So it’s not only creating the copy and the materials but how you want them to look as well.

Rob Marsh:  Cool. Let’s keep going.

Grace Fortune:  Right in the middle is the Refining phase. So you’re over the hump of creating everything initially, but you want to marinate on it for a little bit and make sure that you’re refining everything, which is what that stage stands for refine. You review everything and make sure that your plan and assets are on the mark. So you have to make sure that there are no inconsistencies and that you’re not forgetting anything important that you’re doing. So if you skip this refining stage errors and mistakes can come back to bite you. And since most people listening to this are copywriters. This should be a fairly easy phase for people to go through because this is basically what you do as a copywriter. So just set aside time to look over the plan and assets with an eagle eye.

You want to make sure that not only is everything complete, everything’s included that you want, but you want to make sure that it’s as good and as perfect as you can make it without getting bogged down in perfectionism. You don’t want that to stop you from proceeding because you’re worried that it’s not perfect. So, a lot of the time, in spite of how much work you put into something it’s only human to miss something. Like you miss a piece of copy, or you forget to record a video or create a handout. And these little things are often what gets overlooked. So you want to make sure that the same is with your design, like do all the colors and fonts match. Is it all clear, your branding? And then only then can you move to the final stages?

Kira Hug:  Okay. And what are the final stages?

Grace Fortune:  The second to last stages where you set everything up. So this is where you go into the back end of your tools, like your email marketing tools, like ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit, whatever you’re using. This is where you can set up your emails to get scheduled out to promote it. You go into Kajabi and set up everything there, like, put all your assets in your course management tool, whatever you’re using. My favorite course management tools are Kajabi and Teachable. This is literally what they’re made for. So they have pretty good support, they’re user-friendly. And that being said, you want to make sure that you’re just taking it one step at a time and really getting to know the tool before you go live with it. And I would say, have somebody like when you’re testing it, make sure that you have somebody go through the entire process.

Because testing is a major part of this Set up phase, because I’ve seen so many times even with like Think Tank members and then in the underground where something wasn’t tested and it didn’t end up working properly. So Link’s not working et cetera. So you want to make sure that your checkout is set up properly too. So you integrate your course platform with your Stripe PayPal accounts. You make sure that your sales page directs to your checkout page. It seems obvious, but it gets skipped so they don’t automatically connect. So you have to make sure that everything is all integrated, right? And then when it comes to email marketing, you have to make sure that your purchase confirmation and welcome automations are set up, make sure that your buyers are tagged so that you can see who bought what product so that you can email them or not email them about different products in the future. And then make sure that you’re, again, testing everything, just test, test, test. I can’t emphasize that enough.

So I would suggest having somebody that’s not you go through the checkout process and make sure that everything makes sense and is working properly there.

Kira Hug:  And Grace is that the Execute stage? Are we not quite at Execute?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah, this is the Set-up phase. So the Execute phase is where everything is actually out into the world. So your cart open date, your cart closed dates. So this is where you get to sit back and hopefully relax and let the sales come in because you’ve done all the setup already. So this is where you want to keep track of your metrics and conversions during this launch. It’s a really good opportunity if you find that people are falling off at certain points. So let’s say if you’re doing a lot of email marketing and you find that some emails aren’t converting, you can make adjustments either for the next launch or for the existing launch and save feedback that you get for the next go-round.

You do it after you’re done the launch, you would do a debrief and keep track of like, okay, how many sales did I make? What were my conversion rates like? How many visits did I get to my landing pages? How many people check my emails? Did I get replies? What was the feedback like? And am I happy with it? Once you’re done that then, of course, you have to deliver what’s in your course. That for me is my course framework.

Rob Marsh:  So Grace, if I’m listening to you talk through this whole process, like, okay, I understand like what all of the steps are, but I don’t really have an idea of maybe I want to do a course, but I don’t know what that course should be or who it should be for. Do you have ideas as far as helping us identify the things that we should be teaching, who we should be teaching it to, and when we’re actually ready for it, as opposed to maybe it’s too soon.

Grace Fortune:  So I would say that you should definitely consider launching a course or a product, especially for copywriters. If you’re at the point where you don’t have space to really take on many more clients. So eventually you get overworked, you hit your income limit because you just don’t have time to take on any more people. So that’s one sign that you’re ready to launch a course. So I would also say that if you want if you have people asking you questions frequently the same questions and it’s something that you could teach, but don’t necessarily need to spend one-on-one time to teach it. That’s a sign that you have a course that could potentially be ready to launch. I would also say if your goal is to work less one-to-one and you want to move away from that, then consider launching a course or a product and sorry, Rob, you mentioned a couple of other questions, not just if you were ready.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. Well, how do you know if it’s too soon? Because I’ve definitely seen people who have created things or they’ve written a couple of things and then they’re thinking, oh maybe I need to turn this into a course, and maybe they do, maybe they have enough experience or maybe they don’t. I’m just wondering if there’s not necessarily a framework, but just some questions we can ask ourselves to see if it’s like, okay, do I really know this? Should I be teaching it? Am I talking to the right people?

