Teachers Make the Leap

Dream Clients Do Exist: Real Talk About Client Relationships Part 2

• Kristin Macintyre

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After sharing their challenging client stories last week, Kristin and Hillary reveal the flip side—their most fulfilling client relationships that made them fall in love with copywriting. In this episode, you'll learn about:

  • Working with industry leaders who become friends
  • How ideal clients respect your expertise and pricing
  • The joy of seeing your copy succeed in the real world
  • Building long-term relationships beyond just projects

Plus, discover how finding your dream clients can help shape your business direction and niche.

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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Welcome to Teachers Make the Leap, a show that empowers educators to build online businesses they love and revolutionize the way work shows up in their lives. I'm your host, Kristen. And I'm your host, Hillary. We're two former teachers who have successfully made the leap from classroom to entrepreneurship. If you dream of finally leaving teaching to be able to make your own schedule and increase your earning potential, join us each week as we explore real ways to get there through online business.

Hillary:

Welcome to this episode of Teachers Make the Leap. Now, this episode is part two of our, uh, Two parter stories in the life of a copywriter. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, we share a couple of stories from some of the worst client experiences that we've had as copywriters and the lessons and takeaways that we've really learned from those now, to be clear, having bad experiences as a copywriter is something that. It happens to a lot of people, but it's also not very common. We have many, many, many more stories of great or best experiences that we've had with clients as a copywriter. Um, but if you want to start with that episode first, feel free. We do share some, you know, really fun, interesting stories that, that I think everyone will enjoy. So today we're going to dive into some of our best experiences working with clients and kind of what those have meant for us and how they've made running a copywriting business really, really fun.

Kristin:

Yeah. And so important to point out. I really, truly, truly thoroughly enjoy most of my copywriting client experiences. In fact, when I first started out copywriting, I really didn't know what it would be like to interact with business owners who were going to be clients of mine. And far and away, I admire all of my clients. it's so fun to learn what somebody does in their business, why they do it and what their kind of goals are or what their passion is for what, what they're doing for their business, for how they serve clients, or customers themselves. And you get to see the passion in people, I think, which is kind of my most favorite part. You get to see people really Light up when they say oh, I started this business because I had this experience or oh I started this business because I really wanted to help this set of people because they're really important to me for this reason And you just start to see people get fired up And I think it's so easy to kind of like fall in love with people in that instance You know and just really You see them in a vulnerable space that's inspiring and admirable and you want to help you want to help them on their business journey. I would say the majority of my clients, I'd consider friends. Like, I wouldn't hesitate to reach out and say hi or reach out and say. Oh, I'm, wondering about this little question. What do you think? You know, and I don't mean soliciting free advice. I just mean, I consider them kind of peers on my level, that, have valuable, uh, like bring a lot of value to my business and also to, to their clients in the world. and that's just such a fun place to be. As a business owner.

Hillary:

Oh, I, I couldn't agree more. I was so intimidated by the idea of working with the clients that I thought I was going to be working with, which is, it sounds so funny. Like, then why did you choose the personal finance niche? But you know, I, I chose the personal finance niche because I was really passionate about finance, but I was worried, you know, I was, I was wondering, are these financial advisors that I'm hoping to work with, are they going to talk down to me? Are they going to be really. stuffy. Are they going to be, you know, just way above the, the, the level, I guess, that I'm at. and I've just been so delighted to learn that that is not the case at all. I mean, I have been on calls with so many financial advisors and financial coaches now, and I have to say financial advisors are some of the most passionate people in the world about the work that they do and the ways that they help their clients. And it has just been so, so fun for me to kind of enter this realm and, like, you said, consider a lot of them, my friends, and to consider a lot of them, people that I would just send an email to, I have a couple of clients that I've, Run into conferences at and we've had lunch together and it's so, so fun. and yeah, there's so many clients who come to mind when I think about what's my best client experience. I, I definitely can't choose just 1.

Kristin:

