thecopywriteraccelerator.com<\/a>. Now, on to the show.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That\u2019s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast<\/em>.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> You\u2019re invited to join the club for episode 32 as we chat with freelance copywriter, Sarah Grear about writing for healers and creative souls, how she landed a speaking gig at Social Media Week, working with her coach and a team, and taking branding vacations.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Hey, Rob. Hey, Sarah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Hey, guys. I love it.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Hey, Sarah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> I\u2019m so excited.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> We\u2019re excited to have you.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> I think Sarah, a great place to start, and this what I\u2019m actually really curious to know, where did you come from? What were you doing before you started your copywriting venture?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Cool. Yeah. I totally want to share my story with you. Before I do that, I just really quickly want to acknowledge both you and Rob for putting together this amazing podcasting group. I just want to say when I first started getting my copywriting business going, I actually, the number one referral source for my business was other copywriters, and I don\u2019t think that gets talked about enough, so part of the way I build my business is what you guys are creating, so I\u2019m just so grateful for communities like this, and I just wanted to say thank you for that.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Thank you. That\u2019s nice of you to say.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. Totally. The way I got started in copywriting and where I came from, I actually went to art school. I promise this will all make sense in a minute, but I went to art school. I got my degree in ceramics, and I did all types of art like …<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah, pretty much everything under the rainbow I got my hands into. One of the things that happened was I actually read the book, The Well-Fed Writer<\/em>\u00a0by Peter Bowerman. When I read that book, I started to fall in love with the whole online marketing world and I was already doing some travel blogging, so I was telling stories online, and then I realized, \u201cOh, if I pivot this, I could actually start telling other people\u2019s stories and get paid for it handsomely\u201d, so I was like, \u201cYeah. I\u2019m game for that.\u201d When I found out that I could do the online writing, I shifted to copywriting and just really fell in love with and became addicted to the whole marketing world as it does, and since then, I\u2019ve just been building relationships with people, building relationships with my clients, and my business has grown from giving a lot of value to people along the way.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> That\u2019s really interesting, so you\u2019ve actually got a pretty specific niche of people that you target. At least from what I can tell on your website and the things that you do on Facebook, you target, let\u2019s call them \u2018Creative souls\u2019. Tell us a little bit about how you came up with that as the place where you really wanted to focus your efforts?<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>Yeah. I work with mainly creatives and healers now, but when I got started, I wanted to focus on just entrepreneurs in general. When I looked at when I had two years in business, I had a lot of historical data to look back at, and I was like, \u201cOh, I really love working with these creatives and people who fall under the healing umbrella\u201d, so it could really be anything from I\u2019ve had clients who teach law of attraction, so the self-care type of healing to people who also are coaches and they\u2019re health coaches, all different types of healers. I just realized that the more I learned about what they were doing, I just fell in love with it and decided to focus in that area. It\u2019s funny because I didn\u2019t come out of the business womb like knowing exactly who my ideal client was, and I think that\u2019s okay to give yourself a couple of years to experiment and figure out where you want to focus, and then look back and say, \u201cWhat was the most fun for me?\u201d, and that\u2019s how I landed on those ideal clients.<\/p>\nThen, over time, I started out writing websites, just general home about sales service page, whatever contact page, whatever people needed, and then I really fell in love with the copy conversion and doing launches because I realized that it was directly tied to their revenue, and when you directly tie what you\u2019re creating to the outcome of them getting revenue in their business, it changes the game. They\u2019re willing to invest more, and I priced myself out of doing websites now because I started at a certain price, and now, people don\u2019t necessarily want to pay that just for a website when they don\u2019t see the outcome of getting leads and getting sales and all of that which is totally fine for me. I still throw it out there. If they want to hire me to do the website, great, but now I realize people are way more willing to invest in their launches, and so I focus on that.<\/p>\n
