Classroom to Copy #22: From Daycare Teacher & Bartender to Financial Copywriter: Carolynn Ananian’s Journey
5:55PM Mar 25, 2024
Speakers:
Tania Yeo
Carolynn Ananian
Keywords:
people
copywriter
copywriting
big
stansbury
copy
agora
years
resumes
hiring
work
boot camp
toddlers
heard
daycare
applying
job
day
speaking
meet
Hey everyone, its Tania Yeo welcome back to another episode of classroom to coffee. Today I have someone with me who's super special. She's the first person I ever spoke to on the coffee chief community. And now she's my colleague at Stansbury research. So here's a warm welcome to Carolyn and Damien, would you mind like briefly introducing yourself your background and what you do currently?
Yeah. First of all, I'm so excited to be here. And I think it's pretty wild considering we've known each other for like, two, three years now. I don't know it feels like forever. And
my name is Carolyn Canadian. I'm a financial copywriter at Stansbury research, and a financial copywriter for about five years now.
I actually brought Carolyn on here, because I heard through the grapevine that she had some teaching experience. I was like, one day, I'm going to have her on my show. So I thought she was a daycare teacher, but she wasn't just a daycare teacher. She's been a lot of different things. And I think she should tell you herself, like, do you wanna like do chronologically? You know?
Oh, man, if we could, if we do chronologically, we might be here a while because I've had every job under the sun before I got to copywriting. I wasn't. I was a daycare teacher in college. I actually watched kids for almost 10 years. I was I was a babysitter. I was a daycare teacher. I worked at a summer camp. I I did every job having to do with childcare for about a decade. But yeah, I was a daycare teacher for toddlers for only one summer because it was it was tough. 30 toddlers in a room put me through my paces. It was a lot.
What led you to that particular summer job.
I couldn't do an internship because I actually needed a job that paid money. And I was tired of working retail. And I babysat a lot. But I was I, I thought the money would be better working at a daycare because the hours are more regular. It was a 40 hour a week job. But you know, so. So I walked into a daycare in my hometown. And I was 19 and had a 30 minute conversation with them. And I got the job. It wasn't hard, you know, like they saw my childcare experience. And I told them, I was interested in being a teacher maybe. And I think that job squashed any interest. But that's, that's the benefit of opening yourself up to many different experiences. You write different things, and you find out what works and what doesn't. And that was a very low cost way of figuring out I was not going to be a teacher.
So yeah, that was actually going to be my next question. What made you think you might want to become a teacher before even getting into daycare teaching.
Um, it wasn't a strong interest. To be honest, I had a million interest. In my teens, well into my 20s, I was considering a million different career paths. So it wasn't like super serious. It was just something I briefly considered because I was good with kids. I like to. So it seemed like something worth trying. And it was also a skill set that I already had and when you need to make money. When you need to make money like this month to pay rent, you look at your options that you have. At the moment. I'm a very pragmatic person. I consider myself a idealistic pragmatist. I have big ideas and big dreams, but I'm also very realistic about what I have in the moment and leveraging my skills as they are right now. You just You just have to be realistic to pick goals.
Do you think that experience with kids especially as a teacher in front of a classroom of 30 toddlers, do you think that helped you in any way as a copywriter?
Oh yeah, I'm laughing because I'm getting flashbacks. It's like a room full of 30 toddlers. It wasn't actually a classroom because they weren't sitting down at desks and listening to me. You can't do that with two year olds. They were actually most of them were about 18 months. So they were Many of them were fairly verbal. Some were very articulate, so much. So I would actually forget that I was talking to babies. But you can't sit toddlers down and expect them to listen to you the way you do with a classroom of older children, it was basically babysitting 30 toddlers at once. And, you know, having storytime having organized, somewhat organized chaos. So you're not you're not having them sit down at a row of desks. And yes, that actually does transfer over a skill set to copywriting today, because I think most adults are operating on unconsciously on who they were as small children, especially if people have not been to therapy. I think therapy makes us more aware of unconscious patterns and things we were raised with as small children. But a shocking number of adults are actually kids emotionally, whether they're, they're aware of it or not. And so that definitely comes in handy for copywriting. It also came in handy when I was a bartender and a waitress, that that skill set transfers over a lot of different areas, no matter what you do.
