TCC Podcast #249: Building a Copywriting Portfolio with Aly Goulet

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Full Transcript:

Rob:  If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you no doubt have noticed the many differences in how copywriters make their living. Most of us earn money from writing content or copy, but still structure our businesses differently. Some charge by project, others work on retainers, and still others offer day rates and VIP days. But that’s just the beginning in the differences that we have as copywriters. Some copywriters consult on funnels and offers that audit websites and campaigns. Some structure their work so that they earn royalties, when a promotion does well. And still others create their own products to sell. Today’s guest on the podcast is Aly Goulet. She’s tried several of these approaches, very successfully, and recently launched a WordPress plugin to help copywriters show off their best work. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. But first I need to introduce my guest host for this episode, Brandon Burton. Brandon is a copywriter and a brand voice strategist, and he is also the community manager for the Copywriter Club, Facebook groups. Brandon, welcome to this episode.

Brandon:  Thanks for having me, Rob. I really appreciate it.

Rob:  Yeah, of course. So, before we get to all of this other stuff, just really quickly, not only do you manage our communities on Facebook, but you have your own community. Just take a second to tell us a little bit about that.

Brandon:  Yeah. I started a community called Our Children’s World, quite recently. And yeah, it’s just helping parents tackle the reality in the next few years and helping us raise children who can survive in it and thrive in it.

Rob:  Awesome. And you have a couple of young kids yourself, so you’re like a man deep in it.

Brandon:  Yeah. Yeah, like yourself. Yeah. I’ve got free. Yeah, they definitely made me realize this conversation we’re having.

Rob:  Awesome. And if after listening to this episode, if you like what you’ve heard from Brandon, check out episode number 215 of the Copywriter Club Podcast, he was our guest for that episode and talked a little bit about his approach to Brand Voice and some of the stuff that he does for us. Again, thanks Brandon for joining me for some of the additional comments in this episode. Before we get to Aly Goulet, and our interview with her, I want to just quickly mention the Copywriter Think Tank, that’s our mastermind for copywriters and other marketers who want to do more in their business and their work, whether that’s creating a product or a podcast, or a video show, whether you want to build an agency, product company, like what Aly is building. Maybe you want to become just the best copywriter in your niche. That’s the kind of stuff that we focus on with the members of the Copywriter Think Tank. If you’d like to learn more about how you can join, we promise no hard sell, just information, visit copywriterthinktank.com, and maybe you can join this group of extra ordinary business owners too. Okay. So, let’s jump into our interview with Aly, and find out more about her business and the clients that she works with.

Aly:  The WordPress plugin creator part happened a lot later. So, I’ll start with the writer and content strategist. It all really happened by accident. I was working a job where I was just really exhausted and working nights. And I was coming to the end of that opportunity where I had to figure out if I wanted to extend my role or not. And I really didn’t want to. So, I decided to go on an internship site because I was still in college at the time, and start applying for remote internships. And pretty soon, I landed my first client who was paying me to write blog posts. And that’s when I was like, “Oh, wait a minute.” Because I’ve always been interested in writing, so it was something that came naturally to me, but it wasn’t something that I realized that people would actually pay me to do until I saw those opportunities there. And so, for a little while I was doing content, I was doing outreach for a radio show. I interned for an independent artists booking shows. I was doing everything I could remotely that would make me money. But writing clients were the ones that I liked the most. So, ultimately, that’s what I settled into.

Kira:  So, you started your writing career while in college?

Aly:  Yes.

Kira:  Okay. So, how long were you doing it while you were still in college before you graduated?

Aly:  So, it was about two and a half years. Yeah, two and a half, three years, part-time. And it was going really well. During college, it’s what helped me pay for school. That’s what I was using that income for. And I didn’t want to stop the momentum. So, once I graduated, I’m like, “Okay, this is the thing we’re doing now.”

Kira:  How did you build momentum once you graduated and you were committed? You’re like, “This is what I’m going to do. This is my career.” How did you gain that traction early on after graduation?

