So today is all about it’s kinda building off on what I talked about the last time, what on that last time, which was basically creating your packages and product side services.

What I wanted to, you know, get into now and start preparing y’all, even if you feel like, oh, I don’t have an email list right now, or maybe my email is just tiny or, you know, the If you don’t have an email list, this is something you definitely wanna start thinking about right now because this is something that future you will need. So If you don’t have an email list, I would highly encourage you to sign up for an ESP after this call and start thinking about your automated sales sequence for your productized services. And if you do have an email list, then your action item will be to write that, email sequence and put it into your ESP.

So yeah, I know I’m, like, kind of, jumping the downhill literally, but I definitely want us to want to encourage you to not wait till you have a big list or, you know, like, a big list or whatever. Like, this is definitely something you wanna start doing right now way too many service providers and, literally losing out on valuable reads and clients because, you know, we haven’t really thought about this ahead of time. So Let’s go. So stack themselves, you it’s essentially an effortless email framework for filling your packages on autopilot.

For those of you who don’t know this, like, literally our business, our entire copywriting service business is built on the foundational packages. That is what, you know, like, last year, four hundred k was copy packages.

It’s what has helped us scale.

And they I would say almost but not proof. We are like, you know, we do have periods when I get, like, tired, but we know when kinda watch for and just kind of step away a little bit, but it’s it’s beautiful. And this is an email sequence. I have tested multiple multiple times and have used it even when I did not have a huge list or used it on social for that matter.

So The reason most packages do not sell via email is because they’re missing a welcome or sales sequence to start with. Like, you know, if you’re if you have a package, even if it’s like an audit, and you aren’t talking about a new welcome sequence, you’re missing out on sales there. You’re missing CDA’s to sign up for your packages. A lot of people just talk about the package, but they don’t tell prospects or leads.

That this is what you need to do to get it. It’s amazing how many emails I have critiqued where clear CDS and other, and Clarity is key. All of you know that. Keeping sales emails in your in your newsletter strategy.

Okay. Hang on. Yeah. I found it over twenty five years ago. I’m trying to meet you.

Okay.

Alright. I no. I can’t mute people apparently. You have to mute yourself.

So The third reason is if you’re sending out emails, you aren’t including any sales emails. As part of that newsletter strategy.

And that is, again, something that you wanna start thinking about intentionally. So if you’re sending out a weekly email to your list, You wanna think about, okay, if I’m sending up four emails a week, do I have a sales email in the mix?

Over not showing your leads in prospects, where which is like, oh, I wanna give value. I wanna give value. And I’ve been on that end of the spectrum where, you know, I really wanna give value, but pointed there is something like too much value. So you need to remember that you’re all business owners, and yes, we want to nurture all these. We wanna give code on code value, but we also wanna sell.

And then selling without context or nuance, this is something that I have seen.

A lot of creative entrepreneurs make where We, in our heads, know what the package is for and what it does, but we forget that for a prospect This is just one of many things that’s been, you know, that’s coming at them, and they need to, and then to help to have to then add context to it or, like, okay, where is this gonna fit into my marketing system? Or how is this gonna help me accomplish those goals? We don’t want them to have to do the heavy lifting of kind of figuring out how will this help them. We wanna give them the context. We wanna give them those new answers of how is our package going to help them, or how is a productized service going to help them?

So these are things you wanna kind of avoid in any of the emails that you write for when it comes to selling your packages for sending TLS.

Okay.

So one thing all of you need to remember is emails are the engine that can clear demand and fuel sales for your serve services and packages, but only when you use them with intention and purpose, which is exactly what we’re gonna talk about today.

And again, emails are a authority pillar that you should be building, and I cannot stress enough the importance of doing that. Even even if you’re, I would say, even if you’re in and building of, you know, even if you’re just in house, like, you know, Randall is, like, I would still say start building your email list, you know, or and especially if you’re in house and freelancing start building your email list. It goes this holds good in all cases and all scenarios. So With that, let’s talk about my go to framework for sales viewing automated emails for packages. I say automated because that’s pretty much how I tend to use them, but you could use them as broadcast.

Last year, and this year, I have mainly used them as broadcast mainly because we’ve been kind of book solid, but, I have used them as automated emails. Hold on a lot. So specific, timely, unteachable, engage, motivate to act. That’s my framework. I’m a huge fan of frameworks just to kind of simplify things for myself. So this is what I keep in mind when I’m writing emails for my services and packages.

Alright. Well, let me see. Before we look at it, the two. Okay. Hada has a question.

Do you actively sell and include include those links in the welcome sequence, or do you leave it for the end of the sequence?

I would actively sell and include those links in the welcome sequence. So, in fact, I’m going to talk about that too at the end, as well. Like, you can you can actually just have a one email sale sequence as well. So we’ll talk with you about that, towards the end. Cool. Let me move forward.

So this is an email that I sent out to our list. This was for our Tysmal, which was for, you know, it’s a VIP package, VIP day kind of package that I was selling way back in the day. I’m still selling it.

And this was one of the emails I used when we were launching it. So the reason I’ve shared this here is because it like literally lays out everything. It starts with specificity, and you’ll see context.

So how much copy do you need for an upgrade launch? Okay. Simply use what I use from a live launch when I turn this. What’s the difference between live launch?

Copy. So very specific about the problems that it would be solving for them. And these are three of the most popular questions to adapt, and then this is what led to my framework, my process. Now this is like a really long email.

This does not, by any standards means that all of you need to write long emails, please, this is just to kind of give you an idea of how, like, kind of all the different elements that come in. These could be, like, shorter or faster paced emails as well.

It’s timely. So why I developed this teachable to your other six copy barrels, and this is again content Bistro. We have a lot of foodie references going. So I talk about, you know, what everything that they need here I include a lot of specificity also in terms of things like, you know, these actors clip bars and, you know, so it’s engaging. There’s more, you know, there’s a little bit of personality there.

