Alright. So as you know, today’s workshop is all about reframing failure.

So over the next twenty minutes of content, and then of course, with all the time for questions, so we can speak about this stuff or anything else related to business or copywriting, you can expect a quick rundown of a fixed versus growth mindset plus this group on why the ladder allows you to pursue failure rather than try and avoid it at all costs.

Behind the scenes look at a couple of my biggest business related failures to date, plus how I use them as tools for growth.

And a neat little quint tablet reflective practice prompts to help you transform your next fails into fuel for next moves, and those prompts are what is in your worksheet.

So don’t feel like you have to madly scribble down, sponsors to those as we work through the workshop, that is a worksheet for you to keep and to use, as you go on, in your business and do really cool things. And inevitably fall short and make mistakes. So, keep that in your back pocket for future, future times.

So just to kick things off today, I would love to try and get my head around, where each of you sits on the scale of having a fixed or a growth mindset. So I’ve got three statements here, and as I read each one out, I would love it if, you could either write agree or degree, in the chat box.

So first one, you can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic level of ability.

Agree or disagree with that one.

Just pop it in here we go. Disagree.

Caroline not sure disagree.

Caroline, what’s making that one tricky to answer?

I don’t know. I guess, it feels a little bit like a trick question to me because I guess if I’m learning new things, I I guess I don’t really understand the question very well.

Yeah. Sure. So I’ll I’ll try and I’ll try and reframe it. So, So obviously everyone can learn new things, but do you feel as though there is a limit to how much that can improve your ability based on you know, the skills and talents you’re born with. Does that reframe help or may not?

Yeah. I mean, I just said disagree. Disagree. Yep. Okay. Okay.

Alright.

Next statement. I like my work best when I can do it really well without any or many hiccups.

Agree or disagree for putting the chat and I’ll have a squeeze it where you’re all falling.

Alright. Carolyn, Arie, Abby agree.

Okay.

And last one here, when I work card, it makes me feel like I’m not very smart.

Agree or disagree.

Disagree for Hannah, mostly agree for Carolyn. Disagree for Abby. Alright. Thanks guys.

So to give us a little bit of color in context, For all of these statements, if your response was agree, that indicates a more fixed mindset If your statement was disagree, that indicates a more growth mindset, now my alarm’s going off. Great.

But of course, like all things, it’s a spectrum. So it’s not as though, you know, you’re gonna just have like a fixed mindset and that’s gonna boot, like, you know, your your whole thing, you’re going to be somewhere on the spectrum of, you know, being quite fixed to being, quite growth focused. So this is just to give you a sense and a little bit of inside into sort of where you might sit and also, you know, which pieces of the puzzle may be ones for you to work on.

To dig into this stuff a little bit deeper, people who believe their success is based on innate ability, have a fixed mindset, whereas people who believe their success is based on hard work, learning, training, and doggedness, which, by the way, I just think is such a great trade. Have a growth mindset.

And if you want to dive much deeper into this, Carol Duek is the expert and the brainchild of all of this She’s been publishing studies and papers on this since the late eighties, but her TED Talk is a really great place to start.

But if we look at how these mindsets can actually, work in terms of, you, specifically, your business this is actually a really great infographic. It’s quite tiny here, but I’ll read it out for you. And of course, you’ll have these, slides to look too. So you can obviously zoom in, at a later date, but basically a fixed mindset, has the belief that intelligence or ability is quite static, which leads to a desire to look smart and therefore, a tendency to avoid challenges, give up easily with obstacles, see effort as fruitless, ignore useful negative feedback, and feel threatened by the success of others. So as a result, people may plateau early and achieve less than their full potential.

And you can imagine how this would play out in a business context, right? Because often the opportunities beget, can be really scary. They can require us to take a leap of faith or a leap of learning So if you’re someone who has a fixed mindset, you are probably more likely to say, look, that’s not really for me. Like, I just don’t have that skill all that knowledge or that ability yet, and you’re probably going to turn that down, for fear or falling short and looking like a fool. On the other hand, if you’re someone who has or is able to cultivate a growth mindset, that’s, yeah, is based on the belief that intelligence or ability can be developed So it leads to a desire to learn and therefore a tendency to embrace challenge, persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as the path, to mastery, learn from criticism and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others.

And as a result, if you have a growth mindset or able to cultivate one, you’ll often reach higher levels of achievement and success.

So, obviously, when we look at failure in this context, you know, it’s a really great thing to aim for because of what it indicates about what’s going on inside of your brain and how you approach opportunities, and tasks in front of you.

So to summarize that infographic fixed mindset less sticking with what you already know in an effort to never look dumb or feel not enough, which of course I think is think that we all worry about from time to time, but if that is your approach all the time to every opportunity, that leads to a flat lining of expertise and success.

On the other hand, a growth growth mindset leads to taking on more challenges and learning from them, which leads to increased expertise performance and success.

So obviously, I think the, but, you know, a huge part of what is important about growing your business and growing in your journey as a copywriter or whatever kind of niche that you are working in here is that you’re constantly working towards having a growth mindset and like I said, you know, it is a continuum or it is a spectrum, so I’m not expecting that you’re gonna come out of this workshop today and all of a sudden be like, woohoo. I have a great mind like let’s go fail at all the things.