Grace Fortune:  So definitely there are signs that it is too soon. One sign that it’s too soon for you is if you don’t have people asking, coming to you as an expert in your specific niche. So I would say for me, I would never dream of watching a course in web copy because I could probably muddle through it, but that’s not something that I’m confident in my knowledge of. So if you’re not confident in your knowledge of a specific area, don’t launch a course in it. If you don’t have an audience of people asking you for that information, then don’t do it. Those are the biggest two signs for me.

Kira Hug:  So Grace, going back to your framework, which I love how you walked through it and two questions about it. So why that particular order and what could happen if we don’t go through that order? Because I know we don’t have to go through that order. I mean, Rob and I have launched courses and we have not moved through that order, but maybe it could have been better. Maybe we would’ve caught some potential problems if we had moved through it the way that you talked through it.

Grace Fortune:  That’s a good question. So, I mean, yeah. Of course, there is always more than one way to go about doing something. But for me, I chose this way because I found that it was easy to make a process out of and replicate. So for example, it just, especially with phase one, collecting the data to me, that is the most important stage of it because you, I really don’t think that you should do any of the other steps though, collecting the data. And then with stage two orientation in order to really create a course and have a successful launch. I do think that you should spend time getting your bearings. Figuring out, okay, how do you want to position this? Who’s the target? What’s a catchy course title and the right price for it?

Because if you don’t spend time doing that, then your course might not hit the mark. You might end up targeting it to the wrong people. You might end up charging too much or too little. You might end up winging it when it comes to your tech stack later on in the undertaken setup phases. Right? So going through these stages is just, it’s very methodical and it’s easy to replicate. And I think it’s just, I firmly believe that having processes down, something that you can follow step by step is the best way to be successful. And then of course once you’ve gotten all of your research and you figured out, okay, this is the direction I want to take, then it’s natural to say, okay, now I can go through and create all of my assets based on my research and the direction I’ve decided to take with it. And then of course, after you’ve created all the elements, you can refine it and make them perfect. Then only then after everything is created, should you go through the setup and then the execution phase?

Rob Marsh:  Okay Kira, let’s break in what stood out to you so far in our conversation with Grace?

Kira Hug:  Well, we started out talking about calling yourself a copywriter and how challenging that can be for many of us, especially when we’re getting started to really own that. And so I know Grace mentioned that you helped her own that title. I know for me, it just didn’t even hit me that I was a copywriter until someone else Alyssa Burke hit me on the head and basically was like, you are a copywriter, like it’s obvious, just call yourself a copywriter. So sometimes we do need that support from our community to really own our identity and our titles because sometimes we’re just close too close to it. And sometimes we do see it and we want it and we want that permission and there’s nothing wrong. There’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, we encourage you to give yourself your own permission, but sometimes it’s helpful to get that permission from a friend or colleague too.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. It reminded me of our very first interview with Ray Schwartz. Do you remember when he was telling us he got hired as a copywriter and had to go look up the job title online, and actually Googled the term, what is a copywriter? A lot of us start doing this thing without knowing exactly what it is. And once we discovered it we have that name for it. It’s like, oh, wow, okay. Now I know what this thing is that I do. And that definition of what a copywriter is actually growing, I think, as you get better at it. First, we usually start out and think, well, okay, we’re writing the words. You know, whether it’s on a website or sales page in an email, whatever we’re writing the words, but the more we do it, the more we start thinking strategically about our client’s businesses, the more that we see where we can add value for them, the more it becomes a job of solving problems for our clients.

And it just grows from there. So, yeah, I love that Grace was hesitant, but then like leans all the way in into accepting what that title says about her. And it’s allowed her to do so many more things in her business. When you say, okay, well, I’m not just assisting anymore, but I’m actually going to be solving problems for my clients. There’s just so much more you can do in your business.

Kira Hug:  Rob, is there a title that you struggle to really own for yourself or that maybe you have struggled with in the past?

Rob Marsh:  I’m not sure about that. I love the title copywriter and I know some people after a while they start thinking, well, I want to be known for strategy or I want to be known for something bigger. Copywriter maybe feels too limiting. I still like that title. And I can be a copywriter who approaches things strategically or analytically or does things differently. So I don’t know that there’s necessarily a title that I wouldn’t accept. We do coaching, and if somebody calls me a coach, that’s fine. I don’t usually call myself a coach, but I know we do coaching and help people figure out opportunities in their business that they maybe don’t see or help them improve products that they’re working on, or throw out ideas that will help them grow in different ways. And so we do that. I’m not sure if there’s a title that I don’t accept. How about you? Maybe is there something that you don’t like leaning into?