Kira:<\/strong> That\u2019s interesting. I feel the same way with websites, so I\u2019m curious to know what you were charging if you don\u2019t mind sharing with websites that priced you out of that market just because I know there are a lot of copywriters that are working on websites or want to get into that space, and they may appreciate that frame of reference.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. Of course. When I first started, I remember I was doing about pages for like 375. $375, and I would do three meetings, two revisions, and then slowly, I got it to the point where people are paying for an about page for 575, and eventually, I had to phase that out too. I feel like people … When I started to phase that out, it changed to charging between 1,500 to 2,000 for up to five webpages, then I just couldn\u2019t do that anymore, so it got to the point of charging 3,500 and up.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> That was like the minimum to get started with me in around four pages, and even then, people are having a tough time swallowing that, which is fine with me.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s a good place to be when you charge the rates that you like and you can take the clients that you want and turn away the others. You do some interesting things with the way you talk about the packages that you have of your services, and you call them \u2018Branding vacations\u2019. Tell us a little bit about the thinking behind that and why you phrase it like that.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> As I\u2019ve shared earlier with the travel blogging, I really looked back at my own personal experiences to inform my brand storytelling, and a big part of that was travel, so I also knew that that really appeals to my ideal clients. They love the idea of travel. Like anytime I ask a room of people, \u201cWho doesn\u2019t love travel here?\u201d, nobody raises their hand, which is a confirmation for me that I was on the right path in putting together those packages, so I positioned in this branding vacations because I do work in the intensive style where I try to get things done in three to five business days, so for me, it was like it really was like going on a vacation. I got to focus on one or two clients at a time and I always let them know like \u201cIt\u2019s just you and I for this period of time and we get things done quickly so that you can go ahead and launch it as soon as possible\u201d, and they love it.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> I\u2019m really drawn to your packages as well because like everyone else, I like vacation and I actually was ready to purchase it because it\u2019s such a great brand and it creates the right vibe and very inviting. How do you run intensive style projects? I have no idea if that would even work for me. I\u2019m sure it wouldn\u2019t work for everyone, but what happens behind the scenes to make that work and successful?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. I have a team who helps me schedule the projects. What I do is once I know somebody is interested in signing up for a branding vacation, then I have them put down a deposit to hold their space, and I give them their intake forms right away, and then we have our project start date, our revisions date, and then our project draft date, and between those, they turn their intake forms in before we meet, we show up for the first call, go over them between the first and second meeting. I write the first draft. Something I do that\u2019s a little unusual for copywriters is I do live edits, so we\u2019re in the Google Docs together.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. I love it, and I know a lot of copywriters shy away from this. It\u2019s not for everyone. I get that, but for me –<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s definitely not for me.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> I get that, but for me, I absolutely love the co-creation process, so that second meeting, we\u2019re on a live call together, I take the feedback that they gave me, but most of it\u2019s done on the call. Here\u2019s the thing. I\u2019m saving myself time by doing most of the revisions on the call with them, and in a very focused hour and a half.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> For me, it really works and it\u2019s always worked, and I\u2019ve done it so many times. Then, the third call is really just tweaking everything and pretty much live on the call, and then I\u2019ll give it to my team after the third call, and in between, my team is helping me on the back end writing the copy. Then, on that third call, I give it to my team. They do a final sweep. I always go in and do the last sweeps because I like to keep the quality high and make sure that all the things that we talked about were taken care of.<\/p>\nThe way that I communicate it with my team is I actually have it recorded on Zoom, and it goes directly to Dropbox. As soon I get off the call, it starts converting it to Dropbox for me, so they get the recordings.<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> Let\u2019s talk about your team. Who is on your team or what are the positions I guess of them helping you out on your team, and what is the cost of that? How does that figure into the package?