TCC Podcast #277: Writing Magnetic Copy and Creating a Signature Framework with Erin Pennings

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Kira’s website
Rob’s website
The Copywriter Club In Real Life Event
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Erin’s website
Grace’s website
Episode 154
Episode 262 

Full Transcript:

Rob:  A lot of copywriters write web copy for their clients, which is pretty natural because so many of our clients need help with their websites. But what about writing copy for your own website? That’s a bit trickier. In fact, we’ve talked with hundreds, and I’m not exaggerating that number, hundreds of copywriters who are perfectly comfortable writing web copy for their clients, but can’t seem to get past the blank page when it comes to their own website. You might be able to relate.

Our guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Erin Pennings. Erin created a framework that makes the writing of web copy, that whole process a lot easier, even when working on copy for our own businesses. And she shares that framework, plus some ideas about frameworks, live edits and a whole lot more in our interview today. You’ll want to stay tuned for this one, but before we get to Kira and me talking with Erin, my co-host here to add a few thoughts in today’s episode is Grace Baldwin, and Grace is a B2B SaaS copywriter brand strategist who works to help B2B SaaS startups with niche solutions to big problems, helping them tell stories that connect with their audience.

She’s an awesome copywriter, has a great newsletter. Welcome, Grace.

Grace:  Hi, Rob. I’m super excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Rob:  I am thrilled to have you here. We haven’t talked in a little while, so it’s just good hanging out with you for a few minutes anyway.

Grace:  Nice to catch up.

Rob:  So, before we dig into the episode, we need to remind you this episode is sponsored by The Copywriter Club in Real Life. That’s our in-person event that’s happening later next month, March 28th through the 30th in Nashville, Tennessee. The room’s really filling up. We only have about 200 seats in the room. It can’t be expanded, and there are a lot of copywriters there that you are going to know. You may have heard of. People who are speaking include Mike Kim, Brian Speronello, Bridget Lyon, Ash Chow, Linda Perry. We have copywriters like Annie Becher and Anna Hetzel, who are organizing a fun run with free t-shirts. And, I was just looking over the people who were actually just attending to attend, and they include people like Sarah Greesonbach, Kevin Rogers, Rachel Mazza, Jen Robbins, Brittany McBean, Kim Schwalm and even Grace Baldwin.

Grace:  Yes, I’m super excited about it. I can’t wait.

Rob:  If you want to hang out with all of these awesome people and about 170 others just like them, you can find the details and the link in the show notes to this episode of the podcast. Make sure you don’t miss out. It’s going to be an awesome, awesome event.

Grace:  You really won’t want to miss out. I went to the Not in Real Life event last year and it was a game changer. And so, I’m so excited for actually meeting everybody in real life this year. So, hope to see you there. It was really cool last year.

Rob:  Yeah, and last year had a lot of really good content but we couldn’t really do the one-to-one relationships and hanging out in the hallway or going to dinner together, and so we’re thrilled to be back live, doing it all over again. This will actually be the first time that I get to meet you in person, Grace, which will be really cool.

Grace:  Yeah, it’ll be weird but also very … I don’t know, it’s going to be very cool after a year of meeting over Zoom to actually see what you look like in person.

Rob:  Exactly. So again, check out the show notes for this episode. You can get your ticket. There really are literally less than 10 VIP tickets left and somewhere around 50 tickets to the event itself left. So if you’ve been thinking about it, jump on those because they’re going to be gone soon. All right, Grace. So, let’s jump in and listen to our interview here with Erin Pennings.

Erin:  I have been copywriting for longer than I ever realized. I had this picture in my head that copywriters were mad men style agency people from the 50s, and I didn’t really, for a long time, understand that what I was doing in a lot of my jobs was copywriting. But from the time that I worked in Alaska tourism to global tourism, and then back into bookmarking, it was all copywriting. It was all figuring out the right angle to get people to open emails. What made a good story? What people needed to believe in order to take action, whatever that action was. So, when I went out on my own and hung my proverbial shingle almost three years ago, it was “Okay, I’m going to do something with marketing, but what is it?” And then, I found copywriting. I’m like, “Hey, that’s what I’ve always done.” And holy cow, I can bring skills that I’ve been honing for the last 15 plus years and really help people make money and build their business and make a difference in their business.

