Nicki Krawczyk 0:00
I guarantee if you can write great copy, people will hire you. It is an entirely merit-based career.
Emily Reagan 0:12
Hey everyone. I'm Emily Reagan, and you've discovered unicorns unite. This is a podcast for freelancers, service providers, virtual assistants and curious listeners who would like to experience the freedom and flexibility of working virtually for the magic makers, movers and shakers and the real people doing the work behind the scenes of online businesses. Welcome to unicorns. Unite.
Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the final series. I'm your host. Emily Reagan, I'm so glad you could be here for today's episode. It is going to be a gold mine for freelance marketers, marketing assistants looking to master and elevate their client work. I'm joined by the incredible Nikki krausek, a seasoned copywriter with over 20 years of experience, and she's the genius behind the circuit sales system. It's all part of funnels. It's all coming back to funnels. The cool thing is, Nikki has a big announcement relating her circuit sales system. She's actually selling this part of her business, as she explains, it's a lot to keep up with, and she's already doing really well with her copywriting Academy. And so it makes sense to offload this so before she does or picking her brain and learning how this works, and if you're curious, you can still get into the system. But in this conversation, Nikki and I dive deep into what makes funnels work, and it's not just the tech, but the messaging that drives results. Nikki shares her proven system for selling without the stress of live launches, and how she built a business that thrives on automation. We'll talk about how freelance marketers can level up by integrating strategic messaging into funnel building projects for their clients. We're going to talk a lot about copywriting. In other words, copywriting is the backbone of what we do, and even if we're using AI to build those first drafts, we still need to understand the core messaging, the point of what we're doing behind the work when it comes to the emails, the landing pages, the VSLs, the webinars, this episode is packed with insights on combining copywriting and strategy and systems to create funnels that not only sell, but really build long term trust in client relationships, and you'll see by the circuit sales how we keep putting this offer back in front of our email subscribers. So if you're ready to take your funnel building skills to the next level, command premium rates. You are in the right spot before we go, make sure you hit subscribe to this podcast. I could use your help bumping us up. I'm already ranking in the top 200 of marketing podcasts, and I need your help, and a review would be the greatest gift. So take the time to hit five stars. Leave a few words about why you're loving this funnel series and how it's helping you in your business. Now, first, a little bit more about Nikki. I did join the circuit sales system the beginning of last year, but went into a little bit of a delay, pause in my business, going through my divorce, and so I put the brakes on creating my circuit sales. But I have my webinar scripted out. I have some of this done. A lot of my messaging is very similar to Nikki's, and what she teaches copywriters. I'm like, this is going to be so fun to have her here, because I know you will get it. You will understand it, and it's really about the overlap of copywriting and funnels here today and just really giving you the confidence to move forward and how circuit sales can be a scalable solution for you, for your clients, really, your clients, and messaging is just the foundation of everything we do. So you want to make sure you check out Nikki's copywriting Academy. I have an affiliate link in the show notes. If that's something that you need to get to the next level, go watch her circuit sales and sign up for her webinar. Watch what she does. I'm putting everything in the show notes below, and then if you do decide to join the comprehensive copywriting Academy. Then make sure you tell Nikki that you heard it from me and that I'm your referral. I would love to get credit. And then check out the circuit selling.com for more information about the circuit sales, and we will be hearing very soon who bought this amazing program. All right, let's get into it.
Hey, Vicky, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here in our funnel series, continuing the conversation with a system you've developed called circuit sales. And so before we jump into everything funnel related, is tell everyone a little bit about you, how you got into the online space, what your business looks like. Fill us in.
Nicki Krawczyk 4:43
Yeah, I'm super excited to be chatting with you today. It's nice to see you again. So my background is in copywriting. I've been a copywriter for more than 20 years now, just starting to get to that place where it's like, oh, actually, I want to tell people like, I'm okay 20 years and my. Getting into the online space was, gosh, now, 1314, years ago, I was at a company, and I had to train a bunch of copywriters to do work. They had acquired a new website. We need a lot of copy, and we needed a team. And as anybody who knows anything about copywriting knows is, can't major in it. In college, you can't and it used to be very difficult to learn it. You kind of had to pick things up as you went. So I trained this team up so they were good to go and write the website. And then I thought, you know, I wonder, I wonder if this would be useful to people. So I put a course together, what we now call the comprehensive copywriting Academy. Put that course together in 2012 and obviously, immediately I put it onto the world, and a billion people bought it, and the rest is history. The story, yeah, and the story, this was fun, good to see you. No, of course not. I was, you know, brand new little online business owner Nikki was like, yeah, it's good. Somebody buy it. And that's not at all how it works. So for like, oh gosh, six years I was just kind of flat, like people bought it, and that's great. Thank goodness they did, because I probably would have given up, and they would write in and say, oh my gosh, this changed my life. Thank you so much. But I really kind of floundered for like, six years. Also, I was doing it part time, but it was, you know, I was trying all the things, like, I tried live launching, I tried it as a membership, I tried to just all that stuff. And then finally, at toward the end of 2018 I thought, okay, hold on a sec. Hold on a sec. You are a marketer. You are a copywriter. Why are you trying to do all the stuff that everybody else says you have to do? Take a step back and what do you know? And I know. I know messaging like nobody's business. I know customer psychology. I also knew that I really did not want to have to deal with live launching at all. And so what I did was I developed a system to sell the comprehensive copywriting Academy, and I turned it on at the end of 2018 and in 2018 and this is just for the comprehensive copywriting Academy. In 2018 I made $40,000 which is the most I had made up till that point. But in 2019 I made 268,000 and then in 2020 I made 1.6 million. And then have scaled it up from there, of course. And the other half of that story is that system that I developed to sell the Ccomprehensive Copywriting Academy is a system that a couple of years ago, I had some business owner friends who were like, hey, you know how you don't have to live launch and you still make a lot of money. Like, yes, they're like, Can you teach us how to do that? So I started teaching selling and teaching that system, and that is the circuit sales system. So that's how it all kind of comes together.
Emily Reagan 7:42
I love that you made it work for your own business, and that's so common for anyone listening. When you make it work in a client's business, too, and then people want you to repeat it. Disclaimer, I've been in the program. I think it's great, and I love the methodology, the system behind it. So we'll dive into that in a little bit. But tell me about I'm interested in this copywriting angle from the beginning. And I told you before we hit record, I have a PR journalism background, and I said, I wish I would have known about copywriting, because I would have skipped a lot of the little, piddly Pinterest work and gone straight into copywriting, because I know that this is where the good money is. It's highly valued. You can put together really fat, juicy packages and contracts with copywriting, but you are an OG and you said you are already a copywriter. Like, can you just bridge that story? For me, I'm just, like, fascinated, on, like, a personal level, like, how did you even know about it?
Nicki Krawczyk 8:38
Yeah, absolutely. We always say to it's so funny. How many of our students come in, they're like, I didn't even know the copyright existed. The copyright existed. Copywriting is probably the best kept secret, and I don't, I'm not quite sure why it is, because, you know, so many of us who love to write grew up thinking, oh, you can't make any money as a writer. You can't make and so I was going to do this. Well, I'm not going to go into writing, but there is this one area of maybe a couple, but this is the best paying one is marketing and advertising. Writing is copywriting. The way that it's actually kind of funny, because the way I started was my dad was a marketing director, and way back, a billion years ago in high school, when he would have extra work, he would bring work home for me, and I would do it for him, and then he would give me feedback, and you all that kind of stuff. So I was, I was writing it in high school. However, even this is the same thing, right? Like, I was writing in high school, but I went to school for PR, got out of school, went into special events and did that. Like, was working at a health club for a while, and the whole time was like, Oh, what am I gonna do with my life? And my mom sent me as I'm going through this whole, like, I don't know what to do with my life. My mom sent me a book which, like, for some context, everybody who's listening, it's like, oh, my god, she went on Amazon, or no, this was, what, 20 plus years ago. So my mom went to a bookstore, bought a book, put in the mail, because that's what moms do. I. And I think the book was called something like the six figure writer or something, and it was actually the book itself was not very good. It was like, You need a fax machine, yay. But what it did was remind me that copywriting was a thing, because even though I had done it before, it didn't even occur to me that this was something that I could be doing professionally. And so I pulled myself together, mustered my resources, kind of put together a website, and admittedly to made a lot of mistakes along the way, at least the first several years, made a lot of mistakes, a lot of missteps. Lucked out and got some clients, but in a lot of places, were like, I don't how do you get clients? And the good thing, though, is that I learned all of this, and I developed a system. We teach our students, yes, how to write copy in all different areas and how to write incredibly effective copy. But what sets us apart, in addition to the fact that we have so much in the program, is that we teach our students a step by step system for getting high paying clients, not Upwork, not like referrals, because you can't control that, but an actual system for reaching out and getting clients. It's the system that I learned, and it's the system that still works exceedingly well today, and now we've had 12,000 plus students go through that program.
Emily Reagan:
11:19
Oh my gosh, amazing. I love you and I are both anti Upwork. I was like, listening to one of your webinars. I'm like, I'm like, all of these points. I was like, Yes, me too. Me too.
Nicki Krawczyk:
11:28
Yeah, yeah. It's such a racket. Here's the thing, right? Like it sounds, it sounds like the best thing ever. Oh, all I have to do is is log in and there are all these people who are posting jobs, and I just have to pick one and apply for it, and it sounds easy, and it's not. You know, it's really good if you're the person who's willing to drive down your rates and do work for incredibly cheap. But if you're not, say you have a skill like copywriting, where you should be out of the gate as soon as you get trained, you should be commanding 50, 55, 60, 65, bucks an hour. Immediately, with training, of course, but immediately. But you go on those sites, and first of all, you have to waste your time creating proposals that have to be well written, because you're a copywriter. But then you're also competing with dozens of other people who are more than happy to drive the rates down. And best case scenario, you end up with a project where you're working for way less than you should be. Worst case scenario, you spend all your time writing proposals and you don't get any work. It is a bad system, and it's also terrible because then you are entirely relying on other people. You are waiting for people to post jobs, and when someone else is controlling the opportunities, you are not in control of your own career, and that is a dangerous place to be.
Emily Reagan:
12:43
Yeah, and you just become commodity. Yes, you blended with everybody else you are. I think the people who go there to hire there's an issue with that too, because they're looking for the lowest, like paying contractor that they can find.
Nicki Krawczyk:
12:58
Oh, absolutely. In the past, I've absolutely hired people on Upwork, and I'm looking for the best I can get, for the cheapest that I can get. As a skilled copywriter, as a skilled service provider, that is not where you want to be. You don't want to be competing down here. You want to be standing out up here.
Emily Reagan:
13:16
Yeah, one thing that comes to mind, especially thinking when I began all this journey I didn't know about copywriting, but this hesitation of, when can you call yourself a copywriter? When can you start commanding those rates? I know a lot of people listening to that podcast are in that spot where I don't know. It starts with kind of dinking around with the thank you page because the client forgot to give you copy. It starts with some of the content with blogging and social, but like, walk me through how we can get to this place where we can call ourselves that. Because I went through this feeling not ready and feeling inferior because I didn't feel like I knew enough, and I also knew a book wasn't going to give me no offense to your mom, wasn't going to give me what I needed to be at that level where I can command those rates?
Nicki Krawczyk
Yeah. I mean, here's the thing is that it is an entire career, right? It's like I can bake a cake, but I have no right to call myself a pastry chef. And I said, but with some training, if I get in the kitchen, I work with pastry chefs. They give me feedback, they teach me how to do it. I graduate, and I say, Okay, I know how to do this. I am a pastry chef, so there has to be some level of training. There are, unfortunately, a lot of people who are like, I know how to write. So I'm going to call myself a copywriter. You're doing a disservice to clients if you go out there and you don't really know how to do it. Because, I mean, Emily, you know, copywriting is very different from any other types of writing, very, very different. And if you don't understand the principles, if you don't really understand what you're doing, you're not going to do well. You're going to do a disservice to your clients. And then you're they're also not going to, if anybody does hire you, they're not going to hire you again. That said, though as soon as you start. Learning. As soon as you start practicing, as soon as you start getting feedback on your work and incorporating that feedback, you can start calling yourself a copywriter. At that point, it is. It's disingenuous to call yourself a copywriter if you're not getting trained to become a copywriter, but you have to. You have to learn the principles. And it's not just like you were saying. It's not a book. You can't get it from a book, but from a book, because copywriting is a collaborative career. You know you're going to do writing for clients, and your clients are going to give you feedback, and but even before that, you have to hone your skills, and that has to come from someone who is more experienced than you giving you feedback. And that's I mean, something that we built into the program I give feedback. We have a team of coaches that is in there giving feedback in our group and on, you know, twice monthly calls, because that has to be a part of improving your skills so that you can command the kind of rates that you should be commanding as a copywriter
Emily Reagan
Oh my gosh. I love that. I love how you spend that positive too. Because I think so many of us are afraid like we're doing the work. We're putting in that effort. So many of our listeners just kind of need that permission to to start. And there's also this acknowledgement that there's so much room to grow, and you don't know everything and you never will. So if you're making those steps, like you said, to get better, to get feedback, to learn from a copy chief, then, like, you're probably there. Girl, you're probably there,
Nicki Krawczyk:
16:24
yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and I love that point too, about the fact that you you should be continually learning. I mean, that's, that's the reason that we made the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy. These are students get lifetime access. They get lifetime access to the trainings because we are always updating things. But also, if you joined two years ago and you have a question with a client, I want you to be able to come back into the Facebook group or come back on a coaching call and ask that question and get help, and also to our program so massive, you don't need to go through all of it in order to start landing clients. You know, one of our students was saying, doesn't matter when he told me six months ago, I think. But he was like, oh yeah. He's like, I was working with a client, and the client said, Hey, can you write videos? And he was like, I can. And then just went back and watched the video. He hadn't watched it before then, because he didn't need it before. Then watched the video training, and then wrote the video for his client. And that's how it should be. You don't need all of it in order, because it's massive. It's a massive program. You don't need all of it in order to get started, but you have access to all of it for when you need it. And that's that was so, so important to me, because it should be grow. You should be growing throughout the course of your career.
Emily Reagan:
17:36
I like how you said that I have that problem with our unicorn digital marketing assistance school. It is a doozy. And I say, like, skim through it, see what's in there. And when you talk to clients, do exactly what your video guys said. And, you know, go figure out how to write the VSL later. Go figure out advanced emails tagging later and the segmentation later. But just know it's there. So when you need it, it's there. Like, it's so easy for people to get stuck, like linear, I feel like they need to go through every i don't know i was like the goody, goody straight A student like you want, you want to go through everything and complete your homework, but like that is not the reality of working, doing your client work and running your business. You need to be strategic and prioritize. So I love that, because we need that resource. And you want to be able to say, yes, the BSL, okay, so let's go ahead and plug, I know we're talking about circuit sales here, but like, plug your copywriting training, because the two go hand in hand, and you have a training that someone could log in and watch right now. What is that?