And then, of course, motivations, like, why do they need this? So you need to connect with your audience’s pain. You need to strongly, you know, you have to tap empathy. You wanna You need both strategy and copy assets, all of that. So this was an email that was a blended set, like this value pass series of the precursor to Artezno, your VIP already, we had people on the wait list. So this went out to them.

Fairly, fairly simple and relatively standard.

So specificity, how do you wanna craft that? You wanna use we’ve had you worded subject lines that increase your open rates. You wanna keep that up within your email. Examples, use specificity to add that context, use specificity to highlight why would they need it, use specificity to, you know, even talk about their motivations so you can use them interchangeably.

Specific results, specific steps, specific outcomes, specific deliverables. Be very, very clear about what it is and why they need this. So this was like a presale email. If you’re sending it directly for a set for a package, tell if you wanna be very clear about what are the deliverables in there, what, and, you know, how do they lead to the certain outcomes?

And then, of course, experiment test optimizes goes without saying.

Rule of one, applies everywhere, one email, one package. Acceptions are, you have two tiers to a package, like fully loaded launch for a very long time, had two tiers. Artasional, I think has half a day and full day, I think, right now. Point is, if you have two tiers, that’s fine.

That does not mean that you’re talking about two different packages, you know, But what email one package? New packages that lead to a similar outcome? Yes. You could, you know, maybe talk about it because you’re you’re then you’re using one email, one come as the guiding goal.

But do not try and talk about an audit or a website copy package and a launch copy package in one email. Unless, of course, it’s like, say, you’re doing, like, a catalog style email or something like that. But for these automated sales emails, you wanna keep it to one email one package.

Soup specificity super powers emote relevant emojis that are very specific to your brand numbers, dollar figures, key adjectives, you know, like, click bars for us is very on brand or just term benefits, you know, and use all of this again for your subject lines or for your body copy.

Use words and phrases that involve visual images that, you know, like, literally for, like, for our audience, again, Harry Potter was a big part of our brand for the longest time ever until Jacob Allen ruined it for everybody. But, so things like, you know, hybrid sized mountains of unfolded laundry instead of a laundry pile.

As copywriters, y’all have the gift of leaning into specificity, lean into it, and music.

But with specificity like makeup, less is more that don’t go overboard, know when to dial it down. And when you do your sweeps, that is when you need to look at and think about, like, okay. Am I just overdoing it here?

Or is this real needed to make a point?

Then we have timely unteachable.

So, again, timeliness and copy can usually be created with strategic calls to action. So Why do they need to act now? What’s the urgency there? Along with that, you can be timely with content. That’s actually timely. So seasonal specific emails or seasonal specific packages, for example.

If you’ve got, like, screenshots and case studies that have just come in, that may be a good point to include in your cell sequence. References to current world situations. Now if you’re automating this and if you’re setting this up for your work for your welcome sequence or for a and always on wakeless sales sequence, this references to current world events may not be a good idea, but you can obviously be timely in other aspects.

And then teaching. Now, t this is where you need to be extra, extra careful because we tent we can tend to go to the side of teaching too much.

And We don’t wanna do that, not because we wanna withhold information, we wanna keep, but because we do not want to cause more confusion.

For our prospective clients. We do not want them to start feeling like, oh my gosh. This is way too overwhelming or Oh my gosh. This is easy and I can do it only to realize that this is not easy and they will struggle to do it.

So you know, which ways we wanna be very careful about what we teach. So five things that I’d like tested out is process. You saw an example of that, like, I talked about, you know, cures. Well, it’s included in this.

And here’s what you need, you know, when it comes to every launch copy cures, everything that you need in it. You can also talk about mistakes your clients made before they hired you. You can talk about the importance of the key elements in your package kind of ties in with the process as well. You can talk about amplifying results your packages, and you can also talk about what comes after and what should they be preparing for?

Once they worked with you. So that’s like future pacing with a twist. You will lean on your case studies and customer success stories here to talk about it. Okay.

My client had to hire a customer service executive just to kind of deal support all the new clients that they got after our, you know, she worked with me on a fast sale package. So that’s just something you may wanna start thinking about right now. That kind of a team. Help them see themselves two steps ahead or even ten steps ahead of where they are right now after they work with you.

Now the goal here for teaching is you wanna, you know, pick the curiosity, but you also wanna give great value. You wanna, you know, help them see that you know your stuff. So that’s why it’s like a fine balance and a good idea whenever in doubt, again, take the time to give it a suite, take the time to get it critique if possible, you know, just so that you feel very confident about it. But the point is don’t hesitate from teaching. Just be careful that you don’t just go way overboard here.

Engaging personality, humor, pop culture, trivia, books, TV, and music, values. We are huge, like, personally, you know, I bring up the fact about our about financial stewardship. I bring up the fact about integrating life with work. I, you know, it’s super these are like values that are key to us.

So, We talk about that all the time, and we, you know, and we use them to create a point of differentiation as well. So Think about, you know, if you feel like, oh, I I’m not into pop culture or I don’t listen to a lot of music or I don’t read a lot of buzzer. I have not interesting happening in my life, which honestly trust me you will be. But don’t hesitate from talking about your don’t have different talking about words and phrases that you, you know, use all the time or you made up.

I’ll give you an example. I just reasonably, like, I started using the word truth biscuit instead of truth bomb because, again, on brand for us. So don’t hesitate from adding in personality to make your emails more engaging.

And of course, what makes you you, what makes you data from everybody else and maybe doing the same thing. So personality types, like, literally everyone on our list knows that our Maya script types. Those are Integram types because they’re big on those. But if you’re not, like, think about it, maybe you have a habit, maybe you have a pet peeve, all of the research that you would do for your clients and their audiences, you need to do for yourself as well. So you need to be kind of clear on what makes you you, and then use that in your emails.

