TCC Podcast #329: From Zero to 300K with Steph Trovato

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Join The Copywriter Accelerator waitlist
The Copywriter Think Tank
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
Stephanie’s LinkedIn
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Free month of Brain.FM

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  Is it really possible to make six figures writing copy? How about three times that much. You might be thinking, “yeah, it’s a possibility, but only after decades or longer of cultivating the right clients and developing your sales skills.” That’s certainly one pathway there. But our guest for today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast did it in just two years while primarily writing websites and content, not sales copy. Copywriter, Stephanie Trovato shares how she launched her business as a side hustle during COVID, then went full-time to avoid going back to the office. Two years later, she just cleared over $300,000 in her business. Steph told us how she did it and she filled us in on her CEO retreats, how she manages her time and family, and how the Copywriter Think Tank helped her do it.

Kira Hug:  But before we get into our interview with Steph, we want to talk about our sponsor for this episode, The Copywriter Think Tank. So I have all this promotional copy in front of me that I should read about the Think Tank and how amazing it is. But I think it’s better just to listen to the episode because Steph is a Think Tank member. She’s in year two of the Think Tank, and I think she is one of the best examples of what the Think Tank is all about. It’s about figuring out what else is possible for your business beyond the basics and beyond what you ever thought was possible for yourself and for your family, and for your own business and for your revenue.

And so if you resonate with anything Steph is sharing in this episode, consider a Think Tank mastermind and apply. We’ll jump on a call and discuss whether or not it’s a good fit for you. But I think the best way to sum it up is like the Think Tank attracts people like Steph who want to challenge themselves and think differently about what they’re building and explore what’s possible for you. So, hope you can check that out if you’re interested and we’ll talk to you about it soon. You can learn more by visiting copywriterthinktank.com.

Rob Marsh:  Okay. As we usually do, let’s kick off this episode with some details about how Stephanie built a business that honestly earned $300,000 last year.

Stephanie Trovato:  I ended up as a copywriter because of COVID. I always did copywriting because I’m a marketer and I used to do dental marketing and wrote the website copy and social media and all that stuff. And I always liked it. And as a kid, I always liked writing in general. So I thought freelance writing would be a good way to earn some extra money because I was tired of waitressing to pay for daycare in addition to my full-time job. And so right before 2020, I started freelancing for Huffington Post. I made 150 an article and it was like so much money, like I have made 700 in one month and I was like, “oh my God, I could pay for daycare. This is so great. This is so much money.”

And I decided to do it right from the beginning, so I made myself into a little LLC on December 30th, 2019, and I opened a business account and did all that. And then we all know what happened in March of 2020. And from there I just went full force because I didn’t have a job because no one was allowed to go to the dentist. I had nothing else to do. So I was like, “well, I’ll see what this is.” And in the beginning it was interesting because it was a lot of messaging because people didn’t know how to talk about COVID or how to approach their customers or the take they were supposed to have. And from there I just blew up.

Rob Marsh:  So let’s dive into that a bit because going from writing content for Huffington Post for 150 a post to blowing up, it feels like there’s a piece missing there. So what did you do in order to leverage those first few content things that you had done into additional clients? How did you use that to find that next client and then to keep laddering up? Because clearly, and we’ll get to this, your business is not made up of writing content for $150 a post anymore.

Stephanie Trovato:  Correct. So what was really great about Huffington Post is it had a byline, which has this proof, it’s social proof, it shows that you know how to write and it shows that you really did it. And so I had, by the end of December, I had seven bylines. So from there I took a pitching course, like a cold pitching course and learned what pitching is, how to do it, who to target, how to target, like research, what to write, all of that.

And I had a big Google sheet of a million people that I wanted to pitch and I sent 20 pitches a day and I started with lifestyle brands because that’s where my bylines were. And I also reached out to someone I used to work with at a previous company, and she was an editor at Apartment Therapy and they had a bunch of articles like that also. So she gave me a continuous one and I had a byline there too. So every time I sent a pitch email, I had my proof. I was like, “here’s where I wrote for this person and here’s where I wrote for this.” And that is what slowly gave me the courage to keep writing.