Nicki Krawczyk:
18:30
Yeah, absolutely. If you go to freecopywritingtraining.com you can log in, it's free training, and log in and get that right away. Yeah, if people are listening and they're interested. Check it out. I'm so proud of this program, and I'm also so proud of the community. The people that we have in the community are amazing. You know, we interview students on our podcast, on the the Build your Copywriting Business Podcast, and we hear people all the time saying, like, oh my gosh, this program is so amazing. It was. And the community, it's just, it's such a great group of people, and we take so many people from not knowing anything at all about copywriting, and take them through all the steps of learning, building their experience, and then exactly how to find and land clients. So yeah, if they're at all interested, check it out. Reach out. Always happy to, always happy to get someone started on the journey. It's so much fun.
Emily Reagan:
18:30
I was actually in a Facebook group the other day and someone, you know, I work with, a lot of military spouses, we're over educated, underemployed, lot of stay at home moms who are finding, how can I get back to work and do something that's actually meaningful and pays well? And I was in a Facebook group and someone's like, what should I do? And I was like, copywriting. And she's like, what's that? I'm like, Well, you need to meet my friend, Nicki. I don't think I had an affiliate link yet for you, but I was like, just look at this term and figure out how you can offer this service. And I love that your program is for the service provider. It's helping you holistically with the business. Because you think about, I don't know what's the analogy like, the doctors go to med school and they learn their practice, but then they. Don't know how to run a business. They don't know how to their business. Do the PR for their business, and you are covering it all. It's not just, like, here's a template and write better and then audit. It's like, the whole shebang. Because I know finding clients like you and I have sister audiences number one, yeah, every time, yeah.
Nicki Krawczyk:
20:16
Like, it's great if you train me, but if you don't, like, there are, I was just talking my team about this, there are a couple of of copywriting trainings out there, and they're like, we're for business owners, but we also are for you if you want to be a professional copywriter. And the problem is, is that if it's geared toward business owners, they're teaching the business owners how to write for their businesses. But the business owners need stop there. But a professional copywriter needs to know how to write all of that, but then also how to find and land clients, how to deal with the client relationship, how to have that initial call, how to have creative reviews, how to decide what their rates are going to be, all of that kind of stuff that is absolutely essential if you want to, like, learn copywriting, okay, then, you know, pick up a book. But if you want to make a career, there's no reason it can't be a six figure full time career, then six figure year full time career, then you need all of those elements. Yeah,
Emily Reagan:
21:08
remind me to invite you into the work group to talk about the client management and mistakes you've learned along the way.
Nicki Krawczyk:
21:14
Yes, oh, I would love to so much I share
Emily Reagan:
21:17
Private conversation with you over there. Okay, I'm actually going to take a little turn, yeah, please, getting into circuit sales. I had a copywriter unicorn reach out to me. She started out kind of broadly, doing some marketing. Was kind of clear that she was going to niche, and she just fostered me this. I kind of want your opinion on it. It's going to be a little snarky. Okay, I'm just going to read it. I'm going to read it on podcast. "One of my discoveries last year was that for me, this online space feels like a popular girl clique and I can't gain entry into it. I had high hopes and dreams for new offers and all that to find myself giving up and deciding to just do the work and focus on my family. So many people are pitching each other's offers constantly. They're good friends, just my two cents. It feels kind of icky and like a space where there's no room for a 50 something who wants to make sincere connections." Knowing how you've grown your copywriting business and how you coach copywriters, what would you say to her?
Nicki Krawczyk:
22:13
Yeah, so I do get it. If you're spending your time on Instagram and you're seeing all of the same people, and you're seeing the same person, beyond, oh, this person's on this podcast and this person's on this podcast. But the thing is, when you're seeing things on social media, you're seeing like a tiny little sliver of real life, and also, too, yes, if people are promoting this and promoting that, that's from the perspective of, and I don't want to say this in the wrong way, because I don't know this person's situation, but that's kind of the from the perspective of, I'm sitting back and I'm waiting for work to come to me, right? Like, if they're promoting their friend and they're not promoting me, they're promoting their friend and they're not promoting me, is the All right? Well, how is work going to come to me? And that's that's not where work comes from. Work comes from doing the outreach, from getting in touch with people. And again, this is that trying to wait and hope for work, like with Upwork, or like with referrals, or saying, Okay, I need to be in control of my own my own opportunities. How do I reach out? And I don't mean by pitching the way that I'm sure you get a ton of these awful pitches on LinkedIn too. Oh my god, the stuff that comes through, I screenshot it and share it in the Facebook group, you know, taking out any names, of course, but like, share it in our Facebook group to show people it's miserable. But the the system that we teach our students is very much focused on first and foremost, providing value, stripping any and all sales out of it, and providing value first and foremost, and that is why our students are regularly coming back to us and saying that they get thank yous when they receive pitches from our students. So number one, forget about what's going on in the online space, which is this kind of great advice for all of us at all times, right? Emily, I'm sure. I'm not, I'm sure you do the same thing that I do, where every once in a while, if you're already having kind of like a so so day and you go on Instagram, you're like, Oh my God, every look at her house is bigger than mine, and look at this fabulous life, she went to Greece, and her husband's so handsome. I'm like, all we're seeing is the highlight reels. And if you want to make yourself feel bad, hop on Instagram. It's going to make you feel terrible. So the first thing I would suggest is just stop paying attention to that stuff and pay attention to what you are doing to reach out. Because I guarantee, if you can write great copy, people will hire you. It is an entirely merit based career. It doesn't matter who you know? Yeah, can it help to know people? Certainly, of course, but it's entirely merit based when you demonstrate through your portfolio that you can write great copy, and you can write great copy for a variety of different kinds of companies and a variety of different kinds of voices and mediums. We can talk about new. If you want to, I have a whole diatribe. Will go off on that. But when you can do that, people are going to go, oh, okay, she knows what she's doing. I want to at least talk to her about my project. It's entirely merit based. You could be 120 years old, and if you write great copy, people will hire you.
Emily Reagan:
25:18
Oh, I love that. And do you notice how I didn't even clean up my room for you, and I left the red balloon. I love it in my house. Now
Nicki Krawczyk:
25:26
it's always a party over there.
Emily Reagan:
25:29
I'm glad you shared that. I think there's so much pressure that you have to, okay, I think there's the myth about to be a successful service provider, you have to be the forward facing Instagram influencer type to get work.
Nicki Krawczyk:
25:45
No. So like I was saying on our podcast, we interview our students, and, of course, we interact with their students in a group all the time. And there's so many students I talk to, so who are like, oh yeah. You know, this last year is my first six figure year. I'm so excited. Like, great. And they're like, Yeah, I really don't go, I don't go on social media, and also too, like, well, I don't really have time to be on social media, and you don't need to be, you know, you may eventually get to the point where you have an assistant you bring, you're doing so well, you bring an assistant, and your assistant can kind of do social media. But the thing about social media is that in terms of getting clients, it's a dotted line to getting clients right. Like, it's a, it's a maybe, I put this out there, and maybe clients will come to me, maybe, but it's a dotted line. A direct line is sending pitches. Is Sending pitches that are full of value for clients. That is a direct line, that is it. That is how you can get clients posting on social media. That's kind of like a maybe that's a bonus, and that maybe someone's going to come across you that way. But again, you can't control it putting stuff out there, and it's controlled by the algorithm. It's controlled by what someone looks at that day. It's controlled by whether someone just happened to think to themselves, Oh, I think I need a copy, right? And they come across your post. It's completely out of your control. So if you want to be on Instagram or things like that. You absolutely can be, but certainly don't make it a focus. Do not make it a focus because it's not where your work is going to come from.
Emily Reagan:
27:10
Yeah, let that go. I'm glad, I'm glad you echo what I say, like and like you said, Get off Instagram. Like, yeah, see that detox. It's Yes, so it's not in our face. Okay, I have to ask this and start talking about copywriting. Ai chatgpt, are you seeing it affect the quantity of work, or the quality of work at all? Or, like, how are your students doing?
Nicki Krawczyk:
27:32
No, my students doing great. It's, you know, the funny thing is, is, like a year ago, right? You know, I mean, you and I are in the business sphere, so like a year ago when the business owners started to talk about it, you know, the big business guys and like, AI is gonna take over. It's all the writers are gonna lose their jobs. All the designers are gonna, oh, it's all gone. And now this year, those same people, I'm not joking, the same people, I went in and screenshotted it, those same people are saying, AI is great, but you need a human like, yes, you do. And AI is, is, is? It's really great for research, but there's some fundamental problems with it. Number one, it can't come up with anything new. It cannot. It's like how it's like how robots can't feel human emotions. AI is incapable of true creativity. It doesn't have the ability to come up with got milk, right? Because that's so out of the blue, all it can do is take what's already out there and reconfigure it. And that can be super useful for research, it can be super useful for brainstorming, but it's never going to be able to come up with something new. But on top of that, writing is really only just a portion of what copywriters do. You know, we collaborate with our clients. We partner with our clients. There's so many times when as a copywriter, you'll be sitting with your client, your client will say, like, Oh yeah, well, I want to do this project. And you'll say, Okay, well, interesting, because you just said that this was your goal, and it seems like your target audience is over here. So maybe instead, we want to do is start with this project over here, and then that might change what we do over here. And part of a copywriters job is to make their client think about marketing in a different way and from a different direction. We are we're strategists, and we partner with our clients. And AI can't do that. AI only spits out what you give it, and if a client is giving it and won't say faulty but but prompts that aren't going to lead to anything good on the back end, then that's all they're going to get back. It's, like, I said, it's we, actually, we have a course within the CCA about how to use AI for research and how to use it for brainstorming. And that's, that's great, but it's now, it's not going to replace us. And yes, are there going to be companies that are always going to try to do it, like, Oh, I'm just going to use AI instead. It's going to be so much cheaper and great. Like, best of luck to you. There are always companies that are trying to do things on the cheap and like, oh, okay, this is the we're going to do this, and this is going to be the secret to success, and we're going to, like, no. Best of luck to you. Your messaging is the number one most important thing in your business. You could have a cruddy so. Service or product, and I'm not saying that anybody should do this, but you could have a cruddy service or product. If you can message it right, people will buy it. You could have the best service or product in the entire world, but if you can't figure out how to message it, no one will buy it. It is the most important thing in somebody's business, so if they're gonna outsource it to a computer, best of luck. Best of luck to you. Best of luck. Enjoy your inevitable return to full time job.
Emily Reagan:
30:27
And I just watched you slam the microphone on the ground, walk out. That was awesome. Oh my gosh, I just saw so many whiny people like freaking out that they're going to be at a job. And the truth is, like, back to what you said, if you're good, you're good at messaging, you're good at copywriting, you will not be hurting. I think the people who are sub par, who didn't take the time to train, didn't find their client's voice, they're the ones hurting right now, and probably the ones that I see, like posting for work.
Nicki Krawczyk:
30:53
Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, anybody who gets into anything thinking it's gonna be a get rich quick thing again, best of luck to you. Any get rich quick thing. There's like, one or two. It's usually dudes at the beginning, and then those dudes sell a course standing next to an airplane. And then everyone's like, yeah, and then it all falls apart. That's not what we're talking about. This is a career. This career has been around for a very Did you know that? F. Scott Fitzgerald was a copywriter before he was a novelist.
Emily Reagan:
31:25
No
Nicki Krawczyk:
31:26
Yes. Isn't that interesting? F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut was a copywriter. Joseph Heller from catch 22 who else? Well, the guy who wrote Rudolph the red nosed reindeer was a copywriter.
Emily Reagan:
31:39
So they all did the work that made them money, first, because they're smart, and then they went to their writing passion.
Nicki Krawczyk:
31:45
Yeah, right. Because unfortunately, unless you are a less you are Stephen King, you can't make enough money as a novelist to do it full time.
Emily Reagan:
31:54
Yeah, oh my god. Okay. Well, let me ask you this. I see all these big business owners, and you know some of the names, I know some of the names we've been in rooms for some of these people posting jobs for copywriters. That's $25 an hour. What the fuck?
Nicki Krawczyk:
32:09
yeah. And again, best of luck with that. What kind of quality do you think you're gonna get? Because, yeah, sure, there are gonna be some people like, oh, I want to work for $25 an hour, but the people who've actually been trained and know what they're doing are looking at that and laughing and saying, Okay, that's great. I have this client that pays me $80 an hour, so I'm gonna work with them instead of with you. Yeah, it's, it's like with with anything you know. You will also see job postings for people who are like, We need someone who's a writer and a designer and an SEO expert and SEM expert and like, okay, luck to you exactly, and expert in everything. Like, okay, you know. And I heard somebody say that that job postings are our wish lists, and I think that's a really great way to think about it. Like, if you see a job posting for 25 and it's and it's at a company. You're like, I really like that company. You know what? Go ahead, reach out to them, apply, start the conversation. You're not committing to anything, but at the same time, don't you take that work for $25 an hour, because if they, if they are a company who understands that this is a role that has such a an integral part of their business, then when it gets to that point, they're going to be willing to pay more than $25 and if you get to that point and they're not willing to pay more, more than $25 walk away, not even walk away, run run away. You do not want to be with that kind of company who would pay so little for something that is literally supporting their entire business, the crux of their business?
Emily Reagan:
33:43
Yeah, and we see that, and there are some of those big names that do that, who post those, and we you don't need to. So I think sometimes they're used to getting stuff for free and cheap because of their notoriety.
