Summer Office Hours, July 2024 (Part 2)

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: What expenses should I expect when I start my business? Can I be a copywriter if I’m still working full time? And how do I know that I’ll like copywriting if I’ve never done it before? 

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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And to stay in the know about all the exciting things we’re doing to help more teachers leave the classroom to become their own bosses, follow us on Instagram at @teachersmaketheleap or join our online newsletter by visiting www.teachersmaketheleap.com.

Transcript

Kristin: 0:32

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. This summer, Hilary and I are hosting open office hours twice a month for the teachers on our email list. they're invited to come to office hours 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 what expenses should I expect when I start my business? Can I be a copywriter if I'm still working full time? And how do I know that I'll like copywriting if I've never done it before? If you're interested in joining us for summer office hours, head over to teachersmaketheleap. 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.

1:20

welcome to Summer Office Hours, everyone. We're so excited to host some free office hours this summer for any teachers on our list who are interested in making the leap from the classroom to the classroom. copywriting or freelance business, and we're just kind of here to answer some questions for y'all, um, to talk to you about what the transition has looked like for us, and just kind of talk about what's possible, and if, you know, try to help you decide if this is journey that's right for you. so welcome, Alex, who's here live. We've got a couple of questions in the, in the, um, in the queue today, which I'm very excited to get to. Hillary, how are you doing? I'm good. I'm also excited to be here. I, I love doing this kind of in the morning, you know, it's 10 AM where we are. So it's like nice to have a little coffee chat. since Alex is here live, I like to open it up. To them first. Um, so Alex, if you are comfortable and you want to ask us a question first, you can you're welcome to come off mic. You're welcome to type in the chat or you're welcome to just kind of sit back and listen. Cause we did get five questions, um, submitted to our form. I think five, right? Kristen, five questions, We just like to keep these really flexible and kind of Conversational when people want that yes, and i'll add one more thing if you're if you are here live and you don't want to come off mic Like drop any questions follow up questions comments in the chat we both do a really good job of just kind of monitoring that as we're talking. So You Don't feel like you're interrupting or there's like, like there's no such thing. It's a silly question. So, yeah, maybe we'll start with a one question if Alex doesn't have anything and take it from there. Here she is. I don't have any specific questions. Happy to listen. Amazing. Yes. If they come up, Alex, don't feel shy. Okay, cool. Yes. Let's dive in. So this is from Chris. Chris says, how can I start a copywriting business while I'm still in the classroom? I know I'll be tired during the week, but is it feasible to get started with copywriting on the weekends? I think you're the perfect person to speak to this, Hilary. Yes, I actually agree. Um, because I started my copywriting, business. I did start it in the summer and then I continued teaching for two and a half semesters after that. And I was working with clients. starting from that first semester that I went back to teaching in the fall. Um, so the short answer is yes, it is totally feasible to get started with copywriting, you know, only on the weekends or, you know, if you can find little pockets of time during the weekdays, if you're not too tired, that's totally great. And I actually have some tips around this too. Especially in the beginning, when you're starting a copywriting business, there's some learning that has to happen. And there's a little bit of building that needs to happen before you actually start working with clients too. Um, and that includes things like building a website, you know, practicing your copywriting skills, maybe putting together a little project. Um, you know, you can start to build your portfolio, you know, totally from scratch as you start to learn about copywriting and things like that. Those are all things that can easily happen on the weekends for sure. My other tip for this is when I was building my copywriting business, and especially when I started, I worked with two clients, um, that first semester when I was still teaching full time. And I, Had a little reckoning with myself that I needed to be a little bit more selfish with my time that semester. you know, Kristen and I always talk about we were those above and beyond teachers that just wanted to give everything to our lesson planning. We wanted to give our students lots and lots of feedback. We wanted to always be there for our students and I know that a lot of teachers feel that way and kind of operate that way. Um, and so it was really important for us to kind of look at our schedules. Because Kristen also started building her business during a semester to really look at our schedules and say, okay, where could I be a little bit more selfish with my time? What could I stop doing? that isn't a detriment to my students learning and things like that. So Kristen, I wonder if you have anything to share there as well. Yeah, I love all that. one thing that was important for me while I was teaching and also looking to make this transition, and I just want to point out, it is a period of transition, right? Uh, you know, it's funny when you have one kind of foot in the teacher pond, because you're currently teaching or you have a job in education, And you are looking to kind of turn the ship around and do something else. So it's just kind of a funny juggle of time, right? And the thing about