Rob:  So, Erin, did I hear you right? You said you worked in Alaska tourism?

Erin:  Yeah. I grew up in Alaska in a really small touristy town. We had a ski resort and that’s the main business of the town was a ski resort in the winter and then in the summer, it was tourism. So, it was this natural thing that my first several jobs all were in hospitality from running a gift shop and actually doing sales, and some of it was on high end artwork, and then working in high end restaurants throughout college. It progressed from there. I’ve done everything from being the tour director on the front of the bus to promoting local tours.

Rob:  So now I want to tour. I want to hear the tourist spiel.

Erin:  I don’t know if I can do that. It was really funny because I’d hop up in the front of the bus and I’d put on this persona. It was still me, but it was a different person than the person that you’d interact with on a day-to-day basis. We could talk about anything from where we were going that day to fun and weird stories.

Kira:  What do you miss the most about Alaska? Because, I know you are no longer there. What are some of the specifics that you miss?

Erin:  A lot of it, I miss the people. There’s this unique, independent spirit of … Everyone is mostly fine with people being who they are. And, I can’t really quantify that with words. It’s a lot of you do you and that’s cool. I’m going to do me. So, there’s something about that that I have not found anywhere else that I’ve lived, and I’ve lived in some other places. That’s number one. But number two is summers. Man, you can’t beat summers in Alaska with sun … I don’t know, I think it’s 20 hours a day where I grew up. It’s strange that I don’t even remember that, but it was light when you got up and it was light when you went to bed, and if you woke up in the middle of the night, it was also still light.

Rob:  Yeah, I had that Alaska experience when my wife and I were first married. She was running the midnight marathon, which they run in the middle of the night because you can, and I can’t remember if it was a couple days before or a couple days after, but it’s in the middle of the night so we’re asleep. We’ve got the blackout shades down because it’s light outside and I can hear some hammering going on. It’s just constant hammering outside, so I open up the window to look out and see what’s going on, and there’s some guy building a fence at 1:00 in the morning. We were staying with some cousins and they’re like, “Oh yeah, well, when it’s summertime, you got to take advantage of the light. So, it’s pretty normal behavior.” I’m like, “It’s 1:00 in the morning. The next door neighbor’s building a fence. Crazy.”

But that has nothing to do with what you’re talking about so I’m really curious, Erin … You mentioned that you had been doing copywriting all along but then as you decided to put out your own shingle, I’m curious, how did you start attracting clients? What was the thing that you did in order to not just say I’m a copywriter but to actually get work?

Erin:  To be honest, I probably did everything wrong at first, but I didn’t really know where to start. I talked with a couple people that I had known. I took a course, but really it was all networking in Facebook groups. And, I worked really hard. I spent a lot of time trying to build relationships, but it took time for that to build, and I still believe really strongly in the power of building that network, and it’s a slower build, but I think it pays off bigger in the end. But it was really all about having conversations with people, “Hey, what do you do? Oh, that’s really interesting. How can I help? Or, can I help? Or hey, if you hear of anyone that’s looking for someone like me, let me know. I’d love to have a conversation.” And, it obviously paid off in the end, but for the first couple of months, it’s like, “All right, people are not beating down my door,” which was what I’d hoped for.

Kira:  So, Erin, you said you were doing all the wrong things, although it actually sounds like you were doing some of the right things by networking, but what would you have done differently if you could go back three years ago?

Erin:  I think I would’ve connected with copywriters a whole lot sooner. I have this mindset block that the only people I should be talking to were prospective clients or prospective partners, and I didn’t really understand the value of having this network of people who have not only been doing the same things that I’m doing, but have had the same struggles. And some of the best referral partners have ended up being copywriters, but more than that, it’s something about having that community and bouncing ideas off of each other has been really, really, really powerful.