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. That\u2019s a great question. My team has expanded and contracted over time. Right now, I have one person who I call my \u2018Business manager\u2019, and he manages the leads, so everything to onboard the client, he\u2019s in charge of. Then, I have another person on my team. He\u2019s kind of a Jack of, or I would say a Jill of all trades, and so she\u2019s more …<\/p>\nI still struggle to give her … I would call her my \u2018Project manager\u2019. She helps me with the systems, but she also does the writing, and I\u2019m more or less training her as we go because I still need to give her the frameworks to write the copy like she, and I\u2019m a lot more familiar with the strategies, and she\u2019s slowly learning them as we go. The way that I break it down is my business manager. I just pay him for a said amount of hours every month. I think I spend up to $200 with him every month, and then my project manager, she gets between 10 and 20% per project just depending on how much she\u2019s doing, so it\u2019s a percentage.<\/p>\n
Kira:<\/strong> I want to hear more about the live edits. Rob mentioned it\u2019s not for him. When you mentioned live edits, I freaked out as well, but it might be for me. I\u2019ve never tried it, so what would I have to know or be prepared for in order to do a live edit? I mean, what are some tips that you could share with us?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> For me, I try to get the first draft as far as I can, and when we get on the call, we\u2019re just inside the Google Doc. Here\u2019s one thing, Kira that you and I have talked about and I think it makes a big difference is I like being in front of camera, so not only are we looking at the Doc, they\u2019re also seeing me. I have my office like all set up with candles and flowers. Like I am legit into this.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> I love that.<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>For me, I really love the experience of it. That\u2019s what it is. I\u2019m trying to create an experience that feels really relaxing and fun for them, and so when we get in the Doc, they are seeing me change the headlines.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> We\u2019re talking about the … I\u2019ve looked at the surveys already that they\u2019ve done with their clients, so we\u2019re talking about making sure the language hits the mark for their audience, and we\u2019re line by line just reading it through. Some clients want me to read. Sometimes they want to read. Some just want to read on their own, and then they\u2019ll put their cursor where we\u2019re at so I can see what part they\u2019re talking about, and they\u2019d go in and do it line by line.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Interesting. You mentioned that you like to set things up to create an experience. What are some of the other things that you do in your copy practice to create an experience for your customers or to make that interaction with you different?<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>Another thing that I do is I\u2019ve started taking on a little bit of the project management myself, so a lot of the times when I get a client, I love them so much because their whole marketing plan is usually in their head, and I\u2019m like, \u201cIt\u2019s really beautiful, however, we need to get this done on a Doc so that we understand all the things that you understand so that I can create things and turn them around quickly\u201d.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> One thing that I do is I\u2019ll surprise the client. I bill myself as a copywriter, but I\u2019ll go in and I will make a launch map for them, and I will take all the strategies that they talk about on the initial call where it\u2019s nailing down the project scope, and I\u2019ll translate it into a launch map for them, and they get so excited when they see that because they\u2019re like, \u201cOh my gosh. Finally, somebody is putting this together.\u201d I mean ideally, they have somebody in their team who does that, but that\u2019s rare honestly, so that\u2019s one way that I stand out automatically is I create these extra little gifts for them and they get excited, and especially because they work with highly visual people, for them to see it laid out in a map is really important. Then, I also will create a master editorial calender for them, so it\u2019s in a Google sheet, and they can see all the links to their launch because there\u2019s so many moving parts and we need somewhere to store it all because I don\u2019t want to …<\/p>\nHonestly, it\u2019s a little bit selfish. I don\u2019t want to have to answer 50 times about where the link is for that Google Doc for the webinar registration page. That\u2019s just not my jam.<\/p>\n
