Welcome back to The Copy Table and the launch of our second season! We’ve got so much to celebrate and even more to share with you.
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Listen in to Erin, Nicole, and Grace’s latest conversation, and you’ll learn:
- What a process is, what they can do for you, and which ones you need in your copywriting business.
- When you need to create a process for a workflow and document it (and a tool that can help make this easy).
- The processes we’ll be talking about more in-depth this season.
Most importantly? You’ll learn that you don’t need to completely overhaul all of your workflows at once. You can start small and improve one small thing at a time.
The takeaway? There really is no one right way to build a copywriting business you love, but it’s on you to use your powers of persuasion responsibly!
Whether you need actionable tips to market your copywriting business, a push to raise your rates, or the courage to plant your flag in a new niche, we’ve got you covered. Over the years, we’ve met some extraordinary people who’ve helped us, and we’re ready to help you avoid the pitfalls that so many copywriters find.
Episode Transcript
Want to read along as you go?
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Nicole: Welcome to The Copy Table, the podcast for copywriters who want to get new ideas and inspiration for building and scaling a business you love.
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Erin: In this podcast, hosts Grace Fortune, Nicole Morton, and Erin Pennings bring new topics and guests to the table every single episode.
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Grace: We’re spilling the beans on how you can use your interests and expertise to define what success means to you and take steps to achieve it.
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Erin: Welcome back to season two of the copy table. And I say welcome back to season two. We are just kicking off season two with this episode. Grace, Nicole, and I took the summer off to recharge, focus on things that are going on in our personal lives and our businesses. And we are here to bring you season two, which is all about processing and processes. May not sound like the most exciting thing ever, but I’ll tell you what. They are here to make or break your business so they can differentiate between something that’s really good and something that’s just like, meh, it’s okay. So I know we have opinions on this, all of us. Nicole, do you want to talk about why we decided to do seasons and why we decided to break this up into multiple?
00:01:18.056 –> 00:01:46.630
Nicole: Sure. Yeah. So as we got what ended up being season one, it is delightful to come to you guys every other week. We realized that there seemed to be a natural arc in how we’re talking about our businesses. So when we got done with kind of the who we are and what we do now, we’re starting to think about why it matters. And so, you know, structure is sexy. So let’s start at the beginning. So season two, we’re going to be talking about the foundation of your business.
00:01:47.870 –> 00:02:03.010
Erin: Yeah. So, I know Grace, systems are one of your favorite things. That wasn’t always the case. Do you want to kind of share how this became something that was dreaded to something that just, you really thrive on and you’re known for?
00:02:03.710 –> 00:02:52.010
Grace: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so my backstory as a copywriter is I started out, as you may know, as a virtual assistant for people who are listening. When I first started out as a virtual assistant, I didn’t give a damn about processes. I just was like, just get the task done. Just finish it up, do it, check in, check out. But as I was working and my job as a virtual assistant, my boss had really kind of driven home how important processes are to running a business. It basically taught me how to take pride in my work. Replication breeds excellence, so the more you do something naturally, the better you get at it. So when it comes to processes, that idea really got driven deep into my brain, and I have been carrying that with me ever since. Doing great work now is way more important to me as a copywriter than it was, you know, before I got my start as a virtual assistant, I just didn’t care that much. So as a virtual assistant, I started working with other copywriters, and it was very important to me and my old boss, you know, to do great work so that we could help them build their business. And I fell in love with the copywriting industry as a whole. So the two kind of went hand in hand together. Like, I really wanted to make sure that I was making a name for myself and becoming known for doing good work. And I don’t think I could have done that without. Without learning about processes. So I would love to kind of do like a quick, just a quick round robin, like, in your head, what do you think a process really is?