Kira Hug:  So can we break it down for anyone who’s not familiar, like what is a byline? How did you get the first seven? I mean, I know they start to build and it’s like, “well, look what I’ve done here.” But at the beginning, how did you start to get the first few?

Stephanie Trovato:  So byline is when you’re the author of the article and your name is listed. It’s great. A lot of companies don’t do it, but a lot do. And the first article I wrote was for holiday content. And a friend of mine had posted on her Instagram story, like a friend needs help writing articles. I didn’t know who it was for, what it was for. And I was like, sure, why not? I found out it was the Huffington Post. The editor gave me the first topic and then she was like, “if you have any ideas, let me know.”

So a lot of editors in those types of publications except pitches and ideas. So I had a few ideas for gift lists like if someone just lost somebody and gift list for new parents and things like that. And she was pretty open to it and said yes to everything. And that’s how I got so many, because she had like, like those kinds of publications, they just have a budget for the month. So they’re like, here I have, you can write five articles. And I think I just got lucky in that way, and that’s the only time I’ll say I was lucky because after that it was hard work. But at the beginning it was luck.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. Speaking of hard work, 20 pitches a week is a ton.

Stephanie Trovato:  No a day.

Rob Marsh:  Oh, sorry. 20 pitches a day. So-

Kira Hug:  That’s intense.

Rob Marsh:  100 pitches a week. That sounds nuts, I think to almost, even if you’ve got a system. So let’s talk about that pitch. How much of each of those pitches was original? What were you doing? How did you identify the clients? Let’s really go deep on this system that you used to get yourself out in front of the clients you wanted to work with.

Stephanie Trovato:  Sure. So I made some buckets. So I had my lifestyle content bucket, dental marketing and healthcare in general. And then my previous experience in marketing operations and startups and digital marketing in general, like more agency side. So I had those little buckets and I literally would just sit there and Google digital marketing agency near me, digital marketing agency in this town, in that town, use different search terms and see what came up. There’s millions. And then from there I would go see if they had a blog, if they did, great. Because in the beginning I just pitched blogs. So I would see if they had a blog or not. If they did, I would see how often they updated it. You could kind of tell, like a lot of people put the dates so you could see if all of a sudden it just totally dropped and you’re like, “oh, well they must need help.”

Or if they were authoring something every week or every two weeks, maybe they want to go every week. And just finding that little gap. So you can mention it in the email. So I would have a column for their name, like what they needed, what I thought I would pitch. And then I would go, I used Hunter, that little IO extension and found their email addresses. You can also do it on LinkedIn. You can kind of figure out, there’s only so many cadences that people use for emails, so it’s kind of easy to figure out. And when you do Gmail, I feel like now it’s better. It lets you, like when you start to type in an email, if it’s actually a person, their picture will pop up, their email for real will pop up and you’re like, “oh, got it.” And then I would be like, “hi, I’m Stephanie. I’m a freelance writer. I noticed your blog articles. I’ve dropped off lately. I’ve really enjoyed reading them, especially checking that one.” And you would pick one and actually talk about it and try not to sound generic.

And then I would usually pitch a few ideas, like not two in depth, but just be like, “I’d love to help you with some new ideas.” And put a little bullet list of three or four ideas and then follow up three days later if I didn’t hear, then follow up another week later after that. And people for the most part responded. It was, some were no, some were not right now. Some were great. Some were; we don’t work with freelance writers and that’s totally fine. But I found from the beginning that following up was the only way to really get an answer because people are busy and you know how fast emails drop to the bottom of the inbox. So most people were appreciative and were like, “thank you for reminding me. Oh yes, I’d love to have a conversation.” And that’s how it all began.

Kira Hug:  Let’s talk more about the follow-up because this is like, you’re right, the follow-up is key here. And it trips up a lot of copywriters, they’re like, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to share with them. It feels invasive.” Do you have any tips for the follow-up series especially, “okay, I sent the first one, they still haven’t responded, what about second, third, fourth?” How do you view those?