I have never heard anyone put it that way before. I mean, yeah, I've heard like storytelling to connect with kids. But to actually realize that each prospect at heart has a lot of like, color unaddressed issues, but that's technically like, stuff that's been with us since we were kids like, oh, pre consciousness. Yeah. Wow. And I don't say that to
insult people. Yeah, people get really offended. But it's like, I'm like that you're like that we're all Yeah, exactly. This is how we're wired at a very young age. And it's why a lot of a certain therapy, because we're unpacking things that we unconsciously absorbed as young children and young children are very, very innocent. They don't know how the world works. And they often internalize things and see them in a way that's not reflective of reality. Like I remember talking to my toddlers and having to explain things to them, that they did not understand. But I knew something was up because they were having emotional, big emotional reactions in the classroom, sometimes to things that were happening at home. And that was the only way I knew something was happening at home. But it's not like they're going to tell me because they can't even articulate, they don't, they didn't even many of them didn't even speak fluent English. But I knew something was going on. And I would have to tease that out of them in a way where they felt safe. And they could tell me using baby talk. And I would have to explain things back to them at a level they understood where they felt heard. And there is a ton of that you can transfer to copywriting because you can't talk to people and tell them the things that they should understand. Or, like you have to speak at their level in a way where they can actually hear it. And where they don't feel like they're being spoken down to and where they feel like you're actually listening to them. It's very complex. I don't know if that answers your question.
I haven't heard anyone bring this up before, you know, like, especially working with young kids. Yeah, that definitely answers my question that's that adds a whole new elements of conversations and like talking about empathy, a much deeper level cuz I don't think people realize just how much of it is needed and copywriting sometimes.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that was like one summer and then you said that put you off teaching, right? What? What do you study in college?
Like, political science? I thought it was gonna be a lawyer. I thought I was gonna go work for the State Department. At one point, I considered med school and I actually took a summer a year of science classes for basic requirements to get into medical school. I consider it a million different things. And except for sales, and business. Yeah, I never I never thought like who grows up thinking like excited to become a salesperson or excited to go into business? I mean, I don't know maybe when you're in your 20s and if you go to business school or something, but I was considering a million different things, and I really had no clue on my direction that took that took years and years. A lot of minimum wage jobs figuring out what I wanted to do. or not I was good. I was talking to people. I mean, that's really the core essence of everything we're discussing. I was good at talking to people. And I was good at listening, deeply listening, making them feel heard. So yeah, and it's, it's been quite a journey to say the least.
What were some of those hits your along the way?
Like I mentioned earlier, I was a bartender, I was a waitress, I worked a million temp jobs. I worked retail. I did work briefly as an admin assistant on Wall Street. I did, I took that job, because I was considering going to law school. And in a stroke of brilliance, I decided why go to law school, not knowing if I would actually enjoy being a lawyer, I should go work for a year or two, for lawyers and see what it's like. And out of a department of like 30 lawyers, only one person said, given the option, they will go to law school again. And every single other person was like, Don't quit. Yeah, every other person was like, Do not go to law school. This sucks. This is the golden handcuffs. Don't do it. And I was like, you know, one out of 30 is a terrible success rate. So I'm not going to law school. And I look back on that as one of my best moments, because I've made a lot of mistakes. And I've also done some things, right. But I think going to law school would have been one of the worst decisions I've ever made. Because I would have spent a quarter million dollars, three years of my life on a degree to get a job that I think I would have hated. I think I would have hated being in a desk at a desk like 12 hours a day, wearing a suit holed up in an office on wall street somewhere. I would have hated it. But you know, what do you know at 22? You don't know anything?
Oh, wow. So you did that when you're 22?
Yeah, I was just that was my first job out of college.
That's really smart, though. Like to spend some time doing the actual thing before forking out all that money to become nothing.
Yeah, and one of my one of the lessons I took from that is the importance of finding easy ways to test things before you go all in and make a big investment. And that's something I've taken over into my current career too.
But some of the misconceptions I'm trying to like dispel on this podcast is that copywriting is just like any kind of writing because we touched on a key point like we, most of us didn't think we end up in sales. And that's technically what we're doing. Right as copywriters is to generate sales. I think a lot of people just see the writer part. And then they make assumptions based on that. When you share that story about talking to that French
lady, and how you?