Kira:<\/strong> What is this launch map look like? What are you creating and what platform are you using to create it? How are you extracting it from them? Like you said, it\u2019s usually in their head, so have you developed any type of method that works really well for that process?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> No. It\u2019s not really a method. It\u2019s just really that making them pin down the project scope on our first discovery call I guess you could call it. I really pin them down on, \u201cOkay, so how many emails do you need? How many opt-in pages are there?\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cHow many sales pages are there? Are there different versions of the sales page?\u201d Getting all those answers upfront, and then I just interpret it into the map, and the map itself actually is inside Google Drive. There is an extension called \u2018MindMap\u2019, and you can use that to create the map inside Google Drive, so it\u2019s a pretty amazing tool and it just lets you lay everything out.<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> When you\u2019re talking about this process and scoping it out, is that before a customer is opted into a package or is that after? Do you adjust the cost of your package based on what the feedback is in that call or does this call happened after they\u2019ve chosen what they\u2019re going to do with you?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> We lay out the project scope on the first call, and then I send them the bid, and then I send them the map afterwards so that they can see everything. I just surprise them with it, and I don\u2019t charge extra for it. I mean, I feel like my package rate is my package rate. You\u2019re going to get everything, and I do go above and beyond for my clients, so I value all of that into the price initially, and then I don\u2019t do many add-ons later. Like I\u2019ll even be flexible on how many emails they actually need because they\u2019ll forget and be like, \u201cOh, yeah. I need this or that.\u201d<\/p>\nI mean, I don\u2019t let it get out of hand. If there\u2019s a lot of requests, then I\u2019ll say, \u201cHey, can we do this add-on, this little bit of extra custom work and it\u2019s outside of our project scope?\u201d, but for the most part, I try to just include everything in the price from the beginning. I try to also explain my value to them and what I do differently than other copywriters like with the live edits and all the things we\u2019ve already talked about so that they get the fact that in a way, I\u2019m almost like a coach, like I\u2019m not just there to write their copy. I\u2019m going to help them through all of the pieces they need to get the launch happening as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> Yeah. I love that idea of sending something right after the estimate so that they feel like you\u2019re already working on their projects. That\u2019s just a great idea.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s super fun.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Yeah. Sarah, I know you\u2019ve mentioned you go above and beyond for your clients and have loyal clients. What else do you do to go above and beyond and really even attract these opportunities? Speaking of opportunities and mastermind opportunities, why is that working for you when it may not for other copywriters?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> I always laugh about having a business. I really think that creating strategies, doing metrics, having systems, these are all really great things to get clients, but honestly, I leave … There\u2019s a couple of things. Because I work with all these healers, I\u2019m a little bit woo-woo myself, so one thing I do that I don\u2019t hear a lot of people talking about is I do leave a little room for the magic of like the Universe to bring me opportunities. I just do that by showing up as I am with a lot of presence and creating these fun experiences, and then I get invited to do things because I stand out.<\/p>\nKira and I talked about last December, I spoke at Rick Mulready\u2019s event. It was me, Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, and James Wedmore, and Sarah Grear, and I was like, \u201cWoah, how did this happen?\u201d You can\u2019t plan for that. There was no strategy. It was I wrote Rick\u2019s sales page, I showed up on camera. he noticed that I had good presence, and then invited me to speak, but a lot of times too, I would say \u201cIt\u2019s not the owner of the company or like the main person that does the invitation or suggested my name\u201d.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure it was somebody on his team, so don\u2019t … For me, when I show up in a project, I support everyone, not just the main person who I\u2019m working for, but the project managers, and the designers. I support everybody as much as I can because they\u2019re really the ones who are going to drop your name when the time comes because people like Rick, people like James, they all really depend on their team to think of the A-players and bring them around.<\/p>\n
Kira:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> You mentioned speaking at that event. You also spoke at Social Media Week. Was your invitation to that similar or did you do something else to get yourself up on stage?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> That one was an invitation from my dear friend, Jaclyn Mullen, and she and I, we just hit it off. We met at a networking event. I used to do a lot of in person networking, and I would say 80% of my business used to come from in person networking and all these relationships, so I was a part of different marketing groups, and then I would actually make a effort to meet with those people in person. Like we would all be online in a Facebook group and I\u2019d say, \u201cHey, guys. You want to do a meet up? Let\u2019s just hang out\u201d, and it would be open to everyone, and so I really allow myself to get in front of a lot of people and just hang out with no expectation, and then Jaclyn turned around and invited me to do Social Media Week.<\/p>\nAs soon as she invited me, we came up with a topic in seconds. We were just really excited to collaborate and we actually talked about storytelling to story selling which was really fun.<\/p>\n
