Summer Office Hours, July 2024 (Part 1)

On this episode of Teachers Make the Leap, you'll get an inside look at Summer Office Hours. This summer Kristin and Hillary are hosting free open office hours to the teachers on their email list where they come and ask questions about copywriting, freelancing, and living life beyond the classroom. 

Kristin and Hillary answer questions like: How do you set your rates? How do you set up your business? And how do you get clients?

If you’re interested in joining live Summer Office Hours, head to teachersmaketheleap.com and sign up for the newsletter.

Want to ask Kristin and Hillary a question? Click here to submit your question to the podcast. We'll answer it on an upcoming episode of Teachers Make the Leap!

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Transcript

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Welcome to this episode of Teachers Make the Leap. Today we have a special episode where you'll get an inside look at the Teachers Make the Leap summer office hours. So this summer, Hilary and I are hosting open office hours to the teachers on our email list, where they can come and ask us questions about copywriting, freelancing, and living life beyond the classroom. Last week, we had a great conversation with the teachers who attended, and we got to answer questions like, how do you set your rates? How do you set up your business? And how do you get clients? If you're interested in joining us for summer office hours, head over to teachers, make the leap. com and sign up for our newsletter. I'm super excited for you to be here and to get answers to all these questions and others. So let's dive in. Hi, Tracy. And hey, Kristen. See you're in here too. Sorry, I'm like a moment late. I was just rushing from another Zoom call. Meeting and then I lost the link. I don't know. I'm having some tech issues. Hey Heidi and hey Tracy I see we have some folks here. Hi Hillary. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm good. I'm on a back to back zoom day. so just kind of running around I'm, super excited to chat with Heidi and Tracy And I know we have a question or two. folks have submitted for us to answer for office hours as well. Yes, we have, I think three. One of them is a question that's really easy for us to answer. this question is from someone named Teresa. And Teresa wanted to know, because we, we sent in our email that we were going to be coming out with some copywriting resources for teachers soon, for teachers who want to learn about copywriting and see, you know, how it's possible to freelance as a copywriter. And so Teresa just wanted to know what is copywriting, which I think is a really great question. Yes, I love that. I can't wait to answer this question. We answer this question a lot because it's really common for folks to hear copywriting and then think about the like the C with the circle around it, like the, the actual legal copywriting when something is like intellectual property or, or what have you. And our type of copywriting, what we do for service is totally different than that. So, so much. I'm very excited to answer this question. Before I jump into what copywriting is I just want to maybe take two steps back and say hello to everybody, and like, welcome to Summer Office Hours with Hillary and myself. The reason why we decided to open this step up was because we've been getting some questions from teachers who are interested in either copywriting or starting their own freelance businesses. And instead of just having one on one conversations in email, we thought it'd be really fun to chat with folks in a group setting. So yes, we're doing open office hours twice a month in the summer and you're welcome to come to any and all office hours to ask questions or learn more. We, would love for this to be a really fun back and forth conversation. So we might invite you off mic, or you're welcome to come off mic and share your story or share some context. If you have particular questions in the beginning, when you're trying something new, it can mean a lot to have somebody who could just hear you out and give you some particular advice or perspective for your particular situation. So those are the conversations we're really excited to have. Now, what is copywriting? So I like to think about copywriting as simply written language, right? Writing that businesses use to communicate with their customers and clients. So, if you go to a business website, What's written there is called website copy. Like, the actual words is website copy. If you go to your email inbox, and you have an email from you know, LEGO, because you bought a LEGO set for your son, or something like that, that's email copy, the words that are written in the email. Likewise, if you go to social media and you engage with a business on social media any of their posts, or what they write, It's also called copy. So as copywriters, Hilary and I help businesses communicate what they do to people they might want to work with. So we write things like websites, and we write things like emails, and we write things like social media posts there's lots of other things too, but one of my most favorite things about writing copy is and about copy in general, is once you realize what copywriting is, you look around and you realize it is. It's everywhere. Like, it is literally everywhere. You probably engage with it multiple, multiple times per day because we live in a society where businesses exist and we usually do business with folks to help solve our problems. Whether that's like buying a new pillow, which I did a few weeks ago or hiring a plumber to come to your home, like you're interacting with a business and in order for