Aly:  Yeah. So, the funny thing about the way that I started is I was really scrappy in the beginning and I did not spend any money on anything at all. And when I decided that I was going to do this full time, I thought, “Okay. Well, I need to invest in my professional development here.” Because I had no professional experience in anything at all. Writing is really the only thing I’ve ever done professionally. So, I joined a mastermind the first year that I decided to go full time in 2018. And I went through that whole program and it was so helpful for me. And it’s the thing that kick-started me into being able to go full-time and realize what that really takes.

Kira:  When did you get to the point where you’re like, “I figured this out. This is great. I’m going to keep doing this. This is working.”

Aly:  Yep. By the end of that program, which was a six month program, I had met the goal of doubling my income and surpassed it. So, I was like, “Okay. This is a thing that I can do for sure.” I had proven that to myself.

Kira:  And what did you do in that program? I’m sure some people listening, might be wondering, what is that program? And what were the activities that you focused on in that program that helped you get to that point?

Aly:  Sure. So, if I can give it a shout out, it was the 2X Accelerator by Carol Tice. It was a really good program, just walking through the basics. I remember the first module very clearly was like, where’s your low hanging fruit? Right? So, going back to people that you have worked with and trying to get projects. I won’t go through every module, but basically it was really methodical. And the part that changed everything for me was marketing and networking. I really started getting on LinkedIn a lot more during that program and making connections. And so, I think before that, I really wasn’t telling anybody that I was a writer. I was just pitching things and taking jobs when I got them. I had my Upwork profile, but I wasn’t really visible at all. And doing that was my first experience with getting a little bit of visibility and branching out of my non-existent network, at that point. I say branching out, but I think I had like 35 LinkedIn connections at the time.

Kira:  And how many connections do you have today on LinkedIn?

Aly:  Over 5000. So, it’s been quite a change on that front.

Kira:  Okay. So, can you just talk about your growth from graduation 2018, right?

Aly:  Yeah. I graduated at the very end of 2017. So, my first month going full-time was January 2018.

Kira:  Okay. So, since graduation from college, 2017 to now, 2021, can you just talk about the business growth in terms of numbers or anything you’re comfortable sharing, just to show the power of what you’ve been doing and how it’s worked?

Aly:  Yeah. So, I mean, it’s been crazy because going into this, I was just like, “I need to make $3,000 a month.” And $3,500 a month is like a stretch goal. 5,000 would be crazy. So, I accomplished, surpassed my income goal in doing that initial program. And then the very next year I had hit pretty close to six figures. I had invoiced six figures. I didn’t quite collect at all. So, it was really, really quick growth for me.

Kira:  And what do you think contributed to that almost sitting six figures in that year, that initial year? Other than low hanging fruit, tapping into your community, what else was working behind the scenes?

Aly:  Yeah. So, the year and hit six figures was actually the following year. It wasn’t 2018, but it was the year after. And I mean, for me, it’s something that I know about myself is that I’m a little relentless. So, something that I did after I finished that program was like, “I’m going to get really serious about this.” And I started sending 25 cold pitches a week because networking was happening, but I was still largely unknown. As you know, visibility scared me for a very long time. So, even though I was branching out on LinkedIn, there still wasn’t a ton of traction happening there, certainly not inbound. So, I started sending out 25 cold pitches every single week. And I all of a sudden built up this base of clients and was getting people saying, yes. I got very, very good at cold pitching. And that is the thing for sure, that helped me grow my business the fastest and be able to get to that level really, really fast.

Kira:  Can you talk more about your cold pitching process, especially back then when you were pitching 25 clients a week? How did you improve that process and what could work for someone who might just be jumping into it for the first time?