Don’t be afraid to listen humor.

This is something I personally had to learn, because humor does not come. I’m not one of those that it comes naturally too. So I did do some learning here. And humor seriously is a book I really I really enjoyed it in getting some really good, you know, strategic tips.

And then, of course, I don’t know if he’s still running it. Justin Blackman had a course called write more personality, which I took. And absolutely loved and have used, used it extensively. So, yeah, but if it comes naturally to you, you’re one of the, you know, lucky ones.

Please go ahead and definitely use humor.

Formadding basic rules of copywriting out everybody just be sure, like, when you’re reading your emails, make sure you preview them both for mobile and for desktops format your content with bold and italics, bullet at a number of layers, short type paragraphs.

You’ve got, you know, the gist.

Jiff it up.

Very, very easy to add, you know, engagement and personality with GIFs.

Don’t be afraid to use them. But again, you don’t wanna kind of overdo them mainly because we’ve seen, at least, I’ve seen it in fact deliberately in certain cases.

Also don’t hold back on your opinions. You know? So they do make for a lot of engaging reading. You’ve got hot takes, on things. So, you know, like Abby mentioned her her hot take or her, you know, contributing point of view was, you can go evergreen from day one. Something that, you know, you should be definitely talking about. And if you, you know, if you’re when you put together emails for your evergreen package.

And then finally, we have motivations. Now motivations is what basically answering the question. Why should they care?

Why should they care about your package? So your package or productized service was created with the intent to help, solve, heal, undo, redo, improved, increased, decreased something in your prospects lot.

You need to talk about that, lean on it, shine a spotlight on it. Does not mean you poke the pain or, you know, do all of the things that we don’t wanna do. You want it, but you do want to highlight why they need it. Again, this is what adds context and nuance to your emails.

Okay. Before we get into the tactical side, questions. Okay. Oh, if you asked, how are people entering this funnel?

Your welcome sequence feedback for application funnel? It depends. You could use it as it depends on what packages you wanna sell. Like, we’ve reached the stage where we’ve got so many packages, so we don’t, you know, we don’t have them in a welcome sequence.

Excuse me.

But what we do, we did earlier was we had a vacress. We used to build a vacress, and then we used to have a sequence here. But if you have, like, say, one big package right now, which is what I would hope all of you do have, I would use the welcome sequence for that. You could simultaneously also below wait list for it.

So for people who don’t wanna sign up to say a welcome sequence, your wait list could be would be actually a really good idea because those would be active warm leads saying, Hey, I wanna hear more about your packages. So I would actually do both they could enter the funnel, through an automated sales. See oh, they could also enter the following something that we tested out with a client of ours is a noted for sales newsletter sequence. Those are automated newsletters that go out every week and sell her coaching activist.

So, we wrote up I wrote up email newsletters for six months for her. So And every email followed the same same format. She she offers she’s an executive career coach, office career coaching services. Point is you could use them in multiple different ways.

Alright.

So how many emails to send?

My favorite answer, it depends. It depends on your package cost. It depends on how warm your list is, how the list temperature essentially, and audience fairness? Like, does your audience know that they are they pain aware?

Are they solution aware? Are they brand aware? Like, where exactly are they is somewhere in the middle there. So if you would know more about that, that would be great.

It would depend on all of these factors.

Having said that, three to five is usually a solid number to start with.

Now you could take each element in stem and turn that into a sequence. So you could have an email that’s super specific about the pain that you’re solving. And, you know, what what your offer is. You could have an email that’s timely and teachable.

So it walks them through your process or gives them a behind the scenes, and, you know, it’s exactly what to expect from every deliverable. It could be just engaging in storytelling, you know, so you could have, like, just four email and then motivation have, like, two emails because that would be, like, the last two emails that they would get. So you could turn stem into its own sequence or you can send three emails with all of the elements in it. I tend to lean towards sending three to five emails that include all the elements in it. You saw that example earlier, But, you could, you know, totally turn them into an automated sales sequence by itself as well.

So when this is, you know, I’ll leave you kind of answering your question as well. You could send it as a welcome sequence. You can sell it at when you launch a new package as an automated sales sequence to everybody who’s clicked on the link in your emails before that to show interest or been on your wait list, you could send an automated wait list sequence, digit results, email newsletters, and then also for pre selling and getting looked up for package, which is what we kind of did with with artisanal when we launched it initially as we presold it.

And then clients were booked in for, like, say, thirty days later or sixty days later. It was a while ago. But, you could use it in you could send these emails in so many different points, the easiest would be the welcome sequence or the note to fulfill email newsletters. Like, if You know that you have a certain audience segment on your list, but not yet for sales email newsletter sequence would be great. For them because then you can just batchrate these emails, send them out every week, they’re curing from you, and you’re selling your packages as well.

Should you sell in every email?

Yes?

And no? Yes. You do need to talk about the package in every email. No. You don’t need to create false scarcity.

You don’t need to make it appear that this is this is never going to be offered again or or that, you know, you’ll be increasing your prices unless, of course, you will be increasing your prices. So, Sally, every email, don’t sell in a way that doesn’t make you feel good. And if it doesn’t make you feel good, it would definitely not make a few of your clients feel good. That’s, you know, because Yeah.

That’s kind of what I’ve come to realize. So, yeah, don’t hesitate from from Sally.

The one email sales sequence.

If you decide to send only one email to your list, to talk about your package. I hope you said more than that, but if you say, like, okay, but I’m not gonna say, hey, thank you. I don’t I don’t wanna send the sales sequence, etcetera, etcetera. I would highly recommend you use the confirmation email to sell your package or, you know, to talk about, like, write a stem email.