But I think it is something that with practice, actually becomes second nature. And again, if you wanted to dive deeper into that, Carol Duek has all sorts of research on the neuropsych and the neuroplasticity, behind cultivating these behaviors. So basically the more you do something, you know, the thicker and the faster that neural pathway comes, so it can literally become second nature to you, to approach failure in a certain way and use it as a learning experience and a tool for growth and refinement as opposed to, a cause for beating yourself up for being not good enough, smart enough, clever enough, experienced enough, whatever that may be.

So, like I just said, Fly is actually a really great thing to aim for because it’s sign that you’re one of those wonderful humans who’s always pushing for more, for different, for better, and that you’re someone who’s chasing growth instead of settling for what you already have. And of course, I think the fact that you’re all in CSP, you know, is a sign that you are someone who is doing this, right? Don’t think you join one of Joe’s programs if you are comfortable, sitting in the business that you already have. So you’re here because you want to stretch, you want to grow And, of course, failing and falling short is an inevitable part of that.

I think it’s about how we respond to it, which is actually the key thing here because, of course, there is a huge difference between, you know, making a misstep or falling short and saying, I’m just not smart enough or I’m just not good enough, which is a dead end, and having that same, making that same mistake and saying, look, I’m just not quite there yet. Which is a path forward.

So as two examples from my own business, just to show you that failing happens all the time, and there is actually stuff that you can do with it, to help really inform the next step of your business and to help pull yourself and your business along to that next level of success.

Back in twenty twenty, which feels like a lifetime ago now. It’s pre COVID at the start of the year. Amy Posner and I, who you may know if you have through ten X freelancer, we partnered up together to launch an online coaching program, which I mean, I can’t overstate what a huge opportunity that worked particularly for me because I was relatively unknown Amy felt like such a big deal in the copywriter space. She wanted to partner with me, so I was just beside myself with excitement.

I’m also a launch copywriter.

So of course, you know, for me partnering with her and launching this program felt like I should be playing in my safe space or my space of expertise.

We launched. It absolutely flopped. We only sold two spots.

It was awful.

We had to come together basically with our tails between our legs, and we had to pick apart what went wrong with the launch itself because we did really believe in the offer that we’d put together, but we knew we and mainly me because again launching is my jam, had made some serious mistakes, in the launch strategy.

I mean, I can talk about this in whatever kind of depth you’d like, but we, had done it without building a specific launch list we’d done it with very little lead time. We’d reached out to people one to one to invite them in, to people had said yes straight away. But the rest had sort of said, oh, you know, I don’t know about the program, I don’t know, you know, what’s gonna be in here, how much information, you know, can I get? So we’d sort of build a sales page, like, hurriedly in reverse. Nothing was done with strategic foresight, basically.

So Amy and I had the choice there and then whether we just kind of keep it quiet and shut the program down and refund those two people, or whether we actually try again, give it a proper launch and see how we go, and we we chose the latter path. So as embarrassing as it was, you know, for both of us, I think Amy too, we publicly acknowledged, that our land launch had fallen well short that we’d only filled two spots, and let our audiences know that we were gonna do it again and do it again properly. And we built a proper launch funnel with a webinar.

We had a proper sales page, a checkout system, launch emails, all of things, and we actually went on and we sold that program out the second time we launched.

But as you can imagine, huge fail, huge feelings of disappointment and just like cringing in the moment.

And I think it’s important to note too that having that growth mind it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t or can’t experience those emotions around being disappointed, etcetera. It just means that that’s not the end of the experience that, you know, you don’t, you know, go tuck your tuck yourself away with a big bucket of ice cream and feel bad and shut down that avenue, but that you may feel those feelings, but then think, okay, cool. What am I gonna do now? Because I was reaching there for something that’s actually really important for me. It’s something that I was really excited about for my business.

As a different example, this is back. Looking at dates when I found this screenshot back in twenty eighteen, I took on a client that was referred to me by one of my mentors, because she was a referral from one of my mentors, I didn’t do my usual level of screening for red flags. I even ignored red flags. You can see in this email here, so she sent me this after, our discovery call and like this middle paragraph here, the price for the web copy is a little high based on the rates I’ve been seeing, so I’m wondering if you can come down a bit. Because it’s a brand new business without an income for a few months to come.

So I did actually reply to this with, saying I can’t reduce the cost, but I can reduce the scope, which is always what I suggest if you are in the situation with a client. But, I mean, for me, looking back now, I’m like, god, it’s a glaring red flag that was a brand new business, and she was coming to me looking for website copy and launch copy in the scope of time that she was looking for.

I did take on this project, even though I had a reduced scope, it was not a successful project, for me or for the client and it was the first time that I had actually, not been able to deliver really clear ROI for a client, which of course felt awful.

But what this made me do is when I sat back and looked at what went wrong, I was like, look, the problem was that my assessment of whether this client and this project was a good fit and was a good investment for for the client and a good opportunity for me to build my reputation and results I didn’t do that correctly.

So this resulted in me completely tightening up my, sales process making sure I asked all the right questions to understand whether a client was well positioned with the assets that they needed to make a project to success as long as they had from me the good copy and strategy.