Aly:  Yeah. So, I think the first important thing is you have to know who your ideal clients are, right? And that was a struggle for me for a really long time because I really, I was just comfortable being a generalist. And I still recommend that people, explore different opportunities and don’t feel pressure to jump into one certain industry right away. But over time, what I determined was that I liked working with B2B SaaS and IT clients. I enjoyed the process of working with them. I found that they usually have the budget. And so, that’s when I felt comfortable starting to cold pitch. I think trying to do that before you have at least some of that figured out of who you like to work with can be a little bit of a recipe for a disaster. So, I started there. And then I would look up companies that I was interested in working with. I would use sites like Owler to look up clients that I already had, and then look at who some of their competitors are, who’s in the same space. And then I would go on their websites and I would really just see, “Okay. Is there an opportunity for me to help you here?” And not being critical. I don’t think that super critical cold pitches work. No one wants to be criticized by someone that they don’t know. But yeah, and then I would just write them. I would personalize every single one, which can be really time-consuming. I did eventually drill that down into a template that worked really well for me, but I certainly didn’t start there. And then the other thing that I did that was really important for me was I used a CRM, the HubSpot free CRM, and I connected it with Zapier to Google Sheets. So, every time I sent a pitch, it would automatically track it and put it in a spreadsheet for me, “You pitched so-and-so on this day at this time.” So, that I could keep track and follow up.

Kira:  Okay. And are you pitching 25 clients today or prospects today? Is that still happening?

Aly:  No. No. I mean, I work on retainer typically. So, a lot of the clients that I have stick around for a while. That was not sustainable for me to continue to make that part of my process all the time. Now, I will still cold pitch people and I’m not afraid. If I think there’s really an opportunity for me to help them and I want to be involved, but that’s really more how I handle cold pitching these days, because I think it’s a great way to grow your business really fast to send that many cold pitches. But I don’t know one copywriter, one freelancer who could sustain that until the end of time. And I don’t know why you’d want to.

Kira:  Okay. So, before we move away from cold pitches. Can you just share where you feel like many of us might mess this process up, where we go wrong, maybe based off what people you’ve taught or what you’ve seen in this space, where do we mess it up?

Aly:  Yeah. So, I mean, cold pitching is a whole art, but just a couple of tips on that. I think first of all, I know a lot of people send really, really long cold pitches, and they can work. But what I would say about that is short pitches have worked a lot better for me. And I think it depends on your market. Right? I used to pitch CMOs directly to their inbox. Those people are not going to read a novel from me, right? Because they don’t care and they don’t know me. If it is a smaller business, maybe they will appreciate that longer pitch. So, just be mindful of who you’re reaching and what might be going on in their world, because it really determines or helps you determine the length of your pitch. And then also if the word I appears in your cold pitch, more than once, you’re doing it wrong. I see so many cold pitches that are just like, “I do this, and this is why I’m reaching out to you.” And I, I. And it’s not intentional. We want to help them. Right? But just how many of those phrases can you switch and make it, you focused? How can you make it benefit focus for them?

Kira:  And so, let’s fast forward to today, what does your business look like today? How do you work with clients?

Aly:   Yeah. So, my business today, I’m still a little bit of a generalist in the sense that I don’t specialize in one particular type of deliverable. I’m still doing B2B SaaS and IT. And I do a lot of email these days. But I’m not super committed to one type of content or copy. I’m everywhere. And like I mentioned earlier, I work on retainer with my clients. So, typically we agree on a set of deliverables during our kickoff call that we have, or our discovery call. And then usually for three or six months, they’re signed on with the opportunity to extend.

Kira:  And how do you structure those with what you’re charging, if you’re comfortable sharing, how you approach it as far as what you charge, or how you would advise other writers to approach retainers as far as what they charge?

Aly:   Yeah. So, for me, and if we can back up a little bit to the earlier, me as a college kid, I had no idea what I was doing. When I first started freelancing, I was cool, if I can make $8 an hour, awesome, which is why was I ever providing content to anyone for that amount of money? They were getting a deal. So, do as I say, not as I did, if you’re starting your business. But I think it’s important to look at what the industry standard rates are, just so that you get, what are people charging for this stuff? I had no clue. I was just looking at, “Okay. What am I comfortable charging?” Which was well under market rates at the time. Right? So, start there and then factor in your experience level. Usually with most surveys or data, you can find it’s organized by how much experience you have. And then I like to think about, even though I don’t charge hourly anymore, I like to think about what I want to make per hour. And then I add 10% or 20% on top of that, just because I’m really bad at estimating how long it takes me to do things. I’m pretty fast. But even then inevitably somewhere I will hit a snag where it’s some element of the project took me longer than I thought it would.