And why? Because not only does this email have the highest open rates because people are taking to to confirm you, or they’ve just gotten on your list. They’re like, They they know and remember who you are, but it’s also a great opportunity for you personally to build a connection with a prospect, maybe very new to your brand. Right?

And, if you’re running, say, Facebook ads, or even, like, from social, or if you’re using affiliates or, you know, like partners or JV partners and things like that, or muted newsletter swaps, point is, again, it does not have to feel pushy or safety when done. Right? So what you wanna do is you wanna share your story in it, give some backstory about how you started. We are, you know, what it is that, you know, you’re known for, what can they expect, from the freebie that they’ve signed up for.

And why should they, you know, go ahead and actually watch it, download it, use it whatever your freebie is. If you have a freebie there, you wanna validate and empathize with their struggle. You wanna celebrate their action taking spirit.

Educate them. We talked about what you can teach them.

But the opportunity here is for you to share your credibility markers. So things like, I’ve been doing this for x number of years. Here are some mistakes that I’ve seen, you know, or here’s what a client said after, you know, we finished implementing their, their funnel or their website copy or, etcetera. So you wanna use the education part to teach about your process, but also share credibility markers. And then you wanna just set it seating and soft selling. So you wanna give them a sneak peek of what’s included in your package, what can they expect, and buy them to check it out and come back to if they have questions or book a call with you, to get more details.

But, yeah, So, yes, you can definitely just sell with one email.

I would hope you would use more than that. But if you have to, then, yeah, this the confirmation email do not overlook it.

Alright.

Soft selling your package for maximum sales. This is something you wanna kind of keep in mind for your emails, whether you’re using it in your confirmation email or even in your sales email and you’re like, you know, okay, I feel like this is getting me too salty.

So You can share a time lapse video if you’re working on a package deliverable. You can share case studies, testimonials, screenshots from clients, like, you know, that they leave in Google Docs.

You can drop a personal video these days. There’s so many tools that make it so much easy. So that make it so easy for you to kind of be at these personalized videos at scale and share why you created the package in the first place. I think I did that I did I did that one time when we launched, a package version of, of my program, ready to sell.

It did really, really well. So You could for social, you could create a carousel, explain why, you know, what’s in that package, why do they need it, and then embed that carousel in your email. So you again, the idea here is for you to get that package in front of your audience in as many ways as possible and not hesitate from the idea of selling, in a way that feels good to you. Eglopedia.

We have we have one. We use one regularly for our packages. So we need people to download to see examples, case studies, and your and the process that we use as well. Key elements, invite them to get on a zero pressure call with you. Make it really, really easy for people to know what offer and to buy from you via emails.

Next steps, identify the package you wanna sell. But those of you who have created packages since our last call, amazing. Happy to give you feedback on those.

Write up one to three emails or she’ll do five emails using STEM, upload them into your email system and send. And then, yeah, just keep testing and optimizing a simple log. Cool. We have plenty of time for questions.

Okay.

Chris asked, would you recommend having subscribers sign up for a sales sequence from one of the weekly newsletters if so how Yes. Great idea. I absolutely recommend it. So let’s say you’re setting up weekly newsletters and you want to get people to sign up for a sales sequence for one of your packages.

Is that correct? That’s what you wanna okay. Good. So there are a couple of ways you could do this.

You could do this, but if since they’re already on your email list, you could, you know, skip the step of having them subscribe again for their details in again. You could just say, if you’re interested in my ABC package that would help you do x y z tap this link and I’ll send you more details. So when they tap the link, an automation kicks in, that would put them into the sales sequence.

Most ESPs make it really simple to do that. So that’s all you would need to do. So when you do that, the system would the automation would kick in, and you would tag them as ABC interest list, for example.

Does that help?

Yeah.

I was wondering, also, like, considering I haven’t sold anything to my list, for example. Right? So I guess the less aware or less or the lower the intent is probably the longer the sequence will will have to be to kind of educate them. Right?

Not really. The you’ve had your list for a while. You have been emailing them regularly. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So honestly, you would all you would need to do is just let them know that this is something that you’ve, you know, fit in your working on and he if they’re interested in working on it with you or if they’d like to hire you for it, here’s, you know, to tap here and you’d send them more details. And when it happens, they know that they’re going to get details about a package. So your first email itself could be a pitch email.

You know, it could be a case.

The the the click is the qualification. So, yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. That is the qualification. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

I’ll ask how you all manage the tech side of all these phones, do you outsource it at DFI? So the the welcome sequence and, nurture hotel users. These are, like, fairly, like so here’s the thing. I would I’ve been with ConvertKit for seven years now.

So for me, it’s really easy to go in and set these up. I know. I also like to know a tool inside out, even though, like, right now, we be hired someone who’s working on setting up the whole evergreen side of things for us. But, for for a program, that that is something I would not want to do, at all.

But something like a welcome sequence and all, I would do it myself.

But yeah, I would be keen to share what the group has to say, like, do y’all do your, DIY or automations?

Or hire it out, but they’ll let like techy is who can easily help you do that as well.

Abby, Jessica Johnson.

I do.

I do. I think ConvertKit is pretty it’s pretty easy. The screening tags.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.

And and the automation are visual.

So it’s pretty easy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So most of us set it up ourselves. I would for your business, and this is just a piece of side you know, like, from someone who’s been there and done that.

Oil business, I would say it I would highly recommend knowing the tools your business uses in setup. You can definitely hire out the setup later on, like, like I gave you the example of the open funnel setup. Or for example, design, you know, like website design. I don’t do it, but I can go in and make quick changes. I can go in and the reason being it just makes it a lot easier and less stressful, and also because I’m kind of anal about control, so there’s that too. But I would highly recommend, like, knowing your ESP and knowing what it can do. So you don’t have to, like, be you know, just kind of wait for someone else to do it for you.

