91: How women in business should take (and ignore) advice about entrepreneurship and copywriting
Ever feel overwhelmed by all of the advice for your business out there?
If so, this episode is for you.
There is so much advice being given online. From content to templates to tutorials to blueprints, and roadmaps- it goes on and on!
It’s impossible to follow what everyone is saying, and if you try to, you’ll simply have too many cooks in your kitchen. And we don’t want that.
In this episode of ill communication, I'm sharing how to decide which advice you should take about entrepreneurship and copywriting, and which advice to ignore.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Why there is no substitution for your own intuition when it comes to your business
A pitfall many copywriters fall into- and how to avoid it
Why it’s crucial to be careful who you take advice from
I hope you enjoyed this episode! When you're writing your copy or creating your messaging, be careful about inviting too many cooks into your kitchen. Find an expert or two you trust and listen to their guidance, but don't forget to put it through your own lens!
Want a 60-minute strategy session? Email hello@kimkiel.com.
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[00:00:03] Welcome to ill communication, copywriting tips and sales strategies for small business. I'm your host, Kim Keel. I'm a copy coach, sales strategist, and direct response copywriter. It's my mission to help women leaders and change makers amplify their voices through copy. It's why I'm dishing out all the juicy tips, writing prompts, and sales formulas to help you generate more leads, book more calls, and get more high value clients on repeat. Sounds pretty good. It's time to ditch the overwhelm you might be feeling and find confidence in your copywriting so you can get your message out there and attract more soulmate clients. Let's get started. Well, hey there, and welcome to episode 91 of the Ill Communication podcast. I was inspired to record this episode based on a client who recently booked me for a 60 minute strategy session. Before we got together to review and optimize her home and about page copy, she messaged me in a bit of a panic. She was getting conflicting information and advice from different sources about what kind of content and copy she needed to have on her home page, and what she should put on her about page. One source was telling her not to have anything about herself on her home page. Another source was telling her to include a little bit about herself on her home page. One source advised her not to talk about the problems her ideal clients are facing, and the other source said the opposite. And that's the thing about advice. You will get many different opinions from many different people, and that's what my client was dealing with.
[00:01:46] There were too many cooks in her kitchen, and in fact, by working with me, she was inviting yet another cook and opinion into her busy kitchen. So you want to know what I told her to do? I told her to pause and take a breath. I recommended she observe all the advice and take the bits and pieces that felt relevant to her at her current stage of business. I invited her to put herself into her audience's shoes and think about what they would need to read and see on that home page to make them feel confident, like they're in the right place. I also suggested she take a look at some of her favorite coaches and the creators she trusts what's on their websites, what feels good to her as a customer, what information does she need to see to feel connected and trust with the service provider or coach? Then I assured her she knows the right way forward and reminded her to trust her own instincts and gut. She was so busy asking others opinions and advice she forgot to listen to herself. And a lot of us do this, don't we? We underestimate what we already know about ourselves, our customers, our businesses, and we ask for advice or coaching because we lack confidence. Now, as a copywriting coach, a business owners and entrepreneurs often ask me for copy and messaging and marketing advice, and I share my advice from my own lived experience, from the experiences I see in my clients and peers, and from the research and best practices I read.
[00:03:18] So my guidance is informed. I don't just pull it out of my ass and make guesses, but I always expect my advice or guidance will be put through the lens of is this right for me and my business? I mean, how can I possibly know what the right answer is without knowing all the ins and outs of your business, clients, or your past results? So I want to remind you that in the face of so much content, information, advice, templates, tutorials, blueprints, and roadmaps to please not outsource your own critical thinking and intuition. Take the advice that's out there and decide what's right and relevant for you and your audience. Adapt the advice you hear to suit your style of business, your capacity, and your bandwidth. One of the other pitfalls I fall into as a copywriter, and I know a lot of us copywriters deal with, is when too many people, or worse, a whole committee, reviews and edits a piece of copy. And this happened to me very recently. I'd submitted several articles for a donor newsletter for my charity client. Donor newsletters are written to celebrate donors, thank them for their giving and generosity, and it positions donors as the real superhero behind the charity's mission. And then I saw the comments begin to pop up in the Google doc. One person commented that the word count needed to be shortened. Meanwhile, another editor was adding in more sentences and more words that would ultimately need to be cut out.