Oh, yeah, you remember? Yeah. And you're, I think you're working in retail at the time, right?
Yeah, I was working at William Sonoma. And one day this lady comes in. And William Sonoma has a really fancy pan store. And at the time, I was like, 20, and one of the myriad jobs that worked over the years. It's a really, I couldn't afford anything I was selling, ironically. And I still had to become an expert on everything in the store and figure out why the hell people would buy, you know, a copper pan set. I was a college student, and, you know, living hand to mouth. Anyway, that's a that's a side story. But one day, a lady comes in. And she obviously needed help. And she started speaking to me, but she was speaking so lightly, I couldn't even hear what she was saying. And I was just listening. And eventually, I caught her cadence, and I realized she was speaking French. And she was doing the thing everybody does when they're trying to be understood. By in a foreign country, you either start speaking, your language really loudly, hoping the other person will somehow understand you, which is ridiculous, and, and never works for you make your voice really tiny, which also doesn't work. And it's totally irrational. But humans are beautifully irrational. If you raise your voice, you're trying to make yourself understood, and it just doesn't work. And so I just started speaking back to her in French, and I said, you know, I speak French. Can I help you with something? And she immediately lit up and started leading me around the store and her voice got louder and louder as she went. And she was talking. very animated and excited. She started telling me what She needed and I started asking her questions. And I went to school briefly in Paris. So she was from Paris and she also had a vacation home in the south of France as one does. Because I was slightly bicultural. Like I understood the meaning of the things she was saying, like, what it's like living in Paris, and having a summer home, and being able to tell her things like, if you're living on the beach, do not buy the copper pan set, because sea water will wreak havoc on copper. So don't get that get the steel and all that kind of stuff. And so yeah, just being able to understand her at that level, she opened up and started telling me things. And that's a lesson you can apply to copywriting as well, because you have to let people feel safe. So they can open up. And you're not actually telling them that you're doing that. Obviously, maybe not obviously, I don't know. But yeah. But
yeah, it just sounds like you're having a genuine conversation with her and trying to meet like, she would shoot she was telling you what she needed, and then just try and meet that. Right. Yeah, but being able to make that connection in the first place where they feel empathized enough. Or, like they trust that you will listen, like. Yeah, I think that. I mean, for me, I know that's the hard part. I'm gonna jump ahead. Because I know that there's this whole other conversation that I also want to have with you about copywriting. But you're one of the we could go in any direction you want. Yeah, exactly. Because this is my show can do whatever. I know, one thing that I love about you is that you're always like in at work. We so we both both work at Stansbury research, and she's always like posting links to like, look at the comments on this wall street journal article. You know, because like, when I first started studying financial copywriting some people were like, Oh, you just, there's just one fixed avatar, and it's, you know, yeah, and you don't have to worry about customer research. You don't have to go look at reviews and comments and understand the customer that yeah, that's that's my beginning. You know, my haphazard beginning into financial copywriting was like, you just need to understand this one avatar Graham Parker. And that's it. And I know someone who is like grandpa Kirtland, he resents that term for for men in his, like, that profile group. So yeah. Do you want to talk more about how how you do that kind of like customer research now? Like, how do you understand like this, like guys, where people are at right now?
Yeah, I think what you just said perfectly exemplifies what I was saying earlier that people, people resent, if you don't understand them, they actually resent it. They resent being compartmentalize. They resent being put in a box, they resent being misunderstood. They just want to be heard. They want to be listened to. And they, they don't appreciate it when you project your own assumptions on who they are and what they're thinking. And that makes copywriting deceptively tricky. Because a lot of marketers make presumptions. And to a certain extent you do, you do have to make some presumptions, in marketing, like you have to. You just have to do that when you're making marketing decisions. But human behavior is very nuanced, and complex. And you're never speaking to a monolith. Even within a group of people. There there. There can be many different patterns. There can be disagreements in the group. So you have to be always reading, reading a wide array of sources. You have to look at everything. Everybody in the audience is saying, and you're looking for trends, you're looking for patterns. But there's many shades of grey, that it's not just one color. And I think that's a common that's, that's something that gets lost in the conversation among a lot of marketers. It's, it's crazy to me the idea of just writing to someone named grandpa Kurt, that a lot of people reading the stuff that we write and Not only do they have a lot of different opinions on a single topic, but they probably have a lot of complicated opinions on it. So then how do you address that? And I think that's why cop as a copywriter, your it combines copywriting combines a lot of skills. It's being a lawyer, without going to law school, thankfully, you have to, you have to, you have to make an argument you have, you have to make it in a way that speaks to the general public, not legalese. So you kind of have to be like a screenwriter, because you're making really complex arguments, distilled down into everyday language in a way that the common man can understand and lean into. And then you also kind of have to be a psychologist, because you have to make the argument in a way that hits emotions. It can't be pure logic, because humans are beautifully irrational. And again, I don't say that to insult anybody that has nothing to do with human intelligence. It's just the way we're wired. We're wired for emotion and to connect with each other, we make decisions based on emotion. And then we look for the logic.