Cool. Just Yeah. Jessica has another good point, but I’m offering emails for I have to copy many clients ask so many questions about set up in their ESP because it’s an easy upsell for me. Amazing.

I love that. Yeah. Wait. Wait.

Okay. Cool. What other questions do you have about packages or selling your packages?

Abby, can I ask that?

Yeah, I’m looking to, like, increase the profitability of my package. I’ve been selling it for a while. I just felt like you’re the perfect person to ask because you’re all about profitability.

So I’d love to, like, do two.

So I, yeah, I guess my option, like, the the obvious thing to hire.

I have like I’m also curious, like, how much you template, like, the the copy deliverable. So I’m doing an open funnel photo. So it’s kind of similar to your, like, fully loaded launch.

Do you I do have templates for all the bits, but I always feel guilty using them. So I’m like curious if you if you template it out. And, Yeah. With the hiring up for research, like, I have a block there.

I don’t know what it is. I think it’s probably just because I’ve I’m not really hired out for stuff like that. So That was a real question. We’re just like some thoughts.

I might be waiting, like, how we sort out.

Okay. Cool. So let me just kind of clarify so that I know I have it right, and I’m I can give you information that would help you. So, you wanna know how to increase the profitability of your packages, by either hiring it out or by speeding up the process. Correct?

Yeah.

Okay. Great. Alright. So, yeah, hiring it out highly highly recommend research take took a lot of time on and also for me because I’m in India.

Time zones, and our clients are all in the US and, you know, North America, essentially. So time zones were Royal pain.

So that was my big motivation of hiring it out because I I used to be up for calls, and then, you know, I would not be my best. Yeah. So, hi, workman, hiring out research, if you can, and you factor the pricing into your package. Basically.

So to give you, I think I mentioned this somewhere in the group earlier, like, research I’ve hired out in the, you know, our research assistant takes, you know, twenty five hundred or upwards depending on the depth and breadth of research. For instance, if you have clients who have, like, so we’ve had clients who’ve had big server responses that have over thousand responses. We obviously are not gonna come to thousand responses, but we still would have, like, there’s a few hundred responses that we would, like, kind of pull from. Right?

So that’s more data there. It kind of depends on data, but essentially, like I would say, twenty five hundred is a decent package price kind of keep in mind if you’re hiring a research, but you also for the other thing you wanna look at is opportunity cost. Right? So When I calculated the amount of time, actually, my uncle calculated the amount of time, I was spending on the research phase of product.

It just made more sense for us to hire it out so that I could take on another package line. Right? And that kind of then You know, that is what helped us to really do more work without burning out. I mean, like I said, like last year, just the one the one hundred k package that I did was, like, twelve different sales pages and don’t know how many hundreds of emails.

It was, like, I could have easily said, like, okay. Yeah. After this, I’m not gonna do another project.

But I just wasn’t stressed out at all. And large part of that would be, research, but the other is going to answer the other part your question, which is process package delivery is all about your processes. And this is for everybody, whether you do, you know, like launch copywriting, your email rating or any kind of copywriting point is for your packages, you need to look at what can you systematize and In my case, I do not have used templates for copy.

I have a huge thing against templates for cockney.

It’s on my pet peeves. But I do have what I call recipes and frameworks. So I’m a huge, huge I would like if I write a sales page for the first time at it conversely well, you can be one hundred percent sure it’s going to become recipe. And when I say recipe, it’s essentially I would write down, okay, like, so here’s step one.

Like, literally, write it out like a recipe. So I would say, okay, here are the ingredients that I use for this. Here’s step one. You’re step two.

You’re step three. You’re step four. You’re step five. And then when I’m sitting down to write, all I do is I open up a recipe.

I copy that into a Google doc, so I’m not starting with a blank page. And then I just Follow the steps, put my copy in the relevant sections. And when needed, because again, audience is wary. So it may be the same recipe, but I can move steps around and gives me flexibility.

So that is another way that I’ve been able to really speed up my process. That’s made a huge, huge difference.

Going back to hiring, yes, research is one thing, but you also need to know that our very first hire was an editor. Because editing was my least favorite thing to do. We did not hire VA. I know that Joe encourages us to hire via, like, you know, first thing.

But went against the grain there, hired an editor because editing was my most time consuming job, and an editor was our first full time hire and has continued to be part of our team sense. So, that saves me a ton of time because I know the copy that I get I’m like, I’m not worried that I’m sending off copy that hasn’t been seen by another pair of professional copywriting, copy editing files. So our editor right now is someone who’s also trained in BrandVoice. So that means really, really you know, it’s really helpful for me to know where I’m going off voice sometimes for a brand, you know, especially because I do multiple projects for the same brand.

So she’s she can recognize, like, hey, you know, this should you be using these many exclamation marks and, you know, things like that because it’s not on them. So that really helps save time for me. I’m not spending time editing. Anything that helps us save time is a hire that we would we would consider.

I don’t do my own wireframes either.

We hire that out too. So I save a ton of time on just focusing on doing my writing.

That is that is basically what what’s really really helped.

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Because I don’t I don’t wireframe. I didn’t realize you did that.

But I yeah. I think like So a project will take me fifty hours, and I don’t really see room to, like, speed up. So I do use frameworks and stuff, but I think with the hiring out the research, like, because that’s such a key part of where, like, the ideas happen, like, when I’m finding it all, like, that’s usually when I get, like, the big idea. So I think I just, worry that if I hired that out, like, I mean, what do you think of, like, if I have, like, a kind of a framework for a master guide and I tell them what race I should do and, like, to put it in there, and then reviewing that. Is that kind of?

Yeah. Exactly. You can absolutely do that. So I have a framework for my messaging and recommendations guide as well, and I would let my researchers just know that, hey, you know, this is how I needed it.

