{"id":532,"date":"2017-04-11T14:44:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T07:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/?p=532"},"modified":"2018-01-05T03:08:35","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T20:08:35","slug":"copywriter-marian-schembari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/","title":{"rendered":"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Copywriter Marian Schembari joins Rob and Kira on <em>The Copywriter\u00a0Club Podcast<\/em> to share her thoughts on a long list of topics, including:<br \/>\n\u2022 How she landed a job using social media (and why she doesn\u2019t like SM now)<br \/>\n\u2022 How she convinces clients to focus on the \u201cone\u201d reader<br \/>\n\u2022 Her process for creating awesome About Pages<br \/>\n\u2022 Why all copywriters should work with an editor<br \/>\n\u2022 Dealing with depression when you work alone<br \/>\n\u2022 How she raised her rates, an<br \/>\n\u2022 Why storytelling is so important in copywriting<\/p>\n<p>This is a good one! To hear it all, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_3716\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-532-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/content.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/TCC028.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/content.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/TCC028.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/content.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/TCC028.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/content.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/TCC028.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/?powerpress_pinw=532-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/content.blubrry.com\/thecopywriterclub\/TCC028.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"TCC028.mp3\">Download<\/a><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/subscribebyemail.com\/thecopywriterclub.com\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe by Email\" rel=\"nofollow\">Email<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:<\/h3>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/unmistakablecreative.com\/podcast?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\"><em>The Unmistakable Creative<\/em><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1118019091\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1118019091&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=brandstory00-20&amp;linkId=812b95df76f89927d2c405a36d32e439\"><em>Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters<\/em><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.couchsurfing.com?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">CouchSurfing<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/copyhackers.com\/10x-emails-copywriting-course\/?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">10X Emails<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/copyhackers.com?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">Copyhackers<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookpassage.com?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">Book Passage<\/a><br \/>\n<em><a href=\"https:\/\/copyhackers.com\/product\/messaging-marketing-messages\/?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">Where Stellar Messages Come From<\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xojane.com\/issues\/i-faked-panic-attacks-so-my-boyfriend-would-stop-bullying-me?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">XO Jane<\/a><br \/>\n<em><a href=\"https:\/\/copyhackers.com\/product\/value-proposition-test\/?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">The Great Value Proposition Test<\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0106179\/\">X-Files<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/kirahug.com?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">Kira\u2019s website<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/kaleighmoore.us11.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=7bdb50a2eb0d5b0a501cd1bf4&amp;id=9bf46b3e1d\"><br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.brandstoryonline.com?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">Rob\u2019s website<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/kaleighmoore.us11.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=7bdb50a2eb0d5b0a501cd1bf4&amp;id=9bf46b3e1d\"><br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/thecopywriterclub\/\">The Copywriter Club Facebook Group<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\"><br \/>\n<\/a>Intro:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/fauves\/content-for-now\">Content (for now)<\/a><br \/>\nOutro:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/gravity\/id304219081?i=304219099\">Gravity<\/a>\n<h3>Full Transcript:<\/h3>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_544\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-544\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-544 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Copywriter Marian Schembari\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028.jpg 1350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-544\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marian Schembari on how to create an awesome about page, dealing with depression and much more&#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their success and failures, their work process, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That\u2019s what Rob and I do every week at <em>The Copywriter Club Podcast<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>You\u2019re invited to join the club for episode 28 as we chat with freelance copywriter Marian Schembari about landing her first job using social media, and why she doesn\u2019t like it very much, the secret writers need to know to create compelling about pages, running a business when you have depression, and how stories are the only reason customers buy anything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira:<\/strong> Hey, Rob. Hey, Marian. How are you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> Hi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob:<\/strong> Hey, Kira. Welcome, Marian.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> It\u2019s super weird to hear you talking about me like that. Your voices have been in my ears like every morning as I walk my dogs, so it\u2019s really weird to hear you responding to me as I talk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob:<\/strong> Imagine how weird it\u2019s going to be when you\u2019re listening to yourself as you walk your dog.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>Here\u2019s the thing, though. I love listening to myself. Is that weird? I\u2019ve been on podcasts, and I definitely listen to them, and my husband will come home and be like, \u201cWhy are you listening to an interview with yourself?\u201d Like, \u201cBecause I sound really smart, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>And you\u2019re probably learning from yourself, as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> Totally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>I feel like even with this podcast, I told Rob for awhile, I was not listening, because I did not want to hear my voice. I do like listening to Rob, but I don\u2019t like listening to myself. Recently, I did listen to episode 20, and I was like, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m actually learning something.\u201d In the interview, I miss a lot of details that I catch listening the second time around, I think just because I\u2019m trying to get ahead. It does help.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a great segue into the conversation with you, because I originally heard you on a different podcast. It was an interview on The Unmistakable Creative. It was around the time when your name kept popping into my world, into my feed over and over again, until I think I finally reached out to you, and was just like, \u201cHey, we should be friends, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>\u201cWe should be friends. Let\u2019s hang out.\u201d I was like, \u201cYes, please.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira:<\/strong> Yes. Now you\u2019re here, I think a great place to start would be how you got into copywriting, especially if you could speak to just landing those first few gigs or getting that first bout of confidence. I know that\u2019s what new copywriters are really interested in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> It\u2019s a weird roundabout story, but many years ago, I guess a decade ago, when I had just graduated from college, it was really, really hard for me to find a job. I was convinced I wanted to work in publishing, and I applied to every job under the sun, and nobody was getting back to me. I think I went to the local library, because that\u2019s what you did back then, and I got a book called <em>Guerrilla Marketing For Job Hunters<\/em>. It was actually an awesome book, and I highly, highly recommend it, even now. It was basically like how to get a job not through applying to traditional jobs, job boards.