Nicki Krawczyk:
33:53
I agree with that, definitely. But I also, I was listening to, there's some I and I won't name him, but a business owner that probably most of us know. And he was talking about the way he posted for jobs. And he would post for jobs for like, $12 an hour, start an assistant at 12 and looking for adults at $12 an hour. And he did it as as kind of like a test to see how much people cared about the role. And I don't, as someone who has to support herself, I don't like it. I would have walked right past it. I guess it worked for him. I don't know that it would work in today. I think that when he was talking about this, he was talking about people that he hired, like 15, 10, you know, 10, 15, years ago. I don't know that it would work today. And in fact, I think it would probably backfire pretty significantly, if his name was associated with trying to pay a role for 12, all they'd have to do is for someone to share it on the internet and be like, Wow. Like, talk about getting some backlash. So I guess I can kind of see it from that sense. But I think he was like, oh, start you at 12, and then bump you up to 20 or 20, you know, whatever. And for like. An assistant role or something like that, but I don't have that kind of time, right? Like, as someone who provides services, I don't, not as much, certainly anymore as I run a business, but like, and my students, nobody's got that kind of time to play around with this. Like, well, my services are worth at least. What minimums just starting out after they've been trained a minimum, that a student should be basing their their hourly rate on basing their project prices. It's going to be a lot more project rates than anything else. And but you need to start out with an hourly rate, just to give you some understanding of how much to charge at a minimum, 50, I mean, probably closer to 60, 65, and then after you get a couple more years under your belt, you're raising your rates. And all of which, by the way, is when you start doing this math, it's, it's almost inevitable, if you want to do this full time, it's almost inevitable to be making six figures. Which writers, all those people who said you couldn't make money as a writer were liars. But like, who's got that kind of time to play around with those games? And these, these low there's so many clients. There are literally millions of companies and organizations, literally millions, and every single one of them needs good messaging. Now, not every single one of them is going to hire a copywriter, because some of them are dumb, and not every one of them, you know, not every one of them is going to hire you. But if you want to be a full time you can be freelance, you can be on staff, you can do whatever you want to do. We'll teach you how to do all of it. But if, if, say, hypothetically, you want to be a full time freelance copywriter, it only takes probably four, five, maybe some months, six clients to have a six figure a year income, and that's and also too, month over month, a lot of those clients are going to stay with you. Who's got time for that $25 an hour? I mean, come on,
Emily Reagan:
36:44
yeah, because we want someone on our team who knows our business. You can just take it over like, I love writing, but I don't have time to do it all. I want somebody on my team who can, like, pick that up
Nicki Krawczyk:
36:54
Exactly. It's it's a red flag for business owners when you charge too little. You know, sometimes people say, Well, should I do my first project for free? No, no, because all that you're conveying is I'm not sure of myself, and I'm really worried that you're not going to like my work. And there's no business owner and no marketing director, no creative director who has time for that. Because if you're not sure of your work, and you might not be good at it, they know they might get it from you for free, but then they're gonna have to pay somebody to rewrite it. So it is when you say, can I just just do this for free? Not only are you conveying that you are that you are brand new to this and you have no confidence, but you're also conveying that it might end up being twice the work for the person you are trying to give your work away to for free. So it is a huge, huge red flag, never work for free. I mean, there's, you know, copy tests are a little bit different. If you're interviewing for a company, they say we have this test should take you no more than 2020, minutes, a half hour, and that's just to prove that you are the person who did the work in your portfolio. But what we do is valuable, and we should be paid according to and we can be there are. The other number I love is that there are. And this might be a little bit different, because I looked it up a couple years ago, but it's somewhere close to this. 538,000 new companies started in the US alone. And obviously you can write copy from anywhere in the world before anywhere. 538,000 new companies started in the US alone every month, every month, and you only need, let's say five clients a year. I mean, excuse me, five clients a month to be a full time copywriter. Like, it's so funny, because I'll say to my students, I'm like, there's so much work out there. There's so many people who want to hire a skilled copywriter, and inevitably, you know, once clients or once students have been working, they come back. They're like, Oh my gosh, there's so much work out there. Like, I know you tried to tell you, yeah, exactly, okay, I get it. You didn't believe me. I understand. You have to learn for yourself. But there's, there's a massive amount of work out there, a massive amount.
Emily Reagan:
38:56
The beautiful thing is, one client leads to another to another, because your circle is to start expanding. And then next thing you know, like, for me, I know you talked about the referrals, but like, the referrals have been huge for me. Like, once I didn't improve my value and show how I'm, like, better than everyone else, like that has never been an issue for me.
Nicki Krawczyk:
39:13
Exactly, exactly
Emily Reagan:
39:14
Getting started is always the hard part throughout the entire unicorn digital marketing assistance goal. I'm like, copywriting is next. It's coming for you. You want to charge more. I also say if you can write $50 an hour already. And guess what? I want everyone in my business to know how to write every answer in an inbox is an is a sales opportunity. It's representing my brand. And I've had to let people go off my team who are poor writers. Like every internal email that's a communications like it's all a chance to to prove the transformation and why people are in my world and why they should stay in my membership. And we're not, we're not dinking around over here. And this is a skill you have to have. Not only that, if you're a business owner, you are selling your services. So you need to be able to write for yourself. So to me, it's like the number. One skill to invest in, you know, after you have gotten into this freelance space and you're looking at marketing. So I cannot stress this enough, my people know this, and I'm always kind of pushing them to, like, you know, niche down and get to the high value work.So we're not stuck charging 20, $25 an hour. Can I ask what specialties or what niches are really hot for copywriters right now? Is there any kind of trend you're seeing, because I get a lot of jobs for course, creators in the online space, but like sometimes they're getting a little old, they can be a little cheap. Do you see anything else that you could nudge us towards?
Nicki Krawczyk:
40:38
Yes, well, first, I am so glad you brought this up, because one of my personal the hills that I will die on is this idea, first of all, that you have to choose a niche. We hear this a lot. There are a lot of people like, oh yeah, the riches are the niches Choose. Choose a niche, if you're just getting into copywriting, how could you possibly know what niche you want to choose. How could you possibly know what industry you want to work in? How could you possibly know what type of writing you want to do? How could you possibly possibly know? And then also, on top of that, once you choose a niche and or a niche, however, we want to say it and you, you make your whole website, I'm only going to do healthcare copywriting. Okay, great. So you made your whole website, healthcare copywriting. I'm somebody else from a different industry comes to your website, they're going to look at your website and be going, Oh, I guess she's not going to do that kind of work and is not going to reach out to you, in spite of the fact that maybe you're desperate for work, because nobody from the healthcare industry is giving you projects. How could you possibly, possibly know? So the first thing is that you don't have to choose, and we'll talk about specializing in a second, but you don't have to choose a niche. And in fact, demonstrating depth and breadth of experience in your portfolio is a much better and much safer route of going. If you have a portfolio that shows that you can write emails and landing pages and banner ads and direct mail and for a healthcare company, but also for a consumer goods company, for a company that caters to men in their 30s, for a company that caters to children. For Ben, a client is going to look at your portfolio and go, Oh, okay, she knows. She knows how to find a client's brand voice and and write to that brand voice, because that's what we do as copiers. We don't use our own voice. We get in, we work with a client, we figure out exactly how they sound, so that when we produce something for them, you can't tell the difference between what we wrote and what anybody else on their team wrote. That's the number one thing. And I think too, we sometimes think that that, well, I have to, have to pick an industry that's going to pay well, here's a little secret. There are companies or organizations in every single industry that will pay well, it just depends on the company. It's like, you know how sometimes you talk to people and they're like, I will never work in an agency again. Agencies are awful. Well, you worked at one agency that was cruddy, but I guarantee that not every agency is bad. And it's the same thing with, like, well, I worked at this company, and they didn't pay very much well, you know what? I bet a bunch of their other competitors pay really, really well. But I do want to, I think in our space, it's very easy to think that business is, course, creators and coaches, right? Because that's what that's what we see. And also, by the way, don't forget what you see and what you interact with on Instagram is what Instagram is going to feed back to you. So if you have this feeling, and also now copywriting, copywriting, copywriting, you are going to get, hopefully you get some of our ads, but you're going to get so much copywriting content just because your phone is hearing you say this, but it becomes an echo chamber, right? So you're like, This is all of business right here. It is not my friend. There are so many different kinds of companies out there, outside of the online coaches and outside. And if there's one silver lining from the from the the 2020, pandemic, it's that all companies are so much more open to working remotely with people than ever before. When I was younger in my copywriting career, if I wanted to contract for a company or I wanted to freelance, sure, sometimes I could work remotely, but often I'd go into an office, which, if you can do it, there are a lot of pros to that as well. You don't have to be on staff. You can but going into their office, there's some benefits to that as well, but you can work for almost any company anywhere in the world, and they're happy to work with you remotely. So, you know, yes, I have written for I've written for solopreneurs and online businesses, but I've also written for Hasbro, Adidas, Reebok Barnes and Noble Keurig, you know, multi billion dollar corporations, and by the way, every size business in between, there's so much more out there than just the like little keyhole that we're viewing life through. There's so much more out there.
Emily Reagan:
44:55
Oh my gosh, that was so good to hear it. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of one of our unicorns who got a fat. Contract with a automotive part company, so she's like, writing about ball bearings and lube now, and
Nicki Krawczyk:
45:09
So that's the funny thing. So I always say to our students that, like, don't make assumptions from the outside, right? Because sometimes, like, oh, that wouldn't be any fun. One of my most interesting clients ever. I ended up writing for a company that was selling, like, residential tractors. So they were somewhere between, they weren't ride on mowers and they weren't, like, full on farm tractors. It was like this weird place in between. And their target audience was, I mean, they had a lot of money sell out. But the target audience for this was, was like, or their kind of their avatar was this airline executive, like, up in Washington, who would, you know, during the week they are their men and women in suits and and probably mostly men, let's be honest. And then on the weekend, they would come home to their big houses on the all this land, and and they just loved this feeling of getting on their residential tractors and feeling like gentlemen farmers. And it was so fascinating to dig into, like, the wants and needs of this particular audience. And don't discount something until you get into it, because sometimes it went like, I don't know, I'm like, residents were boring, fascinating. It was so interesting to learn about this target and, like, figure out, okay, how am I going to talk to them to make them go, Ooh, this is the one that I want. You know, copying is such a fun mix of creativity and strategy. It is the, like, the best flipping job. So much fun.
Emily Reagan:
46:39
I think it's also really fun when we have very colorful work, past education and job experiences, and you find something that's totally aligned that you're passionate about. I can remember very early, like my eyes are opening to freelancing, and I walked into this quilt fabric store, and just like feeling alive being around like people who are so creative, and just having this urge that I wanted to help the owner of the store who is a brand name, like, you know, fabric designer, but it just kind of sparked something in my brain. I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, I feel alive working around these people. It reminds me of my last, you know, full time job at the Arts Council, being around all these creatives, but not having the same type of talent, and just feeling very lit up about it. And what's funny is, I went on to help a lot of creatives, furniture painters and designers a year or two later, and it like, kind of hit me there, like I can kind of choose who I help, and then I feel like lit up from the back end of their business.
Nicki Krawczyk:
47:41
Yes, exactly. And that's, and that's, that's another thing is that when when someone else is in control, isn't in control of what work you get, right? You get to choose, even if you set up pitches to people, and even they reach back out to you and you have a call and they're like, We want to hire you. If you don't get a good five from them, you don't have to take the work. But you can also say, like, Oh, I'd really like to work with this kind of company. Let me send pitches out in this direction, or, ooh, I'd really like to do this kind of work. Or you get to choose. And like I said, even sometimes within residential tractor companies, you get to work with with interesting people. And you meet so many different kinds of people. And it's you get to be creative in a way that I think a lot of people who grew up loving writing didn't think they would ever be able to for a career. Yes, you get to write, but it is also, it's fulfilling, and it's fun, and you get paid a whole lot of money,
Emily Reagan:
48:32
yeah, and I love variety. Like, for me, if I were doing the same thing over and over, like, I just, I mean, there's reason I did journalism and, like, I get to go learn about these different fields and then, you know, distill it, and then, like, move on to something else. And that was really fun for me. All right, let's tie this into circuit sales, as you're saying. All right. I understand messaging. I understand the sales aspect of it. How did you build this into a system, and what do you want to teach us about your circuit sales so we can go apply this for what we're doing with our clients on the back end?
Nicki Krawczyk:
49:02
Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, obviously messaging is a big part of the program, and I think at the the time that people are going to be going to be getting this episode, we have some big exciting news, because I have actually sold the program, which is amazing. But I'm also super excited about the new owner. She is. It's like passing your baby off to someone who's going to take such good care of this baby. So thrilled with that. But the program itself is that. So if you know someone goes to then sees her information instead of mine, don't you worry. She's fantastic. And we are working together very closely to even do more with this program than I had the bandwidth to do, because that was the big problem and why I had to kind of step away from it. Because I had the copywriting program, which is a full time job, and then I also had the circuit sales system, which was a full time job, oops, and all the people. You need to focus. I was like, I don't that's for other people. No, it was for me. It was for me. But anyway, the good news is that, and I'm so excited, she's so smart, and she's so good, and she knows, she knows online business like nobody's business. But anyway, so a little bit of context of people are like, Wait, in putting together the circuit sales system. I mean, my background is in copywriting and messaging is so important, I couldn't have taken messaging out of there. Messaging out of there if I tried, right? So a big part of that is, is developing messaging, but messaging that sells in a way that doesn't feel that doesn't feel pushy, that doesn't feel tricky, but also isn't, isn't that soft sell that I think we've been we tend to rely on like, Well, I'm just gonna teach, and if I teach enough, then people are just going to buy from me. Doesn't work. It does not work. My friends, it doesn't work that fundamentally, learning is an energy draining activity, right? When we think back to like school, it's not like, like, Yeah, I can't most of us, we're like, Yeah, I can't wait to go into high school today and sit through history class. Or I can't wait even even college, where you get to choose the classes. I mean, even as business owners, even courses, right? I'm sure Emily, you do the same thing I do. I get because I'm buying courses all the time. Like, oh, let's see what this person has to say. Buy the course. And then I'm like, Oh man, now I have to go through the course. Oh, shoot. Like, just putting my credit down, didn't credit card down, didn't put the information in my brain. And obviously learning is important, but the place for learning is after someone has purchased your program, where you can guide them through it and get them in and before that, in order to sell, it's not about teaching. It's about giving them breakthroughs. Because the thing that, and this is probably a good place to start taking notes people are thinking, but the thing that anybody who's coming to your program has probably not even probably, but has already explored options, explored other solutions to their problem, right? Maybe they've just read articles, or maybe they've bought other programs, or maybe they've tried other things, who knows, but they've tried other solutions, and those solutions haven't worked in your field. You know that there is that there's bad advice out there, right? And that's probably why they haven't. They haven't been successful because they're listening to like we were talking about niching for copywriting. There's so many copywriters who are like, who come to us after being in other programs. We're like, I was told they had to niche No, no, no, no, my friend, come inside. We'll take care of you. Let us fix you and help you build a very successful career. They're already coming in with mistaken ideas that are the source of why they have not been successful. But you know better. So one of the things that you want to take people through is a breakthrough. So you want to start out by talking about, you know, you've probably been told this, or you've probably heard this, and they're going, Oh yeah, I have, oh, great. Shoot. Is going to tell me that too, and I and then you're going to say, okay, but here's why that's wrong. And you're going to explain to them why this thing that they thought was was the capital T truth was the canon. You're going to explain to them why it is wrong. So at this point, they're going, well, now wait a minute here. Okay, tell me more. And then you're gonna say what really works is this. And at this point, they're really going, oh, oh. And then you're gonna say, here's why it works. And as you explain it to them, and it makes sense to them, they're going, Oh, okay. Their ears are really perked up, and they're listening. And not only are they, they're first of all, they're feeling validated in the fact that they weren't successful before, right? Because it wasn't their fault they were getting bad advice. Second of all, they're starting to feel hopeful again, because you've explained to them why they weren't successful, and you've explained to them what does work and why not, how they're going to pay you for how, but what does work and why? And also, and just as important, they're now listening to you as an expert, and they're so much more interested and more likely to stay with all of the things that you have to say. And obviously there are a ton of other elements to to cement that and support that and make that that really stick with them, and make them really stick with all of your messaging. But instead of just teaching, like, can you? Can you add in little elements of like, Hey, you also need to know this. Or here's like, a quick three part thing, yeah, you can. You can add in little, tiny, little teaching things, but don't lean on teaching when I know why we do it. Because we're all we tend to be givers. We got and we created courses and so or we're coaches, and we were used to teaching, but that's different. That's for after they purchase from us beforehand, we need to give them those breakthroughs that get them excited about learning with us.