Kira Hug:  I’ve struggled with ‘entrepreneur.’. I feel like I haven’t fully stepped into that title. It feels big to me and I hear some friends and colleagues just kind of throw it around, even if they’re like day two in their business. They’re like, I’m an entrepreneur. And I think that’s awesome to own it and it’s empowering. But for me, I feel like I haven’t stepped into it yet myself. And so that’s one that I’m like, well, when will I be an entrepreneur? I don’t know, but I’m not there yet.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. That makes sense. And some titles actually come with some baggage, right. And entrepreneur is one that people have tried to change. People have called themselves solopreneurs that I’m doing this on my own or some people who call something like a fempreneur or they take that entrepreneur title. And because it does have some baggage, they try to reframe it in some way that applies to them. And I guess that’s all good for them. I think one way that I have thought about it in the past is that I’m not necessarily an entrepreneur so much as that; I’m entrepreneurial in my thinking. That was kind of a reframe that I think Sam woods said at once, and I was like, yeah. That’s actually a really good way to think about it.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. And then, I mean, freelancer. Freelancer can frustrate me at times because I feel like it often diminishes what we all do, but we’ll save that for another time.

Rob Marsh:  Another title with baggage, right?

Kira Hug:  Yes, a lot of baggage. We’ve got so much baggage. We also talked to Grace about controlling the narrative. And I love that conversation because this is something that, like we said, we can control it. It feels like in business, there are so many factors we can’t always control, but this is something that we can control. How we talk about what we do, the title we give ourselves, how we show up, where we show up, how we discuss problems. All of that is what we control, what we put on our website, what we talk about when we’re invited to a podcast and the topics. And so it’s interesting to me how much power we have in our own narrative. But oftentimes we forget that we do control that and we can shift at any moment. We can go on, be a guest on a podcast or write a guest article about a new offer that we’ve never shared before, and just with that one article or that one interview, you can set your business in a totally different direction. And that can feel really empowering to me.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. I think that’s a key here around just owning the idea that I am in control, that the narrative isn’t something that’s necessarily set by everybody else. If you don’t take control, it will be set by everybody else. But you have this opportunity to step in and say things about what you do and own them. And it does take some bravery, some courage to do that, to say, I’m the person that solves this problem, or I’m the person that gets you this big result or I’m the person that talks about this particular idea. But once you’re willing to do that, you own the narrative, you own the conversation that’s going on. And in the wider market, you become a really important part of all of the stuff that’s happening. And I just think it’s probably worth challenging all of us to step up and own more of the narrative around us and not just let other people do it.

Kira Hug:  And Grace mentioned her why. I know this is something that we covered, but it feels important. I know Grace had shared it with us previously at TCC IRL. And she’s very passionate. She really, you can tell when she talks about why she does the work that she does, she cares deeply about it. And my takeaway from that is, well, yes, this is great that she has a strong why, but we all have that. And maybe we’re not necessarily as emotionally connected to it at all times, but there’s a reason why we do the work that we do.

And that’s another question that, Rob, we ask when we talk to our new Think Tank members and have our first kickoff call with our new Think Tank members, one of the questions is: why do you do the work that you do? And there’s always an answer. Everybody always knows why they do it. It may take a couple of minutes to get to it, but that’s really a great way to track the right people and add that to some of your marketing messages because we all have the why. It just may take a little bit of digging to get there.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. And those whys are widely different. Sometimes the why is very personal, it’s related to supporting your family and earning enough for freedom and that kind of thing. And other times it’s about being connected to a community that you really want to support and help. And then there are lots of other reasons in between. Nobody’s why is wrong, but if you’ve got a good reason to do the thing that you do to solve problems for the people that you can help, then that just makes this business so much more enjoyable.

Kira Hug:  And it sticks. When I heard, I already knew Grace when I heard her why, I was already a super fan of hers. But when I heard her why and why she cares about helping copywriters avoid burnout and how she had dealt with it and how she feels like copywriters can step outside of that feeling like a content machine, it really spoke to me. So I will always want to help Grace, not only because I like her as a person, but because that why resonates with me. And so I will send all the people her way. And so I think that’s just, I know we don’t share our whys to necessarily get clients, but it works. It does work and you can connect it to revenue because people will remember you when they connect on an emotional level with why you do what you do.

Rob Marsh:  And Grace is why I think resonates with you and me because we have a very similar why around the Copywriter Club. There is a reason we do an annual event. There’s a reason that we put out a podcast every single week. And those activities don’t actually make us a whole lot of money. In fact, they’re money-losing in a lot of ways. And we do it because-

Kira Hug:  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Rob Marsh:  Well, yeah, we do it because we love this community. And if we’re not out there doing it, then there’s something missing in the opportunities that are out there for people, not just opportunities to get on stage, but opportunities to connect, opportunities to think differently about what they do and that what we do particularly on the podcast and in the programs that we offer with our event, it’s just gratifying. And that’s a big part of our why.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. Maybe we should talk about it more often.

Rob Marsh:  There you go. Let’s do it. We’re going to control the narrative around our why.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. And again, going back to controlling the narrative, it sounds easy. It can be, but it’s also, it’s something that many of us struggle with just for whatever reason. We’ve struggled to control our narrative around what we do at the Copywriter Club. It’s something that you may have to catch if you’re not doing it well and reel it in and just figure out how to do it better or just be more intentional about it.

Rob Marsh:  We also talked about Grace’s framework and she did such a great job explaining her framework that I don’t know that we necessarily need to go through it step-by-step. But I think if you were listening to what Grace said, you understand why we believe so deeply in frameworks. And is that Grace’s course framework is a really good example of a well-thought-out process framework that makes it easy to talk about what you do. It’s a process that you can follow so that the outcome is predictable every single time and that the results are beneficial for your client.

