Copywriter and Copy Coach, Amy Posner, returns to chat with Kira and Rob for the 120th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. (Yeah, it’s #120 even though the intro says “special un-numbered episode.”) Despite our numbering flub, this episode is loaded with great advice from an expert copywriter with serious coaching chops. We talked with Amy about all of the following and more:
• how her business has changed from big projects to coaching this year
• the differences between copywriting and copy coaching
• the mindset shifts she’s had to make as her business has changed
• what happens in copy clinic and how it makes copy better
• the value of getting a second set of eyes on a project
• the biggest mistakes Amy sees from the copywriters she coaches
• the problem with too many CTAs she reviews
• what’s changing in sales and landing pages from the desktop to mobile
• how to establish authority with a client and conduct the conversation
• what she does to attract clients to her business
• what happens in The Copy Clinic (everything members do)
As usual, it's a good one. And if you've heard Amy talk before (like at TCCIRL last year), you know she always brings her A-game. To get this one in your ear buds, simply download it to your favorite podcast app. Or click the play button below. For a full transcript, scroll down.
The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:
The Copy Clinic
Copyhackers
Natalie Smithson
Val Geisler
Kevin Rogers
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
Intro: Content (for now)
Outro: Gravity
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.
Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.
Rob: You're invited to join a club for a special unnumbered episode (UPDATE: episode #120) as we chat with direct response copywriter and copy coach, Amy Posner about her coaching program The Copy Clinic, how her business has changed since we spoke with her more than 100 episodes ago, how to build authority and what it takes to write great copy today.
Kira: Welcome back, Amy.
Amy: Hey, thanks for having me.
Kira: Yeah. It's great to have you back. It's about time. Why don't we start with what you've been up to since you were last on the show over a year ago?
Amy: It's sort of shocking that it was that long ago. Well, I think that's a lot. My copy business has morphed considerably. I stopped taking on super big projects. I guess the beginning of this year, the beginning of 2018, I still love these really big complex projects that were 20, $30,000, lots of moving parts, a long time to complete them, but I'd usually do a couple of them overlapping. It just got to be too involved for me. It was too complex and it was too long, and I wanted to do things that were a little bit shorter and a little bit more repeatable because all those kinds of things are usually custom one-off projects.
I started doing streamlining, what I was doing in terms of client projects and in the meantime what happened last year I ended up coaching The Copy Hackers Mastermind, Copy Hackers Mastermind 3, over the summer when Joanna was away and that morphed into me coming on as the co-coach for her 10X freelancer course and then that morphed into me being the co-coach in The Copy Hackers Mastermind 4 which is, I guess, we're three months into it. It's a six-month program or four months, whatever, that ends at the end of this year.
From all of that coaching has come … We're private coaching because people came to me from those programs and asked for help for specific things. Then I ended up launching my own group coaching program, Copy Clinic. Things have changed just really significantly. I'm doing different work than I was doing a year ago, I guess, for the majority of my work time.
Kira: Can you just talk to us more about why this big pivot? It sounds like you were just maybe tired of those big projects which can be overwhelming, but this is a big change in your business so what really triggered it?
Amy: It's a good question. It's so funny this entrepreneurial journey, and I've been on it a long time. I just find it … At least if you stay open things change. Different opportunities are presented. You see things differently as you grow and change. I think I really wanted just a change in my work and in my lifestyle. I hate to use that word but what I realized, and I guess this is probably true for a lot of us but I work for myself and I'm my own toughest boss. I just don't give myself enough time and enough breathing space. I'm always feeling like there's something else I should be doing or ought to be doing.
I realized at one point, I don't want to be living my life that way. This is not what I want my day to day existence to be, and if I don't, it's up to me to control that. It's really hard. I guess I'm a little bit of a workaholic. I'm not a perfectionist but I really like to go the extra mile. I'm trying to find what fits my life so that I can have a more sane life. I've got some different plans for that even to evolve that into the next year as I'm getting clearer and clearer. Really, that's what precipitated is wanting to have more time to do other things in life.
Rob: I want to talk a little bit about this specific move and what it has involved because I think we all have a really good sense of what the job of a copywriter entails and the things that we're doing every day, but the shift to coaching other copywriters seems pretty different. Will you tell us what are the things that you've been doing as a coach in all of these different programs that you've been working in?
Amy: Well, it's interesting. People seem to come me for two things primarily. One is for copy review like, ‘Can you look at this? Tell me if it. Does it work? What does it need? Is it strong? Is it weak?’ The other thing people that come to me for is client, what I call client wrangling. Someone threw that out, and I liked it so I kept it, which is dealing with all kinds of things client related. Everything from, ‘I helped someone this week with correspondents, with a job she's trying to land and had to finesse the conversations with her client. Other people come to me about pricing or I want to break into this copy or I want to do this kind of project. Do I have the skills? Can I do it?’ So, all kinds of things. A lot of times its client problems and challenges. It's how to be a business person in a sense.
Rob: You and I, and Kira, we've talked many, many times over the last several months and so I have a sense of what you do, with the client wrangling and some of those conversations. You even talked about it at our event. I have a sense of that, and maybe we can continue to talk about that even more deeply.
Kira: Yeah. I'm curious about the mindset, Amy because letting go of big copy projects is challenging for many of us. I mean, I'm dealing with a similar challenge. I also feel like our ego is attached to these big projects like, ‘Oh, I can take this on, and I can handle this, and if I let those go, and make a shift, and pivot, then maybe that says something about me that I can't do that.’ Did you have to deal with any mindset shifts as you've made these changes over the last year?
Amy: Yeah, I'm still dealing with it. The position that I'm in right now is not a good one. I've said yes to too many things. I just wasn't careful enough about it. I am in that mindset thing of realizing that it always comes back to being accountable to yourself because you're the business owner and it's your life and your business. I find it incredibly difficult to turn down money. I just do. I like money. I like making money.
Rob: So easy for us to say no to money, but yeah.
Amy: Yeah, right. I know. What you all do. It's really hard to do. Kira, I don't know for me if it's so much like the ego thing of landing the big projects. Maybe it would have been earlier on but the novelty of that world, but it's kind of … There's two things. One is, I really like helping people and some of these projects that show up just sound cool. They sound like they'd be really interesting and I like the people, and I want to help them. That's one piece of it. The other piece for me is that I spent so long building my reputation, and now I've got this great flow of inbound leads, so it feels like a bad business move to let go. But what I realize I've come to think of it differently.
I can actually share those, help other people and that helps me in a less direct way, and that it's more like what goes around, comes around. That's my theory. I haven't put it into practice yet so get back with me in a couple few months and I'll tell you if that works. I've put some things in place for accountability that I have to hold myself to say no. I'm not taking any more projects for the rest of this year.
Kira: I love to hear more about the pivot. Your pivot is unique to you. Some other copywriters may make a similar pivot but we all at some point make a pivot in our business. It's almost like getting a promotion in the corporate world except we have to promote ourselves now. For a copywriter who's making some type of pivot, can you offer some advice as far as what has worked for you over the last year or more that you've made this pivot and then also what hasn't worked as well, some of your struggles along the way which you've mentioned a couple already.
