Persuasion expert and copywriter Bushra Azhar joins Kira and Rob for the 91st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. This is a fun one. We covered a lot of ground with Bushra, beginning with her meteoric rise and success (she worked hard for it) and the principles she teaches in her books and webinars. The stuff we covered includes:
• how Bushra went from corporate consultant to copywriter and landed her first client
• how her business shifted when she launched an online course
• why she worked around the clock—for pennies—for weeks and the massive impact it had on her business
• how she made $7500 by making a single presentation
• why it’s harder to get results from Facebook groups today vs. a few years age
• why you should never PM people with advice on Facebook—and what to do instead
• brand positioning—how to do it and what not to do
• the 8 persuasion triggers and how to use them
• what accountants use for birth control (it’s a joke, people)
• what Bushra’s business looks like today
• the mistakes she’s made on her way to making more than $1 million
There’s a ton of value in this one—you won’t want to miss the discussion of the persuasion triggers which will help you improve your writing whether you write BoF copy or ToF content. To get this one in your ear buds, visit iTunes, Stitcher or click the play button below. You can read and download a full transcript by scrolling down.
The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:
Copyhackers article
Laura Belgray
Mass Persuasion Method by Bushra Ashar
ThePersuasionRevolution.com
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
Intro: Content (for now)
Outro: Gravity
Full Transcript:
Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.
Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 91, as we chat with copywriter and autoher of Mass Persuasion Method, Bushra Azhar, about her story; persuasion triggers and why you need to use them; and how she’s found success creating programs for entrepreneurs; what she wishes she had done differently; and her advice for copywriters who want to grow quickly.
Kira: Welcome, Bushra.
Rob: Hey, Bushra.
Bushra: Hey Kira; hey Rob! Thank you so much for having me; it is an utter honor. And yes, I just clapped my hands, so if you heard a blast in your ear, I am sorry!
Rob: I’m clapping too.
Kira: Laughs. Let’s all clap!
Bushra: So it doesn’t look awkward, so I don’t look like a two-year old. But, thank you so much for having me. It is an utter pleasure; I am very excited.
Kira: No, we’re great. You’ve been at top of our list actually. We’ve wanted to have you on the podcast for a while. So glad you are finally here. And Bushra, a great place to start is just with your story, especially for anyone who has not heard of you before. How did you end up running your business, and copywriting, and persuasion?
Bushra: Oh, okay. So first off all, thank you so much. It’s a funny, funny note that I will tell, which I will think, it is probably... like I’m making a massive boo-boo in front of all the copywriters community, but I have to say this: you just introduced me, and you said “copywriter”, and the thing is, I don’t identify myself as a copywriter, because I have never taken any copywriter training. And, when I started my business, I wasn’t really sure which copywriting was which. So it the w-r-i-t-e, or is the r-i-g-h-t?
Kira: Laughs.
Rob: Laughs.
Bushra: And I said okay, which is which? I just knew that I’m good at using words to make a sales argument. That’s something that I’ve always done. That has always been my strength. But I never really thought there was a need for something like this, so when I started my business, I positioned myself as a persuasion strategist. I was not comfortable calling myself a copywriter, even though a lot of what I do is copywriting, but if you were to mention copywriting principles, I would not know what they are, simply because I’ve never been formally trained as a copywriter.
So, I was in consulting—okay, I changed a gazillion professions—but the last thing that I was doing was, I was working as a consultant in Saudi Arabia; I worked with some big Saudi companies. It was really great. And then I stopped, decided to dip my toes into the murky waters of online business; started 2014, and started it kind of like an experiment: okay, I’m just going to try it out, I’m not going to tell anyone, let’s see how it goes—most likely fail and make an utter fool of myself. I was, like, absolutely sure. So, I never told anyone, and I just started basically just put together a landing page, standing writing articles and using the psychology of persuasion in business in different ways. Again, the same thing that I was doing in my consulting work; how to dismiss his argument; how to build a page; how to craft a great proposal, how to craft a great email—really, anything—when it comes to written or in-person persuasion.
And I put together a website. I started guest posting, and the very first client that I got was actually from a guest post that I wrote for Copy Hackers for Jo, and I’m eternally grateful to Jo for giving me that opportunity. So yeah, that’s how it started. Someone read my article on CopyHackers, which is still is there—it still is very popular, it still sends me traffic—and she approached me and she said, okay, I really liked your article. I liked the way you write, and I want to work with you, and I can’t find you services page. And I was like, oh my God, oh my God! Someone wants to pay me money! And I just put together a services page like I would do for a consulting project.
I didn’t even have a Paypal account! So I created a Paypal account, I just sent her a link, and she sent me money!I was like, okay, what is this? What’s going on here? So again, that’s how it started, and then from then on, now it’s still—as you would probably agree with me—it still gives you a lot of joy when you get the pingof a new sale, but there’s nothing like that first sale, when someone comes to you, and you don’t really trust yourself, but someone out there is actually willing to trust you and give you money.
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Rob: So you get that first client in...what were you charging that client? What were you doing for them, and how did your business roll on from there? ‘Cause everybody loves that first client...
Bushra: Yes!
Rob: ...And we get really excited when like, Hey great, we can do this! It’s a business. And then we finish up that project, and then...crickets. There’s no second client lined-up. So, walk us through like the first couple of months of growing your business and working with those clients.
Bushra: Okay, great. So I walk you through the first three months because that was, I think four months—the first four months: July, August, September, October—almost four months when I was only doing client work, because in October—I started in July—in October, I launched an online course. So when you have an online course, things kind of change a bit. It’s not just client work, but for the first four months, and you have to understand, I’m someone who’s not a native English speaker, someone who has never been great as a copywriter, zero online connections, no one knows that I’m on the internet, at least not in this capacity.
So I was known as a corporate consultant. I was known in that field, but no one really knew me in this new role, this new positioning. So what I did was, I got back to this client, I reviewed her website—again, I don’t know copywriting principles, but I know persuasion; I know sales arguments—so, I basically helped her. I charged her $500; I helped her build a sales argument flow on her page and her services page, and her product descriptions. So that’s what I did for her. And then, like you said, I was like, Okay, I got the first one....what next? Because I don’t know what else to do! But that was a fool-proof of concept, so I knew that there were people out there that were looking for help like this. I got the testimonial from her, so she was in the product-less business, and she got immediate results from making those changes, so, that was awesome.
And then what I did, which was kind of crazy considering that I was still working at consulting at that time—I was working full-time in consulting—so what I did was, I went ahead and I started posting on social media, on Facebook groups. I always ran ads for about, I think I spent about $100 to run ads, but I basically, all I did was I offered free website reviews, free sessions. So I did one hundred free website reviews. I finished them all in three weeks. From those one hundred reviews, eighteen of those people actually gave me testimonials, and almost 50% of those people actually decided to work with me; some of them worked with me right away, so as soon as I sent them the free review, they wanted to know what’s next, and the others actually bought a course as soon as I launched it.
So that was a huge game changer for me. Even though the three weeks that it took me to kind of do those hundred reviews, it was really painful; I barely slept, I was literally working around the clock. But once that was done, I never had to do that volume of work again, because I got that eighteen testimonials from someone who’s only been in business for three months. That was amazing. And then, obviously, these people were raving about me because they were blown away that something free could be so useful, so valuable. So that’s kind of the way it started. I did a tonof client-work, and again, even though it was paying me pennies at that time,