time is that it's finite, right? We cannot make more time. So what Hillary was saying, essentially, was we have to prioritize what's important to us. And we have to, figure out how we want to spend the hours we do have in the day. So. There's definitely a, um, you know, some prioritizing of building a business and putting those first kind of foundations in place over, like Hillary said, I mean, I used to spend so much time like grading or fixing slides, I brought this perfectionism to my work that worked against me, as a teacher. And when I, Made me weep into freelance business and copywriting. I brought some of that with me and it's taken me a long time to kind of unlearn. but yeah, I love this idea of committing small chunks of time. We both recognize that teaching is a, a job that requires a lot. Emotionally, physically, mentally, it requires a lot. for a lot of us, it's unrealistic to say, I could need to clear my schedule for four weeks so I can build my copywriting business. It doesn't work like that for teachers, right? so small chunks of time consistently is going to be your best friend here. Baby steps forward will result in like real progress. Yeah. And we recommend this book all the time, but in case you haven't heard us recommend this book, I'm going to share it again here. the book that we recommend is the slight edge by Jeff Olson. And it is all about this idea that, you know, carving out Small increments, taking really small steps forward consistently, are really the way to, to get to, to big changes because it is a big change. Um, but you can get to that big change with, with small steps, rather than like quitting your teaching job and deciding to start a business. So the book, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson was both really was really impactful for both of us. Um, and I think it's really applicable to a lot of teachers who have these really busy schedules, but want to see like a big change in their lives. I hope that was helpful for Chris. Let's move on to another question we got from Sean. So Sean's question is, Can you share what type of startup business costs we should prepare for over the first year or so? How much did you spend on your business to get it up and running? And looking back, what would you change in your budgeting or financial management during those 24 months? There's a little aside here to Sean says as an aside answers from googling startup costs include branding marketing and client relationship management Legal retainer question mark as well as things I've already paid for such as Squarespace Google Workspace and an LLC registration And of course education courses and certificates. So Sean's really looking for An idea of what it might actually cost to start a business. I'd love to talk through this You know what I would love to do, Kristen? Um, maybe later this afternoon, I might actually go back into my, accounting from the first year in my business and actually tally up how much I spent on business expenses in that first year. I do want to say it was low. I'm lean and scrappy when it comes to business, especially in the beginning when you're starting out. still in that phase of like, is this going to work for me? You know, I, I did not feel like I had a lot of extra money in my budget to pour into starting a business. That's something that I really love about online business is that the risk is relatively low, right? Unlike brick and mortar businesses, you don't have to pay rent for office space. you don't have to pay for product to then. You know, be able to turn around and create something with that product and sell it to something else. I mean, the expenses are really low. That's not to say there aren't still expenses, but I think it's a lot less expensive than people maybe realize. Yeah, totally. So I want to say, Sean, Googling, like, what are startup costs for new businesses will probably leave you overwhelmed because What I suspect is happening is when you're saying startup businesses, businesses can range from like Hillary said, brick and mortar businesses, to like tech startups who need funding to create, you know, their, their new piece of software. Uh, so this will absolutely vary depending on what kind of business you're starting. If you're like Hillary and I, and you're starting a copywriting business, like Hillary said, Luckily, the startup costs are really relatively low. It's kind of amazing how low they are. So I would love to go over some of the things that, you know, were included in my first year of starting my business. and I want to say, Sean, things like that you brought up here, like, Branding costs, marketing costs, client relationship management tools, all of these things can come later on. You do not have to have branding, or like professional logos, or You know, professional marketing strategy costs when you're new to being a service-based business like a copywriter. So all of those things you can ask from the list immediately. They're nice to haves, maybe 2, 3, 4 years down the road. You wanna invest in some branding. Amazing. But you do not need that to get started. Hillary, go ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I did not pay for my first logo or Professionally designed color palette for my business until I was four years into my business. And I mean, my business had some pretty impressive revenue months and years prior to investing in that kind of thing. And I also know some really, really successful copywriters who have never paid for a logo and never paid for a designer to do branding. And they're like, Breaking in the cash and the clients like it's just it is one of those things where I think for Service based businesses. It truly is a nice to have and it truly is personal preference It is definitely not something that you need to get started Okay, I have one more thing to add before we actually talk expenses Okay, it looks like you you'll you'll notice when you're first starting your business. There's a lot of shiny objects Right? There's a lot of things that catch our attention and we're