<\/p>\n<p>They suggested Facebook advertisements as part of that. This was in the very early days of Facebook ads, and so I took out an ad, and I targeted the big publishing houses in New York. Harper Collins, Penguin, Random House, et cetera. It was like a photo of my face, and it was like, \u201cI want to work for Penguin.\u201d It linked to this awful website. It was like a purple background, and like papyrus font. It got a ton of press.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, I got a job in like two weeks at this PR agency for authors, but it also landed me freelance projects, because people were like, \u201cOh, you can use social media? We should hire you.\u201d I had no idea what I was doing, but then Harper Collins ended up hiring me to write their Facebook ads. That was like my first taste of freelancing. Eventually, after like three months at this job that I worked so hard to get, I quit, because it was awful.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to work for myself, so I ended up sort of falling into the world of social media. This was like 2009-ish, I guess. It sort of let me travel the world. I lived in London, I lived in New Zealand, and sort of decided I didn\u2019t like social media. This is the thing. This is what happens a lot of the time, is I sort of fell into this role, because this was the thing that people wanted to hire me to do, but I didn\u2019t actually particularly like it.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, I went back into the traditional workforce, probably two years later. I just worked in marketing departments at big tech companies, and eventually moved to San Francisco, and got a job at Couchsurfing, and sort of ditched social media. Part of that was writing, and that\u2019s the piece that I loved the most. I would spend hours, and hours, and hours on a single blog post, and then I\u2019d have to come up with an editorial calendar for Twitter, and I\u2019d spend like five minutes on it. I think I probably did that for a few years, and then eventually was like, \u201cScrew this. I don\u2019t want to be at a traditional company. I loved freelancing, I hate social media, I love writing. Let\u2019s try to do <a href=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\">freelance writing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I think because I had already built up this network, transitioning into the writing piece was not that difficult. I had to say no a lot, which was really hard. People would come to me, and be like, \u201cOh, you\u2019re freelancing now. I really need help with my social media strategy.\u201d I\u2019d have to say no, because I didn\u2019t want to get caught in that trap again, but it was easy enough to sort of convince people, \u201cHey, but I can write your blog posts.\u201d I spent a year just doing content marketing mostly, and then it was easy enough to slowly move into copywriting full time.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know if this is a bad thing to say, but it really wasn\u2019t that difficult to transition over. It wasn\u2019t that difficult to find clients. I think part of it is because I had spend the past decade building up this online presence so I could tap into that, but then the other piece of it was I had spent, also that decade, working in marketing departments, so I had contacts at big tech companies is San Francisco, and could sort of tap into that network, to sort of build my portfolio, my client base, with this new offering.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>Marian, let\u2019s talk about social media for a minute. I find it really interesting that you used targeted ads on Facebook and social media to get your job, you worked in social media, but now you talk about how you really don\u2019t like it. In fact, I think you\u2019ve mentioned or written somewhere that you try to stay off Facebook, which hurts our hearts, because our Facebook group is the one place we want to see you all the time. Tell us a little bit about that progression, or regression. What is it about that social media that has changed, or what is it about you that has changed, that you don\u2019t like to do it anymore?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> I have two answers for that question. One is, I never really liked doing it for brands, because the thing that made me personally quote unquote successful on social media is that I could just be myself. I could just use the words that I wanted to use, I could talk about the things that I wanted to talk about, I could connect with people on a again quote unquote authentic level. I really, really enjoyed that piece of it. I loved being able to tweet to the president, or to some internet idol, or whatever. That connection piece was really addictive, and I really liked that. I loved being able to share things that were personal to my life or to my work and have people respond and have that conversation.<\/p>\n<p>When I did it as a brand, so when I was Couchsurfing on Twitter, I wasn\u2019t allowed to use certain languages, which is fair enough, or certain words. I had to change my tone of voice, and changing your tone of voice on your website to match customer messaging is one thing. To do it on social media, which is a platform of connection is another, and it didn\u2019t feel right to me, or people would ask questions, and I wasn\u2019t allowed to answer them honestly. \u201cWhen are we going to get blah, blah, blah feature?\u201d I\u2019d have to pull from some customer support macro. Social media for brands is mostly customer support, unless that brand is really open to creative suggestion and weird marketing tactics. Honestly, you may or may not be surprised, but tech companies are like the least creative people out there. They\u2019re just like terrified of making any sort of making any sort of mistakes, because they don\u2019t know what the [inaudible 00:08:03] they\u2019re doing either. I felt very disenchanted once I got into social media for a brand, so that\u2019s part one.<\/p>\n<p>Part two is, on a personal level, social media has changed so much, and moving away from that connection piece and more about sponsored posts, and promoting news articles, and I swear to God, if I see one more Upworthy headline in my Facebook feed, I\u2019m going to throw up. I just can\u2019t be inundated with that stuff. I think it makes you less creative. I would just be sitting on my couch, my husband would get up for five seconds to go to the bathroom, and I\u2019d immediately pull up my phone and start going through my Facebook. That\u2019s not how I want to live my life.<\/p>\n<p>It really came to a head during the election. It was so draining to sort of be part of that on social media that I needed to take a step back. It was really overwhelming. The next shooting would happen, and I\u2019d just be sobbing, because I actively try not to read the news, which is awful, and Facebook would bring it to light. All I want are photos of babies and cat gifs. That\u2019s why I use social media, right? I deleted Facebook for probably six months. I got off Twitter, and the only thing I use, really, is Instagram. Basically, I update Twitter every few months or so, and it\u2019s mostly because I have something to bitch about and no one in person to listen to me, and go on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>I reactivated my account, mainly because I actually really like participating in your Facebook group. I did 10x emails. I did that course. I really wanted to see how other people were going through that course. I do like it for work related groups, if the group is good. Also, it\u2019s a pain in the ass to log in to Spotify when you don\u2019t have Facebook, which is the main reason I reactivated it. I went in, and I individually unfollowed every single friend that I have, so that when I log in, it\u2019s totally blank. Instagram is really the one I use now, and mostly because it\u2019s that [inaudible 00:09:50] of my friends\u2019 babies and dogs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>That\u2019s interesting, because I did the same thing. I\u2019m connected to people, but I never go into my personal feed. I just sort of bounce around in two or three groups. That\u2019s how I use Facebook. I feel the same way, although I\u2019ve got to say, I am a Twitter addict. I\u2019m trying to set down my phone right now, as we talk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> This is the thing, though, is I do feel like, if you love it, then it\u2019s great. I was finding that I was doing it because I thought I should. \u201cOh, well, Facebook helped me get a job once. I have to be on it for clients.\u201d That\u2019s BS. I get clients all the time not through social media at all. No one has ever found me through social media. If you love it, like if you love Twitter, and that\u2019s how you connect with people, and I don\u2019t know, you\u2019re on it on all the time and you\u2019re talking to all sorts of cool people, then you probably will get clients on Twitter, or whatever the reason is that you\u2019re using it. I have found that if you don\u2019t like it, it usually shows and it makes you miserable, so just get off it and use something else. There\u2019s so many options.