Emily Reagan:
54:27
So is this in a webinar? Is this in all of the email sequences, like paint us the visual?
Nicki Krawczyk:
54:32
All of it! Yes, yes, absolutely. In in a video, what we call a light bulb video, and there's a very careful structure to take people through it? Yes, absolutely. But then also in emails, in automated sequences. So this is not something that people have to it's not something that people have to only catch once. My personal pet peeve is the live only events as an attendee, as a personal pet peeve as a business owner. It's. Like, here's the thing, oh, like, we have this event at six o'clock, and we're not doing any replays. Okay, get it. I get it from a business, and somebody told you that you have to do that because then you're going to that's the only way people are going to show up. Okay, okay, I get it. Same thing. Like, I want to know what's gone on the industry. I want to know any so I will sign up for stuff, and at 10 o'clock that morning, six o'clock that evening, could seem like a reasonable time, and that is my day goes and everything, because I'm a human, everything goes off the rails. All of a sudden, I get to a point at six o'clock and I'm like, There's no way I can sit down and watch this training, because I'm a human. And then so effectively, what they've done is penalize me for having a life. And then two, from the business owner perspective, like, yeah, they have to show up or else they're not going to get they're not going to see my message, okay, yeah, but one way or another, you paid to get that lead. You either paid with time or energy, or you paid, literally, you paid probably meta to get you that lead. And they are most they're at the peak moment of excitement when they first come in contact with you. So if they miss that, they miss your one moment, one time only, live session. All of that time, their excitement and their energy has been waning. So if you start them here and they're down here and all of a sudden be like, oh yeah. Well, okay, okay, all right, here's your chance, here's here's a replay, or I'm gonna nurture, I'm going to try to nurture you back up it literally. It's an uphill movement, literally, but keeping with metaphor, it's an uphill battle to get them back to that moment of excitement, give them what they want when they want it. So in the circuit sales system, it is yes. Is it a video training? Yes, but it's an on demand video training. They have a limited time to watch it, because humans do need deadlines in order to take action.
Emily Reagan:
56:43
I sure do
Nicki Krawczyk:
56:44
Right? Because give me a deadline or Nothing's gonna get done, but we give them a couple of days to watch it, because they're humans. And I don't care if you watch it all at once. I don't care if you split it over five days and you watch it while you're doing the laundry or watch it while you're no matter what, consuming it is the most important thing. And it also shows that we care about our audiences by saying, like, Look, you got time to watch it. Is there a deadline? Yeah, there's a deadline, but it's not, it's not one of those, like, you've got 15 minutes to join make your decision now. Like, that gives people the time to think about and sit with it, to incorporate all of the information that you're giving them. And yes, of course, they're going to be emails, and you can remind them and all of that kind of thing, but you're going to give them the best opportunity to to purchase. And yes, and there are other automated sales sequences. A lot of people will purchase right away, because it will be but there are going to be some people who are just, it's just not the right time for them, right? Maybe the finances are just not there or, who knows, but there are some people who genuinely it's just not the right time for them. That's fine. We're not going to give up on them. That's the problem with kind of the automated, ever automated evergreen sequence. It's they send them to a webinar that teaches at them, and then they don't purchase and then you just kind of throw them on your list, and you're like, Well, maybe someday. But instead, when someone enters a circuit, they go through a sequence, and it's all automated. So once, once they're in the circuit, you don't have to worry about it. You can add on additional enhancements. If you want to do live stuff, you can do it, but only for the people on your list. Is my recommendation, mostly, but we're not giving up on them. All right, so now wasn't the time, but you know what? In 90 days, there's going to be another automated sales sequence, and maybe that's going to be the right time for them. And if not, then you know, they're little changes from sales sequences, sales groups and other you can build in other kinds of opportunities. You can build in automated down sales, automated upsells, all that kind of stuff. But we're not giving up on them. We're there for them when the time is right for them, but once they're in the circuit, and you've built all of this out, and it all happens automatically, once they're in the circuit, you get to just focus on the other parts of your business, and you'll let the circuit do the selling.
Emily Reagan:
58:53
I love this, and you know, my brain is like firing because there's so much work of marketing assistant or email marketing specialist a tech we can do to build these little circuits. I think about my kids, like, Snap Circuits that they build where they like, turn on the little fan and the little light. But like, yes, building those. And I love that, like, don't give up on them. Because I think about my own buyers. There's a lot of people in the research phase. Do I want to do this? This is a big move. When am I going to time it? I'm going to wait till the school year is over, because I'm a teacher, and then I'm and then I'm gonna go all in in May, and I wanna make sure I catch people when they're ready. I think my problem, personally, with live launching right now is besides all eyes in one basket, and that stress is like some people legit timing wise, have life happening and they not ready to jump into a course. I don't want the stress of feeling behind. I want to do this on my own time. And I think what's really fun is we can watch your circuit sale in your copywriting one, right? Like, yeah, that all set up the same way. So is it every 90 days? Like, do I get invited? I have so many questions, Nicki, but do I get. And back to the webinar, if I don't buy right away. Is that how it works?
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:00:03
There is the so when you, when you get into a circuit, the way I recommend people set it up in the way we've done it, is that you have the the fast action price, and that is the that's within the first, the first series, and that is the, it's the only time you will see it too. That integrity is really, really important. Because whenever you see a business owner who's like, oh my god, this the best price ever, and then, like, three months later, they're offering it for half the price, you're like, oh, okay, well, now I don't trust you at all. I'm gonna wait till you drop the price again. Yeah, exactly. It's really bad for your integrity. So you have the fast action price, and that is the best. And for the people who are like, Yes, I'm ready to purchase, that's the best deal that they're going to get. But after that, I mean, here's the thing, your even your regular price is still going to be an incredible deal based on the full value of the program. So then after that, they have the so yes, with within the fast action sequence, they have the ability to to watch the video, and they're going to be emails to support that and and if they don't purchase that time, then we have a little bit more nurturing, and then we have sales sequences at the full price. And we can have, I always recommend to circuit sales system students that they have a full price version of the video as well, because it's a really powerful, yes, selling vehicle, but also relationship building vehicle, because it's not, you know, there's a lot of people who say, Well, you have to nurture first and then you you have to sell them. It's not at all true, you can nurture and sell at the same time. Imagine if you went to a store to buy something, and you were like, hey, I want to buy this. And they're like, oh, yeah, no. Before that, we have to spend a little bit of time talking. I have to tell you why I'm so passionate about this furniture, and I have to tell you about my origin story and, and, oh, and, actually, why don't you come back in three months when I'm going to be ready to be ready to sell this to you? I want the solution now you can nurture someone you know, tell this your origin story is important. But you can do that at the same time that you are selling to them. It doesn't have to be two separate things
Emily Reagan:
1:01:55
And so efficient, so genius. One thing I like that you do is now you really have, like, all roads point to this free copywriting training, and so you can hear it in your podcast intro, you can see it in your social media, and I think that's where marketing assistants can really, like, turn on their brain here. Like, how can I drive more traffic now that we have built this funnel, and you're you're still providing value, if you're thinking about that, because there's so many places that aren't optimized, I guarantee you, in my own name business, like, who knows what the footer of my website is pointing to right now, and so you can see those opportunities and strengthen the circuit sales already. So I love it. I have been so itching to do this for my business. And also, like you and I have very similar audiences, where, when I watched your training, I was like, oh, a lot of what I had is what you had. I was like, Oh, yeah. I also say, Don't niche, but I kind of wanted to walk through one of the aha moments, because I think this is just such an important copywriting, you know, messaging moment of kind of letting someone off the hook, like busting a myth. And so if you don't mind, let's talk about one of mine for a second. A lot of people become a or they're told, I'm going to make these 10k months as a virtual assistant. And then they wonder, like, everyone's teaching it all the VA coaches, and they're wondering why, like, that's not working. And so how I position myself and help me step in here as I'm like, Okay, your title sucks. Nobody actually is going to pay a virtual assistant. Well, we're very used to that meeting overseas, $8 $4 an hour work. And so what you need to do is, you know, elevate your role and your title and your services. And so enter the marketing assistant. So that's like, one of my What do we want? A pillar or
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:03:41
Yeah, your pillar, your your paradigm shift. Yeah, you're taking the paradigm that is out there, and you're shifting their mindset about it. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's, that's a great one, because, yeah, it is. It's, as a business owner, I will say a virtual assistant is a jack of all trades, who's pretty good. You can give them the lower level tasks, but for anything higher than the lower level tasks and anything that I'm going to pay more for, they have to have some specialization. They have to have additional skills. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely,
Emily Reagan:
1:04:11
yeah. So that's just one example of how I'm writing my webinar to position marketing assistance as like, the answer. Marketing assistant training the answer. So now we can still get into circuit sales, right? Yes. Is it a good place for the service provider who's building it to go like is is it valuable for us as the one putting it together? Are we allowed to buy? I guess is my question.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:04:35
Yes, you can buy it. You can buy it. I will say that if you want to be a copywriter and get circuit Sale system clients. We have copywriters that we stand behind. And actually, when you purchase the circuit sales system, when you get into the Facebook group, we have copywriters that work with you every day, well, Monday through Friday, within the cost of the program. That was really important to me, that like, just like we did here, you get that feedback, right? So. So if someone is a copywriter, and they want to be a circuit sales system copywriter, like a full we stand behind this person, reach out to us, and then we can talk to them a bit more about that. But at same time, too, aside from copywriting, if you want to get in and learn the systems, and then, you know, we've had Helen, for example, Helen munchy came in as a student because she also has a quiz program. But the more that she got in there, the more she was like, Oh, I really love this tech and her husband does some tech stuff. And she said, Hey, this is a demonstration of what we do. Can I be a resource for your students? And well, I said, Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Helen, this is fantastic. You know, obviously dug in a little bit more to make sure that she was absolutely top quality resource. And she is, and now she's in the the Resources section of the program. So if someone is digging and they're like, all right, I get the tech, but I don't really want to do or I don't have time to do this, or I have a question, or something like that, they can work with Helen. We have a couple other people in there as well. I don't want to guarantee that if someone gets into this program with the intention of providing circuit sales systems services that we will absolutely list them as a resource. But here's the thing is that even if you're not getting into this to be a circuit sales system resource or something along those lines, it's going to help you sell your own stuff. Yeah, yeah, yes. We have course creators, certainly, and we have coaches and but we also have people who are one to one service providers who want to be able to sell people into their programs automatically. The only thing to bear in mind is that you just kind of have to keep an eye on it. Because if you turn it on and you send traffic to it, and if you're like, well, it's working. And now, in full, you do just want to kind of keep a closer eye on it, then you might have to, if you had, you know, a course where you can sell any number of things, but yeah, you can absolutely. We have students that sell one to one services. We have students that sell into live cohorts. Your program does not have to be pre recorded in order to sell it via a circuit. So if you are doing, you know, maybe you are doing, I don't know, some kind of group cohort that you want to do, you could absolutely sell it with a circuit as well. There's inherent flexibility built into it.
Emily Reagan:
1:07:05
It's so beautiful, and I see so much work for the tech VA again, the one building it like learning these systems and not saying they're going to go in there and like, just completely pill for everyone. But this is also how I have built my reputation. Is like learning how different people teach things, and being able to go into clients businesses and then, like, implement it for them, and personalize and customize it for them, too, for their unique business and the like tech just in general, is hard. It's hard to, like, take the time to do it for yourself, and it's like a teammate who gets it for anyone who's trying to elevate into the next level, this whole podcast is about putting yourself into the funnel like Nicki has given you the way, like, that's what I wanted to say.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:07:51
Thank you.
Emily Reagan:
1:07:51
Yeah, yeah. This has been such a fun conversation, tying copywriting into the messaging that comes in the funnel. I think a lot of people think they just build it as quick as possible, and it just sells. And there really is strategy.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:08:04
Oh, that wouldn't that be nice? Like, wow, this is so easy. Awesome!
Emily Reagan:
1:08:10
I just do a webinar, and I'm rich.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:08:12
And I send an email, yay, yeah.
Emily Reagan:
1:08:15
Oh my gosh, I wish. I wish, you do such a good job of tying the copywriting into the funnel. So I love that, because they they go hand in hand. Tell everyone the best place to connect with you, because I know you have a podcast too. Yeah,
we have a website where you can opt in and you can see the full trainings. And I know Emily, you're going to have the links, so I won't even bother saying them here. But for the copywriting training and for the for the circuit sales system, it's all going to be right here. And then, of course, if you want to follow us on social, you can follow us at Filthy Rich Writer and at Circuit Sales System. And then, of course, we have our our podcast. You can listen if you're interested in copywriting. The Build Your Copywriting Business podcast is the place to go. And then for circuit sales system, the Energize Your Online Business podcast is the place to go.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:08:59
Alright, we'll have all the links for everything we talked about in the show notes below. Nikki, this is such a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your genius, sharing your training. I started a similar way, by teaching people on my team how to do the work, and so it was really fun to hear how you had this idea of talent you already had, sharing it to the world. Thank you for sharing it here, too.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Emily Reagan:
1:09:25
So good, so good. I know there's a lot to learn, but you can absolutely do this. On the back end, Nicki gives you permission to start if you're already doing the copywriting. You can call yourself this permission to keep learning. Amen, you're here listening to this podcast. If you want to learn how to get started in copywriting, check out her free training video. I mean, a CEO is gold how to get started in copywriting. I'll put the link below in the show notes. It will help you break in. It will help you learn what you need to know to get started in this business. And then check out her Comprehensive Copywriting Academy. It's a place where you get to learn everything, including the business side. So you can see why we're sisters here and teaching service providers and helping people transfer their skills in the online space. So it's so nice to be able to refer somebody who's doing something similar, but not teaching exactly what I'm teaching at all period. So copywriting overlaps with what we do as marketers, and sometimes, like me, with my current client, we turn around and we hire the copywriters to do the work for us. So alright, the funnel series will continue next week. Don't forget to leave me a five star review, and I will see you then.
If you want to start earning income as a digital marketing service provider or digital marketing assistant, you only need your laptop. You can tap into what online business owners really need help with by downloading my top 10 most requested tasks. These are the services I did for years for my clients behind the scenes. You can take this download and apply it to your own business and start by offering these very same services if you want to niche down in digital marketing, this is your guide. Just use the link in the show notes, or go to Emily Reagan pr.com/services,
I love having you in my world, and we'll see you over on. I don't know, I don't know how to ever end.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:11:36
No, we're gonna, yeah, oh my god. I used to years, years, I would go through it. Now it's just like, catch you in the next one everybody, yeah, but yeah, no, I would always say thank you. And then my editor was like, you can't say thank you, because we end, we start the outro with Thank you. So every time you do it, it messes everything up,
Emily Reagan:
1:11:53
yeah, like that. And I also have a kid
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:11:55
I want to thank people.
Emily Reagan:
1:11:56
I have a kid staring at me right now, by the way, that's all going in the bloopers.