Stephanie Trovato:  Simple is better. I literally write, I still do it to this day. Even if I’m in the middle of talking to someone and I’m like all of a sudden I disappear, I’ll be like, “hi, not sure if you saw my last email. Just wanted to follow up with my pitch ideas, hoping we can chat about your content needs soon.” That’s it. And the next one, I would like, depending on the company and my feelings of the week, how many times I would follow up. Sometimes I’d follow up two times, three times. So then the next one would be similar language just as short. And then my final one I would always say, just wanted to follow up one last time and to see if you had any content needs or would like to have a conversation about in the future. And I would leave it at that and someone would be like, “can you please email me again in three months? Can you do this? Or, yes, we’ll keep you on the list.” Or things like that. Everyone’s different, but that’s the only way I got answers.

Rob Marsh:  And what was the hit rate? About what percent did you connect with to get an answer? And then I guess what percent actually hired you to do work for them?

Stephanie Trovato:  I would say 80% of people answered. Most people didn’t ignore, especially if you follow up and out of people who said yes, maybe like 25 to 40% of those people.

Rob Marsh:  Nice. And then how long did you have to do this? Because it feels like 20 a day is not sustainable for years and years. So how long did you have to do this process in order to basically get your business to the point where it was closer to self-sustaining?

Stephanie Trovato:  I would say three months. Three months was good, because then I had consistent clients. Or in the beginning I wasn’t sure of my workload, like how much can I actually do? And I was also working around my husband being home, my daughter taking naps. It was COVID life. It was like a free for all. So I didn’t have a set schedule. So I didn’t know when enough was enough. As long as I made more than I was making in the beginning, that was all I cared about.

Kira Hug:  Okay. So when were you like, okay, this is working, but now I need to figure out the next steps to get to the next stage of my business? Like parts of it are working, parts of it not working. What does the next level look like? When did that happen for you?

Stephanie Trovato:  So I started pitching in February of 2020. And by the summer of that year, I was like, “oh, okay, this is a real thing. I can make real money. I don’t need to go back to work.” I was still going to work because it was supposed to be remote. So I was like, whatever, I could do both. And then in August of that year, I was asked to come back full-time into the office and I was like, “no way. I’m never going back again.” So then I decided, like “okay, well, it’s like now or never, I’m just going to do this full time.” So I quit and just like my mindset changed and I was like, “okay, this is my business now. This is not fun. This is not side money.” And I think that’s when I really shifted.

Rob Marsh:  And how did your pricing change over that time? So you started at 150 an article, but by the summer when you quit your job, were you still charging that rate or had your prices increased? What were you doing differently?

Stephanie Trovato:  They increased, I would say, to like 250 an article. And I also got more jobs on like an hourly rate, so more agency work, which tends to be an hourly rate and things like that.

Kira Hug:  Okay. So it’s funny that you’re saying in August when you quit your job, your mindset changed and you were like, “I’m really serious about this. Now I’m going to go all in.” Because sending 20 pitches a day sounds pretty serious and that was happening previously. So then what happened when you decided this is it, I left my job, I’m going to go all in. What were some of those changes in your focus and attention? What were you focused on at that point?

Stephanie Trovato:  I was focused on having less one-off jobs and like an article and a this, and a that. And I wanted a more consistent full marketing campaign. So I focused much more on copywriting. And one of my biggest breaks, I guess you could call it, is I started working with Travel and Leisure, which was Wyndham Destinations at the time. And I did full marketing campaigns like ads, website copy, landing pages, email, literally everything. And then I even got to dabble into the magazine, which was cool.

Rob Marsh:  Okay. So today you’re not doing blog posts anymore, your business has changed pretty considerably. Tell us about what kinds of projects you typically take on today and how they’re different from what you were doing for that first year.

Stephanie Trovato:  So I do not work with lifestyle brands at all anymore. I do strictly B2B SaaS like MarTech, Adtech, EdTech and workplace productivity type products. I don’t do B2C and I do e-commerce because it ties in a lot with SaaS and I still do blog articles, but they’re just totally different now. Like those were listicles of best gifts and these Airbnbs you should stay at and like check out this friends’ coffee set, things like that. And now it’s more bottom of the funnel, middle of the funnel, like a sales driven blog post if I’m going to do blog posts and then website copy and email copy and social copy.

Rob Marsh:  So why did you move away from the lifestyle and choose SaaS tech? Why the switch, and how did you go, what was the thinking process on that?