Kira:  So, are you promising a certain number of deliverables for your retainers? Or how do you set it up so that the expectations are set from the beginning?

Aly:  Yeah. If they are absolutely certain on a number of deliverables that they need, like right now, I’m working with a client where we’re doing a number of web pages and that was determined from the very beginning, I will say, “Okay, I’m going to deliver to you exactly this number of deliverables.” If not, I structure it as an up to type of deals. You have up to this many deliverables. And I do allow them some rollover within 30 days, just so that, if something goes wrong on their end, they can make up a little bit of that. And that’s usually how I structure things.

Kira:  And if you were to step into retainers for the first time or advise someone who’s just working on their first few retainers, what would you tell them to do or not to do, so it doesn’t become a hot mess.

Aly:  I would say, be very, very solid in your project management. And if you’re not solid in your project management right now, figure out what tools you’re going to use, how you’re going to structure things, because if you end up… And I still have this happening to me today, clients wanting to add me to their project management systems and run things their way. And depending on the scope of your agreement, some of that may or may not be appropriate. But if you have a really solid process that you can guide them through of, “This is how we do things.” It becomes a lot easier to deal with, all the different deliverables that are flying around on the retainer.

Kira:  So, what would be an example of that in your business, your project management system that allows you to stay in control of the project?

Aly:  Yeah. So, I can give you one example that I have with one client right now, where I do blog content for them. And for some reason they insist on sending me everything via email, the different ideas that they have. And I was like, okay, I’m probably not going to have much luck like getting them to adapt to something different. But what I did was I created a system, you’ll catch onto it is, I love automation, where they will send me something that will end up in my inbox and I will tag it with a special tag in Gmail, which is what I use for my business. And then when it’s tagged that way, it will automatically go over to Trello and be created as a card. And the cards are sorted by oldest to newest, so that we’re always addressing the oldest item in line. And then I can manage it that way. They have a link to that board. So, they always know like, “Hey, yes, I’ve received this, it’s here.” And then I will go in and move things around, and progress them through. And they know that they can always go back to that board and look at things. But at least for the intake process, it’s all automatic. If he sends me six things in one day, that’s cool. Sometimes that happens and sometimes I don’t hear from him for a couple of weeks, but either way, we can always see what’s coming up.

Kira:  Because you mentioned automations, what are some other automations that you use frequently in your business that maybe we aren’t using and we could use?

Aly:  Yeah. So, like I mentioned earlier, for any sort of email tracking, obviously your CRM can do that. I’m a spreadsheet lover. So, any sort of automation that you can do between email or projects in spreadsheets, you can connect to those two things. I use some automation in my business right now on LinkedIn, just to help me find and connect with people. And then some other automations, so many. I also really love, this is a little, more approachable than maybe more complex automation, but I use email templates that I have created again in Gmail. I’ve saved a bunch of templates for when things are ready for clients reviews or scheduling calls, or things like that. So, I’m not rewriting those emails every single time. They’re saved in there and I just swap out some names and some details, and they’re ready to go.

Kira:  Okay. So, let’s go back to what you shared about launching your business in college. I think that’s something that we haven’t interviewed many, if any, other freelancers who started in college. And so, what do you think when you look back, what do you think is different about your approach to business growth? Because you started so early and in a different, earlier stage in your career, that maybe you’ve observed over time and you’re like, “Oh, I think I’m doing this differently than people that maybe started a decade after college.”

Aly:  Yeah. I think for me the way that my business has been different, obviously this is not the case for everyone, but a lot of people, they have either a different career or they’re in-house somewhere, and then they want to go out on their own. Whereas for me, when I decided that I wanted to do this, I was on my own completely. And not only that, but no one else around me understood what I was doing either. I think we are out of that a little more now, but it was still a little bit of that era of, you come into contact with people online, and then they pay you money. That sounds sketchy. So, from the very beginning, I just had to take this approach of figuring it out on my own. And so, a lot of that in the beginning was a ton of just learning and then throwing stuff at the wall, and seeing what sticks, and that’s the truth. And not getting discouraged when things don’t stick. It’s like, “Okay. I tried that and I’ve been doing that for two weeks or a month and that didn’t work, but let me see if I can find some communities and what people are talking about now and what’s working for them.” And maybe, if I think that makes sense for me, I’ll try that too.