Kira:<\/strong> I love that you mentioned that you leave some space for the magic, and then opportunities present themselves to you, but what can we do as copywriters to increase these opportunities and increase the magic? Do you have any tips for when we actually show up to conferences or to speaking engagements or any type of activity that has the possibility of more work?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yeah. It\u2019s funny because law of attraction stuff can get very cerebral, but I also believe that you can\u2019t just have these ideas of \u201cI want to be a millionaire\u201d, and then not do anything to make it happen. I love the idea of yes, leaving things to magic, but there is the intention behind that. Right? I would say for people who want to allow more magic in their life, you\u2019ve got to be willing to show up, so if you go to meet ups in your local area and you meet people, if you spend more time in Facebook groups and really connecting with people on a deeper level, these things make a big difference.<\/p>\nI mean, I built my business mainly off of Facebook in my relationships with other copywriters, my relationship with launch project managers, and my relationship with graphic designers. That\u2019s really the secret sauce to my business right there.<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> Sarah, I want to change gears just a little bit here. You offer a free course. Tell us about the logic behind creating a course, the effort that went into it, and the result that that\u2019s had in your business.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh my goodness. Yeah, so that. That whole course thing.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Yeah, that.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> I did … Yeah, that. Kira knows. She\u2019s I think in the middle of all of this right now. Private client business to me has always been natural and a lot easier to build and probably because I love connecting with people so much.<\/p>\nThe online course tripped me up a little bit. I was not a natural. I\u2019m putting that out there. My course is called \u2018The Copy Camp\u2019, and there\u2019s a free course you can take on my website. It\u2019s funny because the value of that course, like at that time when I was creating it, I went to teach people how to write their own websites, so just the very basics of like their home, about their sales page, and then the free gift page, the landing page that you have on your site. I wanted to create that and it was pretty crazy because as soon as I set the intention for it, again, that magic happened where I actually want to give away from a company who said they would develop my entire course on a platform for me, and –<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> What? That\u2019s cool.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Basically, I went from having a team of three people to literally, I had 10 people on my team, and I wasn\u2019t even paying half of them. All of them just wanted to support me to create this course. Insane. Right?<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Nice.<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>Yeah, so I followed that path. All those doors were opening, and I was like, \u201cYes, I\u2019m going to go down this path. I\u2019m going to create a course, and I\u2019m going to scale my business this way\u201d, but when it came to the promotion, I wasn\u2019t as good as promoting myself as I am my clients. It\u2019s that irony, like don\u2019t go into the chef\u2019s kitchen because it gets messy fast.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> It\u2019s interesting because initially, I created that course to scale my business and get out of private client work, but when I realized that that wasn\u2019t happening as quickly as I thought it would, I pivoted back to the private client work. What\u2019s amazing now I\u2019m so glad I did create that course is I scaled it back to be an evergreen offer, so someone can sign up for the free course on my site, and then they\u2019ll get a series of emails, and they can buy the evergreen offer now. What\u2019s really cool is all those people who keep coming to me and they don\u2019t want to pay 3,500 and up for their websites, I have my team send them a back door offer to get into the course, and people are buying it, so it\u2019s creating value now in a whole other way that I didn\u2019t even imagine.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> It\u2019s interesting. Do you mind sharing how you\u2019ve priced that course and how many people are buying it per month, those numbers? I know I\u2019m throwing it at you.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> I\u2019m probably selling three to five seats per month in the course, and I think it\u2019s priced at 297 right now. Some people take the free course and they convert into buying it on their own, and then some of them are sent to that page by my team after we have that first discovery call and I realize they\u2019re not ready to invest at the level that my private clients are typically, and then they go and buy it from there.<\/p>\nKira: <\/strong>Yeah. What advice would you give to copywriters who are creating a course or thinking about creating a course based off of your experience?