And it helps build trust, it helps build your authority because as you’re talking about it or as Grace was talking about it, it’s like, holy crap, she knows what she’s doing when it comes to creating courses, it builds trust and leads to work. So it’s a fantastic example of why you and I so often talk about frameworks and how copywriters should be using them more often, whether it’s a process framework, an idea framework, or something else.

Kira Hug:  Yes. Love, love frameworks. We talked a little bit about when we should launch courses or digital products and when it might be too soon. Rob, do you have any strong opinions about that?

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. Well, I don’t know that they’re necessarily strong opinions. I’ve definitely seen people who have done something. I alluded to this in my question to Grace and then after helping one or two clients, they launch a product about doing the thing. And sometimes I scratch my head and think, eh, maybe, maybe they really do know, but oftentimes it feels to me like sometimes those people are just like the whole point was they wanted to have a course not really to solve a problem. And maybe they’ve just scratched the surface. On the other hand, some of those courses can be really good. Some, especially, if they deliver value, if they can help you solve a problem, if they can help you add a product or a service to your business, that’s okay. And so it’s more about the outcome that I think we should judge the quality and less about, well, do you really have the experience?

And then again, having said that of course you need to know what you’re doing when you set up a course. If you’re going to teach a course on VIP days, you should have done more than two or three VIP days. You should have a process. You should have successes. You should have case studies and success stories that you can share in order to do that. And then once you’ve got those, of course, launch a course, but I think the real trick when it comes to courses and I think we’ve talked about this in the past is rather than doing what you do as a copywriter and then launching a course for other copywriters is to figure out what is the problem that you solve for your niche or the thing that you offer for your audience and teach a niche how to do it.

Rob Marsh:  So if you’re teaching businesses, let’s say in the aviation industry, how to write emails to connect with their clients, whether it’s B2B or B2C or whatever, you’re creating something that’s really difficult to duplicate from other copywriters. And you’re reaching out to an audience that needs this thing desperately. You’re not competing with all of the other people who are trying to teach copywriters how to write emails. So, if you’re actually thinking about creating a course, think about what can you create for your industry before you start thinking about what you’re selling to other copywriters, other marketers. We see a lot of this stuff, but our industries don’t and there are lots of green fields out there for creating things that will help them solve problems.

Kira Hug:  Well said, let’s get back to our interview with Grace and listen in about some mistakes she sees copywriters making when launching their offers.

Rob Marsh:  I’m curious where you see copywriters and other course creators making mistakes. We already talked about doing a course too soon, before you’re ready, but are there other mistakes that we’re making as we put together our courses that we need to be thinking about?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah, the biggest mistake for me is skipping the research because again, I find a lot of problems that people encounter during a course launch is because the research wasn’t done. For me, the research allows you to gather all the information on what’s bothering your target audience, and what solutions have they tried before? What are they really looking for in a course from you specifically? And that will help you create a course that your clients want and need. So as copywriters, a lot of us already have an idea of this, but it can be tricky for a copywriter, especially one that’s just launching their first product because a lot of the time they’re just not sure. They’re not sure what direction they should go in to launch a product. They know they want to launch something, but it’s like, what do I do?

And the biggest mistake is again, not being thorough with the research on that part. The second biggest mistake comes in the setup phase with not testing out everything that they’ve done. So not going through the checkout, not going through the welcome sequence, all of that stuff to make sure that it’s running smoothly. Because for me, I’ve seen this happen quite recently in fact, where links didn’t work for calls that were promised in somebody’s launch. And it just, it created some confusion and a bit of frustration for this copywriter that put all this work into creating this really, really amazing program. But then something as simple as a Zoom link not working can just derail you and make it challenging to be at your best.

Kira Hug:  Are you talking about our course?

Grace Fortune:  No. No, actually.

Kira Hug:  It feels all too familiar because we have definitely had links that do not work. So I think you’re right, it’s such an easy step, but oftentimes we just rush past it and try to launch the thing. And then that’s where it all breaks down with the link, simple link.

Grace Fortune:  And one thing that I will say about that too, is even if something doesn’t go perfect, it’s really, really not the end of the world. It’s really not that difficult, especially if it’s just something as simple as a Zoom link, it’s not that difficult to send a quick email to give the correct Zoom link. I don’t think that there’s anything that can go wrong that can’t be somewhat or fixed on some level.

Kira Hug:  Yes, exactly. So I want to talk about shifts and talk about Disney. You teased us when you sent a note over to us before the call about how you turned one of your $900 a month clients into a $100K in under two years client, by stealing some ideas from Disney. So I’m intrigued and I want to know what you do to make clients love you and what ideas you’ve pulled from Disney?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah. So I’ll first lead with this, so how do you know that somebody’s a Disney fan?

Kira Hug:  They talk about it all the time.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, it’s the same way you know that they’re a vegan or a CrossFit.