So and, yeah. I mean, we worked with three different research specialists over the years and all through, like, because we had so many projects, so we would, you know, like, and they would have that limited So we would hire out different projects to all of them. All three of them have same standard instructions, same briefs, everything. So it yeah.

And I completely agree with this. This was, like, one of my big too. It’s like, you know, okay. How would we get sticky messaging?

How would I know about, you know, things like, okay. Again, the big idea here, all of those things, but Yeah. I mean, hiring research, Abby has made zero, I would say.

Difference tune. In fact, if anything, I’m more creative. Like, I find that because I’m approaching the messaging and the research data with those fresh eyes. So I would say it’s it’s been a huge huge help.

Oh, sorry. One more question. I’m really sorry to be like a hog, but, how how do you hire someone? How where do you find these people? To do.

Yeah. Yeah.

I I actually so sorry. I I want to add to this. I also wanted to ask, like, I’m curious For the research part, do you hire someone who already knows how to do copy research, or are they like generalist researchers or what?

Copy research. They they specifically work with copywriters, to research for their client. Projects. So, I’ll tell you how we found.

So here’s, so one of the first researchers we worked with was in our programs, for creating packages, and created a research package, and we ended up hiring her. So that was easy. The second researcher was, Melissa Harstein, I found it to another copywriter, and the third researcher was essentially she started as our content support, and the community concierge, assistant, and then she we realized, like, you know, she she had the potential. And so we started asking, like, would you like to do research?

And she did, like, a bunch of projects where it went really well. And now she specializes only in research. So, but how would you find these is by asking people in your network. Like, this is the group you would wanna ask.

I’m happy to recommend who we work with for research. Should you decide to hire, and you could ask on social. Like, generally, And that’s how we found our editor as well. A copywriter who was in my program was working a second editor.

Our first editor, we found through an ad. You can also do job ads But, but I I feel like you make way, way better hires through, you know, like asking people who they work with and getting referrals. So very happy to recommend both our editor and our research people. To you, one of them has gone in house and is no longer doing research, and the other one This also is on a short hiatus from work, but the third one, I’m very happy to make an introduction to any of you needed.

Thank you.

That’d be great.

Hi, buddy. Hi, everyone. How are you?

Hey, honey.

Hi. Sorry. I I didn’t realize it was so early this morning. I had the kids walking them to school. So apologies.

This has been so helpful, and I’m right with Abby and Chris about Christopher about, you know, trying to outsource as much as possible.

And I know Abby, you are looking at a VA. So I think it’s I would love to really dive into this outsourcing because I think what I was hearing a little bit muddled was, you know, it’s like relinquishing control and what parameters because I think When I’ve heard of people who they start to outsource, they spend early days a lot of time trying to figure out a process. And that can be a really valuable time spent, but it’s also with the who you do that work with.

I’ve been cautioned about, you know, there’s a lot lost in translation that can happen when you’re when you’re partnering. So I know that, you know, the turning over some of this really important work that you mentioned is really my next step. And so I’d love to hear from the group or from anyone about the work of relinquishing control, I guess, as the mindset.

Yeah. I feel like that. And I I’d love for the groups to weigh in as well, but I feel like, that I I’m as I type a overachiever who, like I said, I’m anal about control, is what I realized is that I actually have more control more creative freedom when I’m not stressing over things that, you know, someone else can do and do well. I will say, though, and again, this is something for for future you that you wanna start thinking about is even before you hire, answer your question about processes, processes and systems, is you wanna start documenting your process. Right? This was really helpful.

For us when we hired is, like, just have well documented processes to share with whoever came on board. So they knew exactly what do and when, and that makes it really easy because it, you know, it’s a shorter runway.

Also for certain jobs, like, when you hire them out and you hire, like, say, research, for example, you’re hiring someone who is a research specialist, the runway is way shorter because they’ve already done so many projects. They work with so many different copywriters. They know different styles, and they’re really easy to work with. So that makes it that makes it much, much simpler too, which is why I’m a huge fan of asking your network peripherals, about people that they really enjoy working with.

That’s great. I think, I’d love to know, who those trusted people are within our network and, you know, building out maybe a directory of those people that we could turn to.

And then I think the last thing is out outside of the network is upwork or any of those places, reasonable places to go to from your experience.

Yeah.

Early days off of business, you hired a lot of people off of fiber. It was really great, especially with things like video editing or, like, quick graphic design jobs and illustrations and all of that. I’ve never personally heard from Upwork, but I’ve heard of some great people out of work as well. Like, people have had some great experience, there.

So Also, there’s a site called hire my mom, hire my mom dot com. That’s a that’s another really quick like, I her first hand from peers who’ve had great success, finding excellent people there as well. So, yeah, I would definitely say that. And Again, for, when you’re looking to hire, it would be great when you if you could, like, ask in the group and, you know, like, hey, I’m looking hire a VA or looking to hire an editor, does anyone have references, or referrals to, you know, kind of send my way.

So, yeah, we could obviously absolutely do that.

So just in terms of a source for for hiring, I’ve been in the ten x freelance copywriter group for, like, years. And anytime I’ve posted about, like, subcontracting opportunities there, I’ve gotten a ton of responses So, again, it, like, when I’m saying, like, there’s people who are already trained in, like, the copy hacker has approached to research.

You know, so you’re not, like, fully educating somebody who’s never heard of VOC or or something like that.

Exactly. Great idea, Katie.

I have, like, two questions up on this call.

Sorry.

Sure. Sure. No. Alika, give me just a minute. I wanted to answer Hannah’s question also, and then I’ll come to you.

So Hannah asked in the chat, I feel like an order for this kind of model to sell really well. You need right for tier clients on the list. Currently, my smallest list is a mix of people in my target audience and copywriters slash service providers. I wouldn’t engage my service for this.

So, for this, you mean, the package you currently have Hannah? It’s Hannah here. Yeah.