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira:<\/strong> Yeah, I actually recently just took a break from Instagram as well, because when I was logging into Instagram, I found that I felt worse about myself. Even business-wise, where I am in my business, because I\u2019m not able right now to create the type of images for my business that I would like, and I saw a bunch of other images from even copywriters are doing great things. It\u2019s not helping me. It\u2019s not helping me, like you said, really get creative. I\u2019d like to hear how you do really activate your creativity, especially as you go dark in the social media space, to keep your edge, and really kind of stay grounded in your creativity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>That\u2019s such a good question. I think about this all the time. I\u2019m a huge fan of in person. I know a lot of people harp on about networking events, and that type of stuff, but I get so much energy from being around other creative people, and online doesn\u2019t do it that much for me. There\u2019s a handful of blogs, like industry blogs, that I read. I say a handful, probably two, and that\u2019s basically it in terms of my general learning. If I want to know something, I\u2019ll Google it, or I\u2019ll go to Copy Hackers and figure it out, right? Primarily, in terms of getting creative and getting new ideas, I love in person. As soon as I moved to this area, I joined a female only women\u2019s coworking space maybe 20 minutes from my house. It\u2019s this gorgeous, light filled, plant filled, coworking space in this charming little town surrounded by redwoods.<\/p>\n<p>Every day I go in and there\u2019s women doing all sorts of amazing things. There\u2019s unlimited coffee, and conference room, and every day they have a new event. It\u2019s Meditation Monday, or yesterday, I went to an hour long workshop about profit. I would never have done something like that, but it was there and so I did it. I also take a long of in person writing classes. There\u2019s this amazing bookstore near my house, actually, called Book Passage. If anyone lives in Northern California, I highly recommend going to this bookstore. They have classes all the time, and they\u2019re mostly literary type classes, but I have never been more inspired than spending six hours in a room with a bunch of fiction authors learning how to construct a sentence. That, to me, I left buzzing.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve done a few of them. I took a memoir writing class, not because I wanted to write a memoir, but I don\u2019t know, I just like being around people learning a thing, as opposed to staring at a screen for more hours during the day. Staring at a screen, definitely, I\u2019ve got maybe five hours max in me before I have to shut it down. I have found that a really good way to counteract that is to do in person stuff, or stuff with my hands. My husband and I just moved into a new house, and there\u2019s a ton of yard work that has to be done. Every week, I\u2019ve been cleaning up the yard in the sunshine. I spent all day yesterday like potting plants, and I came back to my computer and felt so much more energized than had I been doing business development all day on the computer. I have to be doing stuff, in person, live, with my hands or with other people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>Let\u2019s talk about your writing for a minute. One of the things that you do particularly well is about pages. What is it about about pages that everybody is doing wrong, and what do we need to do to do them better?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> Well, there\u2019s an easy answer and then there\u2019s the longer answer. The easy one is that a lot of people think about, and they think, \u201cOh, about me.\u201d They\u2019ll be like, \u201cI started my business in 2017 and I love cats,\u201d or whatever it is, and no one cares about that. The number one thing, and this is such an easy answer for copywriters, all of you guys already know that, is this whole concept of, it\u2019s not really about you, it\u2019s about them, and how can we sort of change that narrative to be more about them? That\u2019s the really simple answer, but the thing that I always get hung up on, is that there is an element that is about you, but it\u2019s not about your education, or how long you\u2019ve been in business, or your awards, or your experience. It really is about the sticky story that makes you likable.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day, businesses, when you say &#8230; I hate the term B2B, because businesses are human beings. There is a human being reading your copy, and they don\u2019t understand what you say when you talk about like, \u201cAchieving business growth long term.\u201d What the hell does that mean? The thing that I always do with my clients when we do about pages is really just finding their sticky story. In PR, this would be your hook, but basically it is the story that will A, make new readers obsessed with you, because when a new reader lands on your about page, essentially what they\u2019re saying is, whatever the first page that they landed on is, your most popular blog post, your home page, or whatever, when they click on about, it\u2019s usually the second or third thing that they\u2019ve clicked on.<\/p>\n<p>They have essentially said, \u201cI really like what I\u2019ve read so far. Tell me more about you.\u201d They\u2019re essentially asking you to make them excited, to be obsessed, to seal the deal. It\u2019s such an amazing opportunity, except everyone ignores it. They slap up this third person paragraph without ever really thinking about at what stage in the journey on my website is this customer? How can I really just put that final stamp of approval on myself? The thing that I do is ask them like a bajillion trillion, I have a 12 page questionnaire. We sit on the phone for 90 minutes, and I try to identify the story that will make them immediately likable to these new visitors.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, on my about page, one of the stories that I found myself telling over, and over, and over again, was when I was at this big startup, the last job that I had. I spent six months working on a series of educational videos for our customers, and the videos were really short, four to five minutes. They had little skits in them, we had this beautiful set. I probably spent like 60 grand on these videos, and they turned out amazing. It was the most fulfilling project of my whole career. It was creative. They sort of gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted, because the problem that we were trying to solve was to get customers onboarded more effectively, because they weren\u2019t reading these stale help articles. We made these really funny videos to sort of help them understand how our technology worked. I made them, and during that six months, we got a new VP of marketing, and when he saw the final videos, he said, \u201cYeah, we can\u2019t use these. Personality isn\u2019t a brand value.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>Oh, geez.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>What?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> What the hell does that mean, first of all? Secondly, we had already shown them to a bunch of customers, and they all said, \u201cThank you so much. This makes so much sense now. I wasn\u2019t really sure how this technology fits into my business,\u201d or they\u2019d say, \u201cThank you for actually explaining that I\u2019m not going to be successful at this a hundred percent of the time,\u201d or, \u201cOh, that makes so much sense now.\u201d People were thanking for us because we were being honest with them, except our head of marketing did not agree. I\u2019m obviously a little bitter about this, but the moral of the story is that story has sort of followed me for the past three years, and it sort of informs everything I do.<\/p>\n<p>It has all the elements of a good story, right? There\u2019s a whole journey, and it\u2019s sort of funny and weird, and it makes you think, \u201cHuh, that\u2019s like a weird thing to say. What does that mean?\u201d That\u2019s the story that I tell on my about page, and then I sort of tie it together to the types of services that I offer. I give them proof of brands that do have quote unquote personality in their copy, and how successful they\u2019ve been, and then there\u2019s a little blurb at the bottom about me, and my history, and where I live, and a cute photo of my dog.