Grace Fortune:  Yep, they’ll tell you. Exactly. Yeah, they’ll tell you. So Disney has put together a really, really magical and personalized approach to customer service. So as a result, Disney’s had over 157 million guests in their park and they have over 70% rate of returning guests. And Disney fans, they’re fanatically loyal, and most importantly, they spread their love of all things, Disney, around and tell the people they know all about it. So for me, I was lucky enough to get a behind-the-scenes look at how Disney does things. And the guiding principle that I took away from it is to become someone that your clients will talk about by creating an experience. And that for me starts from the moment they hear about you and it only builds from there. So the biggest takeaway that I took from this Disney handbook is their services and processes.

So Disney has an absolutely huge behemoth service standards manual that their employees must adhere to. And so this consistency is what makes an amazing experience for everyone who comes to their parks. So for me, I ask myself, okay, so how do I consistently provide stellar work to my clients so that they’re going to want to keep working with me and tell others about me. So I decided to create standards and processes of my own. So when it comes to standards, I think of things like, okay, what’s my turnaround time for emails going to be like? What exactly can people expect from working with me? So as far as turnaround time goes, it’s my policy to answer all emails within one business day, no later. And what can people expect from working with me while I figure that out by creating processes for each stage in the game?

And this is, like, different processes, like onboarding processes, offboarding, specific workflow processes, collections. And then there’s the fix this process where if something goes to pot, what are you willing to do to fix the situation and make it better for your client. So I’ll give you an example of just a little bit of an extra wow factor that I’ve seen somebody add to their onboarding. The client that I’m helping right now with their course lunch, part of their onboarding process is to ask a question of their clients, “Okay, what’s your favorite city?” And sorry, “If you had to choose a city to visit, would it be, I think it was London, Paris or New York,” or something like that. And then what they do with that information is they actually send a welcome gift and it’s a Lego set of that specific city.

It’s just something that’s like-

Rob Marsh:  Nice.

Grace Fortune:  … Oh wow, yeah. They were actually listening to me. They care about what my favorite thing is. So for me, I like to, when I’m onboarding a client, I like to ask them, what are their favorite kinds of coffee and snacks? And what are their favorite colors? I asked them what their preferences are and then I put together a little welcome basket based on that. So my welcome gift to this client was a really, really nice gift basket with their favorite treats and things in it. So it’s just something to show that you’re listening and that you care about them as a person. And it’s not just about the work that you do together, it’s about the relationship.

Rob Marsh:  Cool. And then obviously, there’s more to it though than just this gift, this welcome gift. How do you continue that over two years to make sure that they stay engaged and want you to continue working with them?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah. So in the case of this client, when I first started out on my own, we were working together. He was only paying me $900 a month for a specific number of hours because I was working on a retainer as a VA at the time. But I built up my relationship with him, we always have touch points. We talk at least every other week for half an hour just to stay in the loop with what we’re doing. We chat all the time on Slack. He sends me pictures of his son’s wedding. It’s just about building that relationship and keeping in communication and letting them know that you care about them as a person. So when I was in Nashville last month with TCC IRL, I actually spent a couple of days with my client.

And then I sent a thank you gift basket to him and his wife for visiting. So, but again, it’s not just about sending gifts and spending money on it, it’s about creating a consistent level of service so that my clients know that they can rely on me to answer them and deliver what they need in a timely manner. And the way that I communicate is always very personable. I always make sure… I try to be my client’s biggest cheerleader. That’s my thing. And I know that you guys have seen that time and time and again, I am a pretty good cheerleader in our group. So doing things like that is what makes people want to tell others about you and refer people to you. And you create an environment where people know what to expect from you.

So again stealing from Disney, they have standards for how their parks look. Their employees have to, they adhere to a strict dress code. They talk in a specific way. They’re always polite. So for copywriters, that can start with how people see your brand. So your colors, your stock imagery, your photos, your brand, your voice, your typography, and your fonts. It’s all about creating an image that people know what to expect from you. So for example, when I’m on social media and I see your Instagram accounts, Robin, Kira, I know that the picture or the caption is from you guys without even seeing the name of your handle because I can tell that it’s from you based on the imagery and how the voice is and how you guys talk.

Kira Hug:  Well, that’s good. I’m glad that’s working. I feel like I will never be even close to Disney because I can’t do dress codes.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, but you like to wear costumes, you’ll put on a character outfit, Kira. So there’s that?

Grace Fortune:  Well, there you go.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, but a different one every day. Cannot be the same or consistent. So I struggle with that, but I think it all makes sense and I understand how that works into our businesses. Could we flip that upside down and talk about where you’ve seen copywriters struggle with this Disney-like client experience where you feel like most of us mess it up and we really need to pay attention to this one thing and fix it because it’s preventing us from working long-term with our clients?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah. I think that a really important thing that a lot of copywriters miss is having a great offboarding process and a great onboarding process. So when you sign on a client, there should be very specific things that you do. For example, right after you have somebody fill in your intake forms or whatever you’re using, there should be a contract signed. There should be invoices paid before work starts. Because a lot of times I’ve seen copywriters say that they don’t even have a proper contract. And to me, that’s setting yourself up for failure. Because it allows boundaries to get stomped all over. It makes you a really, really easy target for a scope creep as far as offboarding goes. Offboarding, when you’re done, especially if you’re on a project basis, not a retainer basis, you can lead into other opportunities to work together.