So a different example of a different kind of fail but also a really good example, I think, of how I took that and actually made into something useful for the future, because that meant that all my clients from then on were much, more appropriately vetted, and therefore the projects that I worked on were much more successful.

So as I’ve spoken through those examples, I think the thing that’s really key to to point out here is the place of reflective practice in this whole game of actually turning those fails and those missteps and those falling shorts into really good insights or what comes next.

So if you haven’t heard reflective practice before, it’s something that is, really built into your job in the world of therapy. And for those who don’t know, my background is as a therapist, but it’s about carving out space and time to pinpoint what’s working, what’s not, and what possible so that you can make sure every iteration of your business is more informed than the last. So this is where those questions in your worksheet, come in. They are reflective practice questions designed to help you get better insight and also identify, an action from whatever next fail you might have in your business. So these are all in the worksheet, but the questions are what went wrong, because sometimes you’ll find that it’s easy to get a lot more clarity about the cause of the actual problem when you sit down and write it down.

What would you do differently if you had your time again? This question basically allows you to theoretically apply hindsight to the situation, which is a lot of we’re a lot of the great insights come from.

What have you gained from this experience? So maybe that’s about having a new piece of knowledge, about your work, or about yourself, or about your systems, whatever that might look like.

And in what way does this bring you close to the business you want and or the business owner you want to be?

I also think that is a really important thing to think about whenever we do have these situations in our business because it reminds us that we are using all of our experiences good and bad to grow ourselves in our business into something that we’re really proud of and really excited about. So by being able to see this all on paper, it can honestly make the world of difference in terms of how you feel about and also what you do with every fail that you come across.

So those prompts are there for you to use at will.

And I’m gonna open up for questions now. But before I do, I have one last question for you guys, and I’m not gonna make you answer right now, but I would love to hear back from you, maybe in Slack or maybe at the end of this hour, give you some time to think about it, but I would love you to identify one goal that you’re willing or maybe even excited to shoot for this quarter even though you might miss the mark.

Because I think a huge part of this being in that growth mindset and working more towards being in that growth mindset, is been willing to set quite audacious goals, knowing that even if you don’t get the exact outcome you want, you’re gonna gain a whole lot from trying and from learning from that experience.

Alright. So questions from you guys, and you can ask about anything in relation to failing and this process, or anything in relation to business, or copywriting at large. So I’m an open book, so please don’t be shy.

Yeah.

I have a question related to failure.

So I get how to like reframe if it’s kind of like you’ve gone for something and you failed and it’s like, okay. What did I learn? But how did you kind of break it when you failed out of, like, your own laziness or confidence. Like, if you say yourself a goal and, like, break I mean, like with your launch, it’s kinda like, Like, you skipped doing the law. Like, you didn’t do the strategy. No. So it’s kind of like, how do you reframe that when it’s, like, because I, like, I I’ll set myself, like, goals, and then it’s like, I just don’t do them because I’m lazy.

And it’s like, Yeah.

I see what you mean. So I can talk a bit about the launch more and then let’s let’s move into some of some of your fails too because I would love to hear, like, so we can try and workshop one of those that you have sort of an idea of what that can look like, because I I understand the question. It’s quite a different thing, I think, to fail out of inaction than it is to fail out of doing something and getting it wrong. Is that sort of the Yeah.

In my accountability group, like, every week, we we share failures because it’s meant to be, like, you know, all empowering and stuff. And I’m like, how would it like, I recognize all my failures are just like, oh, yeah. No. I didn’t do it. Like, rather than actually going for it and then failing. Is. Yeah.

It’s in a Yeah.

Got you.

Cool. Well, let me I’ll show you. Hang on. I’ll share my screen again. Where’s the button? Here we go.

And to show you just to give you some more context on this, can you guys see an Instagram post? Hopefully, you can.

So, like, we really owned up to how we found here through our laziness. Like, we thought we’d fill it by invitations we sent out late before Christmas, people we’re already working with and got so caught up in the excitement of that that we didn’t build any sort of funnel for legends like you. And as you no doubt, no funnels are insanely important, especially for new high ticket offers. Without one, people are left wondering why this by now and what the hell is in it for me. In a huge epic, uncomfortably metaphase, finally made a bunch mistakes, you’d never let anyone else make, and painfully proved a point about why we paid this off in the first place.

Winging your own stuff, it’s often hard to see what you’re missing until it’s too late an order to give up at least not yet, and then I mentioned that we’re gonna read you the launch and do it properly.

But I think he’s probably some of the juicy stuff for what you’re talking about but in the process, deliver a hopefully great learning opportunity about how to roll with the punches, how to launch well, and how to take something that’s not working and make it much, much better. We’re just keeping it real and giving it context to why you’ll start hearing me talk about the other, more effectively, in the coming weeks.

We actually got an insane amount of engagement and, like, you know, we love you guys for being so open and honest about this because it’s so relatable. So the relate ability factor, involved in making this really public admission was actually quite astounding.

So I think that but I’m also sorry. Before I go down that path any further, can you give me an example of, one of your fails in terms of the thing that you didn’t do? Like, what what what kind of things are we talking about here?