<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>Yeah. It\u2019s interesting. When you\u2019re first getting started in the whole course creation thing, one thing that I did, for my promotion, I did run Facebook ads to it and it was at a much higher price. I think I was charging 997 for it when I did the full on promotion before it was evergreen, and I did convert people into buying it at that time just not at the level I thought I would, so I invested a ton of time into my course and didn\u2019t see the results I wanted, and that was really discouraging because … There\u2019s a saying, \u201cI never fail. I either win or learn\u201d, and I feel like I learned a lot.<\/p>\nWhat I learned was that for one, people didn\u2019t know who I was yet, so to put a course out there and ask for 997 with not a lot of brand recognition, I mean, ask for 997 was I think a little bit too high for my market because I was focusing on creatives and healers, and that felt like a big investment for them, and a lot of them didn\u2019t even really know what copywriting was, so that was –<\/p>\n
Kira:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. I didn\u2019t do enough education on my part to let them know like this is something you need for your site, and so that was the tricky part for me that tripped me up, really just not knowing my audience enough to sell them a course that would build the foundation for their business. Honestly, if I went back and did it all over again, I wouldn\u2019t just focus on the copywriting. I would teach them all the other stuff I know about business building too and what I know they need to build out their business. Those are the things I would change for sure.<\/p>\nThen, the other advice I would give is just to start small and scale it from there which I teach that when I speak too is like don\u2019t look at somebody\u2019s launch that\u2019s like a five-day challenge that turns into a webinar, and then turns into the cart being open, and all these crazy things. Just try one thing at a time and see what actually gets traction, and then lean into that piece instead of trying to be all over the place because you see these other big launches happening and you think you can match that or you don\u2019t have the team to do it yet.<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> I love that advice. We have spoken with another writer, Maggie Patterson who\u2019s going to be a guest in an upcoming episode, and she basically said something really similar that courses are really hard. They\u2019re hard to put together. They require a lot of promotion on the back end, and it\u2019s not really free income, like you really have to work at keeping it up-to-date and working it, so that feedback in your experience there I think is really enlightening.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Thank you. Yeah, and I love Maggie. Huge fan of her. We\u2019ve been in each other\u2019s orbits for a while now.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Yeah. She\u2019s great. I want to ask you about what you\u2019re doing with Facebook Live. As I was stalking you in the last few days getting ready to chat today, I noticed that you do quite a bit of online video with your Facebook page. Tell us about that and just your approach, what it\u2019s done for you, what kind of attention it gets, why you\u2019re doing that.<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>Yeah. For Facebook Live, I really only focus on it if I\u2019m launching something and I want to get some attention on it, otherwise I don\u2019t regularly do it. At some point, I may think about consistently showing up on Facebook Live. What I\u2019ve done so far is really just to teach lessons on there if I\u2019m offering something to my list, and then I just see the offer during the Facebook Live. There was a time when I was offering a group copy coaching program, so I went on and talked about what worked for me and why I hired a coach and why I wish I would have done it sooner and stuff like that.<\/p>\nThen, I\u2019ll just go on as kind of a reminder to people and talk about subjects that are adjacent to the promotion that I\u2019m doing, and that way, the people who are on my list will likely see it or I\u2019ll point them to it so that they can see my own experience. When I do Facebook Lives, I try to share things with people that let them know like, \u201cWhat I\u2019m asking you to invest in, I\u2019ve invested in myself, and here\u2019s my take on it\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kira:<\/strong> Very cool. I want to shift gears again because I really want to ask you about your schedule, and I heard you talk about this on a different podcast and it caught my attention because I know you have these intensives, so how do you build a schedule around this intensive model so that you still have a life and you have space to be creative, and how do you make that work because that\u2019s definitely not my strong suit?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. I\u2019m working on a thing called \u2018Lifecation\u2019.<\/p>\nKira: <\/strong>I like it. I\u2019m sold.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Done. Basically, I really love my work. I\u2019m definitely addicted to the whole marketing world and my business, and educating myself and launches and all of that, but I also really like having fun time for myself and pausing to celebrate all the things that I\u2019ve created because I\u2019m in my fifth year in business now, so one thing I learned last year is I need to take a lot of time off for my family and I really took … It\u2019s crazy. I took four months off last year and had no loss in revenue, and –<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> What?