So you can make your offboarding process, you can have them fill out a form that tells you how you did. It gives you an opportunity to say, “Hey, I really loved working with you. How can we keep this party going? What other projects do you have on the go in the future? Are other people… Who else is in your network that’s just like you who may be encountering the same sort of struggles? Do you know, do they need help? How can we get connected with those people too?” So it’s really about opening up those lines of communication.

Rob Marsh:  So Grace, when you started out as a VA, I know you worked with a lot of big copywriters like you said. I think a lot of us do that, especially when we’re working with our first VA, but sometimes it takes two or three, we make a lot of mistakes. It doesn’t go well, sometimes that’s on the VA, but most of the time it’s probably on us as copywriters. Can you give us some advice on what we can do to work in particular with the VA, but maybe even with other members of our team? So, that process goes as smoothly as possible and we can actually make things work.

Grace Fortune:  Oh yeah, definitely. So when it comes to working with the VA, I would say setting very clear expectations and talking about exactly what tasks you want your VA to fulfill. So I moved over from a retainer when I had my VA business, I worked over, moved over, excuse me, from a retainer to a deliverable space system very, very quickly because I don’t like a lack of clarity. So if you know that you need your virtual assistant, for example, to help you with invoicing, helping to make sure that your contracts get signed, and making sure that they have a very specific set of processes and standards to follow.

Create those with your VA, so that you get a consistent result every single time. And just making sure that you aren’t dumping things on your virtual assistant at the last minute, having to pivot constantly is very, very difficult for a virtual assistant because they’re running their own business too. You’re not their only client. So if you’re constantly pivoting and making your VA change with you at the drop of a hat, that’s another way to make sure that the relationship does not work out properly and that you won’t be happy with the results.

Kira Hug:  We talked about burnout and your why and why you do the work that you do and help copywriters avoid burnout. Could you share a little bit about maybe how you have overcome your own burnout or worked through your own burnout previously in any advice you have for copywriters that might be stuck in burnout right now?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah, I would say for me personally, I’m dealing with my own issues with anxiety and whatnot. Burnout is like a… fighting burnout I would say is an ongoing process. So it’s never something that is just like here, here’s a fix. Cool, thanks, I’m cured. It’s one of those things where you have to consistently protect your own boundaries in order to really overcome that I think. And by having processes and standards in your business, you can get a better idea of what you’re capable of, what you want to do, what you want your business to look like, and create something that’s actually going to make you happy as a copywriter. And creating a process, especially for your own workflow and what you’re delivering to your clients, I think is going to be super, super important to fighting burnout.

Because once you have an idea of exactly what’s involved with what you’re delivering and have it in writing, you’ll know, oh geez, I’m taking on way too much. This is not sustainable. I’m either going to need to bring on help or dial it back. Another way to avoid burnout is to create something that’s going to allow you to say, all right, I don’t need to take on so many clients right now. If I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and I don’t necessarily want to work on as many projects at this time, creating a passive adjacent product, like a course can help you do that, and help you keep your income higher without you necessarily needing to take on more one-to-one clients. So I think that would be one of the best ways to avoid burnout. And I would also say, make sure that you’re working with clients that you actually like. If you like your clients and like what you do, burnout is a lot easier to avoid and overcome.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, I think that’s pretty good advice. So, Grace, you mentioned earlier, that you’re in the Think Tank. You joined Think Tank almost a year ago. I’m curious before you joined, what were your reasons, why were you thinking about joining a mastermind like the Think Tank? And maybe just as a follow-up to that, did those expectations actually come true so far?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah. So before I joined the Think Tank, I would say about 80% of my business was still VA-based. And I joined the Think Tank because I knew that following, listening to what everybody had… All of the people in the Think Tank group alumni were people that I had been watching that I respected, I’ve seen the result of what they’ve gotten out of the Think Tank. So I knew that joining the Think Tank would be a good move for me because I knew that I wanted to get out of the VA space entirely and into copywriting. And now it’s basically flipped. I still have about 20% of my business as VA stuff, but that’s intentional. And then 80% coming from copywriting and course launching. So it’s been a really, really good move for me.

And just learning from what everybody else is doing in the Think Tank has been more than worth the price of admission and listening to you guys. You guys are geniuses in your own way. And the community that I’ve gotten access to has been so welcoming and so fruitful. And like I was saying, my income has grown exponentially as a result of everything that I’ve learned. So I would say for, I just had my second year of business. So in my first year of business, I’d only earned about $36K and because of what I’ve learned and converted over to the copywriting and course launch space from the VA work, last year, it was just over $100,000. So it was like massive, massive growth. And I talked it over with my accountant and I’m on track to double that this year. So it’s just exponential growth. It’s been incredible.