Kira:  So, what could I do to channel my inner Aly or the inner college student that might be scrappier, even though I’m way past that stage, but so I could channel that same thought process and energy into my own business growth?

Aly:  Yeah. I mean, I’d say the key, if you’re really focused on growth is say yes, more than you say no. That’s something that I definitely took on in the very early stages of my business. I’ll be honest and say, I’ve taken a little too much of that into the current stage of my business. So, maybe keep an eye on that. But that’s what it really was in the beginning. I wasn’t too concerned about the right way to run a business. I was more concerned about, how am I going to do this in a way that works for me? What am I going to do next month to ensure that I can pay for my class bill that’s coming up? So, I think a lot of that inspired in me, just say yes, more than you say no. And the results I think can really surprise people.

Kira:  Yeah. And that just reminds me of another question of around being responsible in business and saving money. And if you’re comfortable sharing or talking about it, do you have advice or best practices as far as how to build a business where you actually are creating a cushion and saving money, and having the rainy day fund? Because again, most of us don’t do that well, or don’t do that at all.

Aly:  Yeah. I mean, I think money is so interesting because we all view it so differently. But for me, I really try to view money as a tool to get me what I need and really analyze what I want. It’s not that I never treat myself, but if I have a fleeting thought that like, “Oh, that might be cool to have.” I don’t just go out and buy it. My rule of thumb is like, okay, if I’ve thought about this three times, maybe it’s time to think about, maybe this is something I need. I try to take that approach with everything. And for me, I think that there is nothing more empowering than knowing you’re good from a financial standpoint. So, that’s something that I’ve always tried to prioritize. And I’ve also always been very aware of lifestyle inflation. That’s a real thing. You spend more money when you make more money. And so really, I mean, some things have changed, but largely I don’t live a super different life than I did six years ago when I started this business, with a few luxuries and changes of course. But I think, if you can keep that in perspective, what do you need and then what do you actually want? And if you want those things, was it just a fleeting thought or do you really want them for a reason? That’s I think is really important.

Kira:  I guess, related to that, what would be your advice for people who struggle with that? And maybe the better question is, what have you been able to do because of this approach to money management and savings? What have you been able to do in your business that maybe you wouldn’t have been able to do if you were spending more, as you made more?

Aly:  The really great thing about that is that just recently as I’ve become more comfortable without sourcing when I really needed help because I was struggling and there was too much going on, I could, without thinking about it, say yes, I’m going to bring in help because I need this right now. And I wasn’t overly concerned about cashflow. And I understand that that’s at an extremely privileged position to be in, but that’s just my approach to saving. It’s like, save it for when you need it because you will need it. Other things, joining different masterminds and programs, and not having to be stressed when you know you have those cart open, cart closes type of launches. When I know that there’s something that I want to do, I have the capability to do it. And certainly, I mean, hopefully that continues. That is the financial situation that I’m in right now. And that’s where I would like to stay. So, my approach to that is just, yes, save until you have a reason not to save.

Kira:  And the last question related to that is, what is the last luxury purchase you made, where it was a desire or a want that came up three times for you, and you’re like, “Okay, I’m going to do it now.”?

Aly:  Oh yeah, I renewed my annual pass for a theme park, super recently, since I can go again, post COVID. It’s very expensive. It’s a top tier pass, that I was like, “Oh, do I want to do this again?” Because I also bought it in 2020. And we know how that went. Didn’t go well. But yeah, I was just like, “I’m so ready to go back.” So, that was the most recent pricey thing that I splurged on.