Rob:  So, can I ask, let’s get specific about what you did to start building that network, how were you reaching out to people or where were you finding people to connect with?

Erin:  So, I found people in Facebook groups who were like, “I’m looking for a copywriter,” and I’d raise my hand, but then I’d be the 15th or 20th or 35th person down. And so, they might not get to me right away. I’d say that was the wrong thing instead of proactively going out and connecting with people who weren’t looking for me yet, which I think would be more of the right thing. People who were looking for maybe help creating a website, but not realizing they had the website copy as a project that they had to do first and that they had to wrap up first. In terms of the right things, I found a lot of people in Facebook groups, I found a lot of graphic designers. I found a lot of people on LinkedIn and had conversations with them about what they did.

Kira:  Can we get into those conversations? Because, I think that’s where some copywriters get lost, too. It’s like, “Okay, I know I need a network. I know I need to talk to these people, but how do I get them on a phone call? What’s in it for them. Why would they even talk to me?”

Erin:  Well, and that’s interesting because a lot of people have this block. Okay, if someone’s sending me a message or on LinkedIn sending me this connection request, they just want to sell to me. And so, part of it comes back to what do people need to believe? And they need to believe that you’re not just out there to sell to them. You’re not just out there to get something out of the deal. You actually want to help them and it’s less about sales and it’s more about how can I open a conversation with this person? And, there is one gal who … She’s based in the UK and she’s social media strategist. And I was like whatever she was posting on social media … I can’t even remember what it was, but it was so cool, and her profile was so well written, I was like, “Hey, I really want to learn more about what you do. Would you be interested in hopping on, having a conversation with me?”

I think this was 2019 still at some point. And she was like, “I guess.” She wouldn’t give me her email address. She’s like, “Just put the Zoom link in here.” I said, “That’s fine, that’s fine.” So, we sat down and we ended up talking for an hour about how she had been a bartender and how that had led her to become a social media strategist and I was like, “Well, that’s really cool.” And she’s like, “So you really aren’t trying to sell me?” I was like, “No, I really just want to learn more about what other people are doing, and hey, by the way, here’s an idea I have that might be a solution for you.”

But, the end goal in my head was always yes, I would love to build my business, but more than anything, if there’s a problem that I could help someone else solve, that is helpful to them and they’re going to remember it, but it also makes me feel good knowing that I’ve, again, made that difference.

Rob:  Erin, you’ve been doing this for three years. Has your approach changed since those first days? What have you done to foster better connections or to connect with the right people that you weren’t doing then?

Erin:  I think it’s still about quantity. It’s still about going out and having these conversations and not everyone is going to be a good referral partner. Not everyone’s going to want to hop on the phone either, but I find once I can actually speak to someone as opposed to just email communication, and email or messaging is still really effective, I think but once you can have that eye-to-eye communication and conversation and actually see people and make that … It’s not really a physical connection. It can’t be, it’s through the computer, but it’s the next best thing. You can see the whites of someone’s eyes.

People can tell when you’re being sincere versus when you are really out there to just play lip service. Pay lip service? It’s pay lip service. They can tell when you legitimately want to help or when you legitimately just want to connect with people. But that doesn’t always come across via email so the key is to, I think, ease into it. It’s like you’d walk up to someone if you’re chatting in a grocery store. It’s that approach.

Rob:  So, can we go back now to the first projects that you started connecting with people on? What did those look like? What did they involve and how much were you charging?

Erin:  My very first project was building a website for a friend because she needed help getting something out there. And, I know enough to be dangerous but it was fun. It was some good practice and a real good affirmation that developing websites is not where I should put my interests. After that though, I ended up working on blog projects for a photo booth company, and that was really fun because it leaned into the marketing and it was all marketing adjacent content. And so that was fun, but it was still blogs, and I write a lot of blogs still for people as part of inbound funnels, but it’s harder for me to make a living out of writing blogs than it is for me to make a living out of doing some of the other pieces.