Stephanie Trovato:  So lifestyle doesn’t pay that well, but I also, I wanted to be more challenged, so I felt like it was too easy. It wasn’t interesting enough for me. I’m a much more marketing and business and analytical person, so I wanted to be in that field. But I also enjoyed making words more human, like making them more valuable to the reader and able to connect. And I felt like the B2B audience is a place to do that, where like B2C, everything’s like that. So I wanted more of a challenge by doing it in B2B.

Kira Hug:  I need some of those listicles for holiday gifts, like right about now.

Stephanie Trovato:  They probably still apply. I should find them. I think-

Kira Hug:  Yeah, please send all of those to me because I need to do all of my holiday shopping. I would like to hear more about your transition from content to copywriting and thinking more about the funnel strategically, because that’s a jump that a lot of content writers want to make and oftentimes we get in our own way or we don’t know how to make that jump. What helped you make that transition?

Stephanie Trovato:  So in the beginning, I didn’t realize I was a copywriter because I thought of copywriting as very sales, like salesy stuff. And that’s not what I was used to writing. But then I learned, “oh, I’ve already written a bunch of websites and all this other stuff. I do write copy.” And so that’s what I enjoy writing because I enjoy the less is more, like taking on the brand voice and really transforming. I enjoy revamping something instead of net new when it comes to website copy. Because for me, it’s easier to read something and be like, “oh no, no, no, like that’s not good. It should be this instead.” I feel like it gets my creative juices flowing better. But that stint that I had at Travel and Leisure, I was there with them for a year and a half is when I really fell in love with copy because that’s when you couldn’t travel.

But we still had to write about traveling and how amazing it is. So I was able to romanticize it and that’s what was so fun. This is such bs! Like, what am I writing about? You can’t even go to any of these places, but I’m going to talk about them anyways. So that’s when I really started enjoying it and I was like, “oh, I could do this.” And it’s so much of a mind game I feel like with copywriting because a lot of people I feel like think that their copy has to be proven by sales or some measurable statistic. And if they don’t have it and, or if they have no proof of it, then they can’t do it. That’s not true.

Your words are on a website to represent a brand and what they do depends on what page you’re writing for, who you’re writing for. Not everything is completely reliant on sales. I don’t write sales pages. I’m not good at those. I don’t, I’m not persuasive enough. I don’t know what it is. I feel like an infomercial when I write them, like they feel funny for me. Other people are fantastic at them, but don’t like social copy or email copy at all. So there’s so many different buckets of copy that I feel like just using the term copywriter in general scares people. But you can be good at one and you don’t have to do the rest. It’s okay.

Rob Marsh:  It’s interesting that you say that because there are a lot of people who argue that in order to make really good money as a copywriter, you have to write sales copy, you have to write sales pages, you have to be close to the sale, but you’re writing a lot of content, you’re writing a lot of top and middle funnel content for your clients. And if you’re willing to share, you’re making a lot of money as a copywriter, you’re not doing, it’s not $700 a month anymore as big money. I have a feeling that would be super disappointing. So talk a little bit about that shift as well. How do you get clients to buy into paying good money for content and how, I mean, what are you making in your business today writing that top and middle of funnel content?

Stephanie Trovato:  Yeah. So I have never written a sales page and I don’t think I ever will. Maybe I will one day. I can’t say never, but I have never done it. So you can make money without writing an official sales copy. I don’t do launches or any of those things. So when I started my business, my goal, my first year was 30k because that was enough to pay for daycare, which is crazy to think about now. Because I’m like, “oh my God, that’s how much I would pay for daycare.” I think that’s kindergarten now. So when I was like, that summer that I started copywriting, like the summer of 2020, I had already made 30k. So I was like, “oh, I need to re-look at this.” So I didn’t really have any goals, but I was like, I can make more money than this. So my first year I ended up like 120, 140, somewhere around there and I was like, “holy crap, you can make so much money.”

So then I was like, “okay, I need to charge more.” Because I was working a lot, I had a ton of clients and I was like, “I need to redo my rates” or something like I should be making more, doing less. So that was my focus for 2021 was to get better paying clients. So there are plenty of clients who will not pay you, and don’t want to pay you. That was another reason I also wanted to shift my writing like where I did it because I was tired of having to prove my worth all the time and argue my rates because there’s plenty of people out there that want the best deal. And I get that. I’m like that as a consumer, but I would never do that just like a service business ever! So I was like, “okay, I’m tired of defending myself and having to negotiate my rates, that are, I felt were low enough.”