Rob:  Okay. So, let’s break in here and just talk about a couple of these things that Kira and Aly have been talking about. I’m not sure what’s come to mind for you, Brandon, but first up for me is just this idea of niches. And I know we’ve talked a lot about it. We mentioned it in our last episode. We talk about it quite a bit. But just that struggle of really figuring out a niche and how leaning into a niche can help. And I mentioned this briefly in the last episode, I don’t know if I got the numbers right or not, but when we did our salary survey, we found that people who have a niche, work in a single nation and really limit themselves to that, earn 96% more money than copywriters who have no niche at all. So, pretty amazing stat. I know a lot of people are still going to say, “Hey, you can do great without a niche.” That’s true. There are definitely people who do well with nice. But on average, on the whole, over the entire community of copywriters, those who have niches tend to do better than those that don’t. So worth mentioning maybe as many times as it comes up in our interviews. But what stood out to you, Brandon?

Brandon:  The first thing that stood out to me was Aly describing the point where she started telling people that she’s a writer, mostly because I see that come up quite a lot. People talk about, “How do I become a copywriter?” And I think just that moment, that visibility, that choice seemed a quite powerful one to make, and it obviously paid off for Aly. I’ve seen pay off for people as well. And even on the niche bit, I think Aly has done really well to identify who she wants to work with, but describes herself as somewhat of a generalist, and then works with some retainers. I think that’s quite refreshing. I think we focused on niche a lot because it works, but at some different stages, it’s not for everyone. So, I think a lot of people for where they are right now will feel pretty good listening to that example as they build their experience.

Rob:  Yeah. I agree. I mean, when it comes to niching, you can choose a niche at any time. But I agree, for the first, maybe even a year or two, you can keep it a little bit more general or play around in several to really figure out what’s working for you, because it’s not just about choosing the most profitable niche. You can make money in any niche, but you want to be comfortable. You want to choose one that’s going to work for you and that you’re going to love. And so, I appreciate that. What you’re suggesting is sometimes you don’t want to move into that too quickly either.

Brandon: Yeah. And that’s something that I did, and then ended up doing it several times. And I think the approach that Aly mentioned and I’ve seen other people do as well, which is saying yes to more opportunities and be visible, and putting yourself out there. Yeah, it seems to pay dividends. And I think when tied into the cold pitching process as long as you have a process which I know Aly does, then yeah, it seems like this is a really good way to get out there and try new things, and experiment with different ways of doing this job, and then taking it from there.

Rob:  Yeah. Since you’ve mentioned cold pitching, let’s talk just a little bit more about that, because again, another topic that we’ve talked a lot about on the podcast, people like Chris Collins have come on and talked about how he’s automated a process. And you can listen to our interview with him about how he does that. Aly has done that a little bit, but she also talks about how she’s changing things up. So, everything is always personalized. Her pitch changes based on who she’s sending it to. She’s making those connections in smart ways, so that she can pull things from say a LinkedIn conversation or something that she knows about somebody from social media. And it’s changing that up in order to make sure that those pitches land a little bit better. And so, regardless of what the pitch is or your approach to pitching, just making sure that you’re creating that personal connection. Even if you’re automating things, ultimately you’ve got to get it to the point where you can then make a personal connection through a follow-up or through some other kind of interchange as you start to work with the client.

Brandon:  Yeah. I think the cold pitching element is, and you mentioned Chris Collins, well, Aly and Chris did a training in the Underground and it was incredible to see how much detail they put into, not just the pitch, but the process and the follow up. And I think that’s obviously one way they’ve seen the results, but also that’s the lesson that a lot of us can learn and can grow from.

Rob:  Yeah. And that training is like you said, it’s in the Copywriter Underground. And if there’s any questions, if you’re a member of the Copywriter Underground, if there are any questions, we can help you find that, so that you can watch the training. Because I agree, it’s an awesome training, especially if pitching is part of your business, it may help you find some ideas and some approaches that you hadn’t considered before. Another thing that jumped out to me as I was listening to Kira and Aly talk is just Aly’s approach to business. She says yes to a lot of things. It’s certainly she was starting out, she was saying yes to a lot of things. But she just has this approach where if she has an idea or she has something that she’s thinking about doing, she’s just going to figure it out. And that’s such a healthy approach to know that, you don’t always have to hire an expert. You don’t always have to have somebody else doing the work for you or with you, or any of that, but that you can figure stuff out. And whether it’s buy a book or get a course, or hire a coach, or join a mastermind, or just work through Google searches or whatever, all of us have the ability to figure stuff out in this business and make it work. Anything else stand out to you, Brandon?