<\/p>\n<p>The lesson here, to wrap up that really long story, is mostly that your about page is this amazing opportunity to sort of reel them in. You\u2019ve got them on the line, they\u2019ve been spending some time on your website, and now you have to reel them in with something that\u2019s going to make you stand out, a story that they\u2019re going to relate to, or find funny, or frustrating, or inspired, or whatever, and make them like you, and then a big call to action. That\u2019s the thing that everyone forgets. The about page needs to have something at the end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>I love that. I kind of want to ask for another example. If I had, say an app, or a piece of technology, or a product, or a course, or something that I wanted to sell, what\u2019s the process that you would engage me in, or maybe it\u2019s one of the clients you\u2019ve worked with recently. Walk us through that process.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> I have this client, I can\u2019t actually say their name, because I signed an NDA.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob:<\/strong> Totally cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> They are a big finance company, and they offer essentially title loans to people, which is a really scammy, terrifying industry. They wanted to do it differently. They want to offer short term loans to people with no credit or bad credit, and allow them to pay it off quickly, and be really, really transparent about the whole process. When they first came to me, they\u2019re like, \u201cWe just want to stand out from all of these gross loan companies out there and really resonate with the right person.\u201d We got on the phone, did my 90 minute shtick, which is basically all the questions &#8230; Honestly, the questions that I asked were not particularly unique or creative. Like, \u201cHow do you describe your business? Describe your ideal customer. What keeps them up at night? What makes them frustrated about your industry?\u201d That type of stuff.<\/p>\n<p>I sit on the phone, I record them, and then I get it transcribed, because it\u2019s really important to me that I\u2019m able to read through our conversation, not just hear it that one time. It allows me to fully listen without frantically taking notes while they\u2019re talking. I go through, print it out, sit down with my highlighter, go through, and after years of doing this, I can just pretty quickly identify what the stories are that are going to resonate with a wider audience. The story that they told me was their ideal customer was a single mom, who lived in one bedroom apartment, that had a bunch of kids, and one of her kids had outgrown his crib, and she needed a bed. She needed a bed and a mattress and did not have the money to do that. She had bad credit. She can\u2019t get a loan anywhere, and her kid\u2019s sleeping on the couch, and she feels really guilty. All these emotions that come up. Those emotions were so, so important in telling this story.<\/p>\n<p>When they came to me, their value prop was, \u201cWe provide you with $3,000.\u201d That was it, that was their headline. It actually did the job okay. It was a very clear takeaway, and their big call to action was, \u201cApply now to see if you qualify.\u201d After our session, we sort of sat down and realized that this story\u2019s really, really impactful, and we need to be able to tell that story on their about page, but also on their whole website. That whole message of a mom feeling guilty and wanting to provide the best for her kids, but sort of being out of options. The solution, the value prop that we ended up going with was actually pretty simple. It was just, \u201cWe provide you with $3,000 so you can provide for your family.\u201d At the end of the day, it\u2019s not some magical headline, right, but with just a few extra words, it tells the whole story.<\/p>\n<p>I remember, when I first sent it to them, they were terrified. They were like, \u201cBut what about the person that just wants a loan to buy a TV?\u201d Or, \u201cWhat about the person that blah, blah, blah?\u201d I had to walk them through how important it is to speak to that one question, because at the end of the day it was like 75% of their business was this single mom trying to provide to her family, so we were really able to speak directly to her.<\/p>\n<p>What a lot of businesses get really terrified about it this. They just freak out about going granular. It\u2019s my biggest frustration. I have like a copy paste response when they argue back about it that I just send them. I\u2019m like, \u201cHere\u2019s why we need to get specific.\u201d They always do whatever I tell them to do, but it takes a lot of convincing to get them to that place where they feel confident speaking to one specific person and quote unquote alienating the rest of their audience, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>If you\u2019re comfortable sharing that, I know you might not have it verbatim, but can you just share what you say to them? That\u2019s a conversation we\u2019re all having, and some of us are probably not winning that conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> There is that book that Joanna Wiebe, the messaging one, she has some really good language in there. I can\u2019t remember exactly what she says, but I literally will copy and paste from that book. I can\u2019t remember exactly what it is, but the other thing that I say, and this is actually something my friend told me a week ago and I started using it a lot, is this idea of a bullseye. Imagine that you\u2019re shooting an arrow at a target, and you aim for the center, right? You don\u2019t aim for the edge. If you want to hit the bullseye at all, if you want to hit the target at all, you aim for the center. Yes, a few might fly further afield and hit the edges or hit the little third row. I don\u2019t know archery language at all, obviously. That if you aim for the center, you will hit the target, if you\u2019re halfway decent. If you\u2019re aiming for 50 different directions, so many of those arrows are going to miss.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I try to explain it like that, but at the end of the day, I told them, I was like, \u201cLook, test it. Here you go. Here are four different headlines, test which one you think is going to work best, or test all of them. My guess is that this specific one is going to work best.\u201d It did. It converted like 40% than the general one that they were using.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira:<\/strong> Okay, that\u2019s really helpful. Thank you. We\u2019ll link to Joanna\u2019s book as well. It sounds like the about page is a sales page. It is a sales page, there is a call to action. I don\u2019t think everyone looks at it that way, but that\u2019s what it is. That\u2019s what you\u2019re describing. When you price it, how are you packaging it? If it is more like a sales page, there\u2019s a lot more that goes into it, like all the research that you do. How are you packaging it? As an individual product? I kind of want to lead into the way that you\u2019re structuring your business and what type of other products or services you\u2019re offering now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>I spent a lot of time thinking about the pricing for this page. I charge 1,500 for an about page. It is a sales page, but the work that goes into it is not as much. It takes me about three days to do an about page, whereas a good sales page, when I do the interviews, and the research, and the review mining, and all of that stuff, will usually take me about two weeks start to finish, and there\u2019s more at stake with a sales page. They are similar in the way that they\u2019re structured, and in their goals almost, but they are different. I don\u2019t want to pretend that I\u2019m charging the same, because I\u2019m not. Basically, for 1,500, people get the 90 minute strategy session, which honestly, no one ever sees the value in this. They\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, so I talk on the phone with you for 90 minutes? Cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the end of that conversation, they\u2019re like, \u201cOh my God. I never thought about my business that way,\u201d or, \u201cWhoa, I\u2019ve been doing things super wrong.\u201d Even that simple conversation, because they get the transcript, too, and they get my highlighted notes that they can use again and again. That in and of itself has been crazy valuable. They get one round of revisions, they get the about page, and then I work with a team of editors, and so they\u2019ll get like a professional edit at the end, and my editors are freaking amazing, I love them more than anything. That, to me, is super valuable, to have an unbiased, unconnected set of eyes to sort of go through and make sure it\u2019s really tight and really well written.<\/p>\n<p>What ends up happening with the about page, more than a sales page, is that the biggest frustration I get from my clients is, \u201cI don\u2019t know how to talk about my business. How do I explain this? What I do is too complicated. I can\u2019t do an elevator pitch.