Just things like I don’t know, like, my daily non negotiables and not doing all of them every day.

And it’s kind of like, I think where I struggle with it, maybe appealing to, like, your therapist side here is because, like, graphic or, like, at the moment, everything’s like, so kind of speak of bashing with yourself, let yourself off the hook. So I’m getting all that messaging, but then it’s kind of like, So I’m like, oh, it’s okay. I didn’t do this today, but it’s not it’s not productive. Like, so it’s like, how do you balance, like, being kind to yourself? And, like, not give yourself a hard time with actually, like, no, I committed to doing this.

Yes. It’s such a good question. It sounds like you’re almost being too kind to yourself.

With some of these things. I love it. So I think that there is a difference between, having self compassion and being motivated. So, you know, I think you still need to have the motivation to follow things through because you can see how they’re actually going to serve your goals and serve you and serve your business and serve that great objective that you want to be on.

I think you can be motivated and therefore, shoot for bigger goals and be compassionate to yourself when you miss them, but I think the the not doing the thing is interesting And I am curious to know whether you have any insights into what’s driving that laziness or avoidance and, like, is it laziness, is it avoidance? Like, what are we actually talking about here? Do you do you have any gut feeling about that?

I think it’s a process. It just makes me so unmotivated and fucking honestly.

Yep. Wow.

But, yeah, it’s like, I’ve just so tired all the time. So it’s like, I I just don’t work as many hours as I wanted to. Like, I’m pretty honest. Yeah.

Yeah. No.

You tried to start, but No.

No. That’s I mean, that is really good insight. You don’t have the fuel in the tank to do those things, so it sounds as though you are perhaps letting go of those tasks that maybe don’t feel so important or aligned. Is that fair?

Yeah. It’s just like yeah. So I kind of, I guess, like, okay. So probably prioritizing client work over, like, writing my book, doing reaching out for opportunities and stuff.

Which, yeah, so I guess it part of addressing that failure would be, like, just think looking at what my priorities actually are and reminding myself as to grow my business.

Yes.

And I wonder if an exercise that could be helpful there, and and this will either like, you’ll be like, oh, yeah, that I can work with that, or you’ll be like, no, that sounds really weird. So let me know. But I wonder if part of that reflecting for that kind of thing could be, reflecting on how your lack of action on those things is failing your future self. Like, how is this failing Abby next year?

Because if Abby next year has been, you know, the intervening twelve months, just focusing on client work and hasn’t reached out for opportunities, hasn’t made any traction on, you know, even writing, you know, two chapters of her book what are the impacts of that? Because I think you’re in the situation where I think we’ve all been in it, right, where you do get so busy and so overwhelmed and, you know, health comes into the picture as well. Kids, maybe, you know, where you’re just sort of treading water, and you’re just doing the things that are in front of you, but you know, by prioritizing that client work and forgetting about the stuff for your own business, you are sort of effectively in a plateau.

So I I wonder if the reframe of how am I failing my future self could actually be helpful for you to uncover some new motivation, ignite a new fire up your ass.

Maybe even make some space. I’m not saying you need to find more time because I think it’s really valid that, you know, you’re feeling flat and you don’t have the energy and you don’t have the capacity.

But with the time and energy that you do have, I think maybe you need to look at how to reprioritize that so that you aren’t just treading water. Even if it does mean you are earning slightly less money for the for the, you know, intervening few months it probably will, right, unless you manage to get some amazing client that’s, you know, gonna pay double whatever that might look like.

I said, yeah, how does that land with you?

Yeah. That’s good advice.

I I like the reframe and I think, yeah, I just need to go back to my why, really, like, why I’m doing it and just, yeah, reshuffle my time a bit.

Like, maybe yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Yes. That’s okay. No. Thanks for the question. It’s a really good one.

Anything else from anyone?

Let’s check the chat.

I got a quick question. So that’s cool, Christie.

Yeah. Hi, Mike, by the way. Hello? Hey.

Yeah.

I know I’m just silently taking notes for, rather than actually being as disty, but I was just wondering, like, when you have these situations brief, you notice, like, a, something missing in your process Do you do you find any value in, like, building that into, like, a standard operating procedure and, like, that where you actually have, like, your things I can check off and physically say, I know what the steps are so you don’t have to, like, guess what?

Hundred percent. And even to some point automating some of those things, if they lend themselves, of course, to, to an automation, so taking that mental load and that, you know, responsibility off you and putting it on something else, it’s not gonna forget to actually do that task. But definitely, I think, you know, the more you know, the more you can build.

So SOPs are great, and particularly, too, if you someone who is in a phase of wanting to grow their business through hiring staff or outsourcing various things, SOPs are definitely where it’s at.

Do you have an example of where automating worked for you?

So yeah. So in my onboarding process, So I found, I think, as probably most of us do that after doing, you know, a certain number of launch projects, there were a certain number of things that I just to do manually every time.

So in reflecting on what was working and what wasn’t, and this wasn’t necessarily a case of failure. Right? Is still working, but I do always like to reflect on what’s working, what’s not, and what could be better. I realized that I could free up hours of my time if I simply had some standard emails, you know, after people sign their proposal, talking about next steps, ask them to book in their kickoff call, getting them a shared Google Drive folder to drop in, information about their audience, that kind, that kind of thing. So for me, that was probably the best, use of automation in terms of saving my time and also a bit of my sanity too, so I had more brain space for the more interesting tasks.