that business to do business, to reach you, to communicate with you. They need some they need some language written. And that's, that's kind of what we do. Yeah. What are you about to add? Not a whole lot. I think one thing that helped me wrap my head around copywriting and, and figure out like, what is it really is, it's really related to marketing, which it was a funny thing for me to realize because I was never interested in Marketing, you know until I discovered that marketing is a whole lot of writing and it's connecting with audiences and things like that, which was all stuff that I did love as a writing teacher. So I guess that's the only thing that I would add to kind of clarify, like what copywriting is. It's, it's part of marketing, right? And it's helping business get their, get the word out about how they can help their, their clients and their customers. Yes, I love that. I will say, too, before we move on to our next question as an English teacher, like, writing, thinking about human psychology, thinking about rhetoric, thinking about what's the best way to communicate my point those are all things I did literally every day. I just didn't know that there was an application for them out in the business world and just thought those skills were not very valuable. Right. Cause we're kind of taught that. So yeah, when I realized that these skills could really be used in a way to help, you know, help businesses that I believed in connect with more people. That just became a really exciting space for me. And I know for you too. So our second question is one that was submitted by Amanda. And Amanda asked, how long did it take to start making money? And then How long did it take to actually replace your teaching salary? Cause that's something that you and I talk about a lot. Kristen is our businesses have far exceeded what we were making as teachers. And I think it is a really great question. People want to know, like, what is the ramp up period to basically replacing or exceeding my income? Is it going to happen instantaneously? Or like, how long is it going to take? So. I'm excited to dive into that question. And one thing that I think is important for you and I to start with and share is that our teaching salaries were maybe low compared to a lot of other teachers that we've heard from. We've communicated with a lot of teachers who are living in I want to say the Boston area, maybe some teachers that are working in really high cost of living cities who are making over six figures. And so I just want to be clear that, that Kristen and I were, we were making between 43 and 45, 000 a year when we did that. And so when we're talking about how, how long it took for us to replace our teaching salaries that's the baseline that we're starting from. Now we're both making. Well over six figures, but that that did take a little bit longer right to ramp up to then to replace a 45, 000 salary. So I just wanted to kind of set that baseline. Yeah, I love setting that baseline. I also want to say Hillary and I love talking about this stuff because like the money aspect and the financial piece of I don't know every job or freelancing like people don't tend to talk about because it's seen as taboo or nobody wants to share numbers so anyway, Hillary and I really love sharing our journeys you know, in numbers in particular so thank you for sending that baseline. I also think it's important to point out that we both had very different paths. to replace our income working for ourselves. I'll share my story first and then maybe we can hear yours, Hillary, but I decided to leave teaching. What year was it? It must've been 2020. I guess in 2020, I had been really looking for my my path out of the classroom for lots of reasons. That I'm sure we all we all share. I felt like I was being micromanaged at my job. My most favorite part about teaching was interacting with the kids and the students. And I just felt like that piece was taking up a very small chunk of my day and the rest of my day was grading or lesson planning or dealing with admin or department meetings or extra like professional development meetings. Yeah, And I just started to wonder if there was a different avenue for me and if my, my teaching career had kind of like, you know, come to an end. So I started to explore new options and to make a very long story short, I discovered copywriting and started my copywriting business while I was still teaching in January of 2020. And basically said to myself, I think this will be a side hustle. And then by June of that year, I had my first 6, 000 a month. So June, 2020, I made 6, 000 writing for businesses. And I said to myself. Oh this feels like it has legs. Like, oh, this feels like a really viable avenue for me. So I did not go back to teaching and I went full into my business. Now in that full first year. So the whole first year of 2020, I made 55, 000. In my business, just working for myself, writing, writing for businesses and brands. In my second year I made, oh gosh, I'm gonna forget. I think it was around$80,000 in my second year. Mm-Hmm. That was an entire year only working for myself. And in my third year I made around 120 no. That actually might've been a 160. I'm getting the, the years mixed up, but the trajectory went up So just to clarify that first year that you made 55, was that from June to the, to the end of December. Okay, got it. So it was 55 in like 9 months. Yeah, and I was just like over the moon. I mean, to be clear, you know, what I was making as a teacher was 45, so I had already in 9 months as a freelancer exceeded what I was earning as a teacher. And, and working for myself. Now, I share my story because I think it's important. I think it's