Yeah, me neither. And that's such a great like caveat, you know, such a great asterisk here is this client experience. I want to share about next is 1 of my top client experiences. Like, it just makes me feel all the fields. It was a wonderful ideal client that I got to work with. And I'm so proud of the work we did together and also. There's so many others I could talk about. So, uh, yeah, I love that asterisk as a little disclaimer, lots of ideal clients, come to mind. a story I would love to share is that I've had the privilege of working with, this one ideal client who considers herself and who is really objectively a leader in the kind of course creator space that I write in. so this person. Sells, courses in digital products, helping other businesses market themselves. Now, I will say before I worked with this client as a client, I admired her from afar, I had followed her on Instagram. I had read her blog posts. I had listened to podcast episodes. She had been a name I'd been familiar with and I knew closely. The copywriter who worked with her previously. So a friend of mine had this client as a client and oh, man, I was just so impressed by that really, was wowed by, my friend who was copywriting for this client and. My friend who was copywriting for this client went out on maternity leave one year, so she was at this point in her business where she had made some great client relationships, and she went out on maternity leave, and then all of her clients started to kind of look for other help while while this copywriter was out on leave and. I kind of knew that this person was in the market for a new copywriter to help them with, upcoming projects, but I did not expect them to reach out to me at all. Now, in a strange twist of fate, this person reached out to me, they found me on Instagram. And reached out and filled out an application. I have an application for folks, you know, kind of a contact form for folks to fill out if they want to chat. And when I saw this contact form, this application come through with this client's name on it, I remember where I was. I was on my couch in my living room and I dropped my phone on the couch after I saw the name and I turned to my partner, Matt, and I said, you'll never guess. Who just filled out an application to, to work together. I was so kind of starstruck by this person. I just knew they had great success and, um, kind of couldn't believe that they reached out to me. So when, when we got on a call together, I had said something like, Oh, I know your, you know, your copywriter's out on maternity leave. I'm so excited to fill in the gaps while they're on leave. And she said, Oh, you do know that person. So, you know, all along, I almost thought, you She was a referral client and she wasn't. She just kind of found me online and really, you know, loved, my website. I think she said, and applied, to work together. So we, uh, we started working together and it was an experience where, you know, we talk a lot in copywriting about like, work with your ideal client, right? And we put all this emphasis on like your ideal client. If I could have named an ideal client for me, it would have been this person. They did not balk at my prices at all. There was never haggling or negotiating on price. They loved all of the, the projects that we delivered. They had great ideas. They respected my ideas. They asked me for my ideas. they were willing to try things in their copy. they were willing to try, you know, new products and brought me on to write some copy for the new products. they were. Exceedingly lovely always great with communication never had problems with anything. and we work together for multiple projects per year for, I think, 3 years in a row, which was just truly, truly some of the most amazing, amazing client experiences. With this, with this particular client now, another cool thing about this client and why I really love this experience is it's really neat as a copywriter when you can see your work in the wild and when you can see it working in the wild. So, this person, when we started working together. They already had a objectively very successful business. I think her story is she had a 250 digital product that she launched and, you know, in 9 or 10 months had done over a million dollars in revenue. She was a very successful business owner. And which was amazing because as a copywriter, I was very used to working with startups or folks who were just kind of, you know, trying to sell something for the first time. So it can be hard to. Track your work and, and it's real world impact. Sometimes with startup businesses, it's totally possible. It's just much harder. And this client already had a really successful business. So when we work together and I saw my copy out there in the wild, I saw that it had some real impact, right? She was really able to say to me, Oh, this project we worked on and this. You know, sales campaign that we worked on, I sold X amount of dollars from that. And it's just so, so cool to be able to, to see your work turn into revenue for a business, turn into impact on other people's lives. And that was really, really available to me in this client relationship. And, um, that was a huge boost of confidence. Absolutely.

Hillary:

I love about this client, too, is it sounds like she maybe shared some of those stats with you because she knew you would want to know that you didn't have to ask her about those. She was very communicative. She knew you would put a lot into her copy and the projects you were working on together. And so she was excited to share those results with you, too. And because I think sometimes it can, Feel a little bit scary or vulnerable to go to one of your clients and say, so what kind of results did you get from the work that I did? Right.

Kristin:

And, and truly, truly, I just couldn't have asked for a better client to really get my feet wet with asking for results for because it's not like she showed up in my inbox and was like, hey, this was the result. I did have to ask for them, but she was fully understood that that was important to me. And why, like, why I would want to know the sales page I wrote turned into X amount of dollars for you. Right? She was super on board with that, which is so lovely. And what, like I mentioned, she was really willing to try new things in her business. So. There were plenty of things we also tried new, you know, she wanted to host a summit 1 year. So we did all the copy around the summit. Um, she had a brand new digital product. Actually, maybe 2 of them. I can think of, um, that she had never sold before that. We wrote copy for and she sold and some of those things were more successful than others, but. She was wise enough in her own business and practiced enough and successful enough to know that she wasn't relying on me 100 percent for success. There's so much that goes into a sales campaign over the copy, right? It's a very important piece of the puzzle and. She wasn't looking to me to be her only lever to pull, so to speak, to like earn money in her business. She knew something she was going to try and they weren't going to work well. And she was okay with that. Um, she knew some things were gonna, you know, do extremely well cause she'd done them before. so again, just, this is why she was such an ideal client because not only was she already successful, which is really fun to work with a business that's successful, but She very much understood that I played an important role in her business, but not the only role in her business to make her money. So we had a great kind of symbiotic relationship where she would appreciate so much the work I put into things and also know that she's responsible for her own business success. So she would create new products and try new things. And, um, she's turned into kind of a role model of sorts.