\u201d It\u2019s aways really simple. It\u2019s not complicated. Oh, so you\u2019re a dog trainer. Oh, so you help people negotiate raises, right? It\u2019s really simple, but they get so in their heads about it that when they get this final about page, what they\u2019re really getting is a one to two sentence description about what they do and stories to pull from when they\u2019re interviewed by the press, when they\u2019re talking to a perspective client, when they\u2019re at a networking event. It\u2019s super valuable for their business as a whole. It\u2019s more than just an about page. It\u2019s essentially a way to talk about their business on a wider scale. I price it based on that even though it actually only takes me three days to do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>The deliverable then isn\u2019t just an about page. I\u2019m really curious about the strategy session that you\u2019re having with your clients, because obviously you\u2019re doing more than just saying, \u201cTell me about your business,\u201d if it\u2019s taking 90 minutes, and they\u2019re finding a lot of value. It seems like you\u2019re probably going into the sales strategy, and where customers are coming from, and the entire funnel, and actually advising them on their business in addition to what you\u2019re doing on the about page. Is that right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> Yes. Every person who has hired me for an about page comes back and was like, \u201cCan you do my whole funnel? Can you do my whole website?\u201d The reason I priced it in the way that I did, and the reason it is one of my only two productized services that I have is specifically because it\u2019s a really good entry for new clients. It\u2019s a lower price point than saying, \u201cHey give me ten grand to write your website.\u201d It\u2019s a really small thing that they can do, and then once they do it, my first time clients get ten percent off their next product. It\u2019s a win win for everyone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira:<\/strong> I want to talk more about your team of editors. What was the catalyst for finding these editors? How do you work with them? What has been the impact, and I mean there are a bunch of follow up questions, but I personally started doing this when I heard you first talk about this on that other podcast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>It\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever done for my business, and it is so underrated. The reason I did it is because I was writing an essay. I sometimes moonlight as a personal essayist, and I was writing an essay for a website, and I was really struggling with it. I had been looking at it for too long, and it was my personal story, and I just felt like it needed some tightening. I think I posted on Facebook, when I was on Facebook, \u201cCan anyone read this? Do I have any friends that are willing to just read over this and give me some thoughts?\u201d One of my very best friends, Dara, who I\u2019ve known since I was, God, ten, she works at a literary agent in DC and has a masters in something fancy and literary. She was like, \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll read it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She read it, and did her whole editing magic on it, just for free, as a favor, and I read through it, and it was perfect. It was the most perfect thing I\u2019d ever written, but I also felt sort of bad about myself. I was like, \u201cHow did I not think to put that word there?\u201d Or like, \u201cOh, that was a stupid grammar mistake.\u201d Or, \u201cOh, that ending makes so much more sense now that she moved that sentence to the top,\u201d or whatever. I just remember looking at it and being like, \u201cI am so proud of this.\u201d It was just sort of like this light bulb moment for me where I felt like, \u201cThis is going to get accepted,\u201d and it did within two days, it was accepted on xoJane, and I felt like, \u201cI need to have her read everything that I write.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not only did I learn a ton about my own writing, but also, there\u2019s so much that we miss. As copywriters, we become too close to the project. If we\u2019re doing it right, if we\u2019re really talking to our clients, and really understanding their customers, eventually we get too mired in the crap, too, and one of the things that Dara said to me was, \u201cTrying to edit your own work is like trying to lick your own elbow. You\u2019re just too close to it.\u201d I was working on a project, I can\u2019t remember when it was, but I was working on a project, and I just said, \u201cHey, can I just pay you a flat rate to read over my stuff before I send it to my clients?\u201d She was like, \u201cYep, definitely.\u201d The same thing happened.<\/p>\n<p>It was an about page for someone, and I remember reading over it, and like, \u201cOh, yes. This is perfect now.\u201d I don\u2019t know how you guys are, but before I send a final, final draft, I\u2019m like, \u201cOh, they\u2019re going to see that that sentence is a little weak,\u201d or like, \u201cI haven\u2019t fully nailed that message yet, but there\u2019s nothing I can do. I\u2019ve tried my very best.\u201d They never do. They never call me out on anything. It\u2019s always better than whatever they can write, but there is a feeling of fear, I guess, when I send something to a client, and there\u2019s not. When I work Dara, I am a hundred percent confident that this is the best thing that has like ever been written in the whole world.<\/p>\n<p>I worked with her, I have been working with her for about a year, and then eventually, I was just giving her too much, and so now, I have a second editor. She\u2019s an actor at UCB in New York, and so she does a lot of sketch comedy, and coming up with skits, and she\u2019s super, super funny. She\u2019s really good at doing like the comedy stuff, where Dara\u2019s more like the literary person. Then I have another girl who does YouTube scripts. Now, I have editors who specialize in different things. If I\u2019m doing this finance website, they want it to be a little bit funny, a little bit more approachable, so I hired Desi for that, because she\u2019s got that sort of comedic approach.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, it\u2019s been an interesting process, and now I just pay them a flat rate, which ends up working to about ten percent of what I make on the project, and they usually turn around in a few days. I do first draft, I send it to the client, and then we sort of go through basic, \u201cIs this accurate? Is this on brand? Is this what you were expecting?\u201d Et cetera, et cetera. Then I finalize the draft until I\u2019m as happy with it as humanly possible, and then I send it off to one of the editors who then makes it super, shiny, polished forever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob:<\/strong> Such a good idea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> It\u2019s the best. I don\u2019t know what I would do without them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>Just to clarify, and because I\u2019ve started doing this as well, you\u2019re working on a draft and your editors aren\u2019t jumping in until the end, or do you have some of the editors jumping in earlier, and then you take it over, and then you have another editor polish at the end?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>Good question. I have been playing with this for awhile. The way that it works now is they don\u2019t come in until the very end, until I\u2019m as happy as possible with it. However, two times it\u2019s happened where I have done full website copy, and the value prop, we can\u2019t start working on the copy until everyone is happy with the new value prop. I, both times, have hired an editor to work on the value prop first. I\u2019ll draft 20 different versions, I\u2019ll come up with a really ten that I really love, and then I\u2019ll have the editor come in, and be like, \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They don\u2019t spend a ton of time on it. It\u2019s just like, for the finance company that I was working with, one of the value props that we came up with, I think I said something like &#8230; God, I\u2019m going to butcher this. This is probably not accurate, but it was something like, \u201cWe give you up to $3,000 to help you in a setback,\u201d or something like that. Desi, who\u2019s the comedy writer, knows about my consistency, so she just added, \u201cTo help you with your comeback.\u201d It\u2019s really good to have that second pair of eyes before I send them to the client, because then what they do with the ten value props that I give them is using, actually another book of Joanna\u2019s, using her book on value props, we then have everyone in the company score them, and then we test the winning four. That process happens first, and then the editor will come back in at the very end, once the whole website has been written.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>Interesting. I want to change topics just a little bit here, well actually, a lot bit here. Marian, you\u2019ve written about depression and running a business, and I\u2019ve lived with somebody who\u2019s had depression in the past. As somebody who doesn\u2019t, it\u2019s really hard, I think, for me to understand what that person is going through from time to time. You know, I\u2019m a guy, and I\u2019m just like, \u201cHey, take a vitamin and smile more. Let\u2019s fix this thing.