Hello?

Okay. I don’t know whether it had us here or not like Sorry, Elythea. I was about to ask, like, just get more clarity from from Hannah about her question because I saw that come up a short while ago. We let Hannah come back to us. I wanna get some more context around that.

Why did you go ahead?

Oh, no worries. So I have two questions and one is I’ve been, like, Two months ago, my dream was just a contract for operators because I wasn’t called with one of the leading operators right now. She’s a co she’s a coach of Galaxy. And then she told me her story about subcontracting subcontracting for another operator.

So the the thing that you’re all talking about research I wanna share the other side of the story that what Abby just said that the the research was all done for me, and I’ve really struggled with that. When I sat with the writing part. Like, because I I did not I had not done the research. Like, I had not gone and done the interviews.

I struggle a lot with, like, reading through all those heaps and heaps of transcripts.

Then, And although it was like an airtable and very organized, but I struggle with coming up with big ideas and specific VOC, which So how how do you overcome that when you’re writing and when the research is done? Like, do you read it again and again or especially when the the product or offer is not very familiar to them.

Okay.

So here’s the thing. So my research process essentially includes the VLC, which is your you know, survey data and your interview transcripts and your kickoff call transcript and all of that. Right?

But then the second part of my research is offer optimization where I go into their offer, and that is something I still do. It’s like I go through their I work with course creators, right, and coaches. So I essentially experience their course or service firsthand to get, a direct look at how a student will experience it.

So I am familiar with the offer of what with the research document as well. Like, here’s the thing, if you get them the way you would want it to be presented the way you kind of use your, like, how do you package your research so you present it to the client? And, you know, or how do you package your research so you use it?

Either which ways If you let your research, you know, assistant know that this is how you would want it, you would be starting with a done feed document. Would you have to read it Yes. But you don’t have to read all of the transcripts. I’ve I don’t read the transcript unless, of course, I wanna kind of double check something that, you know, or I wanna kind of get some more insight on a, you know, a particular, messaging area.

But or you don’t have to go through the surveys. You’d yeah. And the kickoff call is with you in any case. How our researchers can is done is I do a fairly in-depth kickoff call.

The client fills out an in-depth questionnaire, and then our research assistant takes over, does the interviews, survey responses, forum mining, coming through, like, competitor analysis, all that the research assistant does. And then they presented in a format that I wanted them to present it in because that is how I’ve been, you know, approaching my research. Like, after I’ve done all of this, I put it into, like, a fairly hefty document divided into, like, the usual sections, you know, your pains, wants, etcetera, etcetera. And then if it just yeah.

So they basically shortcut all of that for me. But it’s not like I don’t know the product because I do know it because I’ve gone through it. Sub contracting is different because you may not have contact with the client themselves. So I because I don’t subcontract, I can’t really speak to that experience.

And I have another question. And that is, like, I’ve been about hiring from day one. Like, even if it’s only been a year, I’ve hired multiple multiple things and also so what I do is, and I felt a little bit of resistance here. So when I hired for the first for three or four times. It was a higher class, bio class thing. And then I realized that I, I needed to add test like, so I added, like, a test project and or just just to see, like, if they’re fit for this job.

And there, I feel like some, like, beginners opt in for that, and then they don’t qualify.

But then the people who are actually doing great, they don’t opt in for that because they think that that, like, you know, I’m that other spammy because they’ve opted for other test projects and been, like, they’ve they’ve been born out for that. So how how do you deal with that? Like, how do you How would you approach that?

Because when I’ve hired someone with a test project, it has been, like, if someone is really qualified, it has been really beneficial for me through, like, clicking out the perfect person instantly.

But how do I encourage someone to do that? With all enthusiastic.

You you cannot.

It depends on the person who’s applying for the job. Right? Like, you cannot do the job of generating enthusiasm for applying for something for them. You can make it simpler and easier by laying out everything that they would have, what they would what you would expect, having clear expectations, also highlighting why they should wanna work with you and what what’s it for them, that kind of a thing. But beyond that, like, whether they decide to do a test project or not do a test project, essentially, up to them. Right?

I mean You recommend, like, doing a mini sales pages thing that that also walks them through, like, what’s in it for them?

No. I just do like a regular job ad. Like a well written job ad would be fine and as long as, you know, it just kind of you don’t need to sell them on sound working with you and for you to pay them. You need to sell them on, you know, the here’s why we need a test project here’s how it’s gonna help me understand and, you know, the the skill level you have and the expertise you have.

And, you know, the, you know, whether we’d be a good fit working together. So, so yeah, I would go with that. Again, full disclosure for us test projects have been for when we hired from Safe Fiber, and that test project has or up we are not work, but I would say if you have, I believe, wanna start with a single project, like a small project to see how it goes, look at turnaround times and all of that In other cases, how we’ve worked with it. It’s been with social media managers or VA’s or content support assistants or graphic designers or research assistants or, you know, editors, it’s always been we start with one project.

So we just do, like, one project, like a full project and see how that goes. Worst case scenario. It may help go really well, but then that’s just one project. Right?

And you’d never work with the contractor again.

Touch with. We’ve been very lucky. We’ve had a couple of, like, instances where we’ve not, you know, like, we’ve had, like, I think, literally say a couple of instances. But where, you know, contractors haven’t have dropped the ball have, like, literally ghosted us after, you know, saying yes and taking payments.

So, yes, it happens. But we’ve been very, very lucky with our team of contractors that we work with. So, yeah, very grateful for that. It’s been I know because it’s it’s hard hiring.

I completely agree. Thank you. That’s very helpful.

You’re welcome. Kaye said I color code everything by team. I think it’s a matter of figuring out the presentation in a way that works for your brain. Exactly.

Like, do you approach your research? Like, I always would categorize it into different categories. I needed it in, like, a Google Doc format. It’s presented to the client and like a very beautiful PDF, but I needed it like that.