like, Oh, I need that. Oh, I should do that. Oh, I have to do that. And most of the time, if you are earning below 100, 000 a year in your business, most of the time, all of those shiny objects, like branding and logos and colors, and You know, this new tech and this new software and new AI stuff is just a sheer distraction from what will actually earn you money because what will actually earn you money in your business is having conversations with ideal clients about how you can help and you do not need a logo to do that. And you do not need any fancy stuff to do that. So I just wanted to throw that out there. A lot of this stuff is really just, they're nice to haves, they're shiny objects, and they do not directly impact your bottom line until you're making six figures a year. And then you might think, how do I, you know, level up some of these pieces? But really, having conversations with folks and getting on discovery calls is what's going to earn you the most money in the beginning. And you can do that for free. And you can do that for free, pretty much, uh, or we'll talk about, like, what the expenses are. So to go over some expenses in the beginning, um, what I remember paying for, you want answered already, Sean, um, you brought up. So, uh, Squarespace for me was where I hosted my first website. We think a website is important for a brand new copywriter to have because it sets you apart from the thousands and thousands and thousands of copywriters out there. who do not take their jobs very seriously, or who may just be stuck in the feast or famine, you know, low budget freelancer hamster wheel. the key and the secret to becoming a copywriter who earns great money and who has a reputable business is to treat your business like a business and not like a freelance hobby where you can earn a couple of extra bucks, right? So businesses have websites. Creating a website in the beginning is important. so Squarespace is one investment. I actually just looked up how much a Squarespace plan is now, today. and there's a couple different tiers. There's like a personal tier, a business tier, you know, things like that. And actually for service based businesses, the personal tier is, Perfectly fine to start with. That's their lowest cost. if you were to pay annually, that would come out to 16 a month. If you broke it down monthly, if you were to pay on a monthly basis, it would be 25 a month. Um, and I also remember when I, Bought my first Squarespace subscription, um, because I had a edu email address. Squarespace was giving, discounts for teachers with edu email addresses, and I don't think that's gone away. So, Let me just calculate that out really quick. 16 times 12 is you're looking at 192 for, you know, the year to host your website, and it might even be lower than that if you get a teacher discount on that as well. For sure. And just to put that into perspective too. When you have a business out in the world, usually you need to pay thousands of dollars per month for, like, business overhead to rent a space, right, like a brick and mortar space. When you're an online business, your home online is your website, so you get a home for your business for 200 a year. I mean, I just spent 18. 99 on a Hulu subscription the other day for the month. You know what I mean? Like 16 a month to house your business, I think is pretty nifty. so that's one, one startup cost, 200, about 200 a year. If you, uh, go with Squarespace to host your website. One other startup cost that is related to that is oftentimes you'll need to pay for a domain for your website that can be a separate cost. So like my business is called Moneta copy. So my domain is, you know, www. monetacopy. com. the average for a domain, if it's not like a high end demand domain, which most people's won't be is like 20 a year. Um, so, so kind of. Adding that on, you know, what does that come out to like less than 2 a month? so that's kind of about all you need for, for website at least. And then I will say too, um, Squarespace is super user friendly. Kristen and I both designed our own websites first. and it was one of those things, you know, designing a website, I had no experience in whatsoever. It was a little bit overwhelming, but it was one of those things that I was like, Plenty of other people have figured this out. Surely I can figure this out too and watch a few tutorials as well. So, um, you also don't need to pay anyone else to create a website for you. That's something that, that you can do on your own. Totally love that. So aside from website hosting platform, which we recommend as Squarespace and the domain, another startup costs that I This is, uh, everything we're talking about is a choice, by the way. Um, so another startup cost was to register as an LLC. Um, this just in, in the eyes of the state and the government makes you an official business, right? You basically file some paperwork with your secretary of state to become recognized officially as a business. which is surprisingly simple. I thought this was going to be a whole convoluted, uh, you know, process. Um, I just went to my Secretary of State website, it cost me 50 to start my own business officially, and, and that was a startup cost for me as well. To be clear, we are not legal experts or tax experts, so we're not making this formal recommendation, we're just sharing our experience. Okay. Other expenses come to mind. Yeah. Um, the next one that comes to mind for me is once you do get, you know, that first client who says yes to you, you need a way for them to pay you. I know you and I, Kristen, it was really important for us to show up professionally as business owners. You know, we took, we took our businesses very seriously. And so we didn't want our clients to have to pay us through something like Venmo or, um, Ask them to write us checks or anything like that. So paying for, yeah, so paying for, um, an, an invoicing platform to be able to send them a professional looking, beautiful invoice that they could easily pay with their credit card or with their checking account or whatever