important to know what's possible in freelancing. And I think it's important for folks to like really break that idea that freelancing means you're just going to be hopping around from one gig to the next, and you're going to be making, you know, 12 an hour or, you know, 20 an hour and it's not going to be worth it. My view of freelancing totally changed in that first year because I stopped viewing myself as a freelancer and instead viewed my viewed myself as a business owner, which is something about a lot. And as a business owner, obviously you, you know, the cap on your income is quite infinite. It, it really depends on you. You have a lot more control over it. So Yeah, Hillary, do you want to share? I'll, I'll try to quickly share my story. My, mine, like Kristen said, is much, much different. So I started my business in June of 2020. So I guess about six months after Kristen started hers. And by the way, I just want to apologize if anyone can hear my two year old, like. Yelling for me outside my door. But anyways, I started in June of 2020. And I very much like Kristen also was like, this is going to be a side hustle for me. I just want to pad my income. I'm not even sure I want to. Leave teaching yet. Like there were so many aspects of teaching that I did really love. And so for me, it was just a way to kind of like add my bank account and make some extra income to make living in Colorado feel a little bit easier. So what I did, I started in June of 2020, I ended up getting my first client at the end of July. So it was like, Less than two months that I started actually making money in my business. I was making maybe a thousand dollars a month with that client. Then I went back to teaching. I went back to teaching full time that semester. I kind of felt cause I, I just wasn't confident yet that it was going to like totally work for me. It was like, okay, this, this extra thousand dollars a month is so great, but this is not the, you know, 3, 800 paycheck that I'm earning from teaching not to mention the health insurance. And retirement contributions and stuff like that. That was also kind of like a factor in my mind. So I'm back to teaching full time. I ended up serving two clients that semester. There was one month that I, with those two clients, I made over 4, 000 and my paycheck that month was 3, 800. So I like basically doubled my income in one month during that semester, which was really exciting to me. The following semester, I started to go a little bit down to part time teaching. And so I brought on a couple more clients that semester. I started to have more consistent, like 3, months just from copywriting, which was really great. That summer, I had a couple of 6, 000 months. In the meantime, I'm still wondering, do I really want to leave teaching? I'm, I'm still like struggling with this decision. I love certain aspects of teaching. So I go down even more part time in the fall of 2021. So at this point, I'm just teaching two classes instead of four. That was full time at the university of that. And I am continually just bringing on more clients. It's like really growing. And by October I was realizing I can't do both. I am getting way too busy with copywriting to like be able to justify like calling this a side hustle anymore and it's making me so much more money than what my teaching job was making. So I would say just a little over a year from starting my copywriting business. It was how long it took me personally to exceed my teaching income. And then I actually left teaching mid semester because I was so busy. I found that I was pregnant. I was like, you know, just ready to go all in on copywriting. I left in October of 2021 and then November of 2021, I had my first 10, 000 a month in my business. So that was kind of my trajectory. And I really, for those first six months in my business, I wasn't like really that serious about Client acquisition and trying to get clients and they were just kind of coming to me through referrals and relationships I had built. So I think it would have happened a lot faster if I hadn't been like, kind of agonizing over the decision do I want to stay teaching? Do I want to leave teaching fully? Ultimately I left teaching and I have no regrets whatsoever, but that's my story. So still took me, Yeah, about a year, even though I moved pretty slow compared to you, Kristen, in terms of like getting clients and things like that. You know, I think an important thing to point out here is that starting a business is very different than getting a W 2 job, right? So, There's no guarantees. Like, it's very hard to say, like, oh, you can quit your teaching job and you can replace your income in one month or two months or three months. Like, there are no guarantees because it depends so much on how much time you have available to build your business and reach out to potential clients. And it depends on you know, what is really important to you? are you like really intent on replacing that income? Do you just want a few thousand dollars a month? everybody's goals and conditions and, Like all of that's different. It varies from person to person. So I love that we share our stories as examples of what's possible and like what it looked like for us, but it can look different. I mean, I've heard so many different stories from different people. Which is. Just kind of part of it, right? It's part of growing the business. Yeah, I would, I would love to pause here before we get to our third question and just see if Heidi or Tracy want to either jump into the chat and ask any follow up questions or if you guys have totally different questions, that's totally fine, but I just want to come back to you guys since you are here live. You're welcome