And that is exactly how I get it, which makes it so much easier. So you need to figure out, like, when you are working on a copy project, how do you approach your research? Do you start by, like, going through everything and but do you document everything? Like, where does where does that documentation happen?

And that is what you need someone to do for you when they’ve done all of the other parts of the research.

Okay, Hannah, I had a couple of questions around context for your, you know, what you said about, I feel like in order for this kind of file to sell really well. You need to, like, right fit target audience clients on the list. So when you said your, your current list is a mix of people in your target audience and copywriters who that wouldn’t get your service with this, but you can still sell to people in their target audience. Right?

And then you say they’re assuming your package. Correct?

So I’m just I’m just saying that, like, I haven’t done much of this kind of setting because I feel like my list is so It’s not such a big list, but it’s like mixed of I have some of the right fit lines in there and some not. So I would have to do you segment when you send out when you have Yes.

Yes. I would feel like when I’m going to send out this kind of, to do such a fun, I would have it first focus on growing. Like you said at the beginning, going to list with the right fit to help people on the list. Yeah. I would say that too, and I would also say that segment you’ll list right away. Like, if you’d know you have a mix of charter audience clients. I would, again, do not wait for when it reaches a decent number, segment them right now.

And let them know that, hey, you know, I if you are a whoever your target audience is, if you’re this, you know, and would like to know more about what I have coming up in twenty twenty four, like, right now. So, you know, just click here and my email automation would do the rest. That kind of thing, and then you just tag them. So you have that signal building away.

Then you can set up your sales sequence to go to that segment. Right.

Cool.

Katie had a question.

Sure. We’re a little over time, but if everyone’s cool with it, we can stick around and answer Katie’s question about creating a package. Go ahead.

Okay. So I think, like, this may be beyond the scope of this call. So feel free to, I’m like, I’ve got today to to work on this kind of thing, but, my current audience is like coaches, experts, course creators, and Through conversations with Joe about my Red thread, we had talked about, like, what I currently do being profitable signature offers, so a lot of for optimization, like core messaging and sales pages and and funnels, but wanting to create some IP that’s applicable to a broader audience potentially into ecomm I can like see all of the big picture of that, but just when I think about like a q one sales plan, I’m totally lost on what to sell to my existing audience now that also allows me to be like ticking the boxes on our you know, our, like, towards celebrity status, spreadsheet because it feels like I would have to be creating content for the business I have now and creating content for the future business, which I just don’t have capacity to do.

So I guess my question is like, do you have any tips on the packages to bridge that gap or like finding kind of the overlap in the Venn diagram between where we are now and where we’re, like, hoping to go in the in the context of this program.

Oh, oh, I think you’re muted.

You wanna you are sorry. You wanna start working with e commerce businesses on their the entire profitable offer suite. So their offers and then their sales copy on their emails. Is that right? And right now you’re working with coaches and course creators on a similar thing.

Yes.

So there’s your overlap. It’s the outcome. Right?

Like, it’s the Well, I guess it’s not my question.

I guess I’m like, do I because you work with course creators. Do you Like, if I want to go as big as this, like, if I wanna go as big as possible, is there space to do that in the coach’s course creators realm, or do you think that it’s easier to have a, like, bigger outcome from the bigger pie that is e commerce.

You are asking the wrong person because, like, I believe, yes, there is a lot of scope in the coaching and course creation industry.

It honestly, we could we should have this conversation in Slack as well, but the point is, like, I feel like there’s a lot of the coaching and course create create an industry. You don’t wanna just look at your marketing coaches. Right? You wanna look at beyond that like this. So much learning happening. There are courses for for equine business owners. There are courses for, you know, like, in all the finishes.

That’s one of the reasons why I, you know, never need to down per se to something like a specific as I write for female marketing coaches, you know, So Yeah.

So, yes, there is. Oh, is e commerce a more profitable, Leech?

Maybe, maybe not. Like, define profitable. Right? Right? Is it profitable for you? Is it profitable for, in terms of, like, the people who are hiring?

Like, what is yeah. I mean, like, for me, I feel like it’s very profitable.

Okay. And also from, Katie, the other deciding factor for personally for me is also the the stress level when working on a project. I find because I’ve worked with with EdTech, where you have, like, multiple state stakeholders. I have also worked with e commerce as well. So I I work a lot of e commerce intact.

Before I focused, kind of focused on the coaching industry.

I find that stress levels in this industry way less because they’re very fewer stakeholders in the project. Right? It’s usually the person behind the brand and maybe they’re OBM and maybe someone, you know, like, a CTO or a marketing person, but Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Probably it’s moved much faster.

Okay. Thank you. That’s all really good food for thought.

So I’ll be I’ll do in Slack on this as well. Yes.

Please. Please. I, you know, yeah.

Tag me and post it in Slack, and I’m, like, I love coming up with packet ideas. So, yeah, happy to help.

Christopher’s last question for the day, SLP, do you pay them? Have you ever yes. Yes.

Have created them myself and lately have had, like, our community concierge. I totally is transitioning into full time research right now. So she created all one of the SOPs for the person who will be coming into the community conflict role because she’s been doing all of it. Right?

Like, so, it just made sense for her to document everything. And she’s also documented. She used to do our comment content, support thing as well, like the blog post uploading and, you know, sending out the email you said, all of that. So she’s documented SOPs for for all of all of that.

So but the initial SOPs that I gave her were created by me. So when you do bring in someone, you could you can definitely have that conversation with them that, hey, I would love for you to document your workflow and your, you know, the whole process as you go along so that it becomes easier for us to know how things are going, and if there are any gaps, then we need to fill them. But, yes, you can do it both ways.

Both. Thank you.

Awesome. Everybody, great call. Great seeing y’all, and I will catch you inside.