This is the last episode of the podcast before we hit triple digits—and it’s a good one. Health copywriter Jason Rutkowski joins us for the 99th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast and we covered a lot of ground, from Jason’s secrets for connecting with both mentors and clients to a look inside his copy mastery process (he sent us a screen capture of his file system so you can see what he’s talking about during the podcast). Here’s a look at what we covered:
• how Jason failed his way to copywriting as a career
• finding his first few clients and figured out his niche
• the “one thing” he tried that resulting in connecting with good clients
• the strategy Jason followed to get A-list copywriters to share their stories with him
• the single most important thing you can do at live marketing events
• what it’s like to be “cubbed” by an A-list copywriter
• why you absolutely need to reverse engineer great copy to get better
• the difference between a copywriter and a master copywriter
• the foundational copywriting reference everyone should study
• Jason’s research process (and how he reverse engineers A-list research)
• how to get started writing in the health industry
• the gmail hack for studying the market you want to write for
• the reason A-list copywriters work with copywriters (an opportunity?)
If you’re interested in not just being a copywriter, but becoming a great copywriter, you’re going to want get this one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. And of course, you can find it on iTunes, Stitcher or in your favorite podcast app.
The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:
Clayton Makepeace
Parris Lampropolous
Marcella Allison
Paul Martinez
John Carlton
Gary Halbert
Jim Rutz
Carline Cole
David Deutsch
AWAI
Barnaby Kalan
The Single Best Way to Get Clients
Parris’ book list
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
The Brilliance Breakthrough by Eugene Schwartz
Brian Kurtz
New Market Health
Health Sense Media
Dr. Gundry
Advanced Bionutritionals
Nature City
Patriot Health Alliance
The Agora
JasonRutkowski.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 99 as we chat with freelance copywriter Jason Rutkowski about writing in the health and wellness niche, investing in himself and his expertise, his business and writing processes, and what it took to gain traction as a copywriter when he was just starting out.
Rob: Hey Jason.
Kira: Welcome Jason.
Jason: Hey Kira, hey Rob.
Kira: How's it going? Glad you're here.
Jason: Oh no, I'm excited. I haven't done one of these in a while, so I was excited to do it with you.
Rob: Definitely took a little time to get our schedules aligned. We've been trying to make this happen for a little while, because we know a little bit about you and where you write and we think it'll be a great conversation, so we're glad to have you here.
Jason: Yeah, definitely.
Kira: All right, so let's kick this off. Jason, how did you end up as a copywriter?
Jason: Okay, I'll give you the quick story about this. I was 19. I just finished my freshman year of college. I got an internship at a normal 9-to-5 job. And I realized I hated it. I was like, oh man. I saw all these people who worked in an office, you know, 30, 40 years; I'm like, is this really going to be my life?
And also at the same exact time, I was on the internet one day and I found an internet marketing forum. And I was like, what's an internet marketing forum? I don't know. So I go on it and I see all these guys, like ‘Yeah I just made 200 grand this year, 500 grand this year. I work from home; I'm sitting at my desk all day.’ I'm like what? How is that even possible?
So I started getting really into it. And then I learned about traffic drivers and marketing and product creation and all these things. And I was really confused. And I was like 19, 20 years old. So I heard about copywriting, but I didn't decide to be a freelance copywriter right away. I was like, you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to create my own products; I'm going to do Google Adwords; and I'm going to drive traffic. I'm going to do the whole thing, like from start to finish.
And I horribly failed. You know, I was going to school full-time, and then I was doing this part-time, and I was just failing and failing. And then after a couple of years of that, I decided, okay this isn't working. I'm just going to do copywriting because I think this is what I like most. I don't like doing all this other technical stuff, marketing stuff. I'm just going to do copywriting.
So, from then on out, I just picked a niche. I was like I'll just write in health. And from then on out I just started growing a business.
Rob: So, I'm interested in what some of those failures looked like. What were the products that you were creating and why were they failing?
Jason: Oh. I mean, the why is a lot of reasons. The products I was creating, I created kind of an ... E-books were a big thing back then. Back then you could just write an e-book and like sell it and people would buy it. So I created one for anxiety, which I actually went through a lot in the beginning of my life. And I also created a few for some, like headaches solutions and kind of like different health things.
And I put, I don't know, these 150, 200-page books together with just some random info, that I thought was good, but then the whole process of, you know I was trying to organic SEO, trying to target the right keyword. I was in college so I had very little money to actually spend on driving traffic, paid traffic. And I was just doing a lot of things wrong.
It was a lot of small marketing things that you don't know, don't you know it? Like how to do the SEO right, how to do the traffic right. How to do the delivery right. How to build your list. Like, doing a lot of bad stuff with building my list. A lot of mistakes; it was just like, I was just some teenage kid and I didn't know what I was doing.
But I did learn a lot, and I also learned through the process that what I really liked doing the most was the copywriting. So I just decided to give up the whole build my own business thing and do the copywriting thing instead.
Rob: So what did that look like in the first stages? How did you connect with your first client, and why did you choose the niche that you chose?
Jason: Oh, back then that was me doing my own stuff. In terms of the freelance copywriting, I started on the freelance websites, which I don't know if it is a good way to do it anymore. But, you know, it was like these cheap little jobs on like Elance and Guru and ... Like, I don't know if that stuff was even worth it. I mean, I guess it paid me some money, and it gave me some actual samples I could send to people. But I didn't really get any good long term clients out of that.
I didn't start getting good long term clients until I decided, and it took me way too long to figure this out, but to actually go to live events, and like talk with people. And actually like start-
Kira: Wait, what's that? Talking to people? What's that?
Jason: No, I know. I literally spent like my first three years of copywriting trying to do everything from my room. Like cold calling, Edesk, Olance, like cheap little, I mean, I don't know, I was making still a little money from it. I had like a 9-to-5 office job to support myself, and then I would come home and do this. I wasn't even close to making enough money to support myself.
So I decided, okay the only way this is going to work is if I start going to live events. So I'm like, okay, what live events should I go to? Which ones are good? You know, what's some high quality live events I could go to?
And the first one I ever went to was a Clayton Makepeace, like $5,000 seminar. And I did not have $5,000 by the way. But I did have good credit, so I put it on my credit card. And I actually did, actually. One thing I always thank my mom for is she got me a credit card at 18 and she taught me how to use it. And by the time I was in like, my early to mid-20s I had a credit card with like a $25,000 limit on it.
Kira: What? That's dangerous.
Jason: It was completely paid. I know, but I had no debt. Like, it was unused. So I decided to be a little risky and go to this Clayton Makepeace seminar, which ended up being the absolute best decision of my life because I met my mentor Parris Lampropoulos. I met Marcella Allison and I meet Paul Martinez, all at the same conference. We are all very, very good friends to this day.
And then, after that, it was a matter of ... I mean, I don't know; when I talk face to face with people, I feel like all my failures from early in my career gave me a kind of a big foundation to talk about, where it's like okay, this person clearly has done the studying, has been in the trenches, has done some work. I haven't had a lot of success, but at least, like this kid just needs a chance. Or this kid, he's not a newbie. So I trust this guy to some extent.
And then from then on out it was just, kind of going to more conferences, building my freelance career and you know, kind of trying to develop some long term relationships with people and that type of thing. So, that's how I did it.
Kira: Okay, this is exciting. So, we're going to talk about, you know, cubbing with Parris and some of these relationships you've built, but it sounds like this first event,