I guarantee if you can write great copy, people will hire you. It is an entirely merit-based career.
Emily Reagan 0:12
Hey everyone. I'm Emily Reagan, and you've discovered unicorns unite. This is a podcast for freelancers, service providers, virtual assistants and curious listeners who would like to experience the freedom and flexibility of working virtually for the magic makers, movers and shakers and the real people doing the work behind the scenes of online businesses. Welcome to unicorns. Unite.
Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the final series. I'm your host. Emily Reagan, I'm so glad you could be here for today's episode. It is going to be a gold mine for freelance marketers, marketing assistants looking to master and elevate their client work. I'm joined by the incredible Nikki krausek, a seasoned copywriter with over 20 years of experience, and she's the genius behind the circuit sales system. It's all part of funnels. It's all coming back to funnels. The cool thing is, Nikki has a big announcement relating her circuit sales system. She's actually selling this part of her business, as she explains, it's a lot to keep up with, and she's already doing really well with her copywriting Academy. And so it makes sense to offload this so before she does or picking her brain and learning how this works, and if you're curious, you can still get into the system. But in this conversation, Nikki and I dive deep into what makes funnels work, and it's not just the tech, but the messaging that drives results. Nikki shares her proven system for selling without the stress of live launches, and how she built a business that thrives on automation. We'll talk about how freelance marketers can level up by integrating strategic messaging into funnel building projects for their clients. We're going to talk a lot about copywriting. In other words, copywriting is the backbone of what we do, and even if we're using AI to build those first drafts, we still need to understand the core messaging, the point of what we're doing behind the work when it comes to the emails, the landing pages, the VSLs, the webinars, this episode is packed with insights on combining copywriting and strategy and systems to create funnels that not only sell, but really build long term trust in client relationships, and you'll see by the circuit sales how we keep putting this offer back in front of our email subscribers. So if you're ready to take your funnel building skills to the next level, command premium rates. You are in the right spot before we go, make sure you hit subscribe to this podcast. I could use your help bumping us up. I'm already ranking in the top 200 of marketing podcasts, and I need your help, and a review would be the greatest gift. So take the time to hit five stars. Leave a few words about why you're loving this funnel series and how it's helping you in your business. Now, first, a little bit more about Nikki. I did join the circuit sales system the beginning of last year, but went into a little bit of a delay, pause in my business, going through my divorce, and so I put the brakes on creating my circuit sales. But I have my webinar scripted out. I have some of this done. A lot of my messaging is very similar to Nikki's, and what she teaches copywriters. I'm like, this is going to be so fun to have her here, because I know you will get it. You will understand it, and it's really about the overlap of copywriting and funnels here today and just really giving you the confidence to move forward and how circuit sales can be a scalable solution for you, for your clients, really, your clients, and messaging is just the foundation of everything we do. So you want to make sure you check out Nikki's copywriting Academy. I have an affiliate link in the show notes. If that's something that you need to get to the next level, go watch her circuit sales and sign up for her webinar. Watch what she does. I'm putting everything in the show notes below, and then if you do decide to join the comprehensive copywriting Academy. Then make sure you tell Nikki that you heard it from me and that I'm your referral. I would love to get credit. And then check out the circuit selling.com for more information about the circuit sales, and we will be hearing very soon who bought this amazing program. All right, let's get into it.
Hey, Vicky, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here in our funnel series, continuing the conversation with a system you've developed called circuit sales. And so before we jump into everything funnel related, is tell everyone a little bit about you, how you got into the online space, what your business looks like. Fill us in.
Nicki Krawczyk 4:43
Yeah, I'm super excited to be chatting with you today. It's nice to see you again. So my background is in copywriting. I've been a copywriter for more than 20 years now, just starting to get to that place where it's like, oh, actually, I want to tell people like, I'm okay 20 years and my. Getting into the online space was, gosh, now, 1314, years ago, I was at a company, and I had to train a bunch of copywriters to do work. They had acquired a new website. We need a lot of copy, and we needed a team. And as anybody who knows anything about copywriting knows is, can't major in it. In college, you can't and it used to be very difficult to learn it. You kind of had to pick things up as you went. So I trained this team up so they were good to go and write the website. And then I thought, you know, I wonder, I wonder if this would be useful to people. So I put a course together, what we now call the comprehensive copywriting Academy. Put that course together in 2012 and obviously, immediately I put it onto the world, and a billion people bought it, and the rest is history. The story, yeah, and the story, this was fun, good to see you. No, of course not. I was, you know, brand new little online business owner Nikki was like, yeah, it's good. Somebody buy it. And that's not at all how it works. So for like, oh gosh, six years I was just kind of flat, like people bought it, and that's great. Thank goodness they did, because I probably would have given up, and they would write in and say, oh my gosh, this changed my life. Thank you so much. But I really kind of floundered for like, six years. Also, I was doing it part time, but it was, you know, I was trying all the things, like, I tried live launching, I tried it as a membership, I tried to just all that stuff. And then finally, at toward the end of 2018 I thought, okay, hold on a sec. Hold on a sec. You are a marketer. You are a copywriter. Why are you trying to do all the stuff that everybody else says you have to do? Take a step back and what do you know? And I know. I know messaging like nobody's business. I know customer psychology. I also knew that I really did not want to have to deal with live launching at all. And so what I did was I developed a system to sell the comprehensive copywriting Academy, and I turned it on at the end of 2018 and in 2018 and this is just for the comprehensive copywriting Academy. In 2018 I made $40,000 which is the most I had made up till that point. But in 2019 I made 268,000 and then in 2020 I made 1.6 million. And then have scaled it up from there, of course. And the other half of that story is that system that I developed to sell the Ccomprehensive Copywriting Academy is a system that a couple of years ago, I had some business owner friends who were like, hey, you know how you don't have to live launch and you still make a lot of money. Like, yes, they're like, Can you teach us how to do that? So I started teaching selling and teaching that system, and that is the circuit sales system. So that's how it all kind of comes together.
Emily Reagan 7:42
I love that you made it work for your own business, and that's so common for anyone listening. When you make it work in a client's business, too, and then people want you to repeat it. Disclaimer, I've been in the program. I think it's great, and I love the methodology, the system behind it. So we'll dive into that in a little bit. But tell me about I'm interested in this copywriting angle from the beginning. And I told you before we hit record, I have a PR journalism background, and I said, I wish I would have known about copywriting, because I would have skipped a lot of the little, piddly Pinterest work and gone straight into copywriting, because I know that this is where the good money is. It's highly valued. You can put together really fat, juicy packages and contracts with copywriting, but you are an OG and you said you are already a copywriter. Like, can you just bridge that story? For me, I'm just, like, fascinated, on, like, a personal level, like, how did you even know about it?
Nicki Krawczyk 8:38
Yeah, absolutely. We always say to it's so funny. How many of our students come in, they're like, I didn't even know the copyright existed. The copyright existed. Copywriting is probably the best kept secret, and I don't, I'm not quite sure why it is, because, you know, so many of us who love to write grew up thinking, oh, you can't make any money as a writer. You can't make and so I was going to do this. Well, I'm not going to go into writing, but there is this one area of maybe a couple, but this is the best paying one is marketing and advertising. Writing is copywriting. The way that it's actually kind of funny, because the way I started was my dad was a marketing director, and way back, a billion years ago in high school, when he would have extra work, he would bring work home for me, and I would do it for him, and then he would give me feedback, and you all that kind of stuff. So I was, I was writing it in high school. However, even this is the same thing, right? Like, I was writing in high school, but I went to school for PR, got out of school, went into special events and did that. Like, was working at a health club for a while, and the whole time was like, Oh, what am I gonna do with my life? And my mom sent me as I'm going through this whole, like, I don't know what to do with my life. My mom sent me a book which, like, for some context, everybody who's listening, it's like, oh, my god, she went on Amazon, or no, this was, what, 20 plus years ago. So my mom went to a bookstore, bought a book, put in the mail, because that's what moms do. I. And I think the book was called something like the six figure writer or something, and it was actually the book itself was not very good. It was like, You need a fax machine, yay. But what it did was remind me that copywriting was a thing, because even though I had done it before, it didn't even occur to me that this was something that I could be doing professionally. And so I pulled myself together, mustered my resources, kind of put together a website, and admittedly to made a lot of mistakes along the way, at least the first several years, made a lot of mistakes, a lot of missteps. Lucked out and got some clients, but in a lot of places, were like, I don't how do you get clients? And the good thing, though, is that I learned all of this, and I developed a system. We teach our students, yes, how to write copy in all different areas and how to write incredibly effective copy. But what sets us apart, in addition to the fact that we have so much in the program, is that we teach our students a step by step system for getting high paying clients, not Upwork, not like referrals, because you can't control that, but an actual system for reaching out and getting clients. It's the system that I learned, and it's the system that still works exceedingly well today, and now we've had 12,000 plus students go through that program.
Emily Reagan:
11:19
Oh my gosh, amazing. I love you and I are both anti Upwork. I was like, listening to one of your webinars. I'm like, I'm like, all of these points. I was like, Yes, me too. Me too.
Nicki Krawczyk:
11:28
Yeah, yeah. It's such a racket. Here's the thing, right? Like it sounds, it sounds like the best thing ever. Oh, all I have to do is is log in and there are all these people who are posting jobs, and I just have to pick one and apply for it, and it sounds easy, and it's not. You know, it's really good if you're the person who's willing to drive down your rates and do work for incredibly cheap. But if you're not, say you have a skill like copywriting, where you should be out of the gate as soon as you get trained, you should be commanding 50, 55, 60, 65, bucks an hour. Immediately, with training, of course, but immediately. But you go on those sites, and first of all, you have to waste your time creating proposals that have to be well written, because you're a copywriter. But then you're also competing with dozens of other people who are more than happy to drive the rates down. And best case scenario, you end up with a project where you're working for way less than you should be. Worst case scenario, you spend all your time writing proposals and you don't get any work. It is a bad system, and it's also terrible because then you are entirely relying on other people. You are waiting for people to post jobs, and when someone else is controlling the opportunities, you are not in control of your own career, and that is a dangerous place to be.
Emily Reagan:
12:43
Yeah, and you just become commodity. Yes, you blended with everybody else you are. I think the people who go there to hire there's an issue with that too, because they're looking for the lowest, like paying contractor that they can find.
Nicki Krawczyk:
12:58
Oh, absolutely. In the past, I've absolutely hired people on Upwork, and I'm looking for the best I can get, for the cheapest that I can get. As a skilled copywriter, as a skilled service provider, that is not where you want to be. You don't want to be competing down here. You want to be standing out up here.
Emily Reagan:
13:16
Yeah, one thing that comes to mind, especially thinking when I began all this journey I didn't know about copywriting, but this hesitation of, when can you call yourself a copywriter? When can you start commanding those rates? I know a lot of people listening to that podcast are in that spot where I don't know. It starts with kind of dinking around with the thank you page because the client forgot to give you copy. It starts with some of the content with blogging and social, but like, walk me through how we can get to this place where we can call ourselves that. Because I went through this feeling not ready and feeling inferior because I didn't feel like I knew enough, and I also knew a book wasn't going to give me no offense to your mom, wasn't going to give me what I needed to be at that level where I can command those rates?
Nicki Krawczyk
Yeah. I mean, here's the thing is that it is an entire career, right? It's like I can bake a cake, but I have no right to call myself a pastry chef. And I said, but with some training, if I get in the kitchen, I work with pastry chefs. They give me feedback, they teach me how to do it. I graduate, and I say, Okay, I know how to do this. I am a pastry chef, so there has to be some level of training. There are, unfortunately, a lot of people who are like, I know how to write. So I'm going to call myself a copywriter. You're doing a disservice to clients if you go out there and you don't really know how to do it. Because, I mean, Emily, you know, copywriting is very different from any other types of writing, very, very different. And if you don't understand the principles, if you don't really understand what you're doing, you're not going to do well. You're going to do a disservice to your clients. And then you're they're also not going to, if anybody does hire you, they're not going to hire you again. That said, though as soon as you start. Learning. As soon as you start practicing, as soon as you start getting feedback on your work and incorporating that feedback, you can start calling yourself a copywriter. At that point, it is. It's disingenuous to call yourself a copywriter if you're not getting trained to become a copywriter, but you have to. You have to learn the principles. And it's not just like you were saying. It's not a book. You can't get it from a book, but from a book, because copywriting is a collaborative career. You know you're going to do writing for clients, and your clients are going to give you feedback, and but even before that, you have to hone your skills, and that has to come from someone who is more experienced than you giving you feedback. And that's I mean, something that we built into the program I give feedback. We have a team of coaches that is in there giving feedback in our group and on, you know, twice monthly calls, because that has to be a part of improving your skills so that you can command the kind of rates that you should be commanding as a copywriter
Emily Reagan
Oh my gosh. I love that. I love how you spend that positive too. Because I think so many of us are afraid like we're doing the work. We're putting in that effort. So many of our listeners just kind of need that permission to to start. And there's also this acknowledgement that there's so much room to grow, and you don't know everything and you never will. So if you're making those steps, like you said, to get better, to get feedback, to learn from a copy chief, then, like, you're probably there. Girl, you're probably there,
Nicki Krawczyk:
16:24
yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and I love that point too, about the fact that you you should be continually learning. I mean, that's, that's the reason that we made the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy. These are students get lifetime access. They get lifetime access to the trainings because we are always updating things. But also, if you joined two years ago and you have a question with a client, I want you to be able to come back into the Facebook group or come back on a coaching call and ask that question and get help, and also to our program so massive, you don't need to go through all of it in order to start landing clients. You know, one of our students was saying, doesn't matter when he told me six months ago, I think. But he was like, oh yeah. He's like, I was working with a client, and the client said, Hey, can you write videos? And he was like, I can. And then just went back and watched the video. He hadn't watched it before then, because he didn't need it before. Then watched the video training, and then wrote the video for his client. And that's how it should be. You don't need all of it in order, because it's massive. It's a massive program. You don't need all of it in order to get started, but you have access to all of it for when you need it. And that's that was so, so important to me, because it should be grow. You should be growing throughout the course of your career.
Emily Reagan:
17:36
I like how you said that I have that problem with our unicorn digital marketing assistance school. It is a doozy. And I say, like, skim through it, see what's in there. And when you talk to clients, do exactly what your video guys said. And, you know, go figure out how to write the VSL later. Go figure out advanced emails tagging later and the segmentation later. But just know it's there. So when you need it, it's there. Like, it's so easy for people to get stuck, like linear, I feel like they need to go through every i don't know i was like the goody, goody straight A student like you want, you want to go through everything and complete your homework, but like that is not the reality of working, doing your client work and running your business. You need to be strategic and prioritize. So I love that, because we need that resource. And you want to be able to say, yes, the BSL, okay, so let's go ahead and plug, I know we're talking about circuit sales here, but like, plug your copywriting training, because the two go hand in hand, and you have a training that someone could log in and watch right now. What is that?