So I started using LinkedIn more and focusing more on the B2B. And I would find people who were already looking for a freelance writer, already in need, had a content need of some sort. And I would have the budget conversation from the beginning. And some people are pretty upfront about it and they’ll be like, they’ll ask you what your rates are, or you can say, “can you share your budget with me?” And what’s the worst they’re going to say to you? No. And then like, all right. So we have to have another conversation. But they usually do, and it helps because then you could be, “my blog rate is $500” and they’re like, “oh, we only have 150, so thank you. We appreciate it, but obviously we’re really far apart.” And then you save everyone time. So I just became more upfront about talking about pricing in general and finding people who had a brand already.

So the bigger the client, usually the more marketing budget they have. Not always. And sometimes the biggest brands pay terribly, so it’s not a one for all thing, but looking for those brands that you could tell when you were on their websites, had good website copy, had good pages, had a blog, sent out emails, knew what content was and why it was important. And the more I focused on that, the more money I started making with more retainer clients. So it might be 30 hours a month at, I don’t know, $3,000 or something like that. And that would cover email copy, website copy, things like that. So then as I focused on that more, then I saw my income literally double. So last year I made 230 and my goal for this year was 250. And as of yesterday I hit 295. So I’ll probably end the year at 315, 320, which is like, I don’t even know what that means. Like what is, I don’t know what that means?!

Rob Marsh:  That’s game changing money.

Kira Hug:  That’s a big number.

Rob Marsh:  That’s a really big number, yeah.

Kira Hug:  Yeah.

Stephanie Trovato:  It’s crazy.

Kira Hug:  It’s incredible. Congratulations.

Stephanie Trovato:  Thank you.

Kira Hug:  I think it would be easy to hear some of these numbers and say, “well, Steph must work all the time. She must be working with 20 clients. And I couldn’t do that. I don’t want to do that.” But we know that you’ve figured it out and you’ve been working on simplifying and I know it’s an ongoing process, but can you talk a little bit about how you’ve been able to take on and grow the business without necessarily overstressing yourself or working a crazy schedule that doesn’t work for you and your family?

Stephanie Trovato:  Yes. So there is a huge learning curve. You’re not just going to make 300k and be a pro overnight. So I’m three years into my business now, and I finally, I think in June of this year is where I finally started feeling like, “okay, I know what I’m doing.” Everything just felt more consistent and more comfortable and I learned my schedule. So obviously this is dependent on a lot of things. My daughter is five now, so she’s into kindergarten. So her schedule’s pretty set unless COVID starts hitting again and then the world’s going to end. And then I have also learned when I work best, when I don’t work best, that all takes time. I used to work on weekends. I used to work at night whenever I could because I would overload myself and try to get a million things done. And I didn’t know my limit.

I don’t think I have a limit, but I know when I’m bored. If I get too overwhelmed, then I get bored. I’m like, forget I’m not doing any of it. So I’ve learned that threshold, but that takes time. So now I’ve learned, I wake up early, everyone thinks I’m nuts. We’ve had this conversation before. So usually two or three days a week I wake up and I start working at 4:30 in the morning because that’s when I’m creative. If I could just work at that time till 10:00 AM that would be great. But my daughter goes to school, so that doesn’t work. So I usually work from 4:30 to 6:30 and then she wakes up. But I get a lot done in those two hours. That’s when I write the best. And then I work again from 9:00 AM and then on and off all day because I have a dog and I’ll go do other things until around 4:00 PM and I do that pretty much every day.

Sometimes I’ll just wake up early and work because I want to go do something during the day. I want to go to a bar class or I want to go get a massage. So I’ve learned to balance my time, but that took me two and a half years to learn. So what I’ve been doing that’s working is paying attention. It’s hard because you think you know yourself, but you don’t, like unless you start really taking note of what you feel when you feel it. So I just thought I woke up early because I had to, and I was like, “no, I actually really like this.” I hate working at night. I don’t do well. I can invoice. That’s about as good as it’s going to get.