00:03:36.000 –> 00:04:19.564
Erin: In my head, a process is just all about having something that’s. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but it’s an approach, something that maps out from a to b to c to d. What’s going to happen to your point, for one thing, being that it’s repeatable and you get better at it. But more importantly to me, it’s about being able to communicate what that looks like. You can’t communicate what’s going to happen to someone, specifically that someone, being a client, you can’t communicate what their expectations should be if you don’t know what the heck you’re doing or what your structure is in the first place. So it’s really important to me to be able to manage their expectations. And I also didn’t always like processes until I went to work at a design agency. And they were some of the most process driven people I’ve ever met and seen. And that’s informed a lot of this, and that’s well over 15 years ago at this point in time. But having that foundation has made it so straightforward to be like, okay, so we do this and then this happens, and it leaves so little room for error that, and not for error, let me say. It leaves so little room for miscommunication and unclarity and missed expectations that you can tell people what you’re going to do, you can tell them what you’re doing when you’re doing it, and then you can tell them what you did and what happened, and they always know what’s coming next, right? And so they’re not ever chasing you down looking for stuff. And as you know, like, if someone’s chasing you down, it’s frustrating for you because you have to step out of whatever you’re doing to respond to them, but it’s also frustrating for them because they don’t know, like, where things are coming. And if you’re able to come up with a process that maps that out ahead of time, it just makes, it makes things better for everything, everyone. So I guess that’s why they’re so important. But it’s a method for communication. It’s communication tool more than anything. And I don’t think that’s something that people talk about very often.
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Grace: I would have totally agree with that. Erin. I love that. Nicole, what do you think? What’s a process for you?
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Nicole: So for me, a process is how you standardize and templatize your excellence. So anything that you have to do more than once aids a process. Anything that you have that is, to Erin’s point, managing client expectations does the process. So making things reputable, standardized and predictable.
00:06:05.020 –> 00:06:32.890
Erin: And I want to add to that, it’s also once you start to build a team, because then you can communicate those processes to your team members. And not only are you not redoing stuff, if it’s not done according to process, it’s, it gives you a rubric for how you can. Again, it really boils down to communication with me for how you can say, here’s what it’s expected of you and here’s how you did what’s expected of you. And if you don’t have that in place, then it really ends up being all over the map.
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Nicole: That’s so important because, you know, one of the wishes that we have for our listeners is growing their business to a point where they need to scale. And you can’t scale if you don’t have a team that can adhere to your processes and you can’t get those processes out of your u shaped head without working on them and getting them documented and standardized and trained.
00:06:57.390 –> 00:07:40.960
Grace: I love that I’m sitting over here nodding my head violently throughout this whole conversation because, yes, I love that. I totally agree with everything you guys said. Processes, you know, make things so much easier in your business because it’s just an a to z map of what needs to be done at what point, and it just outlines things and makes it so much easier. And especially if you’re somebody like me, with ADHD, a process removes all of the confusion and the, oh, my God, what do I do next? From, from the equation. And for me, especially that’s so helpful. And I think that, like, processes that are so important for copywriters in particular, because our industry is so, you know, reputation based. If you don’t have a good reputation as a copywriter, it’s really going to do a lot of harm to your business and make it more difficult for you to get clients. It can make or break your professionalism and how people perceive you. If you have a bad experience. What’s that expression? If you have one good experience, you tell like two people. If you have a bad experience, you tell like ten or something like that. Yeah, I, I can’t remember. I’m making up numbers in my head. But TL;DR, you tell more people if you have a bad experience than a good one. So it helps keep your reputation high and it helps you provide a great experience for your clients across the board. There’s no, you know, one person had an amazing experience and the other person felt like you totally neglected their project. What do you guys think? Why, why are processes so important for copywriters in particular?