Nicki Krawczyk:
18:30
Yeah, absolutely. If you go to freecopywritingtraining.com you can log in, it's free training, and log in and get that right away. Yeah, if people are listening and they're interested. Check it out. I'm so proud of this program, and I'm also so proud of the community. The people that we have in the community are amazing. You know, we interview students on our podcast, on the the Build your Copywriting Business Podcast, and we hear people all the time saying, like, oh my gosh, this program is so amazing. It was. And the community, it's just, it's such a great group of people, and we take so many people from not knowing anything at all about copywriting, and take them through all the steps of learning, building their experience, and then exactly how to find and land clients. So yeah, if they're at all interested, check it out. Reach out. Always happy to, always happy to get someone started on the journey. It's so much fun.
Emily Reagan:
18:30
I was actually in a Facebook group the other day and someone, you know, I work with, a lot of military spouses, we're over educated, underemployed, lot of stay at home moms who are finding, how can I get back to work and do something that's actually meaningful and pays well? And I was in a Facebook group and someone's like, what should I do? And I was like, copywriting. And she's like, what's that? I'm like, Well, you need to meet my friend, Nicki. I don't think I had an affiliate link yet for you, but I was like, just look at this term and figure out how you can offer this service. And I love that your program is for the service provider. It's helping you holistically with the business. Because you think about, I don't know what's the analogy like, the doctors go to med school and they learn their practice, but then they. Don't know how to run a business. They don't know how to their business. Do the PR for their business, and you are covering it all. It's not just, like, here's a template and write better and then audit. It's like, the whole shebang. Because I know finding clients like you and I have sister audiences number one, yeah, every time, yeah.
Nicki Krawczyk:
20:16
Like, it's great if you train me, but if you don't, like, there are, I was just talking my team about this, there are a couple of of copywriting trainings out there, and they're like, we're for business owners, but we also are for you if you want to be a professional copywriter. And the problem is, is that if it's geared toward business owners, they're teaching the business owners how to write for their businesses. But the business owners need stop there. But a professional copywriter needs to know how to write all of that, but then also how to find and land clients, how to deal with the client relationship, how to have that initial call, how to have creative reviews, how to decide what their rates are going to be, all of that kind of stuff that is absolutely essential if you want to, like, learn copywriting, okay, then, you know, pick up a book. But if you want to make a career, there's no reason it can't be a six figure full time career, then six figure year full time career, then you need all of those elements. Yeah,
Emily Reagan:
21:08
remind me to invite you into the work group to talk about the client management and mistakes you've learned along the way.
Nicki Krawczyk:
21:14
Yes, oh, I would love to so much I share
Emily Reagan:
21:17
Private conversation with you over there. Okay, I'm actually going to take a little turn, yeah, please, getting into circuit sales. I had a copywriter unicorn reach out to me. She started out kind of broadly, doing some marketing. Was kind of clear that she was going to niche, and she just fostered me this. I kind of want your opinion on it. It's going to be a little snarky. Okay, I'm just going to read it. I'm going to read it on podcast. "One of my discoveries last year was that for me, this online space feels like a popular girl clique and I can't gain entry into it. I had high hopes and dreams for new offers and all that to find myself giving up and deciding to just do the work and focus on my family. So many people are pitching each other's offers constantly. They're good friends, just my two cents. It feels kind of icky and like a space where there's no room for a 50 something who wants to make sincere connections." Knowing how you've grown your copywriting business and how you coach copywriters, what would you say to her?
Nicki Krawczyk:
22:13
Yeah, so I do get it. If you're spending your time on Instagram and you're seeing all of the same people, and you're seeing the same person, beyond, oh, this person's on this podcast and this person's on this podcast. But the thing is, when you're seeing things on social media, you're seeing like a tiny little sliver of real life, and also, too, yes, if people are promoting this and promoting that, that's from the perspective of, and I don't want to say this in the wrong way, because I don't know this person's situation, but that's kind of the from the perspective of, I'm sitting back and I'm waiting for work to come to me, right? Like, if they're promoting their friend and they're not promoting me, they're promoting their friend and they're not promoting me, is the All right? Well, how is work going to come to me? And that's that's not where work comes from. Work comes from doing the outreach, from getting in touch with people. And again, this is that trying to wait and hope for work, like with Upwork, or like with referrals, or saying, Okay, I need to be in control of my own my own opportunities. How do I reach out? And I don't mean by pitching the way that I'm sure you get a ton of these awful pitches on LinkedIn too. Oh my god, the stuff that comes through, I screenshot it and share it in the Facebook group, you know, taking out any names, of course, but like, share it in our Facebook group to show people it's miserable. But the the system that we teach our students is very much focused on first and foremost, providing value, stripping any and all sales out of it, and providing value first and foremost, and that is why our students are regularly coming back to us and saying that they get thank yous when they receive pitches from our students. So number one, forget about what's going on in the online space, which is this kind of great advice for all of us at all times, right? Emily, I'm sure. I'm not, I'm sure you do the same thing that I do, where every once in a while, if you're already having kind of like a so so day and you go on Instagram, you're like, Oh my God, every look at her house is bigger than mine, and look at this fabulous life, she went to Greece, and her husband's so handsome. I'm like, all we're seeing is the highlight reels. And if you want to make yourself feel bad, hop on Instagram. It's going to make you feel terrible. So the first thing I would suggest is just stop paying attention to that stuff and pay attention to what you are doing to reach out. Because I guarantee, if you can write great copy, people will hire you. It is an entirely merit based career. It doesn't matter who you know? Yeah, can it help to know people? Certainly, of course, but it's entirely merit based when you demonstrate through your portfolio that you can write great copy, and you can write great copy for a variety of different kinds of companies and a variety of different kinds of voices and mediums. We can talk about new. If you want to, I have a whole diatribe. Will go off on that. But when you can do that, people are going to go, oh, okay, she knows what she's doing. I want to at least talk to her about my project. It's entirely merit based. You could be 120 years old, and if you write great copy, people will hire you.
Emily Reagan:
25:18
Oh, I love that. And do you notice how I didn't even clean up my room for you, and I left the red balloon. I love it in my house. Now
Nicki Krawczyk:
25:26
it's always a party over there.
Emily Reagan:
25:29
I'm glad you shared that. I think there's so much pressure that you have to, okay, I think there's the myth about to be a successful service provider, you have to be the forward facing Instagram influencer type to get work.
Nicki Krawczyk:
25:45
No. So like I was saying on our podcast, we interview our students, and, of course, we interact with their students in a group all the time. And there's so many students I talk to, so who are like, oh yeah. You know, this last year is my first six figure year. I'm so excited. Like, great. And they're like, Yeah, I really don't go, I don't go on social media, and also too, like, well, I don't really have time to be on social media, and you don't need to be, you know, you may eventually get to the point where you have an assistant you bring, you're doing so well, you bring an assistant, and your assistant can kind of do social media. But the thing about social media is that in terms of getting clients, it's a dotted line to getting clients right. Like, it's a, it's a maybe, I put this out there, and maybe clients will come to me, maybe, but it's a dotted line. A direct line is sending pitches. Is Sending pitches that are full of value for clients. That is a direct line, that is it. That is how you can get clients posting on social media. That's kind of like a maybe that's a bonus, and that maybe someone's going to come across you that way. But again, you can't control it putting stuff out there, and it's controlled by the algorithm. It's controlled by what someone looks at that day. It's controlled by whether someone just happened to think to themselves, Oh, I think I need a copy, right? And they come across your post. It's completely out of your control. So if you want to be on Instagram or things like that. You absolutely can be, but certainly don't make it a focus. Do not make it a focus because it's not where your work is going to come from.
Emily Reagan:
27:10
Yeah, let that go. I'm glad, I'm glad you echo what I say, like and like you said, Get off Instagram. Like, yeah, see that detox. It's Yes, so it's not in our face. Okay, I have to ask this and start talking about copywriting. Ai chatgpt, are you seeing it affect the quantity of work, or the quality of work at all? Or, like, how are your students doing?
Nicki Krawczyk:
27:32
No, my students doing great. It's, you know, the funny thing is, is, like a year ago, right? You know, I mean, you and I are in the business sphere, so like a year ago when the business owners started to talk about it, you know, the big business guys and like, AI is gonna take over. It's all the writers are gonna lose their jobs. All the designers are gonna, oh, it's all gone. And now this year, those same people, I'm not joking, the same people, I went in and screenshotted it, those same people are saying, AI is great, but you need a human like, yes, you do. And AI is, is, is? It's really great for research, but there's some fundamental problems with it. Number one, it can't come up with anything new. It cannot. It's like how it's like how robots can't feel human emotions. AI is incapable of true creativity. It doesn't have the ability to come up with got milk, right? Because that's so out of the blue, all it can do is take what's already out there and reconfigure it. And that can be super useful for research, it can be super useful for brainstorming, but it's never going to be able to come up with something new. But on top of that, writing is really only just a portion of what copywriters do. You know, we collaborate with our clients. We partner with our clients. There's so many times when as a copywriter, you'll be sitting with your client, your client will say, like, Oh yeah, well, I want to do this project. And you'll say, Okay, well, interesting, because you just said that this was your goal, and it seems like your target audience is over here. So maybe instead, we want to do is start with this project over here, and then that might change what we do over here. And part of a copywriters job is to make their client think about marketing in a different way and from a different direction. We are we're strategists, and we partner with our clients. And AI can't do that. AI only spits out what you give it, and if a client is giving it and won't say faulty but but prompts that aren't going to lead to anything good on the back end, then that's all they're going to get back. It's, like, I said, it's we, actually, we have a course within the CCA about how to use AI for research and how to use it for brainstorming. And that's, that's great, but it's now, it's not going to replace us. And yes, are there going to be companies that are always going to try to do it, like, Oh, I'm just going to use AI instead. It's going to be so much cheaper and great. Like, best of luck to you. There are always companies that are trying to do things on the cheap and like, oh, okay, this is the we're going to do this, and this is going to be the secret to success, and we're going to, like, no. Best of luck to you. Your messaging is the number one most important thing in your business. You could have a cruddy so. Service or product, and I'm not saying that anybody should do this, but you could have a cruddy service or product. If you can message it right, people will buy it. You could have the best service or product in the entire world, but if you can't figure out how to message it, no one will buy it. It is the most important thing in somebody's business, so if they're gonna outsource it to a computer, best of luck. Best of luck to you. Best of luck. Enjoy your inevitable return to full time job.
Emily Reagan:
30:27
And I just watched you slam the microphone on the ground, walk out. That was awesome. Oh my gosh, I just saw so many whiny people like freaking out that they're going to be at a job. And the truth is, like, back to what you said, if you're good, you're good at messaging, you're good at copywriting, you will not be hurting. I think the people who are sub par, who didn't take the time to train, didn't find their client's voice, they're the ones hurting right now, and probably the ones that I see, like posting for work.
Nicki Krawczyk:
30:53
Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, anybody who gets into anything thinking it's gonna be a get rich quick thing again, best of luck to you. Any get rich quick thing. There's like, one or two. It's usually dudes at the beginning, and then those dudes sell a course standing next to an airplane. And then everyone's like, yeah, and then it all falls apart. That's not what we're talking about. This is a career. This career has been around for a very Did you know that? F. Scott Fitzgerald was a copywriter before he was a novelist.
Emily Reagan:
31:25
No
Nicki Krawczyk:
31:26
Yes. Isn't that interesting? F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut was a copywriter. Joseph Heller from catch 22 who else? Well, the guy who wrote Rudolph the red nosed reindeer was a copywriter.
Emily Reagan:
31:39
So they all did the work that made them money, first, because they're smart, and then they went to their writing passion.
Nicki Krawczyk:
31:45
Yeah, right. Because unfortunately, unless you are a less you are Stephen King, you can't make enough money as a novelist to do it full time.
Emily Reagan:
31:54
Yeah, oh my god. Okay. Well, let me ask you this. I see all these big business owners, and you know some of the names, I know some of the names we've been in rooms for some of these people posting jobs for copywriters. That's $25 an hour. What the fuck?
Nicki Krawczyk:
32:09
yeah. And again, best of luck with that. What kind of quality do you think you're gonna get? Because, yeah, sure, there are gonna be some people like, oh, I want to work for $25 an hour, but the people who've actually been trained and know what they're doing are looking at that and laughing and saying, Okay, that's great. I have this client that pays me $80 an hour, so I'm gonna work with them instead of with you. Yeah, it's, it's like with with anything you know. You will also see job postings for people who are like, We need someone who's a writer and a designer and an SEO expert and SEM expert and like, okay, luck to you exactly, and expert in everything. Like, okay, you know. And I heard somebody say that that job postings are our wish lists, and I think that's a really great way to think about it. Like, if you see a job posting for 25 and it's and it's at a company. You're like, I really like that company. You know what? Go ahead, reach out to them, apply, start the conversation. You're not committing to anything, but at the same time, don't you take that work for $25 an hour, because if they, if they are a company who understands that this is a role that has such a an integral part of their business, then when it gets to that point, they're going to be willing to pay more than $25 and if you get to that point and they're not willing to pay more, more than $25 walk away, not even walk away, run run away. You do not want to be with that kind of company who would pay so little for something that is literally supporting their entire business, the crux of their business?
Emily Reagan:
33:43
Yeah, and we see that, and there are some of those big names that do that, who post those, and we you don't need to. So I think sometimes they're used to getting stuff for free and cheap because of their notoriety.