to come off Mike, if you want to, you don't have to. But yeah, if you want to ask us any questions. Clearly we are open books. We're happy to share whatever it is. You want to know, and if you guys don't want to have questions and you're just happy to keep listening, we can, we can answer our third question that we got. Hmm. Heidi asked how much time per week did you put in at first? And how much time per week now? Great question. Do you want, do you want to go first, Kristen? Sure. Yeah. Now, in the first few months or first few weeks, there's a couple of things that you have to do, some decisions you have to make, some like foundational work to actually set your business up, like choosing who you want to work for creating your website just learning about copywriting or the service that you want to, to actually offer like some things like that, that you set up once and then you're done. You know, don't have to do again but in that, that, those initial months. So for me, that was February and March of 2020 and April. I probably worked. time was limited because I was still working full time, but I was very motivated to leave the classroom. So I probably worked a good amount on the weekends on getting my business up and running because it was really important to me. I mean, I've always essentially worked 40 hours a week in my business because I'm, I like what I do. You know what I mean? So, working full time as a copywriter is something that I really enjoy. It also is something that was a breath of fresh air to me because I was working probably 50 or 60 hours a week as a teacher, to be honest with you. I was an English teacher, I graded a lot of papers, a lot of stuff to read, a lot of feedback to give. So a regular 40 hour work week is something that I was really interested in and I, probably worked 40 hours a week for the first, I don't know, three or four years. I don't think I work 40 hours a week anymore. It's just the season I'm in. But if I wanted additional clients, I'd ramp up work, right? So I hope that was a little bit helpful just to give some perspective. Some days you won't work at all. Other days you might hold, you know, an eight to 10 hour day if you want to, right? One of the things about being a freelancer and a business owner is you get to decide how many hours you work. So my decisions won't be Hillary's decision won't be, you know, yours, Heidi. But Yeah, that's what it kind of looked like for me. Yeah. For me, when I first started, I was starting in the summer. So I was starting in June and it was June of 2020. So I didn't do what I would normally have done, which is go get a job in a restaurant or like do summer school or tutor or whatever. So I, my days were totally free, but I think I, I put in like maybe four hours a day into my business. And, and I felt really good about that because I don't know. I find, I find it really, really, really hard to put in eight plus hours a day as a business owner. Right? Like if I'm going to put in eight hours a day, three of those hours are not going to be focused work time. And so I would rather be like, Rather than just like wasting time at my desk. So I was happy with the four hours a day four hours a day about Monday through Friday. Is about how much time I spent in the beginning up to getting my first client. And again, the, those hours were spent doing things like Kristen mentioned, like learning more about copywriting and just kind of paying attention to copy out in the wild and seeing like, okay, this is what copy looks like. This is what, you know, it does well. This is what it. You know, copy that is not resonating with me. This is like how I think I would improve it, things like that. I set up my website, you know, I was starting to kind of raise some portfolio pieces things like that to put on my website, just. for practice. When I went back to teaching full time and I was working with one or two clients, I would say I probably put in an hour to two hours a day to my business, depending on how many papers I had to grade and stuff like that. Like I, and I think I'm thinking back to that time, I think I probably did some, some weekend work. For copywriting, you know, just like meet, meet my deadlines and stuff like that during that period. Now I would say I probably spend, four hours a day working on my copywriting business. Sometimes more, sometimes I'm in a period of hustle. But it's definitely not like sitting at my desk from eight to five. I would say a typical day for me, I usually sit down at my desk at like 10 AM because I'm, One, I'm not a morning person, and two, I like to spend mornings with my two year old. So, I'll sit down around ten, I'll maybe take a break for lunch around noon or one and then I'll, I'll usually sit at my desk until about five. So, I don't know if that comes out to an average of between like twenty to thirty hours a week. And then Tracy asked a follow up question, will you be going over how to set up a business or get clients? We absolutely can. Tracy, we would love to. Is there anything in particular that you want to know, or do you want us to just kind of give like a broad overview, a broad overview? Okay. Yeah. So in terms of setting up a business, there are a couple of things that Kristen and I. Did prior to reaching out to clients. Number one is we got really clear on who exactly we wanted to work with. There's a lot of value in niching or niche, niching down and being really clear about these are the types of businesses that That I want to work with because that sets you apart as an expert in that industry. And when you do enough work in that industry, you really become an expert. So it saves you time so that every time you get a new client, you're not