\u201d I don\u2019t even had the words to communicate properly when this is going on. You\u2019ve written about this, and I think it\u2019s a really serious thing that maybe a lot of writers working alone, without getting outside very often, or without human contact deal with. Tell us about that experience, and how you have struggled to overcome that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> Yeah, I have so many feelings about this. It tends to come and go, it depends on the season, it depends on what\u2019s going on in my life. I\u2019ve sort of always had it on and off, but when I was working at a traditional company, if I was having an off day, I\u2019d just sit at my desk and dick around on the internet. No one was waiting for me to deliver something. My effectiveness on any given day wasn\u2019t dependent on my mood. When I went freelance again a few years ago, it really jolted me awake and made me realize, this needs to be something that\u2019s more under control, because there were some days that I just couldn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p>Often times depression is triggered by specific life events, and at the time, my husband and I had moved to Germany. Almost two years ago we moved, and it was awful. It was not what we were expecting. I had lived abroad a ton and was sort of expecting Germany to be this sort of magical fairyland, and the place that we were living in was really depressing, and gray, and the people weren\u2019t particularly friendly, and so I just stayed in the apartment all the time. I was like, \u201cWell, I\u2019ll just focus &#8230; This isn\u2019t what I thought it would be. I\u2019ll just focus on my business full time, and by the time we leave, it\u2019ll be up and running, and perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What ended up happening was staying in your house and not talking to anyone is a bad idea when you have depression. After a few months of this, I\u2019m pretty proactive, and [inaudible 00:35:06] was like, \u201cWell, this isn\u2019t working. Well, something needs to happen. Do I get a real job? What do I do?\u201d Just sort of did a lot of experimentation. Again, because I didn\u2019t have any friends or anywhere to go, I just played around with different things, and sort of mentally took stock of which ones helped me be more productive. At the end of the day, it wasn\u2019t about, \u201cOh, I need to cure my depression.\u201d It\u2019s something I\u2019ve had since I was 15. It wasn\u2019t about, \u201cOh, I\u2019m going to feel better forever.\u201d It was like, \u201cI just need to feel better for one day so I can finish this website copy and send it to my client.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That mindset shift of just feeling better for a little bit of time actually sort of changed everything. I would do things like 30 minutes of yoga in the morning, or putting on Justin Timberlake and dancing around my living room for five minutes. I\u2019m the kind of person that gets embarrassed dancing alone, but it definitely worked. You know, things like, \u201cI\u2019m not going to eat sugar until I\u2019m done with this project.\u201d Like really, really tiny goals. Tried a lot of supplements. There\u2019s a bunch of things that worked, and honestly, I did a lot of research, and people would be like, \u201cOh, journal your feelings.\u201d I\u2019d be like, \u201cScrew you. I don\u2019t want to think about my feelings right now. I just want to get this work done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What worked for me is not necessarily going to work for everyone else, but I sort of took it on as like a project to see, \u201cWhere can I sort of feel better just to get this work done?\u201d It actually worked like crazy. I haven\u2019t had like, I don\u2019t want to call it an episode, but I haven\u2019t sort of felt super depressed since we left Germany. That\u2019s the other piece of it. Sometimes, I tend to get more depressed when I\u2019m really unhappy with my job, or if I\u2019m really unhappy where I live. Now, I\u2019m super happy where I live, and super happy with my job, so I don\u2019t feel that way anymore. I\u2019m sure it will come back, and now I sort of have an arsenal of tools that I can turn to.<\/p>\n<p>I think it\u2019s something that people don\u2019t talk about a lot. It\u2019s this whole concept of when you work for yourself, if you\u2019re prone to any sort of mood swings, it\u2019s often worse if you\u2019re not really leaving your house. Another thing that really helped was joining a coworking space, putting on pants in the morning, and commuting, and walking the five minutes outside to get to the office, and saying hello to the woman at reception, and being in a place with lots of sunshine. These things all really helped it get better, and now I sort of see it as a lucky thing. If I had stayed in tech, I couldn\u2019t just curl up on the floor for five minutes and meditate. I had to be at my desk. If I\u2019m not feeling like doing my work today, there\u2019s not a lot I can do about it when I\u2019m sitting in an office. Now I feel like being my own boss has allowed me the flexibility to sort of tailor my business to my moods, which sort of sounds depressing, but it\u2019s actually not.<\/p>\n<p>The other thing that I really realized is that I can price myself however I want. Before, I sort of assumed, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to be working eight hours a day, so I\u2019m going to be charging this amount. Blah, blah, blah.\u201d Now, I track my hours super, super closely, so what I learned is I have about four hours max of creative time in me to actually write, so that means I have to double, triple my rates in order to work the most effectively. I know the limits of what I can take on. I\u2019ve had to very deliberately structure the way I price my services and how many projects I take on at any given time, because overwhelm triggers depression big time. Yeah, that\u2019s like a hodgepodge of tips.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>No, but I think it\u2019s really helpful. Like I said, I would bet that a significant portion of freelance writers actually struggle with this, whether they recognize it or not. They can get melancholy, or those periods happen, and when you\u2019ve got to deliver for the client, you\u2019ve got to have strategies to deal with it. What you\u2019ve done may be helpful to a lot of people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>Thanks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>Yeah, and I mean, for me personally, I\u2019ve dealt with postpartum depression, and so you were speaking to me directly. It\u2019s been challenging. What you said about overwhelm can trigger it, that is so true, and that is something that I need to be more aware of, and I am now, because overwhelm has definitely triggered it for me as of recently. Plus, the month of February usually triggers it as well before spring hits, but I want to hear more about how you have increased your rates, with whatever you\u2019re comfortable sharing. I think that\u2019s something that you\u2019ve thought about it, you\u2019ve tracked your time, you\u2019ve been really strategic about it, so would you mind sharing almost what your business looks like now, where you\u2019re spending your time, and even what you\u2019re charging in those different areas so we have a better idea of what your business looks like?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> I think I\u2019ve done what a lot of freelancers tend to do at my specific stage of business, which is I started off hourly. I think I started at like 50 an hour, because when I quit my job at that tech company, they kept me on as a contractor, and they just divided my annual salary, which I think at the time was 110. They just divided it by however many hours you work in a year, so it was like 52.85, or something like that. I was like, \u201cOkay, cool. Then I\u2019ll work eight hours a day, and then I\u2019ll make my old salary.\u201d I think that lasted two months before I was like, \u201cNope. This isn\u2019t working.\u201d I just doubled it. I was like, \u201cOkay. We\u2019ll do 115 [an hour], and see how that feels.\u201d Actually, it was great.<\/p>\n<p>I did 115 an hour for a long time, and transitioning, I had to quit a bunch of the $50 an hour clients, because when I said, \u201cHey, my rates are doubling,\u201d they were like, \u201cK, peace out. Bye.\u201d It\u2019s interesting. I don\u2019t mind charging hourly. I know a lot of copywriters hate this, but hourly has been really great for me, specifically because I had to start tracking my hours in a way that I never did before. I wrote a website for a [inaudible] company, it was like five pages, four pages. I charged five grand. I was like, \u201cOh God. This is so much money. They\u2019re going to say no.\u201d They said yes and I was like, \u201cOh my God. I could just do one of these a month, and I\u2019ll be set.\u201d I did it, and it took 50 hours of work. I was like, \u201cNope. I can\u2019t do that,\u201d so now I\u2019m doubling it again, so it\u2019s ten grand for a full website.