Nicki Krawczyk:
33:53
I agree with that, definitely. But I also, I was listening to, there's some I and I won't name him, but a business owner that probably most of us know. And he was talking about the way he posted for jobs. And he would post for jobs for like, $12 an hour, start an assistant at 12 and looking for adults at $12 an hour. And he did it as as kind of like a test to see how much people cared about the role. And I don't, as someone who has to support herself, I don't like it. I would have walked right past it. I guess it worked for him. I don't know that it would work in today. I think that when he was talking about this, he was talking about people that he hired, like 15, 10, you know, 10, 15, years ago. I don't know that it would work today. And in fact, I think it would probably backfire pretty significantly, if his name was associated with trying to pay a role for 12, all they'd have to do is for someone to share it on the internet and be like, Wow. Like, talk about getting some backlash. So I guess I can kind of see it from that sense. But I think he was like, oh, start you at 12, and then bump you up to 20 or 20, you know, whatever. And for like. An assistant role or something like that, but I don't have that kind of time, right? Like, as someone who provides services, I don't, not as much, certainly anymore as I run a business, but like, and my students, nobody's got that kind of time to play around with this. Like, well, my services are worth at least. What minimums just starting out after they've been trained a minimum, that a student should be basing their their hourly rate on basing their project prices. It's going to be a lot more project rates than anything else. And but you need to start out with an hourly rate, just to give you some understanding of how much to charge at a minimum, 50, I mean, probably closer to 60, 65, and then after you get a couple more years under your belt, you're raising your rates. And all of which, by the way, is when you start doing this math, it's, it's almost inevitable, if you want to do this full time, it's almost inevitable to be making six figures. Which writers, all those people who said you couldn't make money as a writer were liars. But like, who's got that kind of time to play around with those games? And these, these low there's so many clients. There are literally millions of companies and organizations, literally millions, and every single one of them needs good messaging. Now, not every single one of them is going to hire a copywriter, because some of them are dumb, and not every one of them, you know, not every one of them is going to hire you. But if you want to be a full time you can be freelance, you can be on staff, you can do whatever you want to do. We'll teach you how to do all of it. But if, if, say, hypothetically, you want to be a full time freelance copywriter, it only takes probably four, five, maybe some months, six clients to have a six figure a year income, and that's and also too, month over month, a lot of those clients are going to stay with you. Who's got time for that $25 an hour? I mean, come on,
Emily Reagan:
36:44
yeah, because we want someone on our team who knows our business. You can just take it over like, I love writing, but I don't have time to do it all. I want somebody on my team who can, like, pick that up
Nicki Krawczyk:
36:54
Exactly. It's it's a red flag for business owners when you charge too little. You know, sometimes people say, Well, should I do my first project for free? No, no, because all that you're conveying is I'm not sure of myself, and I'm really worried that you're not going to like my work. And there's no business owner and no marketing director, no creative director who has time for that. Because if you're not sure of your work, and you might not be good at it, they know they might get it from you for free, but then they're gonna have to pay somebody to rewrite it. So it is when you say, can I just just do this for free? Not only are you conveying that you are that you are brand new to this and you have no confidence, but you're also conveying that it might end up being twice the work for the person you are trying to give your work away to for free. So it is a huge, huge red flag, never work for free. I mean, there's, you know, copy tests are a little bit different. If you're interviewing for a company, they say we have this test should take you no more than 2020, minutes, a half hour, and that's just to prove that you are the person who did the work in your portfolio. But what we do is valuable, and we should be paid according to and we can be there are. The other number I love is that there are. And this might be a little bit different, because I looked it up a couple years ago, but it's somewhere close to this. 538,000 new companies started in the US alone. And obviously you can write copy from anywhere in the world before anywhere. 538,000 new companies started in the US alone every month, every month, and you only need, let's say five clients a year. I mean, excuse me, five clients a month to be a full time copywriter. Like, it's so funny, because I'll say to my students, I'm like, there's so much work out there. There's so many people who want to hire a skilled copywriter, and inevitably, you know, once clients or once students have been working, they come back. They're like, Oh my gosh, there's so much work out there. Like, I know you tried to tell you, yeah, exactly, okay, I get it. You didn't believe me. I understand. You have to learn for yourself. But there's, there's a massive amount of work out there, a massive amount.
Emily Reagan:
38:56
The beautiful thing is, one client leads to another to another, because your circle is to start expanding. And then next thing you know, like, for me, I know you talked about the referrals, but like, the referrals have been huge for me. Like, once I didn't improve my value and show how I'm, like, better than everyone else, like that has never been an issue for me.
Nicki Krawczyk:
39:13
Exactly, exactly
Emily Reagan:
39:14
Getting started is always the hard part throughout the entire unicorn digital marketing assistance goal. I'm like, copywriting is next. It's coming for you. You want to charge more. I also say if you can write $50 an hour already. And guess what? I want everyone in my business to know how to write every answer in an inbox is an is a sales opportunity. It's representing my brand. And I've had to let people go off my team who are poor writers. Like every internal email that's a communications like it's all a chance to to prove the transformation and why people are in my world and why they should stay in my membership. And we're not, we're not dinking around over here. And this is a skill you have to have. Not only that, if you're a business owner, you are selling your services. So you need to be able to write for yourself. So to me, it's like the number. One skill to invest in, you know, after you have gotten into this freelance space and you're looking at marketing. So I cannot stress this enough, my people know this, and I'm always kind of pushing them to, like, you know, niche down and get to the high value work.So we're not stuck charging 20, $25 an hour. Can I ask what specialties or what niches are really hot for copywriters right now? Is there any kind of trend you're seeing, because I get a lot of jobs for course, creators in the online space, but like sometimes they're getting a little old, they can be a little cheap. Do you see anything else that you could nudge us towards?
Nicki Krawczyk:
40:38
Yes, well, first, I am so glad you brought this up, because one of my personal the hills that I will die on is this idea, first of all, that you have to choose a niche. We hear this a lot. There are a lot of people like, oh yeah, the riches are the niches Choose. Choose a niche, if you're just getting into copywriting, how could you possibly know what niche you want to choose. How could you possibly know what industry you want to work in? How could you possibly know what type of writing you want to do? How could you possibly possibly know? And then also, on top of that, once you choose a niche and or a niche, however, we want to say it and you, you make your whole website, I'm only going to do healthcare copywriting. Okay, great. So you made your whole website, healthcare copywriting. I'm somebody else from a different industry comes to your website, they're going to look at your website and be going, Oh, I guess she's not going to do that kind of work and is not going to reach out to you, in spite of the fact that maybe you're desperate for work, because nobody from the healthcare industry is giving you projects. How could you possibly, possibly know? So the first thing is that you don't have to choose, and we'll talk about specializing in a second, but you don't have to choose a niche. And in fact, demonstrating depth and breadth of experience in your portfolio is a much better and much safer route of going. If you have a portfolio that shows that you can write emails and landing pages and banner ads and direct mail and for a healthcare company, but also for a consumer goods company, for a company that caters to men in their 30s, for a company that caters to children. For Ben, a client is going to look at your portfolio and go, Oh, okay, she knows. She knows how to find a client's brand voice and and write to that brand voice, because that's what we do as copiers. We don't use our own voice. We get in, we work with a client, we figure out exactly how they sound, so that when we produce something for them, you can't tell the difference between what we wrote and what anybody else on their team wrote. That's the number one thing. And I think too, we sometimes think that that, well, I have to, have to pick an industry that's going to pay well, here's a little secret. There are companies or organizations in every single industry that will pay well, it just depends on the company. It's like, you know how sometimes you talk to people and they're like, I will never work in an agency again. Agencies are awful. Well, you worked at one agency that was cruddy, but I guarantee that not every agency is bad. And it's the same thing with, like, well, I worked at this company, and they didn't pay very much well, you know what? I bet a bunch of their other competitors pay really, really well. But I do want to, I think in our space, it's very easy to think that business is, course, creators and coaches, right? Because that's what that's what we see. And also, by the way, don't forget what you see and what you interact with on Instagram is what Instagram is going to feed back to you. So if you have this feeling, and also now copywriting, copywriting, copywriting, you are going to get, hopefully you get some of our ads, but you're going to get so much copywriting content just because your phone is hearing you say this, but it becomes an echo chamber, right? So you're like, This is all of business right here. It is not my friend. There are so many different kinds of companies out there, outside of the online coaches and outside. And if there's one silver lining from the from the the 2020, pandemic, it's that all companies are so much more open to working remotely with people than ever before. When I was younger in my copywriting career, if I wanted to contract for a company or I wanted to freelance, sure, sometimes I could work remotely, but often I'd go into an office, which, if you can do it, there are a lot of pros to that as well. You don't have to be on staff. You can but going into their office, there's some benefits to that as well, but you can work for almost any company anywhere in the world, and they're happy to work with you remotely. So, you know, yes, I have written for I've written for solopreneurs and online businesses, but I've also written for Hasbro, Adidas, Reebok Barnes and Noble Keurig, you know, multi billion dollar corporations, and by the way, every size business in between, there's so much more out there than just the like little keyhole that we're viewing life through. There's so much more out there.
Emily Reagan:
44:55
Oh my gosh, that was so good to hear it. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of one of our unicorns who got a fat. Contract with a automotive part company, so she's like, writing about ball bearings and lube now, and
Nicki Krawczyk:
45:09
So that's the funny thing. So I always say to our students that, like, don't make assumptions from the outside, right? Because sometimes, like, oh, that wouldn't be any fun. One of my most interesting clients ever. I ended up writing for a company that was selling, like, residential tractors. So they were somewhere between, they weren't ride on mowers and they weren't, like, full on farm tractors. It was like this weird place in between. And their target audience was, I mean, they had a lot of money sell out. But the target audience for this was, was like, or their kind of their avatar was this airline executive, like, up in Washington, who would, you know, during the week they are their men and women in suits and and probably mostly men, let's be honest. And then on the weekend, they would come home to their big houses on the all this land, and and they just loved this feeling of getting on their residential tractors and feeling like gentlemen farmers. And it was so fascinating to dig into, like, the wants and needs of this particular audience. And don't discount something until you get into it, because sometimes it went like, I don't know, I'm like, residents were boring, fascinating. It was so interesting to learn about this target and, like, figure out, okay, how am I going to talk to them to make them go, Ooh, this is the one that I want. You know, copying is such a fun mix of creativity and strategy. It is the, like, the best flipping job. So much fun.
Emily Reagan:
46:39
I think it's also really fun when we have very colorful work, past education and job experiences, and you find something that's totally aligned that you're passionate about. I can remember very early, like my eyes are opening to freelancing, and I walked into this quilt fabric store, and just like feeling alive being around like people who are so creative, and just having this urge that I wanted to help the owner of the store who is a brand name, like, you know, fabric designer, but it just kind of sparked something in my brain. I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, I feel alive working around these people. It reminds me of my last, you know, full time job at the Arts Council, being around all these creatives, but not having the same type of talent, and just feeling very lit up about it. And what's funny is, I went on to help a lot of creatives, furniture painters and designers a year or two later, and it like, kind of hit me there, like I can kind of choose who I help, and then I feel like lit up from the back end of their business.
Nicki Krawczyk:
47:41
Yes, exactly. And that's, and that's, that's another thing is that when when someone else is in control, isn't in control of what work you get, right? You get to choose, even if you set up pitches to people, and even they reach back out to you and you have a call and they're like, We want to hire you. If you don't get a good five from them, you don't have to take the work. But you can also say, like, Oh, I'd really like to work with this kind of company. Let me send pitches out in this direction, or, ooh, I'd really like to do this kind of work. Or you get to choose. And like I said, even sometimes within residential tractor companies, you get to work with with interesting people. And you meet so many different kinds of people. And it's you get to be creative in a way that I think a lot of people who grew up loving writing didn't think they would ever be able to for a career. Yes, you get to write, but it is also, it's fulfilling, and it's fun, and you get paid a whole lot of money,
Emily Reagan:
48:32
yeah, and I love variety. Like, for me, if I were doing the same thing over and over, like, I just, I mean, there's reason I did journalism and, like, I get to go learn about these different fields and then, you know, distill it, and then, like, move on to something else. And that was really fun for me. All right, let's tie this into circuit sales, as you're saying. All right. I understand messaging. I understand the sales aspect of it. How did you build this into a system, and what do you want to teach us about your circuit sales so we can go apply this for what we're doing with our clients on the back end?
Nicki Krawczyk:
49:02
Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, obviously messaging is a big part of the program, and I think at the the time that people are going to be going to be getting this episode, we have some big exciting news, because I have actually sold the program, which is amazing. But I'm also super excited about the new owner. She is. It's like passing your baby off to someone who's going to take such good care of this baby. So thrilled with that. But the program itself is that. So if you know someone goes to then sees her information instead of mine, don't you worry. She's fantastic. And we are working together very closely to even do more with this program than I had the bandwidth to do, because that was the big problem and why I had to kind of step away from it. Because I had the copywriting program, which is a full time job, and then I also had the circuit sales system, which was a full time job, oops, and all the people. You need to focus. I was like, I don't that's for other people. No, it was for me. It was for me. But anyway, the good news is that, and I'm so excited, she's so smart, and she's so good, and she knows, she knows online business like nobody's business. But anyway, so a little bit of context of people are like, Wait, in putting together the circuit sales system. I mean, my background is in copywriting and messaging is so important, I couldn't have taken messaging out of there. Messaging out of there if I tried, right? So a big part of that is, is developing messaging, but messaging that sells in a way that doesn't feel that doesn't feel pushy, that doesn't feel tricky, but also isn't, isn't that soft sell that I think we've been we tend to rely on like, Well, I'm just gonna teach, and if I teach enough, then people are just going to buy from me. Doesn't work. It does not work. My friends, it doesn't work that fundamentally, learning is an energy draining activity, right? When we think back to like school, it's not like, like, Yeah, I can't most of us, we're like, Yeah, I can't wait to go into high school today and sit through history class. Or I can't wait even even college, where you get to choose the classes. I mean, even as business owners, even courses, right? I'm sure Emily, you do the same thing I do. I get because I'm buying courses all the time. Like, oh, let's see what this person has to say. Buy the course. And then I'm like, Oh man, now I have to go through the course. Oh, shoot. Like, just putting my credit down, didn't credit card down, didn't put the information in my brain. And obviously learning is important, but the place for learning is after someone has purchased your program, where you can guide them through it and get them in and before that, in order to sell, it's not about teaching. It's about giving them breakthroughs. Because the thing that, and this is probably a good place to start taking notes people are thinking, but the thing that anybody who's coming to your program has probably not even probably, but has already explored options, explored other solutions to their problem, right? Maybe they've just read articles, or maybe they've bought other programs, or maybe they've tried other things, who knows, but they've tried other solutions, and those solutions haven't worked in your field. You know that there is that there's bad advice out there, right? And that's probably why they haven't. They haven't been successful because they're listening to like we were talking about niching for copywriting. There's so many copywriters who are like, who come to us after being in other programs. We're like, I was told they had to niche No, no, no, no, my friend, come inside. We'll take care of you. Let us fix you and help you build a very successful career. They're already coming in with mistaken ideas that are the source of why they have not been successful. But you know better. So one of the things that you want to take people through is a breakthrough. So you want to start out by talking about, you know, you've probably been told this, or you've probably heard this, and they're going, Oh yeah, I have, oh, great. Shoot. Is going to tell me that too, and I and then you're going to say, okay, but here's why that's wrong. And you're going to explain to them why this thing that they thought was was the capital T truth was the canon. You're going to explain to them why it is wrong. So at this point, they're going, well, now wait a minute here. Okay, tell me more. And then you're gonna say what really works is this. And at this point, they're really going, oh, oh. And then you're gonna say, here's why it works. And as you explain it to them, and it makes sense to them, they're going, Oh, okay. Their ears are really perked up, and they're listening. And not only are they, they're first of all, they're feeling validated in the fact that they weren't successful before, right? Because it wasn't their fault they were getting bad advice. Second of all, they're starting to feel hopeful again, because you've explained to them why they weren't successful, and you've explained to them what does work and why not, how they're going to pay you for how, but what does work and why? And also, and just as important, they're now listening to you as an expert, and they're so much more interested and more likely to stay with all of the things that you have to say. And obviously there are a ton of other elements to to cement that and support that and make that that really stick with them, and make them really stick with all of your messaging. But instead of just teaching, like, can you? Can you add in little elements of like, Hey, you also need to know this. Or here's like, a quick three part thing, yeah, you can. You can add in little, tiny, little teaching things, but don't lean on teaching when I know why we do it. Because we're all we tend to be givers. We got and we created courses and so or we're coaches, and we were used to teaching, but that's different. That's for after they purchase from us beforehand, we need to give them those breakthroughs that get them excited about learning with us.