having to like, learn a whole new industry in order to write great projects for them. So that was one of the initial things that we did, I think was getting clear on like, who do I want to work with now for me. When I was thinking about this, there are three, there were three areas that I was interested in. One of them I actually kind of laugh at myself now because I don't think this would have ended up being a very Good niche. and that one was working with like equine businesses and like horse businesses, like stable and riding lessons and stuff like that. Number two, I had worked in an insurance office a previous summer. So I was thinking about like insurance agencies who sell like home and car insurance and like writing their websites and their blogs and stuff for them. And then number three, which is the one that I ended up landing on, For some people, it sounds really boring, but for me, it was exciting was personal finance. I had always been someone that was really into learning about personal finance and budgeting and saving and like just making the most of the money that I did have and was making. And so I thought to myself, if I could write for Businesses who help people with their money and then I could get paid to learn more about personal finance that would just make me so happy and it still does to this day. I ended up deciding I really wanted to work with financial advisors and financial coaches and that's primarily who I work with today and I'm still learning every single day about personal finance and it's so fun for me. So that was that was number one. Kristen, do you want to share another thing that you do to kind of set up your business? Sure. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Deciding who you want to work with is definitely a big step. Once you decide who you want to work with, there is the process of setting up your website. So you want to create a website, which is a home for you where people can kind of find you and figure out what you do and like set up a call to. To chat with you and all that. And the last thing that strikes me is really important to set up the business is to create a portfolio. And a lot of people or at least I did, I thought that like, Oh no, I don't have a portfolio. How will I get started? Like, you end up in that catch 22 situation of like, I haven't worked with anybody to have a portfolio, but I, can't get anybody to work with cause I don't have a portfolio. And that is just a common Catch 22 folks kind of get caught in. So what I did and what we recommend is I created a portfolio not for clients, but just for myself. I wanted to write for businesses. So I gave myself some prompts and some, some assignments to write a blog post or a sample set of emails and I use that as my portfolio to get started. So those strike me as kind of the three initial setup pieces. I have one more. That's just like a little bit more of a nitty gritty. In terms of setting up your business, Kristen and I both decided to set up like actually file for an LLC. there are several options to set up your business. And again, this is getting more into like, Legal territory that we really can't give advice on. But, but there's a couple options and you can Google them like different business entities is probably what you would want to Google. I think the two options that make the most sense for someone who are just starting out or sole proprietorship and LLC so we went the LLC route, which is also super, super easy. And depending on the state you live in, if you're in the States. It can be very cheap. You basically go to your secretary of state website and you file a business entity. You come up with your business name and you file as an LLC or as a sole proprietorship or whatever you decide. You pay a little fee in Colorado. The initial fee was 50. And then every year you pay like 10 actually just did mine today like renewed my business registration through the secretary of state. And the benefit of LLC is that it just gives you a little bit more protection. It was kind of a no brainer for me and for Kristen, I think, so yeah, I don't know if that's exactly what you were looking for, Tracy, but I didn't want to leave that part out of it, because I think that's a part that feels really fuzzy to some people, and it's actually not a difficult process. You absolutely don't need to hire an attorney or anything like that. To set anything up. You don't need to trademark anything. There's nothing like that. That's involved. Cool. Got the thumbs up. So the second part of Tracy's question was, will we be going over how to get clients? So client acquisition is obviously something that we could spend a very long time teaching and talking about, but to just to give you like something to go off here, Tracy, we do like to talk about two popular ways to get clients that we've both used in our businesses a lot. Probably, These are our two primary modes of getting clients. The first one is to send what we like to call warm emails, which is essentially emailing businesses you want to work with after you've engaged with them online in some way. So follow them on social media, maybe drop some comments on their Instagram posts, or like say hello on LinkedIn or whatever, you know, platform you choose. And then send them an email letting them know who you are and what you do. Lots of times, folks are very excited to be connected with a copywriter who can help them. Create a website that speaks to their ideal clients or write better emails to engage with their email list. And that can lead to clients for sure. That's how I got my first clients. And Hillary, I think you're the same. The second strategy that we love to chat through and use all the time