Brandon:  I think again, it was great to hear that by focusing on working with retainers, that one, that was a business model. I think a lot of people go the other way. But also just acknowledging the challenge of project management, I think we talk a lot of copywriters about the writing and the quality of the deliverable, and the customer experience. But I think the project management and anything we could learn around how we can make that easier for ourselves and the client, I think that’s a way to appear more professional, which that’s something that Aly has invested in a lot in her brand professionalism development.

Rob:  Yeah. And I’m glad that you mentioned that because I think as the copywriters that we’ve worked with, and as I look at the copywriters that I know, and even in my own business, I think for most us, project management is where the problems happen. Most of our issues with clients come out of that project management processes, we haven’t handled it well, or we don’t have one that is consistent, or we’re reinventing it every single time. There are different pieces, different parts, every time we work with a different kind of client. And marketing issues, client issues, even some work issues are often really process issues and client management issues. And so yeah, I agree. I think if there’s maybe one thing, once you have copywriting down, you’re a pretty good writer, you’re able to find a client or two, if there’s one thing to focus on your business, it’s figuring out those systems to support the work that you do in a consistent and very repeatable manner. Okay. So, one last thing that I just want to mention, because I know Kira was asking about this, but the rainy day fund. Aly has a rainy day fund. We’ve talked about it with her before. She didn’t talk about how big it is, and I’m not going to do that either. But it’s so important to get to the point in your business where you can put some money away just as a safety measure. Maybe the retainer clients disappear, or you’re not able to bring in a project this month or next month, and having a rainy day fund can just take away the desperation that you can feel when your business has those inevitable slowdowns. And then on top of that, if you have a rainy day fund, that’s maybe even three or four or five, six months big, so that you couldn’t go through an extended slowdown, if that kind of a thing happens, if a recession happens or an accident, or something like that keeps you from working. But in addition to that reason to have it, it can also fund the development of other parts of your business, where you can actually take time to say, “Oh, I am going to build this product that I’ve been thinking of.” Or, “I am going to create a workshop or a training for my niche in order to create something bigger in my business.” And just putting money away to support you, so that you don’t always have to be taking client after client, after client, or retainer after retainer, you fill your hours with that. Just having that slush fund, for lack of a better word to support you in those things is super, super smart. So, the size depends on, you and your business, everybody really ought to have somewhere between three and six months just in case something really happens, bigger if you can get it. But again, something that maybe we don’t talk enough about.

Brandon:  Yeah. It seemed really clever to me that Aly uses that fund, that amount to invest back into her business when those opportunities come up. It seems like a really intentional way to grow, to know that you have that amount there for when it comes, as opposed to living a bit more seasonally, which I know that some us do. So yeah, I think if there is a plan, then having that money makes a lot of sense, makes a lot of sense.

Rob:  So, now everybody should be checking their bank balances, their credit card debts and making a plan for building a rainy day fund or a slush fund to support us and our businesses.

Brandon:  Let’s go back to our interview with Aly and ask of her approach to connecting with clients on LinkedIn.

Kira:  All right. So, let’s talk about LinkedIn for a bit. And you mentioned that you’ve automated parts of your LinkedIn marketing. And I know this is an area that you focused on heavily in your business. Can you just tell us, how do you use LinkedIn to find or attract clients today and to grow your business?