Kira:  So, you mentioned that you took your 15 years of professional experience and really honed it and figured out what your X-Factor is. Can you talk about that process that you went through and even just the ups and downs, because we know that process is not easy, but how you worked through it to figure out how you can best serve your clients and what you’re most excited to do in your business?

Erin:  I started by making a list of all of the things that I like to do and all of the clients that I liked to do them for, and I started to draw some really clear parallels. It was all about copy that drove action, whatever the action was, whether it was clicking, whether it was buying, whether it was booking a conversation, whether it was even simply going back to something that they had written before. So, that was thing one, and then what I really started to find out is that I really like to work with service-based businesses, and I know that’s a really loaded term, but people who are doing what they do to make the world a better place, knowing that we all have to put a roof over our head, but who weren’t in it specifically just for the profit, but who are in it to leave some lasting legacy and help their clients succeed.

So, that was how I started, and then I started to look a little bit more about the process and what that was, and Kira, you and Rob reflected a lot back to me when we did this. It’s really that it’s about looking to the past and to their existing knowledge and their existing perspectives to position them as thought leaders so that my clients can authentically connect with their customers in a way that’s both meaningful and impactful

Rob:  So, Erin, how has knowing that X-Factor, having worked through that process, changed your business? What’s the practical impact of doing that?

Erin:  The practical impact has really been building a framework that is effective and it tells a story of here’s where you come in and here’s the process and here’s where you either leave or find a new place to keep going.

Kira:  Let’s talk more about your framework. So, how did you create the framework? Because I know we’ve talked about your framework. I know you’ve had multiple versions of it. You’ve improved it over time. How did you approach building a framework? What helped you? What maybe didn’t help as much? Especially for copywriters who might want to build their own, what advice would you give them?

Erin:  So, when I first started, the version that I started with was really a Venn diagram visual, and as I was talking with another copywriter, Nicole Morton, she’s like, “This is not exactly how it looks. It should look like an arrow.” So, I went back and I was thinking about it more and looking at all the ways that I like working with people, that I want to help people, other business owners and I thought back to my brand, which is CopySnacks. And it’s all about turning my clients into the ultimate snack to their customers, which is something that you keep reaching for. And I said, “Reach.” So what are the steps that I do for people? What are the steps that serve as the building blocks for people getting visibility and how does that affect the way that they show up in the marketplace and are then drawing business in?

So, I created the Reach Visibility Trajectory and it starts with the building blocks, which are research, positioning and messaging, and website copy so that you can then go create funnels and create hooks in a 90-day marketing plan so that you can increase authority, increase visibility, and increase sales as you go. And, it makes a lot more sense when you see it visually. And of course, I’m looking at it while I’m talking to you, but it was all about how I could find ways to make people, make businesses, make business owners more irresistible, set them up as the ultimate snack or the ultimate authority so that their clients see them not just has a viable option, but as the best, the best option out there.

Kira:  And now that you have this framework in your business, how has it helped you so far internally just knowing that you have this framework? Has it made any type of impact in your business?

Erin:  It’s helped me get a lot clearer on how I serve people and the packages and the ways that I am positioning myself. Basically, I’m using the Reach Trajectory or the Reach Visibility Trajectory in my own business to start with. Is my market research on point? Is my positioning … are my packages on point? Is my website copy on point? And so that’s really what I’m working on right now is making sure that all of that ties together so that as I’m building authority and as I’m building visibility, people in turn see me as, again, not just a viable solution, but a really, really good option and hopefully one day the option.

Rob:  Yeah, that’s always a good step. In addition to the framework, in addition to figuring out your X-Factor, what else have you done in your business to start to set yourself apart and to do something a little bit differently from what you were doing say three years ago?