is to leverage your network, which I think a lot of folks overlook. I certainly did in the beginning. But truly, truly the people around you and closest to you who have businesses, Chat with them. Let them know what you're doing. Like tell them about your business. Tell them what you want to do. And you all see so many business owners who react and say like, oh my goodness, I could totally use that service. I could totally use you know, help with my website. or, Hey, my neighbor just started a business. Let me put you in touch with them, you know really, truly leveraging your network by just talking about what you're doing and your new business venture can be an amazing way to get your first clients. As tangible example, I think my third client ever was my, one of my very good friends. partners, like his girlfriend at the time. She was a nutritionist and she was very interested in working with more clients locally. And I said, Hey Maddie, like I'm starting a copywriting business. I'd really love to help you with your website if you want to get coffee and talk about it. And she was so excited. And that was like, you know, one of my very first clients. So. Sending emails to folks who you want to work with and also leveraging your network are really prime ways to get clients. Yeah. And I always like to kind of temper the leveraging network. It doesn't mean like sending a Facebook message to every single person on your friends list of like, Hey, do you want to buy my services? You know, something like that. That is not what we mean here. We just mean talk about what you're doing. Don't be shy about it because I think there's, there's a lot of vulnerability in starting a business. And I don't know, it can feel a little bit like, like there were some people in my circle that would come to mind. You know, if I, if I wanted to just create a post on my personal social media accounts about what I was doing, there were some people that I was like, are they going to think this is stupid? Like, are they going to tell me it's not going to work? You know, things like that. And so when we say like leverage your network, basically what we're saying is like, don't be shy about talking about your business because you never know, who's going to be like, Oh, Tracy's doing this. I know a person that could really use that. And so just again, being like public about what you're doing and not like hiding it under wraps, even if you're still new and just trying things out. I love that. Heidi's got another question in the chat. She says, how do you determine what your rates are? Do you want to talk about secret hourly rate? Yes, I do want to talk about secret hourly rate. So secret hourly rate, this is something that we teach inside our paid program. Secret hourly rate is a way to figure out kind of a baseline for your prices. So it involves a lot of goal setting. It involves figuring out how much money do I want to make per month? How much would feel good for me? Would it feel really good? To make 5, 000 a month. Would it feel really good to make 8, 000 a month? Would it feel really good to make 12, 000 a month? So you kind of figure out what would feel really good for me. And then you can work backwards from there. I might get lost in my thoughts as I'm talking through this. So Kristen, if you want to jump in, you can. Yes, so you start with, like Hillary said, how much you want to make per month. Then you divide that by how many hours you want to work per month. And a good way to get clear on that is how many hours do you want to work per week times four. And then when you, when you divide those two numbers, you get an hourly rate of like, okay, great. In order for me to hit my goals, I need to make. 100 an hour, whatever that is, right? Your, your secret hourly rate may be different. Let's do a concrete example. Let's do 5, 000 a month. And I want to work 20 hours a week, which is 20 times four. So if I wanted to work 80 hours a month and make 5, 000, my secret hourly rate Would be 62 and 50 cents an hour. Yeah. Now this is a great baseline to keep in mind, right? Baseline. This is key. We could probably talk about this for a few hours. I'll have to rein myself in here. One thing I want to say really quick though about this rate too, is that I like to then add on like a, like 30 percent here because as a business owner, You're responsible for self employment taxes. And so the taxes that you pay on the income you earn as a business owner are higher than the taxes you pay on the income you earn as a W two employee. So I just like to start with that too. So if we took 62. 5 And we said 30 percent of that is 18. So I would add probably 19 to that based hourly rate, just as a starting point. So that brings us up to, let's say 80 an hour. Perfect. Now, when I first did this exercise, I said to myself, I'm a teacher. How am I going to make. 80 or 150 an hour. Like that doesn't even make sense to me. And I really just want to put this out there in the business world, earning something like 80 an hour is actually kind of on the lower side of what's very possible to earn as a business owner and particularly as a copywriter. Because the service you're offering is extremely valuable. Now, this is a perspective I'd love for everybody to try on. If you provide writing services to a business and that helps that business, let's say you write them a brand new website, and that help, that new website helps that business get 10 extra customers in a month or in a week. What an incredibly valuable service you've just offered them, right? They're going to have that website up for probably years. It's going to do work to help them increase their business revenue for a long time. So it becomes a no brainer