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a lot of experimentation. I get people to pay whatever I can get away with them paying, honestly. I have found that every time I increase my rates, or every time I try a new pricing structure, tons of people say no, and if I feel bad about them saying no, if I\u2019m like, \u201cI actually really want them as a client,\u201d then I think about it again. Most of the time, like when I upped my rate from 50 to 115, the client that I had been working with for about a year, I was doing mostly content writing for him, I didn\u2019t feel bad about losing him. I wanted him to say no. I wanted to be too expensive and to work with somebody else. Not because he was a bad client, but because I really wanted to get away from the content stuff.<\/p>\n<p>I have started being better at packaging my services. I have two productized services. I essentially specialize in two different things, web copy and email copy, and that\u2019s it. I used to do videos, I used to do blogs, I used to do monthly newsletters. Primarily, the stuff that I really love is customer messaging and then turning that into sales copy, really, at the end of the day. I have a productized about page service and a productized sales page service, where people can literally just buy, fill out the questionnaire, and schedule, all on my website. Those just come in, and automatically get put into my calendar, which I love.<\/p>\n<p>What I love the most about that, though, is about pages used to take me a week. I would stress about them. I\u2019d be like, \u201cOh God. What\u2019s their story? Blah, blah, blah.\u201d Now, I\u2019ve done so many of them that they\u2019re done in three days. I tracked one recently. I just did one and it took me five hours for $1,500. I was like, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m okay with that.\u201d I\u2019m getting faster at them. I really am loving productizing my offerings very specifically, like having a sales page, having a buy now button, just like it\u2019s a pair of shoes, right, so that people know exactly what they\u2019re getting, there\u2019s a system for getting them in the door and getting them filling out the questionnaire, and for me seeing if they\u2019re a good fit. If they\u2019re not going to fill out the answers, then I don\u2019t really want them, right? Then getting faster at it, so I\u2019m making more money per hour than I was before.<\/p>\n<p>What usually ends up happening is I do a small project for someone, and then they say, \u201cWell I need my whole website rewritten.\u201d Or, \u201cCan you write this video script?\u201d I just wrote a brochure, like a print brochure. I\u2019ve never done that before, but they were like, \u201cYou know everything about out business.\u201d All of those clients tend to turn into retainer clients. They essentially get my hourly rate at a discount. They\u2019ll get ten hours or a month, or they\u2019ll get four emails a month, and they\u2019re just in my calendar at all times. It\u2019s sort of a hodgepodge. I don\u2019t do a lot of different things, but I tend to get people in the door who I really like, and then stay with them. It\u2019s almost I have like ten full time jobs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>It seems like maybe the thing that brings all of those projects together is story, and you\u2019ve mentioned on your website that you\u2019re story-centric in your approach, we\u2019ve talked a little bit about stories that you pull out in the about pages. Tell us why stories are so important to what you do for your clients.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> It comes back to that obsession thing that I was talking about with the about pages. You want someone to land on your website and be like, \u201cOh my God. Where have these people been all my life?\u201d That happens. We\u2019ve all had that where we discover someone new, and we\u2019re like, I remember this happened with Copy Hackers, actually, the first time I landed on it. I was like, \u201cOh my God. This is everything I ever wanted.\u201d Your copy should, in my opinion, reflect that, should have that sense of obsession in every piece of copy that you have. When I say I do story-centric copy, it\u2019s probably a really douchey way to say that, but a lot of copywriters talk about story, but they don\u2019t incorporate it.<\/p>\n<p>Very rarely do I see a good story on a website. I think that comes down to two things. There\u2019s that fear of specifics, like I talked about earlier. People don\u2019t want to get too specific, because they think that they\u2019re going to alienate someone, and they don\u2019t know how to tell a good story. This comes back to sort of my publishing background, I guess, and all of these weird literature writing classes that I take, is you have to actually tell a story. You can\u2019t talk about telling a story, you have to actually tell it. This can be everything from your sales page copy to the way that you talk to your customers.<\/p>\n<p>When I was at Couchsurfing, we would get a lot of customers emailing in and being like, \u201cI really want a calendar feature. We\u2019ve been asking for this for years, and no one\u2019s built it.\u201d They\u2019d get really up in arms about not having a calendar feature on the website. My canned response was like, \u201cThank you for submitting this feedback. I will pass this on to our product team, and we\u2019ll build it someday.\u201d That\u2019s your canned, garbage, robotalk, corporate, blah, blah, blah. But Couchsurfing is a community of like 18 year old travelers who sleep on people\u2019s couches around the world, and it\u2019s this super honest, authentic, hip community, and we were talking to them like they were tech investors, and it was really boring.<\/p>\n<p>The thing that I have found is that if you\u2019re really honest, it tends to lead to a good story. For instance, I started responding to people, I probably shouldn\u2019t have done this, but I started responding to people and be like, \u201cYou know, you\u2019re totally right. The calendar system has been &#8230; People have been requesting this for years. The reason we haven\u2019t built it is because we spec-ed it out, and it turns out it\u2019s going to take nine engineers nine months which will essentially cost us a million dollars to build it, and there are more important things on our priority list right now. So, yes, we know how important it is to you, but right now our goal is to get the website not crashing all the time. I promise someday it will be built.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The response was like freaking night and day. Like, \u201cOh, okay. That makes sense.\u201d I was like, \u201cIf you know any engineers looking for a job in San Francisco, send them to me, and I\u2019d put them through the recruiting pipeline.\u201d That story of, \u201cHere\u2019s why we\u2019re not doing the thing that you want us to do,\u201d people are so much more receptive. Again, you get a lot of fear with these companies of being honest, of telling the truth. Ultimately, storytelling just comes down to telling the truth.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re going to write a headline that\u2019s like, \u201cAre you tired of feeling lonely on Saturday nights, and not having any friends?\u201d Okay, fine, like that\u2019s a generalization, but what is the story? What are they actually doing that\u2019s making them lonely on Saturday nights? If you\u2019re offering, I don\u2019t know, let\u2019s say we\u2019re talking Meetup. Okay, are you tired of eating cold lo mein and watching X Files reruns on Saturday nights? It\u2019s the same message, but it\u2019s telling it from a storytelling perspective. That\u2019s the stuff that I really love to do, and the stuff that comes really naturally to me.<\/p>\n<p>My ultimate goal with my clients is to find those really sticky stories in their own life experience, and also just digging deep and telling the truth about things. That tends to bring these stories to life, whether it\u2019s a short and simple headline, whether it\u2019s a response to a customer service request, or whether it\u2019s like a long form sales page. You\u2019ve got tons of opportunity to tell these stories in a way that\u2019s going to resonate with people, because they\u2019ll read these generic, jargon filled copy and they\u2019re not going to know what the hell you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>Okay, this has been wonderful, as I expected. I actually like left the interview, and connected dots to my business, just thinking through things I want to change. I think, for me, there\u2019s the obvious connection to story, and just really reinforcing that in my processes, but beyond that, just talking about the office space, and how that could help with depression, and just really adding creativity to everything that you do. That\u2019s huge, and I know that\u2019s something that\u2019s on my list, to find an office space.