Now I'm going to jump back to because like, I had like a very narrow career experience, like I did a teaching contract that lasted, like, was like four years in college, and then six years, it was very one track. So I'm always like, fascinated by people who have had very different paths for me off like all the different hats you've worn, like which of these have had the most influence on you as a copywriter?
Oh, man. Probably bartending because you're talking to people every night, usually while they're drunk. So I mean, if you really want to get through people's inhibitions, and talk to them purely on an emotional level, bartending is the way to go about it. That's, that's actually, bartending is a great way of looking at human behavior. As it as it is not as it should be. Because if you're a marketer, and you're thinking in terms of should, you're going to fail. And that's why I send people interesting comment sections, because people are once people are blunt, and tell you how they feel. And it's not always in line with what the media is saying.
And how the media is portraying? Yeah. And then how did you discover copywriting from, you know, follow up those experiences.
At the time, I was bartending, I was part of an online mastermind group, which was amazing. And I recommend a quality mastermind group to anyone who's looking to get ahead in life, because being in the right room, at the right time, opens doors to you that you never would have had access to or considered. So I was working in hospitality. And then whenever I was not working a shift, I was out grabbing coffee and networking with people or I was going to business conferences. At the time, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And hospitality gave me the flexibility to do it. Because you can easily get a shift and go do what you need to do. So one of the business ideas I got out of the mastermind was writing resumes, that was actually a side hustle I had for a while. And then one day, I was out talking to a colleague of mine in the mastermind, and he said, you know, resume writing kind of sucks, because you can never get ahead doing that. And he was he was right. Because there's only so much money you can charge for a resume. And the problem is, if you're really good at what you do, you quickly put yourself out of work. Because if you write a good resume, the person gets the job, and you lose a customer. I mean, good for the customer. But now you have to find more customers. But that's a lot of resumes, and a month to make rent. And again, you lose customers and they get jobs. So my colleague was like, instead of writing resumes, why don't you consider something like copywriting? And I said, Why would I want to work with trademarks? Like the answer everybody has. Everything's copyright like copyright has to do with legal stuff. I already decided I didn't want to be a lawyer. And he was like, no, no, no, it has nothing to do with anything legal. And he explained to me what it actually was and he said, I have a friend you should talk to him. And I think he he, he introduced me to somebody who introduced me to our friends, Kevin rockers over in coffee, he actually got in the door with Kevin and joined coffee cheese. And that was actually a powerful lesson in market fit. I didn't understand that at the time, but you have to offer the right thing to the right audience at the right time. Like resumes, to everyday people are decent as a side hustle, but you're never going to get ahead that way. copywriting is a much more valuable skill set to companies which have much deeper pockets. So that was a copywriting lesson, and I didn't even know it at the time until much later. But that's how I got in the door.
So this colleague was from, like, from work, or from the mastermind that you were in
the mastermind group. The great thing about joining a mastermind is any any organization with high quality people doing big things. Because you can immediately tap into a network of connected people who want to help you. That was invaluable to my group. I think it was like 50 bucks a month at the time, which was a lot of money to make, because I was bartending, but I mean, it's paid dividends. And it's gotten me to where I am today.
Yeah. And then you also mentioned like networking, where you are going to conferences and things like that.