it was, um, was also really important to us. It's also a really relatively low monthly cost. I think the first, Monthly cost I paid for my invoicing platform was about 16 a month. Um, and it also came with other perks besides just sending invoices. It also allowed me to send out like beautiful professional looking proposals to that client of like, you know, this is what I recommend for you. This is how much it would cost things like that. So, um, that wasn't, that was a no brainer early expense for me. For sure. And just to be clear, or to add this on, I was coaching some copywriters yesterday and one in particular was very curious if she could send out some invoices and collect money for free. there, there are ways to do that. Uh, so if you decide to get really scrappy with it, you don't, again, everything we're talking about is optional. So, yeah, there's an option to send invoices for free as well, but we really do love that professional edge, that, An invoicing software does lend you. Another one that comes to mind was, um, Calendly. So giving people a way to schedule a book calls with me at the times that I was available. This was super, super important for me when I was still teaching, um, cause I was able to not only like block out and only make myself available. You know, in late afternoon or in evenings or during my lunch hour. weekends. Also, I think are acceptable if that's kind of where you're at right now, but I was also able to integrate my other calendars. So, you know, like, I had a personal Google calendar. I had a personal outlet calendar from the school that I was teaching at. Um, and I was able to integrate those with Calendly. So if I had other appointments that Booked, um, within, you know, the availability I'd set people still wouldn't be able to schedule calls with me if I was busy during that time. again, I want to say a Calendly subscription is like a hundred dollars a year or something. So it's super low cost. It's like 10 a month around that. And that too was something that, you know, I didn't start investing in until until I was started reaching out to people, potential clients and asking them to get on the phone with me and book a call with me. Yeah. I'm going to be honest. I think there's a free version of that as well. Um, Alex asked a question in the chat. Alex said, is there a specific invoicing software you recommend? I think we both have different answers here because we both use different things. I have used the same invoicing platform since I first started my business. So I want to say Hello Bonsai is so simple, so beginner friendly. Like, it doesn't get cleaner, neater, and easier to use. I really do recommend Hello Bonsai. It's been something that I'm constantly impressed with. They update their software often, and I'm always like, Oh, they have this new feature, and that's really fun. Um, so keep it simple with Hello Bonsai. That would be my recommendation. Um, Hillary, what did you use? Yeah. Well, really quick. What I will say, I haven't personally used Hello Bonsai, but what I do like that I've heard from you is that not only can you create proposals through Hello Bonsai, send out your invoices, you can also put your contract in there and people can e sign your contract, which that's also a really great feature. I used FreshBooks for the first few years in my business. It's something that's a little bit similar to QuickBooks, but it's a lot more user friendly for people who are doing maybe their own, uh, bookkeeping in the beginning. Like I was, and so I really like fresh books. It doesn't have that nifty contract e sign feature. So I had to find some ways to get around that. Um, for the first few years of my business, I would just send my contract as an and ask people to like sign it, whether they had to print it out and scan it back in and send it back to me, or if they just wanted to like do it on their tablet or whatever. I didn't really care. So FreshBooks is also a great option. Um, does have a lot of good features. Like it allows you to do bookkeeping and, and print out, you know, different forms and stuff that you might, or different reports that you might need when it comes time to file taxes and things like that. So I liked FreshBooks for that reason. I think those are the essential ones. I mean, we could go on, but in the, in the spirit of not overwhelming folks, because truly there's not a lot of expenses. There's one more that comes to mind that I think is fun and that's Google workspace. Google workspace basically gives you a professional, like Google hub. Um, and you can't, once you have your website domain, you can create an email with that domain. So instead of saying like, you know, Hillary at gmail. com, I can have Hillary at Moneta copy. com. So it gives me a business email. As well as some other perks. Amazing. I hope that was a helpful, Sean, you, you certainly don't need a legal, legal retainer that you brought up or, or any of those other kinds of fancy things that Google showed you. everything we went over is, and honestly, some of those things are even optional. So I would say that's your, that's a good baseline. Let's see. We have another question on the books. Let me pull it up. This one's from Catherine. Catherine says, I'm already feeling anxiety of having to go back into the classroom in the fall. I really wanted this to be my last year in the classroom. What advice do you have for someone in my position? I love this question, Katherine. I can totally relate. I actually feel like the summer before my last year in the classroom, I had been in summer mode because teachers love summer, right? We get to spend time with our families and it's just kind of this space of decompressing. Um, and there was always this underlying, I actually wrote an email about this to our email list, Hillary, just a few weeks ago. There's this underlying anxiety for me in summer, which was like, Oh no, it's gonna end. I have to go back. Oh no, I, I have to make the most of summer because, you know, it's, my days are dwindling. Um, and that's, that's a hard