Erin:  I’ve gotten website copy down to … I don’t want to say to a science because there are so many variables that go into it. You can’t say if X then Y, but what I have built is a really powerful framework. And, it’s hard to stand out sometimes when there’s over 130,000 copywriters in the US, not to mention everywhere else in the world. I have thought about this and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. How can I stand out when there are so many people who are doing what I’m doing and you can look up and say, “Oh, okay. Here’s the basic fundamental of web copy.” So what I’ve done is created this system to get website copy done in a week for people who are ready, and that means that they’ve got to have their positioning, their research. They’ve got to be really ready to have all their ducks in a row so that we can translate what’s in their head onto their website in a way that is meaningful to their clients.

But because I’ve systematized this so well, I’ve started to teach it as a course and a way for other copywriters … It wasn’t initially copywriters that I was marketing this course to.

Kira:  Let’s break it down, if you’re open into breaking it down. I want to hear the system. Can you break it down into a couple of steps? If we’re struggling to write website copy for a client, maybe we don’t typically work on website projects, how can we break it down so it’s a little bit easier?

Erin:  Before we start, I chat with them. I see where they are, how well they know their business, how well they know who they serve, and more importantly, how they serve them, how they deliver. And then, I ask them to bring to our kickoff call, which we set for a specific date, all of their customer reviews and testimonials, answers to a questionnaire that digs into the ins and the outs of their business, and then on that kickoff call, we run through that verbatim, almost to the point of going overly in depth, because I’d rather have more information than not enough. And if I can ask some probing questions, a lot of times by listening to how clients are talking about things, I can get … I don’t want to say a head start on the website copy, but I can hear what matters to them, and then I can go back and compare it to testimonials and reviews and see what about that matters to their clients.

From there, we focus on SEO research and digging in and mining those reviews and testimonials just for some key phrases and words. And, if I have any inspiration, usually it comes at 5:00 in the morning while I’m in the shower or something ridiculous. Not that I’m usually up at 5:00, but I jot it all down and I compile the research, and then I don’t look at it again until the following week, which is when I sit down and I spend three days writing their website. It’s an iterative process and I’ve built some … I call them templates, but they’re not really templates because it all shifts based on what people need to read, what needs to be on the website copy, but there’s some formulas that I use to say, “Okay, this is what needs to go here. Here’s the hero section. Okay, what do we need to believe? What makes it a good transition to the next section? What is the one promise that people want to make? What is that big promise?”

Like I said, it’s an iterative process, but it all flows together really well. I try to at least map out the content blocks for each area, even if I’m not writing the copy just yet, for every page on the site and then I go back in and fill it in with transcriptions from our kickoff call, looking back at the testimonials and looking at any materials that they’ve given me about what they serve, including who they see as competitors and if … I can see who’s doing a really good job in their space. So three days, we write the website copy. I present it the fourth day, and then depending on their availability to go through it and leave some really good feedback, we either have that live review call the following day or the following week to run through edits in person.

And what I’ve found is that doing these edits on a live review is far more effective for most of my clients than trying to go back and forth with round after round of comments, because the reason they’re coming to me is either they don’t have time to write it, or they have no idea how to write it in a way that is strategic, but also a lot of people who hire me aren’t writers. So if they can talk through, they might leave a comment that’s something like “I don’t like this.” And as much as I coach people to give me concise feedback or say what they don’t like about it, it’s much easier to talk through, but they can go through the Google documents and say, “Okay, this is what I really like. I’m not so sure about this. Let’s talk through this.”

And then that serves as the guide for our live review call. And a lot of times after that conversation, they’re ready to go and hand this copy off to their clients. Sometimes we need another round or two, just depending on how extensive it is, but generally speaking, we just need that one round of edits. So, in the space of less than maybe two total weeks from kickoff to finish, they have got a finished product.

Rob:  The idea of live edits just sets my back teeth on edge. I can’t even imagine doing that with my clients, so I’m impressed that you can pull that off, Erin.

Erin:  What’s interesting, Rob, is that’s my favorite way to do it. It’s so funny how personal preference comes in.

Rob:  Yeah, it’s crazy.