I can’t do anything at night. My brain is much, and I don’t like working on weekends because it gives me anxiety, because I feel like I’m missing something. But you don’t know that until you do it and you start really being like, “Hey, why do I feel this way? Or Oh, I feel really great right now. What am I doing?” Like I have a treadmill right next to me because I have to walk every day or I lose my mind. But these are all things you learn as you go. So it’s okay if you don’t know. It’s okay if you don’t know how much you should make, how much you should work, when you can work. And things will change, life changes. When I worked two years ago, my daughter was three and I was not working a full-time schedule. I was just working whenever I could. And now it feels more like a full-time job. But I would say I really work 30 hours a week.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, that’s not bad given the money that you’re bringing in. So you have been called the Kobe Bryant of copywriting by us, I think.

Kira Hug:  Yes, by us.

Rob Marsh:  I am curious if you would tell us just a little bit about the mindset that goes into that mamba approach to your business and the resilience, the dedication, the hard work that goes into it. And how you, I mean, you’ve kind of told us a bit about that already, but are there specific things that you’re doing to make sure that that’s happening every single day, every single week that you’re bringing that discipline in order to help you succeed?

Stephanie Trovato:  Yes. So I thought what I was doing was what everybody was doing because you don’t know until you actually start talking to people like The Copywriter Club and in the Think Tank that like, “oh, not everybody does everything you think.” So my husband is a huge basketball fan and he’s the one who was like, you should talk about your mamba mentality. And I was like, “what?” Because we had watched the documentary, I knew what he was talking about, but he was like, “that’s who you are. That’s what you have.” So I started thinking about it more and I was like, “oh, F yeah, that is who I’m.” So I would say what sets me apart and what makes me different as the Kobe Bryant of copywriting is I am super persistent. I understand that not everyone’s going to say yes to me, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

And it’s okay if it doesn’t happen on the first try. So I am always persistent with my follow-ups like I talked about with literally everything in life. I just don’t usually take no for an answer. I wake up early. So Kobe Bryant used to wake up early every day and work out before his team workouts because he didn’t want to sacrifice time with his family at night. So he sacrificed his sleep. And I’m the same way. I could function on less sleep because I’d rather that than miss out on something that’s actually important. I’ll get sleep, it’s fine, I’ll make it up. I don’t do it every single day.

Boundaries are a huge thing. So the more I’ve done research into the mamba mentality, Kobe was so much about boundaries. I’m only doing what matters to him, and I’ve learned so much from you guys about boundaries. And so now I have a mindset coach and I talk about boundaries with her all the time, and I’ve figured out what my boundaries are and they’ve made me a better business owner because if you don’t have boundaries, you run yourself to the ground because you’re essentially just being everyone’s employee, then you’re not a business owner.

So the boundaries have helped me not work weekends, not work on vacations, make sure I’m there at the bus stop every morning and every afternoon. I also ask for help because you can’t do everything alone as much as you want to. I’m a supermom, I know that my husband does that, but I have no problem asking him for help, and he is very supportive and voices it. And that has helped so much because I have a hard time asking sometimes. So he will call me out on it and it does feel so much better. I think I can get it all done and I probably could, but I’ll feel like crap by the end of the day. So it’s a lot more important to balance my mindset and my time and my mental health and just keep myself and my family as a priority.

Rob Marsh:  So let’s break in here to talk a little bit about a few of the things that Steph has been sharing. I’ve got a whole bunch of notes that I was listening to that I want to hit on. But Kira, again, I’m going to let you go first. What really jumped out to you?