00:08:30.590 –> 00:09:14.112
Erin: For me, it’s because so much in this world is art based. There’s so much in this space that you can’t templatize. You can say, I’m going to use a copywriting formula or this is my formula for a landing page, but it, well, I guess formulas can be a form of processes too, right? But I think it gives you that formula for success, that foundation. And if you don’t have it, can you do it? Sure, but I feel like you’re going to feel like you’re chasing your tail an awful lot more if you don’t have them. And it’s like, oh, well, what do I do next? What do I do next? If you’ve codified it, then you can keep going and it gives you a machine, whether it’s a lead gen process. And we’ll tell you all about the processes in just a minute. The ones that we’re focusing on, whether it’s an onboarding process, whatever it is, it gives you this repeatable methodology. And again, it helps the reputation for sure, but I think it helps with your sanity. A lot of us are one or three or five person shops, and if you don’t have that in place when you are your business, the last thing you want is to drop a ball.
00:09:35.610 –> 00:09:36.058
Grace: Yeah.
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Nicole: And also it frees up your mental bandwidth to focus on the things that are really going to make you stand out in lead generation. So I don’t have to worry about, you know, what payments look like what deliverables look like. So I can focus on really communicating and maximizing the client experience with the things that I do that’s different than my peers because I don’t have to worry and go back to the drawing board every time I have to onboard a client or process a payment or, you know, write a brief or anything like that, because that’s all that all is humming in the background.
00:10:11.610 –> 00:10:43.850
Erin: That brings me to the kind of one of the next points I want to make, which is, when do you put a process in place? When do you know if it’s time? And it’s like, if you find yourself, for me, it’s, if you find yourself creating something more than once, it’s probably time. Or if you think of yourself going through a process and you’re like, gosh, this is repetitive. I feel like there should be an easier, better way to do it. But I know we all have different holes in our lives that processes fill. So, Grace, when do you start a process?
00:10:44.910 –> 00:11:27.564
Grace: Well, for, like, you kind of touched on, it’s, if I’m doing something more than once, then that’s definitely a good green light to make a process for it. And also, I would say as well, like, if you ever decide, like, hey, I want to hire people or have a team that works underneath me having a process outlined. And again, Nicole, I believe it was you that touched on this, but if you have a team, you want to be able to easily share it with them. So to create a process, you can write all the steps down, like, in a document or use, like, AI tool, like, I think it’s called scribe. Scribe is. I see it constantly. You can just, like, record yourself doing it and it creates notes for you and you can just share it with your team. So, yeah, if you ever want to share it with somebody else, that’s a good green light to make a process for it. And also, I would also say, like, if you ever find yourself kind of stump and wondering what you should be doing next and you’re just having trouble kind of keeping your. Your thoughts together on a project, that’s also another sign that you should create a process for it. Just even just creating a process and mapping out the steps in your head before you do something can be really helpful.
00:11:56.210 –> 00:12:25.350
Erin: So I don’t want to give away any spoilers for what’s coming out in this season, but I think we should probably mention what are some of the processes that we’re going to be covering in future episodes. So I touched on lead Gen. So that’s going to be our next episode is focusing on lead Gen, specifically around legion processes for copywriters so that we’re dialing that in because that could be a meaty season all on its own. Would you like to go around the realm and share each one?
00:12:25.930 –> 00:12:51.408
Grace: Yeah, absolutely. So after the lead generation episode, we’re going to be doing an episode on all about how to create proposals that get an easy yes from your prospective clients, how you get them to get on board with the project that you’re trying to get them to agree to, what that looks like, the systems that you can use, the different programs that can help you. Nicole. Then we’ll do the next one, and.
00:12:51.424 –> 00:13:03.980
Nicole: Then after that, we’ll be touching on the money conversation. So that is creating and delivering contracts, processing deposits and payments, because at the end of the day, that’s what’s driving our business forward.
00:13:04.520 –> 00:13:32.160
Erin: And then the next one is onboarding. And fun fact, we had actually recorded a episode last season all onboarding that got really long and meaty. And so we decided it made sense to rerecord onboarding in the context of all of these other systems. So we’re going to share with you how to set and manage client expectations during the onboarding phase, and we’ll share some of our individual methodologies for each one of those pieces.