Awesome. Thanks.

No worries.

Any other questions?

Doesn’t have to be about failure, if that’s a scary topic for with the time of day.

I do have one, but I’ll wait to see if anyone wants to jump him first because I’ve already had a go.

Yeah. Sure.

Oh, thanks Hannah. No worries. And Hannah, of course, if you you’re more comfortable, chatting in, you know, slack in future, just let me know as well. I know sometimes these things can percolate. And then when you’re in a situation, we’re like, I need help. Just just reach out and let me know.

Yeah. That might happen. I don’t have any questions right now, but I’m like, yeah, very possible that, like, in two days time, we’ll be like, hey, wait. Have a question. So I’ll pop in.

Correct.

Abby, feel free to ask your question.

I mean, I have I have thoughts. I just don’t know which ones I wanna share or which ones I wanna talk about. So, if you shared in my It’ll invite me some time to clarify my thoughts unless her guys saw the Esther braces in here unless she wants to go. But yeah. Mine’s okay with you. I’m sorry.

Yours is on fine. Yeah. Maybe.

Go for it.

Okay. We’re gonna go for it.

No. Like, I just have my head is spinning with thoughts. And, Yeah. I’m not quite sure what to talk about. Oh, you still there, Abby? You’ve disappeared. Oh, there you are.

My internet’s gone funny. Right. Am I here? Yeah.

You are. You’re back. Yes.

It keeps flipping out today. Yeah. So, like, a big question really.

So I I want to grow my email list this year.

So at the moment, I have a webinar final which goes straight into my course. I’m running ads to it. And that’s fine, but obviously, like, webinar leads are a bit more expensive, and it’s just for the course. And then I’ve also got my book up for pre order.

But I don’t know whether to just get up like a lead magnet, like a a checklist type thing where it’s gonna be like a dollar a lead and I can get like thousands.

Well, not to bother because I know Joe says don’t even bother with, like, freebies anymore. But then I get, like, mixed advice. And I’m just like, I would love to have, like, a big number on my email list, but am I better off just building it slowly through, like, webinars and pay stuff. And I’m, like, trying to get some more perspectives early so I can make a decision.

Yeah. Sure. My advice for list building is always quality over quantity.

There is no point paying for a bunch of subscribers through unaligned or a good fit for what you sell.

It’s just dead weight. I have a tiny list, but I think I started making six figures from my list when it was still like seven hundred seven hundred and something people.

So coaching programs and courses.

So I’ll fix that.

Mainly through so I have a couple of group programs. So mainly through that, but also through some launch copy projects too.

So yes. So So just, you know, just to the good example of the fact that, like, my list has been a really slow thing to build and to grow, but my focus has always been on quality and alignment and fit for offers, and I do just one hundred percent think that’s a much better approach than trying to get those cheap leads, which I know is enticing because you’re like, oh, I could have a thousand new subscribers by the end of the quarter.

But, you know, if they’re not people who are ever gonna be in a position to buy what you sell, then there’s no point in having it becomes a vanity metric as opposed to something that’s actually going to serve your business.

That may not be the the perspective you’re looking for.

Oh, no. Yeah. I’m, like, I’m I I just wanna know what what you think it’s best. So would you say then focus on, like, yeah, like, quality content like webinars and the ebook just focus on using those things so that our qualified leads and they’re paying early on or committing to, like, time early on.

I’d say that. And I would say that other good sources of, list building would be things like maybe, I mean, podcasts, I feel like are prolific these days, but they can still be a good source of lead gen depending on, you know, what you’re talking about and who you’re talking about So whose audience are you accessing, and how relevant is what you do and what you share to those people? And I think those are good questions to think about for other things like perhaps doing paid workshops in or even free workshops inside of other people’s paid programs. That can be a really great way to access qualified leads and to get them onto your list as long as you have some sort of incentive for them to hand over their email address, which in some cases for a workshop can just be, hey, if you want the slides, head over to this link, you know, it’s so easy and low effort for you, but often works really well.

Yeah, so those sorts of I would suggest as well. So, because it sounds like you do have, like, having the webinar funnel set up, it’s great, having the preorder for your book, probably also a good option for people who are more likely to be buying your one to one services. Is that right?

Or are they still more a good fit for your Yeah.

Like, one to one, and that’s it’s just authority building or just doing what choice.

I love that.

Yes. So I think, you know, all I’d also encourage you to think about, because you’ve got things there to meet people. I’d also encourage you to think about what places and spaces can you go to meet people and then bring them back into your world I’ve always found that to be a really fruitful, way to get qualified leads, onto my list. So, yeah, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Cool. Okay. So quality, I’ve gone upstairs, the the take what I’m taking away from that.

Yeah. A hundred percent.

Can I bounce off on Abby’s question? No. Sure. She mentioned, like, while you were talking, you mentioned that you you know, you solve your, courses and memberships for your list. Do you find yourself also actually getting a paying clients for your launch copy?