headspace to be in. so, some advice for you, if you really do think this might be your last year in the classroom, I would, like, start by figuring out what could be next for you. Um, I don't want to assume, Catherine, that you want to do copywriting, but maybe you do. Maybe that is, you know, piquing your interest. Maybe it's something else entirely. But for me to get out of that anxiety space, I, I think the first step was to make a decision of what I might try beyond the classroom next. And I want to be clear, I actually had a few options in my head. And I just had to pick one to try first. Very baby story, like super condensed, but I thought to get out of the classroom I would actually go back to school and become an occupational therapist. I figured I'd try that hat on. Um, I had taken classes and was gonna take the, actually took the GRE and applied to, um, a master's program for occupational therapy. So that was one option that I was, I had in my back pocket. And the other option was starting a business and writing for brands that I, I really admired. So becoming a copywriter. so I had to say, which one do I want to try first? And I tried copywriting first, and I think we all know the outcome here. Um, but for me, lessening that anxiety came from choosing something I thought would light me up and giving that a go to figure out if that was the right next step. I have a similar story. Kristen, I don't know if you remember this, but you were telling me, you know, you were really thinking about going this copywriting route. I remember in, it was in the spring of 2020, like maybe January, maybe even the winter. Um, and, and I had this mind. I was like, Oh, that sounds real. That's a really great idea. That sounds really exciting. But in my, Head. I was like, well, Kristen's going into copywriting. There's no room for me. I can't start my own copywriting business. Like, I have no idea why that thought popped into my brain, but it was like, I can't just copy what Kristen's doing. That's so funny. So ridiculous. So I had this idea. I was like, well, maybe I could start an online tutoring business and I could go in this direction. And I was thinking about like, what would I need to do to get that started? You know, I did have some tutoring experience. Could I kind of build on that? And then ultimately, you know, as Kristen, like was showing me her website, I was getting more and more excited, like, Oh, I really want to do this. And then finally just gave myself permission. Like, just because Kristen's doing it doesn't mean I can't do it. It's ridiculous. Um, so I also agree, like, Whatever's, you know, in your brain. What could I do instead of teaching? Pick one thing and start finding out what are the next steps to making that one thing a reality that you can experiment with for a little bit. and I do love this idea. I mean, this worked really well for me. I, I was, I started building my copywriting business and I went back to teaching and I kept building it while I was still teaching. It's not like you have to say, okay, I'm going to start a copywriting business. Better quit my teaching job and hope this works out. There's a lot of gray area in between to like Make that on ramp feel a little bit safer And one other helpful thing for Catherine here, Catherine, if you have a direction that's calling you for the sake of it, let's say it's copywriting and you're thinking about starting a copywriting business, I would say give yourself permission to get very curious. about what it looks like to be a copywriter and intentionally be in that space for a while. Ask yourself, you know, what do I need to know about copywriting that I don't know already? you know, what does it take to get started? What are the steps? Do some digging online. There's tons of copywriters you can follow or, or DM even and message. Just get, get curious about the thing that you're really interested in, and then sometimes as the steps become clear, the anxiety starts to lessen a little bit because we were like, oh okay, this is the, this is a path I could follow, or these are some things I can do. So, um, hopefully that was helpful as well. Okay, question number four here is from Georgia. she says, I'd really like to start copywriting. I know a few teachers who write for companies on the side, so I know it's possible, but I'm afraid I won't be able to get clients. We've all, all had this fear, a hundred percent. Um, yeah, I don't know, Kristen, do you want to share some of our, you know, favorite client acquisition strategies or, or where do you want to go with this? Well, what's coming up for me is, you're right. This was maybe for me the number one thing that if there was going to be something that was going to stop me from writing for brands and for working for myself and For you know making the leap from the classroom to copywriting This was going to be it because I also in the beginning was like how am I going to get clients? Realistically, what does that look like for me? you know, I was just, just like the one snag was going to be like, well, who's going to pay me to do this, right? Everything else I was really excited about. Um, so again, super normal to be wondering this, I'd love to share some of our, our client acquisition strategies, Hillary, maybe the two, that we use the most often, because I think the first thing to understand here is that copywriting is actually very in demand skill. Um, and as teachers, I think sometimes we come from. Workplaces that, where the, the competition is really heightened, um, there's tons of folks who want to teach and there's only a certain amount of positions available. So that can create a really intense environment and, and, and get us kind of conditioned to think that all workspaces are like that. And there's no room for me, right? There's not gonna be any room for me. I'm gonna have to very much compete, get clients. The first thing I'll say is the copywriting space in general, to me has been. So, so welcoming, uh, in terms of like, community over competition. Like I've had other copywriters