[00:04:52] One editor commented that it was too focused on donors and downplayed the role of some of their other stakeholders, and another committee member said, we needed to highlight and celebrate the donor contributions even more. And I saw some of the dramatic, persuasive and strategic copy I'd written. Lose the passion and the drama, and it became rather bland and beige and very safe. And this is so common in larger organizations or where there are multiple decision makers. And it's why many copywriters in both charity and for profit industries have non editing clauses in their contracts. They state that the client cannot edit or change any of the copy. It's because many of us copywriters put a lot of research and strategy into our copy, and the CEO or the manager who hasn't been involved in the process doesn't have the context or background to understand the nuance. And often they're afraid of anything that sounds too cheesy or too simple or too unprofessional, and they edit out the best parts of the copy that will, in fact, raise more money or make more sales. Now, I don't have any of those clauses in my contracts, but with this particular client, I accepted some of the changes, but not all of them, and I provided them with some reasons why I don't recommend all the changes they suggested. Ultimately, though, it's their call, and if they want to change the copy, they will. Which leads me to my next thought about asking for advice and feedback.
[00:06:34] Be careful about whom you ask for advice about business and copywriting. Now put your hand up. If you're a woman entrepreneur and you've learned to not ask your husband or partner for business advice, especially if they're not in business themselves. You probably wouldn't take medical advice from someone who's not a doctor or a health practitioner, or has direct experience with what you're struggling with, so you probably shouldn't take business or copywriting advice from your mother or your uncle's girlfriend son's neighbor who used to run a business at one time. But you can get bad advice from someone who's in a related field or a similar profession. For example, when I launched my website a couple of years ago, I asked my sister to review it for me. She's a government communications professional and I wanted her to flag any typos, errors, or confusing bits. And I think also I just really wanted her to see what I was up to. And while she did find a couple minor typos and flagged a few areas that were confusing, she also critiqued my tone, my writing style, and a couple of the photos I included on my site. She suggested that my conversational tone and casual style weren't professional enough. She thought it would be a turnoff to corporate clients. She recommended I get rid of a photo of me holding a martini glass and avoid talking about cocktails, because it would be distasteful to some organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And here's what I did with her advice.
[00:08:03] I corrected the typos and ignored the rest because my sister did not fully understand who my ideal client was and is. She comes from a government communications background, where they have to be so safe and balanced and boring with their messaging so as not to rock the boat. But that's not me and my style. I'm not looking to attract pale, male, stale business corporations who would rather play it safe than let their freak flag fly. Big charities like mad are not my ideal customer, my customers, the kind of person or organization who loves to treat themselves to a great time. Whether that includes a great cocktail or a mocktail. They like to work hard and then celebrate the great moments of life. And here's the thing I've landed clients because I have a sentence on my homepage that says I enjoy the occasional dirty martini with three olives. Now, as I move through perimenopause, I know I need to update that sentence to talk about how I now rarely indulge in dirty martinis anymore unless I want to be awake half the night with hot flashes, which in itself hardly sounds professional, but I know a lot of my Gen X audience will totally relate to that. And when they book a call with me, they'll say, oh my God, I have so many hot flashes too! All of which is to say, when you're writing your copy, creating your messaging, be careful about inviting too many cooks into your kitchen. Find an expert or two you trust.
[00:09:36] Listen to their guidance. But. Don't forget to put it through your own lens. Your smart woman who's had loads of life experience. You've probably worked in a few different careers and you've already been taught and mentored by many. So don't outsource all the decision making to others. Take sound advice and listen to your own damn self because you probably already know what's best. And seriously, if you have any advice about dealing with hot flashes, I'm all ears. I had quite a few doozies last night, and yes, it's probably because I allowed myself to indulge in a little glass of Chablis just before bed. Ah, the joys of being a woman. Anyway, that's it for this episode of Ill Communication. I'll be back here next week with another tip writing prompt or some good advice which you can take or leave as you wish. Bye for now. Hey, thanks for joining me for today's episode. But before you go, I want to make sure you've grabbed a new tool to help you assess the effectiveness of your sales copy. It's an easy to use tool that will help you identify what's working well and what could we improved among all of the copy assets you have in your business? Grab the Sales Copy scorecard right now to find quick and easy ways to improve your sales copy and boost sales. Get your free scorecard over at Kim Qualcomm's Scorecard. I'll be back next week with another quick tip writing prompt or sales hack for you.
[00:11:10] See you then.
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