Through the list as well? Or is that just for, like, other copywriters to join your membership and things like that?

So I would say my list mainly serves my group programs and digital products, but I do also get some one to one launch clients coming through that as well.

But interestingly for me, a lot of those people sorry. Am I asking the right question? You’re asking about whether I Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I just wanted to make sure. So interestingly, a lot of my one to one clients these days, because at the moment I’ve got two small kids. I’ve got and a half year old and three month old. So my work is half day rates.

I don’t do any big projects at the moment just because I don’t have the reliability of my time. So the clients who typically buy those are ones who will be in group programs that I do a paid workshop inside of, that are related to launching or product development, or even things like pricing your offers, for example. So people who are in programs that are learning about those things, once they go ahead and do the thing in program, they often want someone to then go and write their copy or do their launch strategy for them. So it’s interesting to me that that’s where a lot of my the moment are actually coming from because back in the day, when I was doing those big, like, you know, month or two month long launch projects, a lot of those clients are actually coming from word-of-mouth referrals.

So I think it can depend a little bit on what you’re selling and who your ideal prospect is for those things.

But yeah, I would say that I definitely do get some one to one clients and for coaching as well absolutely through my email list, but I would say it’s mainly geared towards selling my programs and my digital products.

So right when you are building in a from the start, are you going to get more to those to that audience?

Ah, so here’s another good example of a fail. So, the first ever lead magnet I had was a free five day email based course on how to write humorous copy because I started off as writing email copy that was, quite humorous. My website, I had like a hug dog in a banana costume, and that was my whole theme. So I’ve I mean, my business has evolved quite a lot since then.

The lead magnet, people absolutely loved it, but of course, it didn’t actually resonate with people who wanted to outsource their copy. It resonated with people who wanted to learn how to write this kind of copy. Which ended up being copywriters, fellow copywriters. So I had this highly engaged list of people who I couldn’t sell to because none of my offers were for copywriters, but I that is part of what spurred me on to develop Brain Camp, which is my small group copywriting program because I was like, look, I’ve got this really engaged, like, audience who is really wanting to learn from me, but I currently have nothing to sell them.

So what if I then create the product to match the list that I’ve built. So I definitely and that worked really well. I sold out that first round of Brandcamp really quickly with that list and no other, you know, advertising or anything, but, so I mean, that taught me pretty quickly that that was the wrong lead magnet if I did want to attract potential launch copy clients onto my list. So I changed that up pretty quickly.

So I learned by mistake.

Yeah. The reason I’m asking is because I feel like it’s it, on my list, I mainly also have seller providers and other copywriters, not because I wanted to actually attract them. I just find that that’s just what happens at one point. But people, other copywriters, check out your site, or they check you out, and they they wanna, you know, they wanna hear from you, they wanna see how you’re doing things.

So my list is kinda fill out some of the obvious people, and I’m not And I am selling one or too many products. That’s not my main focus right now. Like, I wanna talk to my audience, which is e commerce, brands. I just find it much harder to get these kind of people on my list.

They’re not as we copy people. We marketing people are a lot more I was gonna sign up to a lot more list than, you know, somebody who’s not into this actually, you know, who’s not into, like, signing up to hear from all these people. So I found I found I find that, like, shift hard. I find getting with people on the list, the right audience, on my list, hard.

So I’m wondering if maybe I’m just going the wrong way. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to get on my list. I should be just trying to attract them via different ways instead of using the list for that.

Yeah. Definitely. So I think there are there are two ways in. You can definitely keep your list building knowing that it’s copywriters and marketers who are on there.

As long as you have something to sell them, I don’t think that’s a problem. But I think And I guess the other question for you too is are you finding that you need a different way to nurture the prospects for your one to one services and is that way email. Because if you have a system that works and if that is just word-of-mouth referrals that are coming to you or people are approaching you after maybe a LinkedIn post taken. I book a time to chat with you about this, and that’s working for you, then I don’t think you need to worry about trying to find a way to bring them onto your email list.

You can have different assets serving different streams in your business.

And I think to have and maintain an email list that does, talk to both audiences, like it does take some segmentation and tagging and, you know, some real mindfulness about what conversation you’re having with which segment of people.

I would also say too, and I think this was true for me in the earlier days.

So much of my promotional activity for my business was happening in circles of other copywriters So I was really lucky that I was part of Robin Keira’s, I think take their mastermind early on, and they really were so generous in how they promoted me to their circles and their people, so after a few months, it became obvious that all the opportunities where I was really extending my reach were in rooms of other copywriters and marketers. So I’m just sharing that in case that’s also something that may be a bit of a challenge for you, like how do you get opportunities in the realms and in the worlds in which your clients operate rather than, you know, your competitors or your companions kind of thing. So maybe that’s also something to think through too. Did anything there resonate or anything? Yeah. No.

It makes a lot of sense.

It was just like confirming why I was thinking that Get start the right place, necessary to look and nurture them there.

Should be nurturing them elsewhere.

Yes. Perfect.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Anyone else in Caroline, have you anything anything that’s top related for you? No pressure. If it doesn’t, that’s all.

Oh, I know I I do wanna talk and I I feel like this is the right time to talk about this. I’ve been hesitating because I’m sort of freaking out that this is recorded.