Kira Hug:  Wow. That is incredible. And I know we’re almost out of time and we’re actually about to kick-off, off a Think Tank call after this. But I, the follow up to that is how have you managed that type of huge growth over one year’s time? How have you been able to kind of manage that type of growth and stay grounded and focused on your business? I guess I don’t know if that’s… That’s not a great question, but if anything comes to mind, I’d love to hear it.

Grace Fortune:  Yeah, yeah. For sure. So my accountant asked me the same thing. She’s like, “How the hell are you doing this?” She, yeah, yeah, she was pretty shocked. And so was I to be Frank? So for me, how I’ve been managing is I have gotten some help. I have a small team. Full disclosure, it is my husband and my best friend, but they happen to be very good at what I give them. So I have help with copy editing. I have help with my backend with invoicing and whatnot. It’s basically having my own VA and junior coffee writer rolled into one. That’s really the only way that I’ve been able to do it and just taking time for myself, making sure that I do things every day that make me happy. My biggest hobbies, I love to cook.

I love to tinker around on my keyboard. I like to read, I like to go outside and bike ride and I garden. I go out and get my nails done. I get my hair done. I get massages. I just, I do things that take care of me so that I can feel like I’m at my best for not just me, but for my clients and my family and everyone. So I think that doing, taking steps for self-care, I can’t overstate the importance of that. If you’re growing, you have to take care of yourself. Otherwise, you’re just going to crash and burn.

Rob Marsh:  So Grace, if somebody’s been listening, they’re thinking, “Hey, I’d like to talk to Grace about a course,” or maybe they just want to see what you’ve been up to. Where can they go to find out more?

Grace Fortune:  Yeah. You can visit my website, gracefortune.com. You can also find me on Instagram at Grace Fortune Writes. I’m also on Facebook. If you just look up Grace Fortune Course Strategy and Copywriter, you’ll find me. Then I’m also on Twitter, Fortune underscore Writes. And I’ve been kind of tinkering with LinkedIn a little bit more, but yeah, you can find me there anywhere. I do have a weekly email newsletter list that I have recently put together. So if you go to my homepage, gracefortune.com, there’s a little form at the bottom that you can fill in, if you would like to join that. I would love to have you. I try to make email writing fun and informative. So I would love to hear from you. You can also email me as well, grace@gracefortune.com.

Rob Marsh:  Wow. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of ways to find you.

Grace Fortune:  Sure. I’m easy to find.

Kira Hug:  All of the ways. Well, Grace, thank you. It has been so cool to see you identify your own X-factor and what makes you different in this crowded space and then build, really pivot your business so that it fully embraces what you do and how you do it differently than all the other writers out there. And so it’s just been amazing to see your growth and thank you for letting us be a part of it in the Accelerator and the Think Tank and now in this interview.

Grace Fortune:  Well, thank you very much for having me. It’s been great talking with you guys as always.

Rob Marsh:  Thanks, Grace. That’s the end of our interview with Grace. Kira, what stood out to you in the last few minutes?

Kira Hug:  We talked about mistakes copywriters make when they’re launching their courses. I think Grace agitated some pain points for me because we’ve made some of those mistakes, and I’ve made some of those mistakes before. For us, it’s less about the research, I feel like we actually do a great job with the research to understand what the right offer is. But on the tech side, we’ve had so many tech problems, as many of us have.

Rob Marsh:  Oh my gosh. Drives me crazy.

Kira Hug:  It’s ridiculous. And so the part of her framework where she talks about test everything. Test it, test it. It’s such a great reminder, but so many of us will not test it, we’ll just jump in. And so I don’t know. It’s just another reminder to me that we really need to focus heavily on the testing and the tech and the experience, even though as copywriters, we want to focus on other parts of the course.

Rob Marsh:  Another thing that she mentioned that I think is really important to emphasize is when we were talking about Disney and the fact that Disney creates this experience around everything that they do. And particularly in the amusement parks where you will spend an hour in line waiting for this thing that lasts for two or three minutes and they’ve got to do something to create an experience to make that enjoyable. And whether it’s games that they’re playing, whether it’s the staging of the scenery around the line, whether it’s providing food, snacks, there’s lots of ways to approach it. But thinking about that in the context of copywriting, there are times in our businesses as well, that are less enjoyable from the client standpoint. One of those times, maybe after we’ve had our intake calls and we go off to do the research or go off to do the writing and we suddenly are not in communication.

There may be something that we can do to improve the experience for our clients. Grace mentioned some of the gifts that she might share at the beginning of her onboarding process, which is a great idea. There are ways that we can make the presentation of what we do better and more exciting. And there’s just so many ways that we can make the experience of working with us enjoyable and the copywriters who are willing to make the effort to create that kind of experience are going to set themselves way apart, way above other copywriters who are just sharing Google docs and doing things the regular way.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. And we talked a lot about boundaries in this conversation, so I’m just wondering Rob, for you today, with your clients and team members, business partner, what boundaries have you set for yourself?