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. Crazy, but basically –<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> You definitely need to talk about that as our next question.<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>The short and long of it is that I basically raised my rates to charge what I\u2019m really worth, started focusing on the launches way more than anything else like put all my focus, like double-down on that, and then I just leaned into my team more, but I had obligations to my family, and that was more important to me, and so I made a way to … My priority shifted, and as soon as I kept my focus on getting the team set up to do what they need to do, getting them delegation in my inbox, having them with all the canned responses they needed for onboarding clients, all those things, I was able to take a lot off my plate. Now, last year was a little mixed and matched, like I didn\u2019t have much of a plan of how that time was going to happen. I just made it work as I went and blocked out schedule as I needed to. Then, this year though, I have it batched a little differently.<\/p>\nI always take the month of August off because it just makes sense to my life and I realized through the first four years in business that it was a slower time for me. I was like, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m just going to take it off. If people want to work with me, they can wait. If they can book me before, they can wait after, and that\u2019s fine\u201d, or I can send them somewhere else.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m happy to refer people out if it doesn\u2019t work for their timeline. This year, I\u2019m actually batching it so that the first three weeks of the month, I work on copy and projects. The last week of the month, I am either taking a vacation. This month, the last week of the month, I\u2019m going to focus on doing stuff like podcast for one day. Another day, I\u2019m going to focus on doing affiliate promotions, so each day is going to have a very specific focus, but for that week, I won\u2019t be working on projects, so …<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> Interesting. We\u2019ve heard a lot of ideas over the last 30 plus episodes that I want to steal, but taking the month of August off, I think it\u2019s my new favorite.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Do it.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> I definitely have got to do that. I got to figure out a way to do that. I want to ask very specifically about your launch programs and what that includes and how much you\u2019re charging for that. Are you charging in addition to a project fee, do you get a percentage of the sales? Have you worked with clients that are allowing you to do that? What does that look like?<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>No. It\u2019s a flat rate that I charge based on the project scope. It usually lands between three and $8,000 per campaign, and that would be anywhere from doing that mix of challenge with webinar, leading to sales page, and also all the pre-imposed cart emails. I even do the pre-imposed cart Facebook ads, so I really get my hands into all the pieces of the launch. Then, for clients who need more than that, I can add on, but that\u2019s usually what a launch looks like and how I help them.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Sarah, I know we\u2019re wrapping up here and almost out of time, but I feel like a lot of what you\u2019re talking about is you\u2019re in your fifth year, you now have a team, you\u2019re established. I think it\u2019s great to hear just that you\u2019re in such a great place in your business and able to take the month of August off. For copywriters that are listening and they want to get there as well, maybe they can\u2019t hire an entire team right away, but what would be almost like a little baby step they could take to move in that direction?<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>Yeah. That\u2019s so great. I\u2019m glad you asked that. Yeah. I think just hire somebody for five hours a month, put a post up on social media in your personal page, say you\u2019re hiring and just …<\/p>\nI mean, that\u2019s how I started. I literally hired somebody for five hours a month. I think I paid her $16 an hour and she was local to my city, and she helped me just with the onboarding clients. That\u2019s a great place to start. Also, I\u2019ll give you guys a tool tool that I used, and I still use to this day is called \u2018Streak\u2019.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a free CRM that integrates … Say you\u2019re at Gmail, so you can totally use that tool to track clients, and I think a lot of people who even tape money on the table by not making sure they stay in contact with their clients from the start of project to the middle, to the end, and then the recap after the launch. You just got to hit … Make sure you stay in touch with them on all those points and use something like Streak to track it so that people don\u2019t fall by the wayside.<\/p>\n