give me clients, refer clients to me, share clients with me, ask me to team up on projects. Um, it's, it's a space where there's so much work and it's such a skill that's in like, in such high demand that. The competition isn't quite what it is in the education space. So that's kind of the first thing to know to, you know, as, as we're going to talk about some strategies, I'll share one strategy that I love really quick before I want to say one more thing about kind of like the fear around this, Because I like also had a huge fear. I'm like very much an introvert. Um, I like very much, I'm not comfortable reaching out to people. I don't know, or I didn't use to be comfortable reaching out to people. I don't know. You know, I was like, how could this, how could this work for me? Um, but a huge mindset shift that. Made a real impact on me was, okay, I see all of these other copywriters in spaces like LinkedIn and Instagram and like places that I'm starting to poke around a little bit more. And surely if they're finding clients, why couldn't? I also find clients, um, just, you know, I think I, I realized like the reason I'm so hesitant and afraid about this is because simply because it's something I've never tried before, right? And so recognizing that, like, okay, it's just something I've never tried before. It doesn't mean that it's this like impossible thing that I cannot do. So anyways, I just wanted to drop that in there and then we can share some of our. Our strategies. I couldn't agree more. I'm so glad you brought that up. the first strategy I'd love to share is one that sounds super simple, but it is literally the backbone of my client relationship strategy. And literally it is to make friends. In the space you want to serve, some people call this networking, which is a term that I think is pretty stuffy and sounds like horrible and unappealing. So, really what I, how I like to think about it is just making friends. Um, and what I mean by that tactically is, is actually introducing yourself to folks you might want want to help or write for, letting them know what you do and how you could help them, you know, in their businesses. This usually, you know, lends itself to starting conversations with folks about copywriting and how it might help them. It also leads to just kind of, like, widening your circle of folks who, who you know or who you engage with. again, these could be total strangers. I mean, it's, it's not, it sounds funny at first, but it's not uncommon in the copywriter or online business world for folks to meet new people online all the time. So, again, I know that can sound a little strange to somebody who's not in the space, but it is such a welcoming environment. And by and large making friends with the people you want to serve or clients you might want to help there's not really a whole lot, you know, holding you back from actually, actually doing that. So that's, that's one thing I love to do. Yeah, and to be clear, um, the places that we have made these friends are typically online social media platforms. I know Kristen has made friends on Instagram, um, with the people that she really wants to serve. For me, my place is LinkedIn. Um, you know, I make connections with people I want to serve every single day and I just, you know, comment on their posts and I might, you know, send them a DM like, Hey, I saw you posted this. I really liked this that you posted. Like, please tell me more about that. Facebook groups are, are another place to like go in and pop in and kind of make friends with people in it who are in a community of. You know, people you want to serve. And then the other thing is making friends with other copywriters who are also serving the same types of clients that I want to serve has also been a really great way for me to get clients. That's actually how I got my first few clients was by reaching out to, I'm in the personal finance space, reaching out to another personal finance copywriter in the very beginning stages of my journey and asking her, you know, kind of introducing myself. I'm a new Personal finance copywriter. I'm just wondering, do you have any work on your plate? That's like overwhelming you that I could help you out with. Um, and she responded so kindly and she was like, you know what? I really don't right now, but one of the clients that I write for is actually looking for more writers. I'll make an introduction. You should see if you know, you're a good fit or whatever. And that's how I got my first client. So making friends with people who are, you know, Your quote unquote competitors, you'll find out they're not really your competitors. They become really important referral sources for you and your business. And this particular person is now one of, mine and Christian's dearest friends. And we met online and both of us have spent a lot of time in person with her over the years, even though she lives a few States away from us. So, um, making friends is like, I can't say enough good things about it. The other thing that I want to say, too, is, um, along these same lines, you know, Your, your networking or making friends doesn't have to be totally with strangers. Also just telling people in your immediate circle about what you're doing. can do wonders. I, you know, started writing in the personal finance space. I have two aunts who are financial advisors. I reached out to them in the early days and said, Hey, Can I write, you know, a portfolio piece for your website, And they were like, absolutely. And then they introduced me to some of their other financial advisor friends. Um, and so that was another great way to just kind of open up my network a little bit and get introduced to people that I could potentially work with. I would say more often than not. And I mean, just to like give some context here, I work with a lot of new copywriters. So I see folks in the client getting stage all the time. And a, a large percentage of them get their first clients by talking about what they do to people they already know. Uh, you know, like people in your family