00:13:34.500 –> 00:13:49.810
Grace: Yeah, I’m really excited about that one. I think onboarding might be one of my favorite processes. After that one, we’re going to be talking about copy delivery. And this is kind of like Erin’s specialty, like copy decks, which is her. So, so cool. I’m kind of obsessed with them now.
00:13:50.470 –> 00:13:56.490
Erin: Well, thank you. I’m excited about all of them, to be honest. I’m really excited about briefs. Yeah.
00:13:56.830 –> 00:14:15.266
Nicole: And then we’ll have a conversation about outsourcing. So, you know, some of the opportunities that are going to come across your are not going to be in your zone of genius. So you may come across an opportunity where you have to pull in colleagues and other professionals. So we’ll have a discussion about when and how about outsourcing some of your deliverables.
00:14:15.418 –> 00:14:37.550
Erin: Yeah. And we’re going to talk about how to get feedback from clients, which is something that I think all of us have some slightly different methodologies on, but we’ve got our process in for that because that’s one of the most important processes outside of selling and getting more clients and doing all of these other pieces is how to make sure that your copy is really good. And that it meets your clients expectations?
00:14:39.020 –> 00:15:04.344
Grace: Yeah, definitely. That’s an important one. And then we’ll wrap up with an episode all about off boarding. So it’s one thing to nail a project and make a client really happy, but a lot of people kind of fall through the cracks on what to do after that. How do you get great testimonials from your clients? You know, should you send a little gift to your client? What? Like, what does that process look like? So I’m also excited about that one.
00:15:04.532 –> 00:15:34.540
Erin: So suffice it to say, we all get excited about processes. It makes our little brains happy. So over the course of the next few months, we’ll be going into all of these topics. While some of these we’re going to be recording in advance. We also very much look forward to answering any of your questions along the way. So any final words on what you’re most looking forward to about the season before we wrap for the day?
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Grace: My heart has to go to onboarding just because it sets the whole stage for the entire experience for your clients. That’s my favorite process, hands down.
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Erin: Nicole?
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Nicole: I’m excited about how processes and boundaries, by extension, make you a better service provider.
00:15:54.210 –> 00:15:57.706
Erin: Boundaries. Good fences make good neighbors.
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Nicole: That’s right.
00:15:59.130 –> 00:16:00.596
Grace: What about you, Erin?
00:16:00.698 –> 00:16:30.982
Erin: I don’t know if I can pick. Like, I, there are aspects of each of these that I am really, really thrilled about. I’d say proposals and copy delivery are probably two of the pieces that I’m most excited about, because they’re really important. And I feel like a lot of the time, they’re undervalued in terms of people slap together something and just hand it over. And I feel like there’s opportunities to really just finesse the experience there that don’t take up a lot of extra effort.
00:16:31.166 –> 00:16:55.886
Grace: I want to kind of subvert things a little bit here because there was a question that I wanted to ask for both of you guys. So when you think about, like, processes and things, like, there’s so many possible ones that you can put in your business, and it can be a little bit overwhelming, I think, for copywriters who maybe don’t have these set in place yet. So where would you like, where would you recommend that people start with creating processes in their business?
00:16:55.918 –> 00:16:56.930
Nicole: Oh, that’s so good.
00:16:57.230 –> 00:17:41.686
Erin: I like to think of things, like, in almost an impact effort matrix, and I write about that a lot. That’s a phrase I use a lot. But where you’re like, okay, where do I have the biggest holes in my thing. Do I have trouble finding leads? Do I have trouble closing them? Do I have trouble keeping consistent customers? Do I have trouble, you know, where are the holes there? And then what are some of the minimum viable, you called that an mvp minimum viable process earlier. Nicole, what is the minimum thing that you can do to level up that experience? You don’t have to do all of these at once, but I would pick the thing that is likely to have the biggest impact with the least amount of effort in your end. And then if something’s going to have big effort, that’s big impact. Maybe that’s a secondary priority.