Yeah, and a lot of that was asking people that I trusted in, in the group, where should I be spending my time and people would say, oh, you should, you should go to this conference. It's pretty cool. There's gonna be cool people there. So I mean, I was I was just making connections and talking to people. And I did not have an end goal in mind. I just wanted to meet people. And I think that's the right way to go about networking. People can smell when you have an agenda. I was just excited to meet people from all different walks of life. People who were executives, people who were software engineers, people working at Google, I mean, I got into some pretty random rooms. And which is funny, because people would be like, what do you do, and I'd be like, I'm a bartender, and they didn't judge me for it. Because, you know, I was helping them with things and just talking about things like sales. And I didn't understand that at the time, either. I still didn't think I was going to become a salesperson. I mean, I kind of already was, but you know, you don't always connect the dots going forward, and you rarely do you only connect the dots. Looking back, sometimes years later.
So then take us through your journey after joining copy chief by knowing that freelancing first.
I did that for four or five years. It was hard I, I might have an unpopular opinion. But I think most people are not served by freelancing, especially early in their career, when you have 20 years of experience under your belt, or if you're making a mid career pivot, and you have many years of prior experience, especially in business or sales, and you have a reputation you can lean on, have a network of people you can lean on. You have money in the bank, as a runway. Sure, you can. You can, you can probably freelance. But I think early in your career, you're better served going in house for at least a few years. And I originally had that epiphany and it's why I ended up going in house.
Can you tell your story of writing that that sales letter in one sitting? The one about the book, and that led to your first in house job?
Yeah, this is like 2018. Kevin was hosting coffee chief live in Florida. And I heard the coral was hiring. I heard several divisions and agora were hiring. So I decided to go because I've recently had the epiphany that I was paying bills with freelancing, but I wasn't getting ahead. Progress was just really, really slow. So I had the epiphany that I needed to go in house and I told Kevin, this. And so he said, come to Florida, meet people, they're hiring and said, Okay, I had already learned from my prior experiences, networking that you have to be in the right rooms and get in front of the right people. So I went to Florida, and there were a couple contests going on. And at the time, I don't know how people are hiring now. I think it might be a little different now. But basically, you had to write a sales letter selling your favorite book. And I probably should have done that before I showed up in Tampa. But I showed up the day, or the night before the conference. And I was like shit, I supposed to write the sales letter. So I stayed up all night, in the bar in the hotel. And I asked people at the bar actually, as they were drinking and getting increasingly drunk. I had no real ideas and I started out bouncing it off of them. I did some research before I showed up in Tampa. And so I did have some ideas. And I started bouncing those ideas off the increasingly drunk people at the bar. And I ended up writing about the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. And one of the ideas that really got people's attention was that there was this one book that had to be lost behind the counter at Barnes and Noble because convicted felons kept stealing it off the shelves. It's actually at the time, it was the number one book read in American prisons. And Fidel Castro had a copy smuggled into Cuba. I mentioned these things. And, you know, drunk people are a great barometer for an idea. Because if you could get a drunk person's attention, it's probably something worth considering. And every single person in the bar would swivel their head and go, What book is this? I went, Okay, that's going to my headline. So I wrote my page sales letter over the, over the course of the night, and I finish at seven in the morning. I was miserable by the friend in Australia, pinging me on Slack going to still awake What time is it there? And I said, Oh, God, it's like, six in the morning. I hate my life. But I finally finished it seven stumbled the bed. I was sharing a room with our friend Angie Kohli. And as I crawled into bed 10 minutes later, her alarm clock went off. And she looked over and said, What time did you get in last night? And I was like, Oh, God just kill me. So I didn't get a wink of sleep. I rolled out of bed. 10 minutes after I crawled into it. We went down to breakfast. I was a ghost for the rest of the day. But I had the sales letter to end people at the roundtables. And yeah, myself later got picked, and I got invited to do a boot camp at agora. And that lasted a few weeks. And I won the boot camp and got offered a job. And I moved to Baltimore. And that was how I got my foot in the door.
So I love that story for many reasons. When she shared that example, pick out when you're doing your research, pick out the stuff that makes people's heads swivel and ask like what the hell's that? Like that? is something that every time I start writing copy, I think of that. And oh, and the other thing I wanted to ask him so would you mind sharing for our audience like why? Why agora why financial copywriting? So agora is like a huge info publishing company. It also does health, but also, then there's like the financial side. So did you go to Tampa, knowing that you were going to seek out work with financial publishers?