Rob:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to have to check out Streak for sure.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Yeah. To recap, can you just comment on that? The recap is actually jumping on a call, coast launch, and breaking down the entire launch, or what does that look like?<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. I position it as a bonus call and I send them an email saying, \u201cHey, give me your feedback and I\u2019ll get with you on a bonus call and we\u2019ll talk about your results and how to amplify your sales the next time around\u201d.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Sarah, I have one last question for you as well, or maybe it\u2019s not so much a question. It\u2019s a comment, but I think you deserve some attention on the fact that on your website, you talked a lot about giving back, and you list several organizations that you either donate time to or money to, and I think maybe a lot of writers do this sort of thing in the background. Some may tithe to their church or to their programs, whatever. Other people just want to give back to their communities and they\u2019re involved in local theater, that kind of thing, but I love that you have this on your website. Tell me a little bit about thinking behind sharing this and just being so upfront about it.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. As you mentioned, I\u2019ve been involved with the local Y. There\u2019s a group called 826LA in Silver Lake that helps kids become writers, and all of those things, I really have a lot of heartfelt clients who lead from the heart and not from the head, and so I know that they would love to see them supporting my business and supporting people also in the community. That\u2019s part of the reason why I put it up there, and also just to raise awareness around those organizations because I think they\u2019re top-notch and I love what they\u2019re doing and they deserve to have some air time.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Yeah. I agree. I think they\u2019re a couple of organizations that I\u2019ve been involved with and I\u2019m thinking after seeing this on your page, it\u2019s like, \u201cMaybe I got to give them some promotion on my website\u201d.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Not that a lot of people go to my website to see that, but those are worthy causes and it\u2019s nice to share that with the world.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that, Rob. I really appreciate it.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Sarah, we are out of wrap, but where can we find you online?<\/p>\nSarah: <\/strong>Yeah. If you go to Sarahgrear.com, you will find my website in all its glory.<\/p>\nKira:<\/strong> Thank you so much for hanging out with us. I have been taking notes. I have so many different ideas about just how to enhance the client experience, so thank you, Sarah.<\/p>\nRob:<\/strong> Yeah. Thank you, Sarah.<\/p>\nSarah:<\/strong> Yes. You\u2019re welcome. Thank you, guys. I appreciate you both.<\/p>\nRob:\u00a0<\/strong>Before we end the podcast, we just want to tell you about our sponsor, Airstory. Airstory is an application designed to help you write faster and it does a few things really well. It makes collaborating with others on your team easier. So if you work with clients or other team members on projects, you\u2019ll love the way that you can interact within your project documents.<\/p>\nBut there are two things that we really like about Airstory that you won\u2019t get with Word or Google Docs. The first is the way that it lets you organize information into cards.<\/p>\n
If you refer to research or other information when writing blog posts or websites or sales pages, you\u2019ll love the way that you can organize bits of information or entire articles into a card file that you can then drag and drop into your document.<\/p>\n
And if you do your research online, Airstory\u2019s chrome extension lets you cut and save information directly into Airstory. It\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n
Plus Airstory has a library of templates that you can use on different projects. So let\u2019s say you\u2019ve been hired to write a sales page or an email sequence and you don\u2019t have any experience or you want additional inspiration for the project. You can go into the template library, find a template for what you\u2019re working on and use it to start your document.<\/p>\n
Maybe best of all, you can try it now for free. In fact, one project at Airstory is always free.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a professional writer, there\u2019s so much here that can help you. Check it out at Airstory.co\/club.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve been listening to\u00a0The Copywriter Club Podcast<\/em>\u00a0with\u00a0Kira Hug<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Rob 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\u00a0our free Facebook community<\/a>, visit\u00a0thecopywriterclub.com<\/a>. We\u2019ll see you next episode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Copywriter Sarah Grear stops by the clubhouse to share how she\u2019s built a successful copywriting business over the past five years. Sarah\u2019s clients include course creators and entrepreneurs about to […]<\/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":[3,36],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast","tag-podcast","tag-sarah-grear"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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