for a business to pay you, 2, 000 to write them a website because over time that website's actually going to earn them probably 50, 000, you see what I mean? So, so that initial gut reaction of like, oh no, I can't charge 150 an hour and you start to sweat about that. I think teachers have a lot of work to do around money mindset. I certainly did. So, your secret hourly rate is a great baseline for you to know. Excellent. I need to charge 80 an hour in order to hit my money goals. Now the caveat is that we actually do not recommend. That you have a flat hourly rate as a copywriter or really as any service provider. And that's because, actually Hilary, I don't want to hog the mic, why don't you chat about this. No, no, no, please keep going. Okay, And that's because the value that you bring to the table will probably far exceed the amount of hours you will work on a project. So let's see if I can do this example really quick. So if you write. a website and your secret hourly rate is 82. Let's say, just for argument's sake, it takes you 10 hours to write that website. So 10 times 82, that would be 820, would technically be What you would charge to write a website. Website copy is way more valuable than 820. Exactly. Exactly. So you'll actually end up shortchanging yourself if you charge hourly. And we recommend that you charge by project instead. So the secret hourly rate then becomes your internal guide. Like, am I making 820? 82 an hour to hit my goals. Am I making whatever my secret hourly rate is to hit my money goals? But the way you price your services will change depending on what project you're working on and inside our program We have some recommendations for what those prices look like might be if you're a beginner. But yeah, that's some of the kind of behind the scenes thinking to determine your rates. And I hope that was helpful and not as long winded as it felt. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to add one thing to this. It serves as your baseline. Oh good, Heidi. I'm so glad that this is helpful. It serves as your baseline. And when you're first So if you're starting out, you have to do some guessing like if someone hires you to write a website, you've never written a website before. You're not really going to know how long it's going to take you to write that website. It may take you 20 hours to write your first website, right? So in that case, you would want to estimate 20 times 80, and you would say, Okay, I'm going to charge 1, 600 for this website, because I think that's about how much time it's going to take me for my first project. Okay. But you really have no idea, right? 1, 600 for a website is still really, really low. Let's imagine this is like a five page website, which today for that, I charged 3, 500. So 1, 600, the thing about being a business owner is then you get 1, 600. You write that website. Maybe you're like, Oh, this actually took me 30 hours to figure this out. I know with each website, I'm going to get a little bit faster and a little bit faster, but for my next one, I might want to, you know, Charge a little bit more because I know that as I'm like getting to know websites, it's going to take me a little bit longer. Or maybe you're like, actually, this only took me 10 hours. That's fantastic. So instead of making 80 an hour, I actually made 160 an hour and the client was so happy with it. And it's perfect. Like this is great. So it does take some estimation and it's a little bit of a guessing game at first, but again, it's that baseline. And as a business owner, you have so. So much freedom to change your rates whenever you want to. So if you, and this happened to both Kristen and I early on, we charged a price, you know, for a project that felt really high at the time, the client went for it. Then we did the projects and we were like, okay, wow, I should have charged more than what I charged. And so the next time that a project like that came around, then we knew, okay, I'm going to charge this amount. Because the last amount I charged, and then I'm not feeling worth it after all. So yeah, it's really nice that it's flexible and it's not something that you ever have to get right, because, new clients are always going to be coming in the door. Just just a very like sheer curiosity question. Heidi and Tracy, do you guys want to drop in the chat? What type of businesses you're interested in? We're talking specifically about copywriting and I'm, I just want to make sure that our advice. Is in line with what you're thinking. And if not, we can maybe tailor some stuff for next time or something, but while you guys are typing in the chat, I just want to quickly answer this last question that we got and then we can come back. Okay. Heidi's thinking about. Copywriting. This last question that we got is from Lisa. Lisa says, I work in live entertainment, which is also quite seasonal. I've been proofreading our company's ads and catalogs for several years, but I'm not sure I could come up with my own content. I always have trouble writing descriptions for my own Etsy and eBay listings. Is there any way to know if I'd be able to come up with content for others? Oh, this is such a good question. The reason I love this question is because I think Judging your ability to come up with ideas. Based on your ability to come up with ideas for your own content is actually not that accurate. It is actually so hard for me to write content for my businesses, right? Like when you're, close to what it is that you're writing content for, I think that's the most challenging that it's ever going to get. But when somebody else you're working with somebody else and you're asking them questions and you're like, talking with them about