Aly:  Sure. Yeah. So, the first thing that I want to say is before you really dive into LinkedIn, make sure your people are there. I think that LinkedIn is a great place for business, but depending on who you work with, your audience might not be there. So, try to look up some of your clients and see if they’re even there, if they’re active there. If they are, that’s probably a really good sign for you. For me, being in the B2B tech space, I knew my people were there. So, it was really natural for me to go into that space. And then for me, it was all about looking for people with a lot of those same titles that I was cold pitching and just reaching out to them, and being really friendly and genuinely saying like, “Hey, I want to be a part of your network.” And even when you add automation into that mix, which I’ve done, I don’t think that makes it any less genuine. Sure. Maybe I’m able to connect with more people. But when you use LinkedIn search to drill down into the people you’d like to serve by title, by location, by industry, there are so many different filters you can use. All you’re doing is really scaling up your ability to network. And then, it’s about just showing up and being nice, and being helpful and reminding people that you exist. Because the great thing about LinkedIn is that your title is there always on everything you do, on your profile, in your messages, on every comment that you leave. So, you don’t necessarily need to scream it from the rooftops that you’re looking to make a sale. If you’re around, people will get in touch with you.

Kira:  So, maybe we could break it down even more into steps for people who haven’t done this on LinkedIn. So, it sounds like, step one is identify your ideal clients. Number two, check to see if they’re actually on LinkedIn or not, before you focus on it. What would be the next few steps as far as the tools that you’re using to move forward and to do this well?

Aly:  Yes. So, the next step is determining what LinkedIn filters you’re going to use to search for those people. So, you can use just your standard LinkedIn. A lot of those filters work fine. If you sign up for Sales Navigator, which you can do a free trial of, you get a lot more filters that you can use. So, you can filter, for example, if you use Sales Navigator by people who were active in the last 30 days, which is a really good filter to have, because just because your people are there doesn’t necessarily mean they’re there all the time. If you can know you’re reaching people who exists and who have a presence on the platform that’s obviously better. But you can filter by industry, by title, by location. I like to filter by second degree connections, which basically means that that person has a connection in common with you, just because I find they’re more willing to interact with you if you’re not completely out of left field. So, I would say that that’s the next step. And then once you have your list of people, you can just start reaching out to them. My connection message is usually something like, “Hey, I noticed you work at X. That’s super interesting.” X, meaning like a company name. Of course, you have to fill that part in. “But hey, I noticed you were here, and I’m so interested in what you’re doing. I’d love to be a part of your network.” That’s it. And I would say probably it’s about 50/50 that I get a connection request accepted. Most people, especially if you’re searching by people who are active, they want to network. That’s what they’re there for. And then I have a series of follow-up messages that I send. You can automate this with a tool like Dux-Soup, or Octopus CRM. Be very, very careful. I won’t go into all of it here, because we’ll be here all day. But there are certain parameters that you have to be careful of when you’re using automation. So, there’s tons of documentation along with those tools that you can look at just to make sure you understand it. But you don’t need to use automation. After the person connects with you and you get that notification, “Hey, thanks so much for joining my network. Just you know, here’s a little bit about what I do. I’d love to know about what you do. And if you or someone you know, could use any of my services, feel free to reach out to me. I’m here to help.” And it’s just a series of messages like that. You don’t have to be overly salesy, just be friendly and helpful.

Kira:  So, how many messages do you usually use to follow up? I mean, it sounds like that follow up is key where you actually introduce yourself and what you do. But then after that, is it just moving forward if you don’t hear from them, you’ll continue to check in, or is there something else in place?

Aly:  Yeah. So, after that followup, if they don’t reply, I’ll usually still try to get in touch with them or do a coffee or tea chat, and just say like, “Hey, I’d love to learn a little bit more about you.” If I have a relevant industry survey that I think they might be interested, and I’ll send them that, and just be like, “Hey, I think this might be relevant to you.” I try not to go in too hard for the pitch, unless again, I know that there’s a reason that I can help them, which obviously is not done by any sort of automation. That’s something that I have to realize. But usually about four or five messages, if they don’t respond by then, I’ll reevaluate what I’m doing and can I reach this person differently.

Kira:  And then beyond that, what else are you doing on LinkedIn, on the platform to show up consistently? What does it look like today? And then maybe what does it look like when maybe you were more aggressive on the platform or showing up more? Maybe aggressive, isn’t the right word here, but whenever you were investing more time in it.

Aly:  Yeah. So, to be honest, I’m not posting on LinkedIn as often as I should be. And I know that. But something that I’ve found to be really powerful is just