00:17:50.300 –> 00:18:02.360
Nicole: And then, you know, to pivot on that, you know, trying to think of where your business is most vulnerable and start there. So, you know, proposals, contracts and payments. So you get these projects off on the right foot.
00:18:04.020 –> 00:18:48.300
Grace: Yeah, I like thinking about it as in terms of being like a doctor asking, okay, where does my business hurt? And then creating a process around that. So, yeah, like kind of touching on what you’ve all said. Like, if you notice that, you know, you’re having trouble securing payment from your clients, having trouble getting them to sign their contracts on time, then that’s a sign that you need to make a process in that area specifically to start. I kind of want to dispel a common misconception. You don’t have to do all the things at the exact same time. Oh, good. You can. No, you can create one single process at a time. Like, you can take as much time or as little time as you need to implement what’s going to work for you?
00:18:48.460 –> 00:19:23.350
Nicole: I think just to continue jumping, you said it as a jumping off point. You know, maybe something’s not going to cause you a whole lot of effort and it’s not going to, and it is going to make a big impact if that’s not what you need right now. There’s also a triage focus. Maybe this is not the time when you level up your proposal specifically, but hey, you’ve got to send out a proposal. So maybe this is a good time to start working on what your proposal process is, and then you can start to identify some other holes and then, like, again, then figure out how you’re going to fill those in and what’s needed to make that part better next.
00:19:24.690 –> 00:19:28.242
Grace: Yeah, I would agree with that for sure. Nicole, do you have anything else to add?
00:19:28.346 –> 00:19:35.470
Nicole: Just start small. If you need to do one thing awesomely and then move on.
00:19:36.470 –> 00:19:58.130
Grace: I love that. Do one thing awesomely and then move on. I’m going to. I’m going to quote. I’m going to highlight that and quote it and put it on my wall. So. Okay, last round robin, I promise. If you had to pick one most essential process for your business, what would you choose? I’ll start with you, Aaron.
00:20:00.190 –> 00:20:38.490
Erin: I think that’s a harder question than I can answer because realistically, I’ve put a lot of time and effort into this over the last, you know, however many years I’ve been doing this. So there’s a lot of things that are endemic to the way I operate that are just, I do without second thought that are probably really important places to start for other people, but I don’t even think about breaking them down because they’re so endemic. So I don’t know that I can answer that. Where do I have the most room for improvement? Maybe I’ll go there. I’m going to flip your question, and I think it’s always lead Gen. I think there’s always more that I should and could be doing for lead Gen. And I think, you know, I don’t want to get too much into that for the next episode, so I want to leave something there. But, you know, where do I have the most room for improvement? I would say that’s there because I have worked really hard on a lot of the other pieces.
00:20:54.100 –> 00:20:55.188
Grace: I love that. I agree.
00:20:55.244 –> 00:21:14.960
Nicole: I think that’s where the opportunity is for me in my business as well, is making processes all around lead gen. But if you were to force me to pay, then I would say make sure you have your legal and financial protection in place first before you do anything else.
00:21:16.780 –> 00:22:09.892
Grace: Yeah, I love that. I agree. Yeah. And protecting yourself is one of the most important things you can do in a business. And for me, I’ve already mentioned this, but my favorite process is onboarding, and that’s my most essential process only because it sets the tone for the entire project. I really believe that first impressions are one of the most important gifts that you can be given. Like, you only get one shot to make a first impression, and it just sets the tone again for the entire thing. Like, if you create a really strong first impression, it gives you a lot more breathing room in the rest of the project because you’ve already earned, you know, your prospective clients trust. So I think onboarding. Onboarding is my most essential. Awesome.
00:22:10.076 –> 00:22:27.524
Erin: Well, I am looking forward to diving into these. So thank you both for taking the time to kick things off. I’m super excited about this season and we’re going to keep things focused. Next up, we’ll be on lead gen, we’ll see you next time. Bye.