Yeah, and I knew agora specifically because they're, they've been around for decades, they have a big name. And I knew from all my prior experience bartending networking, the mastermind group, all my minimum wage jobs over the years. The important thing is quality over quantity, and to find shortcuts. And I needed shortcuts in a good way, not like cutting corners, but go for the opportunities that could yield the biggest results. Going in house, particularly with a great company, early in your career is something that will pay you dividends and leapfrog you ahead buy yours. Go for the opportunities that provide you the most leverage, basically. So I showed up in Tampa, knowing I was applying to Fin Pub and knowing that I was applying to a chorus specifically. And the reason I chose Fin Pub was because everyone said it was the hardest form of copywriting you can do. And I figured, well, there's got to be great job security in that. It's, it's kind of like getting a job on an oil rig. I mean, it might kill you, but but it's also really, really hard. Not a lot of people can do it. So if you survive, I mean, there's, that's a skill set that nobody can take from you. And I find that funny now, because a lot of people immediately talk about other things like, you know, it pays well. And, I mean, yeah, but I went for the difficulty of the skill set. That's what ended up happening happening. I got in the door for the boot camp, and then I won the boot camp. So
if you're doing something that's like, really difficult and highly competitive, you know, it's difficult for someone to take that away from you.
Right, yeah. And I think it's important to specialize in something because one good specialist is worth 100 generalist. And it was awesome. Tired of working for really early stage startups, you want to go where you have the biggest chance of success. And that goes, that means working for established companies with proven management who's been doing this for a million years. And they have a big list of excited happy customers, like, you have to look at the big picture. And then ask yourself, are you set up for the biggest chance of success here? And, you know, it's hard to do that, if you don't have those things, and if you're a hired gun, so it just made the most sense for me to specialize, specialize, go and house and go work for an amazing company. Yeah.
And to that, that's something that I personally believe in. So like, a company that's already established has proven products, testimonials like that, you know, half the selling is, is knowing that you're selling a good product to begin, and that you have a list to sell it to. Yeah, like not all copywriting jobs are created equal.
They're really not. There, they're not like your your success hinges on what you're selling, and who you're selling it for. You can write the most beautiful copy in the world, but it doesn't mean anything if there's business problems that you have no control over. So
so before you made a switch from like, a girl to market wise, what were the biggest things you learned a
girl? Like, oh, man, so much like I think one of the best things I ever did was moved to the renewals team. And if anyone, people in the audience don't know what that is renewals in the Agora University is retention. So it's getting current customers to renew their subscriptions. When I first got to abora, I bounced around from a bounced around on a few teams, trying to find projects to work on. That's a fun thing. When you work for a big direct response publisher. You may have to find projects to work on. In general, nobody is telling you what to do, you're kind of you're really in charge of determining your own future and advocating for things you want to do. So I volunteered to go on this renewals or retention team, it was a great opportunity, especially for a junior writer, because it's work that needs to get done. Senior writers are not going to usually do that kind of work. And surprisingly, a lot of junior writers didn't want to do it, because they viewed it as grunt work. So if you're trying to make your way up as a copywriter, or in any field, look for where the work is that needs to get done that nobody else wants to do and volunteer to do it. Because then you you make yourself invaluable what Seth Godin calls the linchpin. So I think volunteering for renewals was the smartest thing I ever did, because over the course of two years, I was pumping out copy like two to three projects a week. And it got me like working with a metronome when you're learning the piano like it got me writing copy, fast out the door and just shipping and it it got me better as a writer and it also helped me develop my reputation as someone who could deliver and that led to, you know, promotions and then the job I have now with Stansbury Yeah, I
think that was one of the big things for me. Every place I've gone in houses just trying to Kelly says our copy chief at Stansbury, like don't look down on menial tasks, because they're a way to, like get to know the business better get to know your colleagues better, especially if you're new. Because I know sometimes, like maybe coming from a different career, you might think that you don't want to start at the bottom. But you know, that's a huge way to make an impression, like out the gate.