Rob Marsh:  Well, I think I don’t have much trouble with boundaries except for with myself. It’s when I’m not really clear on, okay, I’m going to spend this… I give myself permission to not focus on work at a particular time or I say, “Hey, I’m going to be writing now,” and then I let myself get distracted. So that’s probably where I struggle most with boundaries. With clients and even in our business, I think I do relatively well with boundaries. I don’t have texts or even phone calls with clients. I’ll schedule Zoom calls, either working hours where I don’t respond after hours or on weekends, things like that, some of the boundary stuff that we’ve talked about in the past in the podcast. So I don’t really struggle with that stuff, but personal boundaries, yeah. There are probably some things there that I’d like to get better at. How about you?

Kira Hug:  I’ve gotten better with boundaries too. I actually, I think I’m in great shape. I probably am not with boundaries. I think I’ve worked through a lot of them and anytime I get a message, I’m always asking, “Does this need to be answered right now? Is this urgent?” And sometimes I guess I get caught in that where it feels like everything is urgent and in that case, my boundaries break down. But when I’m working from a good place where I’m clear and focused and have my boundaries in place, I can ask the question, does this person need to hear back from me right away? They need to hear back from me in the next hour and if they don’t, I can continue to do what I should be doing, which is oftentimes focusing on the business. So I can get caught in there where everything feels urgent at times, but I just have to pull myself out of it and ask that question.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. And you and I have set some pretty clear boundaries about days when we do calls, days when we record the podcast. It’s pretty rare that we break out, occasionally we do have to make some exceptions, but it’s very rare that we’re doing calls on Mondays or anytime after the very first hour or two on a Friday so…

Kira Hug:  Yeah, ’cause again, I get cranky. If my boundaries are broken, then I get so cranky.

Rob Marsh:  We’re recording this on a Friday morning right now, so I’m a little afraid Kira’s going to get cranky on me. So we may have to wrap this up very soon.

Kira Hug:  That’s true. We had to wrap this up.

Rob Marsh:  One other thing that I would just love to emphasize, we talked about the financial growth that Grace has had in her business from, I think she said $36K to over $100K and she’s on track to double that again. Again, we hear stories like this, but I just love the potential of copywriting to make that kind of a difference in anybody’s life is amazing. When there are people who are struggling in low-paying jobs, people who have gone to college for sometimes for years for advanced degrees and are struggling to make money back, copywriting does have potential. Obviously, it takes a lot of hard work. It takes making the right connections and solving problems in a way not everybody’s going to have that kind of success because not everybody works that hard, but what Grace has done in her business is really commendable. And I just admire what she’s done. And I love that she’s such a positive example of what’s possible in our industry.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. And recently we were chatting with her on a private call and I asked her, “How have you been able to have all this success? What are you doing that most copywriters are not doing?” Because she’s had excellent results and she just said, she does the work. She does what she’s supposed to do, what the next thing is on her list. She doesn’t talk about it. She just does it. And I know we’ve had calls with her where we talk about changes she could make or just consider and then the next thing I know, she’s done it and made those changes.

And that’s not common and it’s paying off for her. It’s also worth noting that Grace is one of the biggest cheerleaders for other copywriters in the community and is so supportive of colleagues. And I just think that, that type of positive energy in any community is contagious. And I know she’s not doing it just to get leads and sales, but I do think that always pays off in the long run. And she’s been really such a positive person in our community.

Rob Marsh:  Right. And she mentioned things like having a very small team that’s helped her, the fact that she takes care of herself and takes time for herself, all of those things also help. Going back to what we were saying about boundaries, she’s really good at keeping those boundaries and making sure that she’s following through with herself.

Kira Hug:  All right. That is it for our interview with Grace. If you would like to connect with her, we’ll link to all the places she mentioned you can find her in the show notes. This week’s review, the podcast review, shout out is from a listener called Linen and Latitudes. I wish I knew who that was.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, me too. I’m not sure.

Kira Hug:  Who is that?

Rob Marsh:  Maybe she’ll hear us, he’ll hear us and reach out and say, “Hey, that was me.”

Kira Hug:  Linen and Latitudes called the podcast, “mind-blowing”. Whoa. Wow. Okay. That’s great. She said, this person says, salesy, hardly? Try mind-blowing. This podcast is packed with nitty-gritty information for those growing their copywriting business. Tips from people who were in the trenches and earned their survival skills in the process. Have a listen.” Thank you, Linen and Latitudes. We wish we knew who you are. Feel free to reach out. We appreciate your five-star review. And if you’re listening and you want us to mention you on a future episode, head over to Apple podcast and leave a review. It just takes a minute or two. And we really appreciate you doing that and supporting the show.

Rob Marsh:  And if you want even more resources to create a better client experience, ramp up your launch, listen to Episode 271 with Krystle Church. And if you’d like to listen to another episode where we talked about creating courses, our interview with Jennifer Duann Fultz is excellent, that’s episode 255. You can find that in your favorite podcast app.

Kira Hug:  That’s the end of the episode of the Copywriter Club Podcast. The intro music was composed by copywriter and songwriter, Addison Rice. The outro was composed by copywriter and songwriter, David Muntner. If you liked what you’ve heard, share a screenshot, take that screenshot of the episode with your favorite takeaway and then tag us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and we’ll see you next week. 

 

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