their business. It's so much easier to get ideas for somebody else than it is for yourself, if that makes sense. Yeah, and I have some I have some suggestions for Lisa. So a couple things come to mind. When we're writing for our own business, one of the easiest things to write about is questions people have, right? So this is like such a hack, right? It's just like a shortcut. If you're struggling to come up with what to write for your own business, turn to your audience or your ideal clients and answer some questions that they have. That, that provides really great content and it's super, like a super low lift. You might have to do a little digging to find that those answers. Maybe you have conversations with a few of your idle clients. Maybe you send out a survey or you put a poll up on Instagram to get some, some questions going. But they can make really great pieces of content. And that's, like, quite a low lift. Another thing I'll say here is when you're creating content for yourself, I think there is a significant like, brainstorming piece of the puzzle that sometimes I forget about. And then I just sit down, and I'm like, It's time for me to write content, and I have no ideas, and my mind is blank. And that's because I didn't give myself any time to collect ideas, to think about ideas, and I just kind of expect them to pop in. And they never do. They never do. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. So, in that regard, I might recommend, really, truly setting aside a chunk of time, even if it's 20 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes, or 30 minutes and brainstorming what your ideal client, like your audience, wants, what they're struggling with. Again, what questions they have maybe, things you might, you think they might find useful, value that they're looking for And usually when we come at it from that perspective, what does the audience want, rather than what do I have to say? you know, the wheels start to turn a bit. So those are two suggestions, Lisa, that I think you might implement. I'm excited to hear how they go. Yeah. Tracy and Heidi, in our last 10 minutes, do you guys have anything else that you would like to ask or chat about or anything that you want to share about your own situations? I'll ask you guys a question. I'm curious, do you guys have an idea of who you want to write for? Heidi, you said you were interested in copywriting. Any niches or industries come to mind that you are interested in? Okay, so Heidi says teacher and admin for small private school, but deaf need to increase my income early education. Yes. I feel that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, if early education is the niche you're thinking about, or just kind of like an add on to what you were talking about, I can't really tell, but yeah, a lot of teachers are drawn to, like, the education niche in particular. If you are, I would say a good place to start thinking is like ed tech companies, Like actual businesses that serve the education space. That can be a really great space to dig into. Another thing I'd love to offer because I was in like kind of the same boat, Heidi, where I was like, Oh, what do I want to write about? And that automatically became for me, Oh, what do I know about? And for me, that was teaching and education. And so I was just kind of like, Great, maybe I'll, write about that, but there is also, like, I just want to give you permission to think outside of education too, if you haven't already and really think about what do you like talking about, what do you like learning about, what spaces, like, light you up, what types of businesses light you up, what type of products have you bought before that you're really excited about what type of causes are close to your heart, and do, do some thinking in that direction Sometimes there's just a little imposter syndrome voice that's like, you don't know anything about the health and wellness space, you can't write for them but it's really what your heart wants. So I would say, when it comes to niche, you definitely want to follow your heart, and then make sure that it's an industry that has businesses inside of it that are, you know, marketing themselves. Yeah, one thing I'd love to add on to that is, you know, I've said my passion and my niche are personal finance. I did not have any expertise in personal finance whatsoever. When I started my personal finance knowledge at the time that I started consistent of one semester of finance one on one my senior year in college. Which was years prior to me starting this business. It was probably five or six years prior to that. Maybe reading a couple of finance books and attending like one Webinar that was put on by my favorite budgeting software called YNAB. And so that I do not have any sort of degrees or anything like that in finance. But I really copywriting now I do kind of consider myself like a financial education expert because I have done so much learning about it over the past four years. And that's really. All I talk to now is financial advisors and coaches and of course teachers. But yeah, you, you don't have to be an expert to pick a niche that you're really excited about for sure. Well, thank you so much to Heidi and Tracy for coming and joining us live. And thank you to everybody who submitted a question and for all the folks catching the replay. We're really excited to host office hours again in two weeks time, and we'll send out an email to the email list. So you guys can Show up to that if you want to we're so happy to answer your questions and we're really grateful just to chat with everybody. Thank you so much, everybody. We will catch you soon. Thanks, Heidi. Thanks, Tracy. Bye, everyone. Bye.