Totally makes sense. And also, no job is too small. And there are tons of stories about CEOs who started out in the company, you know, at the bottom 20 years previously, you know, working on widgets. I mean, what better way to learn business from the ground up, then getting your hands dirty. I think it's a mistake. I think it's a mistake for people to try to skip the process. You have to trust the process. I don't know what things are Like, in Singapore, but in America, we've definitely lost some of the art of apprenticeship. For generations in the US, you used to apprentice for years and years and years to learn a craft, and work your way up from the ground floor. And I think, I don't think you can cut corners on that. You just have to get your hands dirty. And good bosses appreciate that, and, you know, promote you accordingly. So it's just part of the process. It's all good.
Yeah, definitely. Would you be comfortable sharing like your experience of like interviewing for Stansbury?
Oh, yeah, sure. Would you like anything specific you think people would want to know? Like, what
the process was like? Because I know, for both of us, it's very different. Yeah, like, did you I when I
met you and copy Chief, I was so excited. I remember, you were like, I was thinking, I'm gonna hire this person. One day, we'll get them hired, like. And then when Stansbury was hiring. I remember sending you a message with the job ad and saying you should apply. Yeah, I will tell my boss about you. And I did. And I was so excited. Because Speaking of which, when you were in copy, Chief, you were doing the little things, you were doing the grunt work, and you weren't afraid to get your hands dirty. And I could see how you thought and how you wrote. And I was I just knew I was like, she's gone places. I you know, and now we work together. So the small world, and you never know where you're gonna end up. And it was fantastic. So
yeah, I can't thank Carolyn enough. I mean, it's not just for getting my foot in the door at Stansbury. She's the first person that critique my very early baby steps copy, copy to, I was so nervous, I kept refreshing the page to see someone who critiqued it. And then you gave such clear next steps, I was like, I finally know what to do is that you don't know this, but I read a lot of your old posts, like stuff that you written long. And one thing that, that helps me to this day, you're like, every time you have the fear of a fear of the blank page, there's like some emotional constipation happening. And you get that out before you write. And I was like, That is so true. Like, every time I when I have writer's block, it's not because of the past. It's, it's something internally. I don't know if you remember posting that. But that that was like, Okay, I need to I need to get all of that literal like emotional shit out of the way before I actually do any copy writing.
It's funny, a lot of copywriting isn't just deeply understanding your prospect, but deeply understanding yourself. And that's a lesson I learned from martial arts. Because when you're fighting another person, everything you put out is a reflection of something within you. And that is not a metaphor, that is quite literal. Everything from the amount of energy you observe, when you throw a punch, to when you're writing copy, and you're afraid to put something on the page, you probably have some emotional constipation going on. So the more you understand yourself as a copywriter, you will perform better not just when talking to a prospect, but even like getting worked on.
Yeah, I think it was really lucky to chance upon that post of yours early on. Like when I first got a copy Chief, I was just like, slurping in all the code. And that one, that one stays with me till today. You've you've just had a huge impact and you reaching out with that link because at that point, I saw Kelly's video when Kevin Rogers start promoting, you know, the Stansberry copywriting bootcamp. I was like, Yeah, that sounds like something nice to attend. But it was just, that would be nice. At that moment, and then when I started getting messages from you, and Kevin, I was like, Oh, I think I should actually do something.
That's a classic example of like, head trash. Yeah. messing with us as copywriters. I had a lot of people tell me afterward after the deadline that they were thinking about applying didn't because they psych themselves out. People who were experienced people who were not juniors, I mean, this is something that can affect people even at higher levels. Which really speaks to the importance of working on your own head trash. Because you only progress as far as you can in this career, based on how much you you've cleaned up your own inner world. But I'm so glad you applied. Like, that's really awesome. I'm glad to hear it. Yeah,
and thanks for forgiving them that and being there. It was it was such a Oh, no. Like, I had a really rough time getting to America just for that boot camp. I don't I don't know if you remember. Yeah, like, I almost got I didn't get through I almost didn't get through customs in Tbilisi itself for some very strange reason. Probably xenophobia. When I got there I was I when you're talking about waking up at or getting to bed at 7am On the day of submitting that letter, the Yeah, I feel that in my bones because I remember, throughout the bootcamp, I was ready. I was texting Kevin's I don't think I can do this. I'm gonna pass out jetlagged like all these reports, so intimidating. But yeah, I think it speaks to the importance of just having this community around you. Oh, it was such a relief to see Carolyn in the room and to be able to finally meet her in person.