or maybe your friends or something. it is so amazing when you let folks know, hey, I'm starting a copywriting business. And then they say, oh. You know, my, my brother Bill like has a business. He could probably really use your help, you know, just talking about what you do to the people around you can very, very much lead to your, your first clients, or very like long lasting clients. So don't be shy. Talk about what you do. It's a great way to get clients. Do we want to share one of our other favorite strategies or do you think we need to move on? We have time. For one more. I'll start by saying this is kind of an extension of making friends online and it's something that you know is even a little bit more tactical and can kind of help you get get those first few clients maybe a little bit faster. So this strategy is something that we like to call warm emailing. This is a version of another popular strategy that a lot of copywriters and other freelancers use to get clients in the beginning, which is cold emailing, which basically means you create a whole big list of businesses that you would potentially like to work with. And you just send them emails, introducing yourself. They have never. come across you before, right? They, you know, they have no idea who you are. This is also a great strategy. I mean, Kristen and I cold emailed a lot in the early days of our businesses. And this is also how we got some of our initial first clients. Some of them I'm still working with, and this was four years ago. So, um, That's a great strategy. We really like this notion of warm emailing, which means you have started to make friends online. You've started to connect with people on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever it might be. They become a little bit familiar with you. You start kind of building that relationship. They recognize your name. Maybe you always comment on their posts. or whatever it might be, and then you send them an email that is a little bit more direct and is more of a pitch of, you know, what it is that you do and how you would potentially like to help them. And this can just be a really great strategy because they're already familiar with you. They already know you. They already hopefully like you if you're commenting, you know, helpful things on their posts or, or things like that, I can go a really long way. Those are three strategies we have used to get clients in our businesses. So it can be as simple as that. Yeah, let's move on to our last question. This question is from Didi. So Didi says, My dream is to get paid to write, but I don't know if I'll like copywriting. How can I know if this is something I'll like without experience writing copy, if that makes sense? So essentially Dee Dee's like, I think I want to do this. but I don't know if I'll like it, which is a great, like a great question. I think here, Deedee, One thing you can do to just kind of gauge if you would like copywriting is to practice copywriting. I mean, you don't need clients to practice, right? You don't, you don't need permission, you don't need, um, anything really. Nobody has to see it. So here's what I would do, DeeDee, if I were you. I would get very clear on what copywriting is. As a little sneak peek, it's writing that businesses use to communicate with their customers, so think blog posts, Think websites and think emails. Those are the kind of like easiest things to get started writing. I would find a blog post or website or an email out in the wild and start thinking to myself, is this effective? Could I make this better? Why do I like this piece of copy? Why do I not like this piece of copy? So you start to kind of practice your analytical skills just to see if it's a practice that's interesting to you. And then one thing I would do is I would give myself a little assignment and I would say, I'm going to write a practice blog post. For, you know, a business. Go crazy with your imagination here. Make up a business and make up a blog topic. And actually practice writing a blog. Again, nobody has to see it. Um, it's really just an exercise for you to figure out if this is an interesting avenue for you. Or if it's something that lights you up. Yeah, I love that. And then, you know, if that goes well, then you might take the next steps of maybe putting together a simple little one page website for yourself. Maybe seeing if you can get any clients, whether it's like, you know, your friends and family, even if you don't get paid for your first book. Practice project just to make it feel a little bit more real and possibly see your writing get published on somebody's website, or, you know, you write an email for somebody that they actually send out to their email list. See how that feels. Um, you know, like we've said, the startup costs for a business like this are so low that you could invest some time and money into trying it out. Right. See if you like it, then if you decide you like copywriting. That's fantastic. Keep going. If you decide this really isn't for me, that's a choice you can make too, right? You haven't, it's not like you've gone back and gotten another four year or two year degree and pay thousands and thousands of dollars, you know, to try out this new career path. It's a, it's a really low kind of investment, I guess, to be able to experiment. And You know, probably even make your money back of what you've invested and then decide this probably really isn't for me two things immediately came to mind, um, the first is that The quick route to trying copywriting like you mentioned hillary The the bar is kind of as low as it gets in terms of cool I can try I can try this I can actually do this don't have to go back to school for four years I don't have to spend fifty thousand dollars on a different education I don't have to like Practice in the classroom for, you know, years and years before I can actually start getting paid. those were all things that were very attractive to me when I was trying to leave the classroom, because I didn't want to start from scratch again somewhere, you