<\/p>\n<p>The way that you\u2019ve packaged the 90 minute what I call the kickoff call, but the way you\u2019ve packaged almost like not only is it a kickoff call where I get what I need to do my job, but you also get a package as well and all these insights into your business to turn it into a strategy session. I also feel like that\u2019s genius, and a great way to package it. Then, also just tracking your hours and increasing your rates through doing the actual math. Parts of this are obvious, but these are great reminders that this is really important, and there\u2019s been so much more in this conversation, so thank you for sharing everything with us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>Thank you. Always.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>And being so open and willing to share. Thank you for your time, and where can we find you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>Well, I have two websites. One is my personal blog, which is MarianLibrarian.com, which literally has not been updated since my depression post, which might make people freak out, but it\u2019s mostly because I\u2019m too happy to write, and there\u2019s my company, which is ohhaicopy.com, which is O-H-H-A-I-C-O-P-Y .com.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>Excellent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob: <\/strong>And we can\u2019t look for you on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>You can not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>But we can see you in the club.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian:<\/strong> I do participate in the club Facebook group, because it is the one thing about Facebook that is good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kira: <\/strong>Well, thank you, Marian.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marian: <\/strong>Thank you so much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rob:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019ve been listening to\u00a0<em>The Copywriter Club Podcast<\/em>\u00a0with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.airstory.co\/club?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">Kira Hug<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brandstoryonline.com?utm_source=thecopywriterclub.com&amp;utm_medium=shownotes\">Rob Marsh<\/a>. Music for the show is a clip from Gravity by Whitest Boy Alive, available in iTunes. If you like what you\u2019ve heard, you can help us spread the word by subscribing in iTunes and by leaving a review. For show notes, and full transcript, and links to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2irulZp\">our free Facebook community<\/a>, visit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\">thecopywriterclub.com<\/a>. We\u2019ll see you next episode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Copywriter Marian Schembari joins Rob and Kira on The Copywriter\u00a0Club Podcast to share her thoughts on a long list of topics, including: \u2022 How she landed a job using social [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33,3],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast","tag-marian-schembari","tag-podcast"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari - The Copywriter Club<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Interview with copywriter Marian Schembari about great About Pages, dealing with depression, the &quot;one&quot; reader, raising rates and story telling. Read it now.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari - The Copywriter Club\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Interview with copywriter Marian Schembari about great About Pages, dealing with depression, the &quot;one&quot; reader, raising rates and story telling. Read it now.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Copywriter Club\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/thecopywriterclub\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-04-11T07:44:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-01-04T20:08:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rob Marsh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@copywriterclub\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@copywriterclub\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"rob Marsh\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"54 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"rob Marsh\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4c8cf6df1aaafdf81ad4d64884696a0\"},\"headline\":\"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-04-11T07:44:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-04T20:08:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/\"},\"wordCount\":10854,\"commentCount\":3,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Marian Schembari\",\"Podcast\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Podcast\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/\",\"name\":\"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari - The Copywriter Club\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-04-11T07:44:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-04T20:08:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4c8cf6df1aaafdf81ad4d64884696a0\"},\"description\":\"Interview with copywriter Marian Schembari about great About Pages, dealing with depression, the \\\"one\\\" reader, raising rates and story telling. Read it now.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028.jpg\",\"width\":1350,\"height\":1350},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/\",\"name\":\"The Copywriter Club\",\"description\":\"Ideas and habits worth stealing from top copywriters\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4c8cf6df1aaafdf81ad4d64884696a0\",\"name\":\"rob Marsh\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f6076aa3cc5830d04b76cee79c3d108f2edb50783afbf30fd2d558269d07ce0?s=96&d=monsterid&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f6076aa3cc5830d04b76cee79c3d108f2edb50783afbf30fd2d558269d07ce0?s=96&d=monsterid&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"rob Marsh\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/author\/rob\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari - The Copywriter Club","description":"Interview with copywriter Marian Schembari about great About Pages, dealing with depression, the \"one\" reader, raising rates and story telling. Read it now.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari - The Copywriter Club","og_description":"Interview with copywriter Marian Schembari about great About Pages, dealing with depression, the \"one\" reader, raising rates and story telling. Read it now.","og_url":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/","og_site_name":"The Copywriter Club","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/thecopywriterclub\/","article_published_time":"2017-04-11T07:44:54+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-01-04T20:08:35+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"rob Marsh","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@copywriterclub","twitter_site":"@copywriterclub","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"rob Marsh","Est. reading time":"54 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/"},"author":{"name":"rob Marsh","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4c8cf6df1aaafdf81ad4d64884696a0"},"headline":"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari","datePublished":"2017-04-11T07:44:54+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-04T20:08:35+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/"},"wordCount":10854,"commentCount":3,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg","keywords":["Marian Schembari","Podcast"],"articleSection":["Podcast"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/","url":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/","name":"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari - The Copywriter Club","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028-300x300.jpg","datePublished":"2017-04-11T07:44:54+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-04T20:08:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4c8cf6df1aaafdf81ad4d64884696a0"},"description":"Interview with copywriter Marian Schembari about great About Pages, dealing with depression, the \"one\" reader, raising rates and story telling. Read it now.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MarianSchembari_Ep028.jpg","width":1350,"height":1350},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/copywriter-marian-schembari\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TCC Podcast 28: Writing Effective About Pages with Marian Schembari"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/","name":"The Copywriter Club","description":"Ideas and habits worth stealing from top copywriters","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4c8cf6df1aaafdf81ad4d64884696a0","name":"rob Marsh","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f6076aa3cc5830d04b76cee79c3d108f2edb50783afbf30fd2d558269d07ce0?s=96&d=monsterid&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f6076aa3cc5830d04b76cee79c3d108f2edb50783afbf30fd2d558269d07ce0?s=96&d=monsterid&r=pg","caption":"rob Marsh"},"url":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/author\/rob\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopywriterclub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}