Erin:  But I’ve also found that if I don’t corral people sometimes and sit them down on a phone call, that it can be herding cats to get those edits and to keep the project moving along. And then, if they are coming back two, three, four weeks later, my brain is in a different space so it’s like I have to take off my one website skin and put a different client’s skin on. It sounds really Hannibal Lecter-y. But, it’s harder to get back into that space if it’s not done right at the same time for these intensives anyway.

Rob:  Yeah, that makes sense. So, two really quick questions about this. What do you charge for a typical project?

Erin:  The typical projects … there’s nothing typical as it turns out, but right now, it’s about $5000 for a website copy done in a week. I do have a longer package that’s less intensive and that spreads out over 10 weeks that has a few more deliverables along the way, but if people are looking for effective web copy done quickly, right now it’s about $5000.

Rob:  Yeah, and I think the week turnaround is awesome. And then another question, I think you have a checklist that you follow as you’re going through this whole process. Is that right? And how do you use that?

Erin:  So, the website checklist is really the process that I use to audit existing sites. I have two pieces of this document. One is here’s these 10 points that you should be evaluating your site with. If it’s doing these well, you should be able to get a score of 90 to 100. If you’re not doing it so well, if you’re under 50, then it’s probably time to come back and look through this. So yes, all of the copy that I do has to run through that and it has to get a really high score on the checklist at the end, but it’s not something that I follow necessarily on a step-by-step basis.

Rob:  All right. So let’s jump in here and just talk a little bit about some of the things that Erin has been sharing with Kira and me. Grace, I’m going to let you start. What stood out to you from this first half of the interview?

Grace:  Yeah, something that stood out to me, and that Erin said that really resonated with me, was connecting with other people. And I can say from experience, Erin is super generous with her time. We overlapped in Think Tank and she’s really … She proactively reaches out and offers help, and she’s very genuine in offering that help. It’s something that makes a big difference, and if you’re not actively … Of course you want to sell things, but helping people is more important, and so that was something that stood out to me. And yeah, I found that social media is a really great place to connect with others and just be kind and help people out, and I think Erin really embodies that.

Rob:  Yeah, I agree. We have so many people that we talk to on a weekly basis, whether they’re in the Underground or the Accelerator, or even people just in the free Facebook group, and their biggest challenge is for clients. How do I find a client? Who can I pitch? And, I know it’s a little bit of a long game to say this, but networking, making connections, building friendships is the very best way to find clients. I used my network to find my first clients when I started freelancing. Once I started connecting with copywriters, literally I’ve had leads that have added more than six figures to my business from other copywriters. It is still the best way to find clients, especially connecting with other copywriters, but it doesn’t always deliver that client next week.

So sometimes we need to think about our approach to this. If you’re desperate for a client, yeah, keep networking. Keep doing those things because it will produce clients down the line. You may have to do something a little bit harder core to find somebody if you’re desperate for next week. But, like what Erin was saying, when we ask about the pitch, it’s really about what does the person on the other side need to know, need to believe? And when you make that connection, it’s like, “How can I serve you? What can I do to help you?” The connection has to come first. The pitch is really the last part of that relationship connection building thing.

Grace:  Exactly. Yeah, it’s really about providing a service and helping people build their businesses and support their dreams. And, Erin is, I think again, a class A example of that, but it won’t … and connecting with other copywriters is an amazing way to earn clients. It’s a way that I’ve earned clients too. But yeah, you’re right, it won’t necessarily result in a sale tomorrow.

Rob:  Yeah, for sure. And, the risk of being too promotional now about TCCIL, but the very best way to connect with copywriters is in person getting to know them, hanging out with them, joking around, seeing them, and so I’ll just drop in another reminder to check the show notes for this episode so you can get your ticket to join us in Nashville. And if you can’t do that, make sure you’re connecting with copywriters, with other service providers, with the people in your network regularly so you keep those relationships fresh.

Grace:  Yeah, also at the risk of maybe sounding promotional, but the entire community of TCC is so supportive and there’s more leads than people know what to do with, and people are always reaching out and saying, “Hey, I’m looking for somebody. Can somebody help me out here?” And, it’s a very friendly community for finding work and finding the next client and building up your brand and your relationships too.