I yeah. That’s one. And also part of me wonders, do I just therapy?

So I’m wondering if it’s bigger than the session, but Mhmm. I guess I don’t know how much how much time you have.

Oh, I I’m I can stay for another fifteen or so minutes. Sorry, because I was late, so I’m very happy to go over time.

Okay.

I mean, we could workshop through a recent fail, which I have not.

Carved out the space to think through.

Partly because I’ve been busy. Like, I was playing catch up from being so, like, I was really sucked into this project and I really let everything else go. So I was playing catch up, but then also it was kinda scary and far to think about.

The learnings and, what went wrong.

So if we could, I mean, we could workshop that. Okay.

I would love to. If you’re comfortable, let’s go.

Okay. Sure.

So I’m not gonna grab a lot of answers. I think you’re gonna have to ask me a lot of questions.

But, basically, what happened, and just a really quick background, I’m pretty new to copywriting. I mean, I’ve been in it for two years. I’ve been learning it for two years. But I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to practice it partly because I have a web design business. So, you know, the work It’s hard to say no to clients who are willing to pay. So, like, you know, I I get, you know, requests to for web projects, and that takes time away from me growing my copywriting business.

And, I joined CSP because I like, okay. I really need, I need this push. I thought CSP would be this push to help me transition into copywriting and really take that next leap forward.

So really soon into CSP, I got, I was connected with, a SaaS someone of a SaaS company, and it that’s that’s an area that’s a space that I’ve been wanting to go into. And it seemed so ideal.

You know, very they were like series series B. I think they just gotten series B. You know, they were small enough that they’re big enough if they had money, but they’re small enough that they didn’t have like a built out marketing departments that he really needed somebody.

And, she initially reached out to me for web support. But in our conversation, it became very clear that what she needed was copywriting support.

And she engaged me, for a for cop for, to rewrite her home. Actually, it started out with the platform page.

And then through further conversation, she wanted, she also we we felt like we also needed to rewrite the homepage. So I had two pages to write.

There were I mean, there were some inherent anyway, basically the short story is I did not I did not deliver a good product and I was late, which is very, very disappointing for me. And I have done some copywriting projects, but for small, like, small businesses, this is like This was gonna be my first, like, real big scales, project and it was for SaaS, which was the area, the space that I was trying to get into. Everything about it just felt ideal. And I was so excited and I was I had really high hopes that this would that I would knock this out of the park.

And I tend to, when I any project that I tackle, I do I try to go, Beve and Beyond. So, like, I had visions in knocking this out of Park. And then, you know, the client coming back for more, but it was, like, it was a total bomb.

And, basically, she was like, you know, just give me what you have because, at this point, I just need to turn it into the web designer, and, we don’t have time to go back and forth on this. So I just couldn’t nail what she was looking for. Mhmm. One of the one of the things that became very clear towards the end in post project, and this is something that I allowed myself to think about is, She was not the ideal conversion copywriting client because what she needed wasn’t really conversion copy. It was really to present facts on the page in a certain way that she had, like, she had she had a vision of what it should accomplish, and that was, because towards the end, I felt like I let me back up a little bit. So my first draft, I followed Joe’s method method, and it was conversion focus.

But she said it’s too fluffy.

These are, machine learning engineers. They’re not, you know, anything that Sounds like marketing is gonna be a put off. So I went back to the drawing board, and we went through several iterations, several, we had several conversations. And by the end of it, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be doing. Like, I felt like all I was trying to do was read her mind. I was trying to figure out what would make her happy.

And, yeah, so post project as I was thinking about it, I realized it’s a case she didn’t really need a conversion copy writer. She just needed, I don’t know, like a technical writer or something something who something that I was ensuring for.

And so that did help me feel better about the failure because I realized Maybe I didn’t maybe it wasn’t my lack of ability, but it was we were just mismatched on expectations.

You know, I thought she’s expecting one thing that really she wanted something else.

So That’s Yeah.

No. That’s the context.

Oh, so I forgot so far.

So that’s okay. So that’s a great, summary what went wrong, and it sounds like you have come to the conclusion that the problem was that you’re a mismatch, in terms of, you know, what what you offer and also what she wanted So if you did go into the prompts, if you did have your time again, what would you do differently?

I would do I would have in our initial conversation, I would, have a better explanation for what I do. Mhmm.

And yeah. And just That would be it.

Mhmm. Yep.

So you’ve had a more open conversation about Right.

And then it’s not and maybe do a better job of figuring out what it is that yeah. Just bedding, like, better bedding. Mhmm. And also I’m in the process of rewriting my website, so I would have to have some sort of copy on my website that talks about what I do And part of it part of the challenge is I haven’t had a lot of these conversations and so they don’t roll off my tongue. I heard, you know, earlier in the call or earlier in this meeting, Abby was saying something like, you know, she needs to develop the muscle of talking about what she does, and I feel like that’s where I am. I just need repetition and to get confident.

Absolutely. And I think it can be really hard to put it into like a few short sentences, like, when you first start doing a thing. Right? It’s like, god, how do I distill this into something that’s gonna be really clear and concise?