How do you I was just like, she made it. You're a real person.
And then I was so rude. I was like, I thought you'd be
pretty funny. I didn't know I didn't take that personally. I thought that was hilarious.
I had no filter that there was jetlag the first thing that comes to mind just flying off my mouth at every moment. Yeah. Which is why? I'm curious about your your interview process. Because, you know, I mean, you the boot camp for the bunch of us who went through it was like 17 of us. And we all got interviewed speed interviews. It was the craziest thing. ever experience. Yeah, but I guess yours is more like private. The whole process.
Yeah, I applied to Stansbury while I was still working at agora. And I got the call. They wanted to meet me. And that was Kelly. She said that she was like, I want you to meet the rest of the team. Who do you want to meet? Actually, and I said, I would love to meet whoever you want me to meet, but also some of your copywriters. So I had one on one interviews with our director of marketing, and a bunch of the senior writers on staff. And that just clinched the deal for me, because everybody clearly loved their job. They clearly loved Kelly, boss, she was a great boss. And yeah, that's just that was it for me. So it was, it was pretty straightforward. And pretty fast. I think, from start to finish, it was maybe two weeks total of between going back and forth with interviews. And I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to work with the team because everybody was just I look at people's attitudes. Everybody was easy to talk to really humble. I trust humility. I think I think if you're arrogant, it means the world hasn't been the shit out of you enough. Coffee on it like, you're never you're never too big to fail. No matter how big you get, no matter how successful you are. I thought it was very telling the first time I met Mike Palmer, he walked into the room. And he's just a normal guy. Nobody even noticed him walk into the room. He was wearing sneakers and. And he was just if you didn't know who he was, he wouldn't even know who he was. Same thing with John Ford. John Ford, awesome dude would not notice them. He is just a regular guy. Very humble. I mean, John, you've met John John shows his copy to juniors who have only been doing this a year or two. And John's been doing this. I mean, he he's one of the founders of the industry, very humble guy. So I think when you're looking for people to work with, you look for people who are experts. And a good sign of expertise is humility, because two experts are not afraid to be wrong. And they're not afraid to show you their work when it's in the ugly stages. And you can trust these people to take feedback. Those are the people you want to work with. And I think that's true regardless of the industry you go into.
Yeah, I just remember when I start my training practicum with you guys and I was amazed at the lack of ego in the on those calls on in the room just this? Yeah. Even at the boot camp when. So for context, they were also doing their editorial off site meeting where The newsletter editors and the copywriters get together and they pitch marketing ideas, and you know, they're clear ground rules like you can't shit on someone else's idea. You know, everyone's free to,
to be mean, to go
go wild with with their best ideas and yeah, those things are so important for a creative person, you know, yeah. Where they feel safe to grow. So what advice would you give to someone who's looking to break into the industry right now?
Man that's like a whole conversation on that question. Look at who's hiring people as well as companies, follow them on social media follow their career portals. And when they're applying when they're announcing a job, apply. And also be open minded. It doesn't have to be a copywriting job, look at what else what else they're hiring for, it could be a copy editing job could be editorial or content writing, could be a marketing coordinator position. If you're applying to a direct response publisher, those types of companies are often very small. So once you get in the door and one position and prove yourself, it's not that hard to cross over into copywriting. And then figuring out where the where people are hanging out the big fish that are actually hiring, and go meet people conferences can be great for that. Understand the difference between the copywriter conference and a conference where the companies and hiring managers are hanging out, they're not necessarily going to be at the same conference. So just understand what you're trying to do before you buy a plane ticket, and then go meet people. I think that's how you get in the door. I know a lot of people do cold pitches over email, I get a million of them. It's really hard to pitch yourself over email, especially when you're brand new. I think I think there's better uses of your time. Frankly. I think that would be that would be my my biggest piece of advice, all of that to people who are trying to get their foot in the door.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to share with us your incredible experience. Carolyn has been the biggest inspiration for me from the beginning. You know, she's been there for me every step of the journey. I'm so glad that you guys got to hear from her. That's all for today. Thank you so much for joining us and I'll see you on the next episode of classroom the copy