Rob:  Yeah, thanks for saying that. So another thing that jumped out at me as I was listening back to what we were asking Erin about is just the process that she went through for finding her X-Factor. As I was thinking about this, Grace, you’ve gone through this process really in depth, and I thought it might be fun to juxtapose how Erin’s gone through the process and what you’ve done as you’ve gone through the process and your experience thinking about your X-Factor. So, will you talk a little bit about how you worked through yours?

Grace:  Yeah, so finding your X-Factor is something that’s so important for your business, and again, having that overlap with Erin in the Think Tank, I was able to see her go through this transition a little bit. It’s made a big difference in terms of how I build my brand, too. The best way to really do it is to think about how you deliver value and what that value is, how it’s unique in the eye of your customer. And, I think Erin has done that really well and I know that her target audience is people who they have offline businesses and they’re trying to come online, and she was able to figure out how she can do that and leverage her years of experience in a way that really serves that customer market really well.

Rob:  Yeah, I agree. As I think about the process of figuring out an X-Factor, I’ve thought about how other people talk about, “Oh, you’ve got to find a niche,” and they oftentimes say the way that you find a niche is you find something that you’re passionate about. Maybe it’s something that you know something about as well, and it’s something that you can get paid to do. And to me, that just feels like such a small part of really dialing in your X-Factor. It really comes down to the talent stack that you have, your experience, your credentials, the work that you do. It’s not just something that you know something about or that you’re passionate about. In fact, for a lot of people, they choose a niche that they’re not necessarily passionate about, but they know they can solve a problem for a client. And, that’s a really big thing.

If you’re not solving a real problem that clients who have money have, then it’s not going to be a successful niche. And, you probably aren’t going to be the number one copywriter in the world. There’s only one person who can be that. You’re probably not going to be the number one person who knows something about nutrition or coaching or finance or whatever the things are, but when you start to line up all the various experiences that we have, you can be the number one person that has your combination of maybe it’s industry, maybe it’s deliverable, maybe it’s the person that you work with. It’s your credentials, it’s what you know about, it’s the problems that you can solve. And as you start to line all of that stuff up, you can become the very best person that does that thing. And, that’s what really drives demand. I think Erin, and you, and a lot of others who have really figured out their X-Factor, that’s what they’re doing and it’s a process that can really pay dividends when it comes to connecting with customers and clients that you can really help.

Grace:  Yeah, exactly. And I think that you said it a lot better than what I was trying to say is it’s really about finding the unique mix of things that you have and your unique perspective that you can bring to the table, to your customers, to your clients, to the larger market segment that you’re targeting. It’s about what value you can bring to the person and how you do it. You don’t need to be the best … Like you said, only one person can be number one but you need to be the best in what you can provide. Yeah, that’s what you’re X-Factor is. It’s thinking smaller than thinking too big.

Rob:  Exactly, yeah, and that perfect combination. And then, Erin went on to talk a little bit about her Reach framework, which I think is a really great idea. Frameworks, I know you’ve thought a lot about frameworks because you’ve built some trainings that you’ve done, and you’ve used frameworks in your own work and your own business. But frameworks, they’re almost the ideas that help us sell our ideas, and I love her framework and the way that it helps define the process for writing web content.

Grace:  Yeah, absolutely. And I can say, having also worked client side, if you have a framework, if you’re able to say, “Okay, I have this framework. It’s a repeatable process. I’m in control,” that gives clients a lot of confidence in your ability to actually get the job done. And so, that’s one benefit of frameworks. The other benefit, too is that it helps you build your story and build recognition around what you do. I know for myself, I created this framework around storytelling and then all of a sudden I started getting speaking opportunities. I spoke for the B2B Writing Institute about storytelling, and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t hung my hat on something and then used that use leverage to earn more opportunities.