Emily Reagan:
54:27
So is this in a webinar? Is this in all of the email sequences, like paint us the visual?
Nicki Krawczyk:
54:32
All of it! Yes, yes, absolutely. In in a video, what we call a light bulb video, and there's a very careful structure to take people through it? Yes, absolutely. But then also in emails, in automated sequences. So this is not something that people have to it's not something that people have to only catch once. My personal pet peeve is the live only events as an attendee, as a personal pet peeve as a business owner. It's. Like, here's the thing, oh, like, we have this event at six o'clock, and we're not doing any replays. Okay, get it. I get it from a business, and somebody told you that you have to do that because then you're going to that's the only way people are going to show up. Okay, okay, I get it. Same thing. Like, I want to know what's gone on the industry. I want to know any so I will sign up for stuff, and at 10 o'clock that morning, six o'clock that evening, could seem like a reasonable time, and that is my day goes and everything, because I'm a human, everything goes off the rails. All of a sudden, I get to a point at six o'clock and I'm like, There's no way I can sit down and watch this training, because I'm a human. And then so effectively, what they've done is penalize me for having a life. And then two, from the business owner perspective, like, yeah, they have to show up or else they're not going to get they're not going to see my message, okay, yeah, but one way or another, you paid to get that lead. You either paid with time or energy, or you paid, literally, you paid probably meta to get you that lead. And they are most they're at the peak moment of excitement when they first come in contact with you. So if they miss that, they miss your one moment, one time only, live session. All of that time, their excitement and their energy has been waning. So if you start them here and they're down here and all of a sudden be like, oh yeah. Well, okay, okay, all right, here's your chance, here's here's a replay, or I'm gonna nurture, I'm going to try to nurture you back up it literally. It's an uphill movement, literally, but keeping with metaphor, it's an uphill battle to get them back to that moment of excitement, give them what they want when they want it. So in the circuit sales system, it is yes. Is it a video training? Yes, but it's an on demand video training. They have a limited time to watch it, because humans do need deadlines in order to take action.
Emily Reagan:
56:43
I sure do
Nicki Krawczyk:
56:44
Right? Because give me a deadline or Nothing's gonna get done, but we give them a couple of days to watch it, because they're humans. And I don't care if you watch it all at once. I don't care if you split it over five days and you watch it while you're doing the laundry or watch it while you're no matter what, consuming it is the most important thing. And it also shows that we care about our audiences by saying, like, Look, you got time to watch it. Is there a deadline? Yeah, there's a deadline, but it's not, it's not one of those, like, you've got 15 minutes to join make your decision now. Like, that gives people the time to think about and sit with it, to incorporate all of the information that you're giving them. And yes, of course, they're going to be emails, and you can remind them and all of that kind of thing, but you're going to give them the best opportunity to to purchase. And yes, and there are other automated sales sequences. A lot of people will purchase right away, because it will be but there are going to be some people who are just, it's just not the right time for them, right? Maybe the finances are just not there or, who knows, but there are some people who genuinely it's just not the right time for them. That's fine. We're not going to give up on them. That's the problem with kind of the automated, ever automated evergreen sequence. It's they send them to a webinar that teaches at them, and then they don't purchase and then you just kind of throw them on your list, and you're like, Well, maybe someday. But instead, when someone enters a circuit, they go through a sequence, and it's all automated. So once, once they're in the circuit, you don't have to worry about it. You can add on additional enhancements. If you want to do live stuff, you can do it, but only for the people on your list. Is my recommendation, mostly, but we're not giving up on them. All right, so now wasn't the time, but you know what? In 90 days, there's going to be another automated sales sequence, and maybe that's going to be the right time for them. And if not, then you know, they're little changes from sales sequences, sales groups and other you can build in other kinds of opportunities. You can build in automated down sales, automated upsells, all that kind of stuff. But we're not giving up on them. We're there for them when the time is right for them, but once they're in the circuit, and you've built all of this out, and it all happens automatically, once they're in the circuit, you get to just focus on the other parts of your business, and you'll let the circuit do the selling.
Emily Reagan:
58:53
I love this, and you know, my brain is like firing because there's so much work of marketing assistant or email marketing specialist a tech we can do to build these little circuits. I think about my kids, like, Snap Circuits that they build where they like, turn on the little fan and the little light. But like, yes, building those. And I love that, like, don't give up on them. Because I think about my own buyers. There's a lot of people in the research phase. Do I want to do this? This is a big move. When am I going to time it? I'm going to wait till the school year is over, because I'm a teacher, and then I'm and then I'm gonna go all in in May, and I wanna make sure I catch people when they're ready. I think my problem, personally, with live launching right now is besides all eyes in one basket, and that stress is like some people legit timing wise, have life happening and they not ready to jump into a course. I don't want the stress of feeling behind. I want to do this on my own time. And I think what's really fun is we can watch your circuit sale in your copywriting one, right? Like, yeah, that all set up the same way. So is it every 90 days? Like, do I get invited? I have so many questions, Nicki, but do I get. And back to the webinar, if I don't buy right away. Is that how it works?
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:00:03
There is the so when you, when you get into a circuit, the way I recommend people set it up in the way we've done it, is that you have the the fast action price, and that is the that's within the first, the first series, and that is the, it's the only time you will see it too. That integrity is really, really important. Because whenever you see a business owner who's like, oh my god, this the best price ever, and then, like, three months later, they're offering it for half the price, you're like, oh, okay, well, now I don't trust you at all. I'm gonna wait till you drop the price again. Yeah, exactly. It's really bad for your integrity. So you have the fast action price, and that is the best. And for the people who are like, Yes, I'm ready to purchase, that's the best deal that they're going to get. But after that, I mean, here's the thing, your even your regular price is still going to be an incredible deal based on the full value of the program. So then after that, they have the so yes, with within the fast action sequence, they have the ability to to watch the video, and they're going to be emails to support that and and if they don't purchase that time, then we have a little bit more nurturing, and then we have sales sequences at the full price. And we can have, I always recommend to circuit sales system students that they have a full price version of the video as well, because it's a really powerful, yes, selling vehicle, but also relationship building vehicle, because it's not, you know, there's a lot of people who say, Well, you have to nurture first and then you you have to sell them. It's not at all true, you can nurture and sell at the same time. Imagine if you went to a store to buy something, and you were like, hey, I want to buy this. And they're like, oh, yeah, no. Before that, we have to spend a little bit of time talking. I have to tell you why I'm so passionate about this furniture, and I have to tell you about my origin story and, and, oh, and, actually, why don't you come back in three months when I'm going to be ready to be ready to sell this to you? I want the solution now you can nurture someone you know, tell this your origin story is important. But you can do that at the same time that you are selling to them. It doesn't have to be two separate things
Emily Reagan:
1:01:55
And so efficient, so genius. One thing I like that you do is now you really have, like, all roads point to this free copywriting training, and so you can hear it in your podcast intro, you can see it in your social media, and I think that's where marketing assistants can really, like, turn on their brain here. Like, how can I drive more traffic now that we have built this funnel, and you're you're still providing value, if you're thinking about that, because there's so many places that aren't optimized, I guarantee you, in my own name business, like, who knows what the footer of my website is pointing to right now, and so you can see those opportunities and strengthen the circuit sales already. So I love it. I have been so itching to do this for my business. And also, like you and I have very similar audiences, where, when I watched your training, I was like, oh, a lot of what I had is what you had. I was like, Oh, yeah. I also say, Don't niche, but I kind of wanted to walk through one of the aha moments, because I think this is just such an important copywriting, you know, messaging moment of kind of letting someone off the hook, like busting a myth. And so if you don't mind, let's talk about one of mine for a second. A lot of people become a or they're told, I'm going to make these 10k months as a virtual assistant. And then they wonder, like, everyone's teaching it all the VA coaches, and they're wondering why, like, that's not working. And so how I position myself and help me step in here as I'm like, Okay, your title sucks. Nobody actually is going to pay a virtual assistant. Well, we're very used to that meeting overseas, $8 $4 an hour work. And so what you need to do is, you know, elevate your role and your title and your services. And so enter the marketing assistant. So that's like, one of my What do we want? A pillar or
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:03:41
Yeah, your pillar, your your paradigm shift. Yeah, you're taking the paradigm that is out there, and you're shifting their mindset about it. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's, that's a great one, because, yeah, it is. It's, as a business owner, I will say a virtual assistant is a jack of all trades, who's pretty good. You can give them the lower level tasks, but for anything higher than the lower level tasks and anything that I'm going to pay more for, they have to have some specialization. They have to have additional skills. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely,
Emily Reagan:
1:04:11
yeah. So that's just one example of how I'm writing my webinar to position marketing assistance as like, the answer. Marketing assistant training the answer. So now we can still get into circuit sales, right? Yes. Is it a good place for the service provider who's building it to go like is is it valuable for us as the one putting it together? Are we allowed to buy? I guess is my question.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:04:35
Yes, you can buy it. You can buy it. I will say that if you want to be a copywriter and get circuit Sale system clients. We have copywriters that we stand behind. And actually, when you purchase the circuit sales system, when you get into the Facebook group, we have copywriters that work with you every day, well, Monday through Friday, within the cost of the program. That was really important to me, that like, just like we did here, you get that feedback, right? So. So if someone is a copywriter, and they want to be a circuit sales system copywriter, like a full we stand behind this person, reach out to us, and then we can talk to them a bit more about that. But at same time, too, aside from copywriting, if you want to get in and learn the systems, and then, you know, we've had Helen, for example, Helen munchy came in as a student because she also has a quiz program. But the more that she got in there, the more she was like, Oh, I really love this tech and her husband does some tech stuff. And she said, Hey, this is a demonstration of what we do. Can I be a resource for your students? And well, I said, Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Helen, this is fantastic. You know, obviously dug in a little bit more to make sure that she was absolutely top quality resource. And she is, and now she's in the the Resources section of the program. So if someone is digging and they're like, all right, I get the tech, but I don't really want to do or I don't have time to do this, or I have a question, or something like that, they can work with Helen. We have a couple other people in there as well. I don't want to guarantee that if someone gets into this program with the intention of providing circuit sales systems services that we will absolutely list them as a resource. But here's the thing is that even if you're not getting into this to be a circuit sales system resource or something along those lines, it's going to help you sell your own stuff. Yeah, yeah, yes. We have course creators, certainly, and we have coaches and but we also have people who are one to one service providers who want to be able to sell people into their programs automatically. The only thing to bear in mind is that you just kind of have to keep an eye on it. Because if you turn it on and you send traffic to it, and if you're like, well, it's working. And now, in full, you do just want to kind of keep a closer eye on it, then you might have to, if you had, you know, a course where you can sell any number of things, but yeah, you can absolutely. We have students that sell one to one services. We have students that sell into live cohorts. Your program does not have to be pre recorded in order to sell it via a circuit. So if you are doing, you know, maybe you are doing, I don't know, some kind of group cohort that you want to do, you could absolutely sell it with a circuit as well. There's inherent flexibility built into it.
Emily Reagan:
1:07:05
It's so beautiful, and I see so much work for the tech VA again, the one building it like learning these systems and not saying they're going to go in there and like, just completely pill for everyone. But this is also how I have built my reputation. Is like learning how different people teach things, and being able to go into clients businesses and then, like, implement it for them, and personalize and customize it for them, too, for their unique business and the like tech just in general, is hard. It's hard to, like, take the time to do it for yourself, and it's like a teammate who gets it for anyone who's trying to elevate into the next level, this whole podcast is about putting yourself into the funnel like Nicki has given you the way, like, that's what I wanted to say.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:07:51
Thank you.
Emily Reagan:
1:07:51
Yeah, yeah. This has been such a fun conversation, tying copywriting into the messaging that comes in the funnel. I think a lot of people think they just build it as quick as possible, and it just sells. And there really is strategy.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:08:04
Oh, that wouldn't that be nice? Like, wow, this is so easy. Awesome!
Emily Reagan:
1:08:10
I just do a webinar, and I'm rich.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:08:12
And I send an email, yay, yeah.
Emily Reagan:
1:08:15
Oh my gosh, I wish. I wish, you do such a good job of tying the copywriting into the funnel. So I love that, because they they go hand in hand. Tell everyone the best place to connect with you, because I know you have a podcast too. Yeah,
we have a website where you can opt in and you can see the full trainings. And I know Emily, you're going to have the links, so I won't even bother saying them here. But for the copywriting training and for the for the circuit sales system, it's all going to be right here. And then, of course, if you want to follow us on social, you can follow us at Filthy Rich Writer and at Circuit Sales System. And then, of course, we have our our podcast. You can listen if you're interested in copywriting. The Build Your Copywriting Business podcast is the place to go. And then for circuit sales system, the Energize Your Online Business podcast is the place to go.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:08:59
Alright, we'll have all the links for everything we talked about in the show notes below. Nikki, this is such a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your genius, sharing your training. I started a similar way, by teaching people on my team how to do the work, and so it was really fun to hear how you had this idea of talent you already had, sharing it to the world. Thank you for sharing it here, too.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Emily Reagan:
1:09:25
So good, so good. I know there's a lot to learn, but you can absolutely do this. On the back end, Nicki gives you permission to start if you're already doing the copywriting. You can call yourself this permission to keep learning. Amen, you're here listening to this podcast. If you want to learn how to get started in copywriting, check out her free training video. I mean, a CEO is gold how to get started in copywriting. I'll put the link below in the show notes. It will help you break in. It will help you learn what you need to know to get started in this business. And then check out her Comprehensive Copywriting Academy. It's a place where you get to learn everything, including the business side. So you can see why we're sisters here and teaching service providers and helping people transfer their skills in the online space. So it's so nice to be able to refer somebody who's doing something similar, but not teaching exactly what I'm teaching at all period. So copywriting overlaps with what we do as marketers, and sometimes, like me, with my current client, we turn around and we hire the copywriters to do the work for us. So alright, the funnel series will continue next week. Don't forget to leave me a five star review, and I will see you then.
If you want to start earning income as a digital marketing service provider or digital marketing assistant, you only need your laptop. You can tap into what online business owners really need help with by downloading my top 10 most requested tasks. These are the services I did for years for my clients behind the scenes. You can take this download and apply it to your own business and start by offering these very same services if you want to niche down in digital marketing, this is your guide. Just use the link in the show notes, or go to Emily Reagan pr.com/services,
I love having you in my world, and we'll see you over on. I don't know, I don't know how to ever end.
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:11:36
No, we're gonna, yeah, oh my god. I used to years, years, I would go through it. Now it's just like, catch you in the next one everybody, yeah, but yeah, no, I would always say thank you. And then my editor was like, you can't say thank you, because we end, we start the outro with Thank you. So every time you do it, it messes everything up,
Emily Reagan:
1:11:53
yeah, like that. And I also have a kid
Nicki Krawczyk:
1:11:55
I want to thank people.
Emily Reagan:
1:11:56
I have a kid staring at me right now, by the way, that's all going in the bloopers.