Kira Hug:  Well, I mean, COVID copywriters are blowing me away, Steph and then others that we’ve interviewed on the show and that we just know in the Copywriter Club community who started during COVID and have just taken off over the last few years and are now generating 300k a year in their businesses. I’m just kind of blown away because to me, it still feels like that was just yesterday. I know it wasn’t, but still that’s still recent and it just blows my mind to think about what is possible in a short period of time if you’re focused and persistent and you don’t take no for an answer like Steph. So I think it’s just a realization from this conversation and many others that we’ve had that so much is possible in a short period of time. And Steph is such a great example of that.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, I wonder what’s going on with that because you’re right, there, we’ve talked to a bunch of people and many outside of the podcast as well where people started their business in COVID and they’ve had remarkable success. And I wonder if it’s because these were people who were very successful in whatever they were doing before, but because they couldn’t do it. Now they could shift that mindset or those good habits into another business and they’re succeeding anyway. Or if there’s just something about the economy that changed during COVID where people realized, “Hey, we need more content, we need more copy, we need to be able to sell more through the words because we don’t have people walking into our stores or we don’t have some of the things that we had three years ago that helped us promote.” I’m not sure what it is, but you’re exactly right. COVID has produced a lot of copywriters who are doing really well.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, I mean it’s #covidcopywriter, that’s the group. And if you are one of those COVID copywriters, please reach out to us. I’d love to hear from you because I have more questions for you about what happened, what was working, what helped you take off, so please reach out to us.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, one of the things that really helped Steph take off, and again, this number just blows me away, but sending out 20 pitches a day, she got answers on 80% of them. So that’s 16 answers a day, and 40% of those 20 are saying yes. So somewhere around four to eight people every single day doing that, having that kind of a success rate doesn’t take very long to fill up your business with clients who need the thing that you’re offering. And so we teach the P7 landing clients now, of course that’s all about pitching and we share all kinds of templates in that, but the things that Steph did are really smart. Lots of pitches, lots of follow up, and if you do that, you are going to succeed assuming that your pitch solves a real problem for your client.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, I remember when we first sat down with Steph, when she just joined the Think Tank, and I didn’t know her well yet, and I was just trying to figure her out on our first hour-long call, and I remember when we started talking about her follow-up game and her persistence, that’s when I was like, “oh, this is it.” This is what separates Steph from so many other people is that she does not take no for an answer. She is one of the most persistent people I know, and I mean that in such a good way.

She follows up with everyone she reaches out to, as she shared, she follows up with us too. If we have a conversation with Steph on a Think Tank call and we’re like, “Hey, here’s an idea you could do this.” Most people will just kind of let it go. It’ll fade. But Steph jumps in, she does the thing, and then she follows up with us until we move forward with the idea. And that’s just, we can all do that, right? It’s not like an innate gift that only Steph has. We can all get better at that. I know I can get better at that, and I think that’s been such a huge part of her success.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, I agree. Follow up is key. And there’s so many people who just drop things after a first contact or a second contact or even thinking about your existing clients, clients that you’ve worked with in the past. And we don’t ask them for additional work. We don’t reach out to them once we’re done. I’m assuming that most of those experiences for people are good experiences. They might want to work with them again, and yet we just don’t. We just assume that person’s done with us and they need to move on, which is interesting for two reasons. One, in our own personal businesses we should be doing more of it. It would help us to grow without so much outreach and pitching. But also it’s an opportunity if you are one of those who will pitch and follow-up knowing that the last copywriter that this client you’re pitching to probably isn’t following up. And so when your name appears in the inbox, there’s an opportunity for you to start working with them now.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. So Rob, what else stood out to you when we started talking about money? Were there any lessons related to how Steph was able to bring in over 300k?

Rob Marsh:  There were a couple of things. Number one, Steph is not afraid to talk about money. She mentioned that she talks about it right up front and the money thing is part of the conversation. This is another place where so many copywriters are afraid to talk about the money, where we want to make sure that we’re throwing out a price that the client’s going to accept. And so if we know something’s worth, say $5,000, we say, “oh, I can do it for $3,500,” because we know that offering that kind of a bargain for a client is an easy yes, but that’s really not true.

Oftentimes that shows that we’re not confident in what we do, and Steph obviously shows up on her calls very confident saying, this is the value that I bring to the table. This is what it costs. She also structured her work so that it’s more about retainers, so it’s not one-offs, but she switched to doing more campaigns, helping people with larger projects, doing more retainers so that she doesn’t have to continually go out looking for new clients. I think those two are kind of a one-two punch about being smarter about making more money.

Kira Hug:  So also, we should note that Steph was talking about money, but also how she’s making really great money without writing sales pages or working on launch copy or working in direct response. And so she’s doing it her way. And I think it’s just such a great example of there is money to be made in so many different areas, and