Rob:  Yeah, that’s smart. That’s really smart. The last thing … it’s actually maybe a combination of a couple of things that I want to point out from the first half of this interview. Erin talks about doing live edits, which I mentioned there’s no way I could do it, but there are people that we’ve talked to who do them really well, and so you might want to listen back to other episodes of the podcast, Kristin MacIntyre, Laura Belgray, they love these kinds of getting on the call with clients. But seriously, it makes me want to hide.

Grace:  Me too. Oh my gosh. When I heard that, I thought, “Oh my God, that’s a lot of pressure.” I need a lot of space and time to think and breathe, and I’m not very good at coming up with copy on the spot. So, hats off to anybody who can do that.

Rob:  Yeah, I’m the same way. Even if I get an idea really quickly, I want to take the time to just massage it and make sure that it fits and should it be a quote or should it be a line or can I emphasize the verb a different way? And that’s just so hard for me to do on a live edit because I feel like I’ve got to show up and the copy’s got to be right. Yeah, my hat’s off to Erin to be able to do that. I think maybe the fact that she uses a checklist, and she mentioned her checklist, actually helps to do that because you can go through the formula and say, “Okay, does it meet this thing and this thing and this thing?” And so, I suppose if you’re going to do live edits or live writing with a client, it probably helps to have a checklist.

Grace:  Yeah, and if you can share that checklist with your client too, then, again, that’s going back to what I was saying about having this framework. It gives a lot of confidence to the client. If you can say, “All right, we’re going to go through this copy. We’re going to go through this checklist and we’re going to talk about it together and whether or not we’re checking all these boxes,” I think that’s a pretty brilliant idea actually to have, because again, it’s all about showing process, showing confidence and showing that you’ve done it before, you know what to look for.

Rob:  Yeah, I agree.

Grace:  All right, so let’s go back to our interview and see how Erin sets up for live edits.

Kira:  Let’s get granular with the live review edits because I’m like Rob, I don’t typically do that, but I’m open. So, what advice would you give to someone who doesn’t typically run those live review edits? What should we do? What should we not do?

Erin:  So, the way that I set this up is I send a Loom overview of the copy and the strategy as I’m handing the copy over. We don’t need to be on a live call to do that and in fact, what I’ve found is when I’m presenting it live, we end up with a way more all over the place conversation than if we present it via Loom to start with. So, what that means is that people are reviewing it in total on their own time, marinating on it … Obviously with a short term, they have a shorter time to marinate, but then they can make comments in that Google document and say, “Here’s what I like. Here’s what I don’t like,” and they can go back and say, “Oh, I see why you did this now that I’ve re-watched the Loom video.”

And so, from there, hopping on the live edits is really a matter of opening the conversation with what is your overall impression? And, every once in a while I miss the mark on something and it needs to go a little bit longer, but most of the time, because we’ve had this kickoff call, we’ve had these conversations about what matters to them and what matters to their clients, and it’s been backed up by the reviews, most of the time we’re really, really close. So, we talk about the decisions a little bit and why, and I give them the power to say, “Hey, I don’t like this and here’s why.” And by understanding what they don’t like and why, I can either respond to that and say, “Oh, okay, got it. Let’s go back to the drawing board.” Or, I can talk to them a little bit more about what their roadblock is and either talk through it with them or make a quick edit.

And then, they can see what it looks like live. It’s not live in a website. It’s just a Google document, but I build them almost like wire frames so that they can say, “Oh okay, an image goes here. Okay, I got it. I understand a little bit more about the layout and why you made these decisions.” And then, most of the conversation ends up being about word choice.

Rob:  Yeah, that’s smart the way you present it. We’ve talked about your X-Factor, your framework, the process that you’ve got for developing a website in a really short period of time, which I think is really amazing. And, we started out by talking about how you initially connected with your first clients. What else have you done to grow your business, or maybe other things that you’ve you’ve created or things that you’ve done in order to attract clients? What else are we missing?

Erin:  A lot of it, just really being visible on social media, which is an awkward conversation to have. Not that long after Facebook and Instagram were down for … not just down-down but they were gone for hours, but a lot of it’s getting out there and even if I’m not able to have as many one-on-one conversations, at least starting conversations with