know, and, and redo the path that I had done. Um, that to me was very discouraging. I did not want to take out more student loans. I, I just, I wasn't interested in redoing my, you know, whole education to get a brand new career. But I wasn't sure what else was out there. So, so this, this was one reason why copywriting was so attractive to me. And I had said to myself in the beginning, I will give it one year. I will give it one year. If I love it, I'll stick with it. If not, I'll revisit my occupational therapy idea or like see what else is out there for me. So, um, yeah, that's such a great suggestion. What was the other thing that came to mind? Um, oh, the other thing that came to mind, which is really important. And is a lesson that I am continuously learning myself is that so often, I think I can solve all of my problems only by thinking about them. But what lends the most clarity is by actually taking action, right? So instead of continuously wondering if this is something. That you'll like, super relatable. The way to figure that out is not to think about it anymore, but actually to try it. And actually to do it. Um, like I said, that can be through low stakes practice. Um, that can be by actually taking the leap and starting a copywriting business. The bar is pretty low, uh, to get started. So, uh, you know, the, whether you end up loving it, or you end up making a pivot from there, can absolutely be something that you try to figure out if you like it or not. Yeah, I really love that. And honestly, I have nothing to add. I think that one thing that I would love to ask since Alex is still in here. Alex, do you have any final, you know, things that you'd like to chat through or follow up questions or things like that? If not, that's totally fine. But I did just want to kind of open it up if you if you're interested. Um, no, it just seems like every single thing that you guys have said is, you're like speaking straight to me. So, I'm like thinking, thinking, thinking, learning, learning, learning, rather than doing and taking action. Um, right now is where I'm kind of stuck. stuck. And so, um, I have a safety net, so I'm not going back to work, um, in the fall. So that's great, except for that sense of urgency. I think it impacts that sense of urgency a little bit. And so, I think that sense of urgency. It's interesting that you brought that up, because I think that sense of urgency, it can both work for you and against you, right? And you have to really, you have to actually really work, if you have that sense of urgency on you, you have to work to channel that in the right ways. Because if you don't channel it in the right ways, it can really kind of like keep you paralyzed, almost. So it's good to hear you thinking about that. Yeah, exactly. And that's, I've spent a lot of years in like kind of that, Yeah. You know, paralyzed, like overworked. It's been a long time since I've been in the classroom. It's been 10 years since I've actually been in the classroom. so I was a classroom teacher. Then I wrote, did curriculum. So I was like central office curriculum. And then the last few years I've done consulting. So I've done PD for teachers. but I had all of those things about like your summertime, like that anxiety. like creeping in, um, even over the summer and like, I have not forgotten those feelings and, um, public education, whether it's higher education or, just public education, um, in some of those lower level, lower grades, um, is really a hard space to be. And so, um, right now, and, you know, hopefully there, there'll be a shift that. It's just not a place that I'm, I'm like ready to kind of move away from a little bit. And so, so anyway, yeah. Well, I'm so glad that you popped on and share that with us. I know for me and I, I think I can speak for Kristen too. I was actually surprised when I did leave the classroom of how much kind of unpacking and unlearning I had to do of like, That was a lot of stress to feel for a very long time. And you know, it's not just like you leave the classroom or you leave whatever workplace you're coming from. And that just goes away. There's a lot of like unconditioning that kind of has to happen there too, which is hard work. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. So yeah, thank you. Thank you guys. Of course. Thanks for coming off mic and sharing that. Um, I'll say one thing just before we wrap up and that is, whenever we're making a change, it can be quite emotional, you know, there, there is this sense of, ah, I loved some things about my career as a teacher and I'm afraid to give too much. those things up that I loved because I'm not sure if I'll find them somewhere else. At the same time, I know, you know, have a hunch this might be the end of the road for me in this chapter and, and I'm, I'm ready for a different chapter. So any type of transition and change is just, it's, it's hard. A lot, a lot comes with it. Um, so I'm so glad you brought that up, Alex, and shared some of your experience just because sometimes I think. As careful as we are to recognize that stuff, sometimes when we're talking strategy and all these other things, that piece gets a little bit lost. So I'm just, I'm really grateful that that came up. making transitions is tough. Uh, that's why community is so important and that's why we do calls like this so that we can hopefully just lend our experience and support folks who are thinking about making the leap. So. Yeah, this has been really, really fun. I hope that the questions that were asked, I hope that we gave you the answers you wanted. You can always feel free to respond to us in email with follow up questions if you want to. We are going to do, I think two more summer office hours, two in August. So, uh, keep your eyes peeled for those invites. We'll send out emails about them as always, but I'm, I'm loving these chats and loving the questions that we're getting. And I just want to say thank you to everyone who has, submitted questions and keep them coming. Okay. Y'all we'll see you in two weeks. Bye. Bye.