And just, yeah, like you say, like build that muscle about talking about what you do. So it’s it’s normal, I think, that this is feeling challenging just just to reassure you.

Thanks.

Okay. So it sounds like if you had your time again, you would be entering that discovery or sales conversation a bit differently. You’d be doing a bit more vetting. You’d also be presenting yourself and your services.

Perhaps a bit differently or with a bit more clarity, around how you work and why. I think the why is always important too with conversion copywriting because I think from experience, even when you get clients who are a good fit and who are bought into the idea of conversion copywriting, you will still often get feedback or pushback from them about, for example, like what you said, this is too fluffy, for example. So being able and ready to justify why you have things on the page where you do or why you’ve made certain decisions, I think is also a really important part of the process. So,

And, you know, it sounds like in this case, certainly, as you’re saying, some some more refined vetting of this prospect would have really helped and possibly led you to the decision point earlier on that, Hey, we’re actually not a match, so we’re not going to work together, but I can refer you maybe to x, y, and z, but I also think it’s probably good for you to keep in mind that you could have that betting conversation feel like you’re a match and still find yourself in a situation where you’re getting similar kinds of pushback so being ready and able to articulate your reasoning, your decision making process, I think it’s something that’s gonna really, really help you.

In those moments, and of course, at the end of the day, it’s the client’s decision as to whether they take something as you write it or whether they still strongly requested change, but I think when that happens, if you feel as though you’ve done your part and you have stood up for what you know, I think that does make things easier as well.

Yeah.

I didn’t have, I don’t I didn’t have the experience to pushback.

I didn’t have experience which would give me the confidence to push back. They don’t have anything. I don’t have a lot of proof, that what I do, that my output or my deliverables are good. I mean, I like what I see on my client, you know, the smaller is that I did work with. I mean, I’m I like what I see there.

But they also don’t have a lot of traffic. And so they, I don’t get to see the numbers. Like, I don’t see a lot of, like, did it really make an impact hard to know. Like, it’s hard to measure conversion on websites that don’t have a lot of traffic.

I just don’t have a lot of proof in my oh, gosh.

I feel emotional.

I don’t really have proof that what I do is good.

External proof, objective proof that the quality of my work is good.

And I it’s sort of this. It’s suspicious circle.

Because I am somebody who needs to feel confident before I put myself out there.

I tend to down, you know, down downplay my abilities or down or undersell myself.

Short. What is the word? Under song? George.

Yeah. It’s all my social work.

And that’s just something that I’ve struggled with all my life.

So yeah. So anyways, I’m in this loop where I failed.

But I don’t know how to recover.

Because I need to find more opportunities Mhmm. But it’s hard to put myself out there when I don’t feel confident.

So, yes, why I feel like any therapy.

Yeah. And look, love, honestly, I I always think therapy is a great idea, but obviously I’m an I’m an next therapist. So, of course, I’m gonna say but honestly, if this is a pervasive feeling across all areas of your life, not just in business, and I think therapy would be wonderful.

But of course, you know, we can work together on how this is impacting your business and your ability to show up and to, to land projects and to, you know, put yourself out there and actually, you know, you get this business off to a really good start.

So I think I mean, one thing I don’t think we have time to work on here today, but one thing I’d love to, work on with you, inside of Slack, if you’re up for it or at the end of future workshops as well, is, sort of tipping the balance a little bit because I feel like at the moment it sounds as though you’re putting or your eggs in the basket of having external proof to validate your work and your worth in the business.

I’m not saying that’s not important because, of course, you know, it becomes easier to stand confidently behind what you do when you can point at things and say, look, I increase conversions for this by x amount, whatever that might be.

But I think as well there is a part of that that needs come from you internally, a self belief in what you do, because as well, let’s be honest, let’s look at what you’ve already done. You know, you’re already in Cobiscope professional, you’re learning from the best people, you have the means here to even if you wanted to share copy for review and get some really constructive feedback about what looks like it’s working to all of us, what looks like it could be improved, and that could help also build that muscle of self belief that you can then take out into the world when you talk to prospective clients, and you get them, now knowing what you know about how this project pans out.

So I would love to with your permission work with you on that, as we can you need to move forward in the program? Would that be something you’d be open to?

Sure. I would love to. Yeah, that’d be great.

Okay. Well, let’s keep this conversation going. If Slack feels too public, then we can, I think, Oh, sorry? My children are going off. I might have to go, if we can, keep having conversations like this at the end of our workshops, because this might also be a nicer way to work through it. But, Yeah.

Let’s do that. And let’s also I think there’s more to workshop through too, on that recent failure with that client because I feel like we haven’t got to the last few questions there about what do you now know that you didn’t before and also how does this bring you closer to the business or the person you wanna be?

So if you’re comfortable to share your responses or reflections to those two questions in Slack, then we can kick things off from there.

Does that sound okay? Sound like a plan?

We’ll have to carve out some time to do that.

Yep. Yep. No. I understand.

Thank you so much for sharing Caroline. And I know that that took some vulnerability. So thank you very much. And yes, I’m very keen to keep working on this with you. Yeah, expect me to follow-up.

Appreciate it.

Alright, guys. Well, thanks so much for coming. Thanks for your time. And, yeah, I’ll see you in Slack Bye.