Hillary:

Yeah, I do love that so much. And I do think that a lot of times, you know, like you said, as copywriters, a lot of times we're working with new businesses, right? They're trying something for the very 1st time. I know that's been true for me for sure. I'm working with clients who are just launching, you know, their, their firm or their coaching practice or whatever it might be. And there are a lot of pressure with those types of clients because their budget is smaller. They want it to be right the first time. You feel pressured to get it right the first time, right? Whatever copy project it is that you're working on. But it's also so true that copy is one piece of the puzzle. And there's so many other things that they have to be responsible for. If they want to see Any results right from the copy that you've written or they want to see, you know, any business growth or whatever it might be. Um, so I do love working with clients like this one that you've mentioned who have money to invest in trying and have money to invest in experimenting with things and knowing that that's a really just important part of the business process is like most copy projects. Most of the time, especially when you're first starting out, aren't really one and done. They're going to require iterations, whether you come back to me and we do more iterations, or whether you do iterations yourself, or whatever it might be. Um, so I love that you kind of brought that up. It's like, this is kind of a tenet, I guess, of who a really ideal client might be. Mm.

Kristin:

Absolutely. And one other thing comes to mind that that made this client an ideal client for me was Sometimes we talk about in copywriting, you know, there's different ways you can work with clients. You can work with them on a retainer basis. So you have, you know, you do work on a rolling monthly basis for them. And it's really understood. And in the contract that they'll be continuing work, something for you to work on every month and the alternative to that is to work on a project basis where you do a project and then kind of, you know, say your goodbyes or work on a different project. If there's some, some other opportunity for you to help out. I like to work with clients on the, in the project form. Like, I love to work on a project. I love to deliver a project. And then I love to say amazing. Either. Let's work on this new project, or I'll see you next time. Whenever you need, you have a project to work on for this. Particular client, what was so fun about her was that she always had projects like she had lots of projects. So there was, you know, I was not working with her on a retainer basis, but she was somebody who would come back to me again and again and again, multiple times per year. And she again, never balked at my prices. I think I worked with her, you know, she probably paid me between 8 and 10, 000 dollars every time we work together. So. You know, in one year, she might have paid me anywhere between 20 and 30, 000, which is, which is amazing. And it just kind of goes to say, as a copywriter, sometimes you don't need a ton of clients to really hit your income goals. Like, this was one ideal client I had who, was, by her alone paying me something like 30, 000 a year, which was amazing.

Hillary:

Yeah, I mean, there, there's no better client than that. Right. That's the best, especially when you like the projects that you're working on with them. So my favorite client experience. And again, it's hard for me to pick 1, but I'll just pick 1 just for the sake of, you know, keeping it concise. I think 1 of my favorite experiences that I've had of all time is with Mark Hanson and Mark Hanson is a guest that we had on early in our, in this podcast journey. He's a financial advisor. He came on to talk about, you know, different things that. That new business owners should really think about with their finances when they're transitioning from w to work to employees. So Mark came to me as a client. We work together. I thoroughly sold myself on his services and his personality as I was creating these projects for him, which we'll talk about in a 2nd and so then my husband and I actually ended up becoming clients of his. We just love him. We love working with Mark and he's so great. So the projects that he came to me with were, first website copy and then we ended up working on another project together and he was one of those clients that was just launching his business. So, uh, you know, brand new business only had so much to invest. I remember I quoted him. the quote for the website project, which was my normal quote, and he did come back to me and he said, your prices are about double, you know, of other quotes that I've received. Can you tell me, like, why I should work with you over them? And, I answered him. I was like, this is why I think you should work with me over other copywriters. This is what I bring to the table. So I did respond, it took me a little bit of courage to respond, uh, you know, with, with what I wanted to say, and he immediately wrote me back and he was like, okay, great, I'm going to forego all of their interviews with other copywriters. Let's get started. Um, send me the invoice and I'll pay the deposit. And so now, knowing him, I think that he was kind of just testing me to see if I would, like, come back down on price or, you know, he's just that kind of person, which, you I don't mind. so we get on a discovery call. And he shares with me, he says, now, he gave me 8 pages of notes that he had come up with of, like, all of these things that he wanted to communicate in his website copy. I think it was more like 20 pages of notes that he gave me and I was like, this is my brain dump. can you help me turn this into a website? And I just had so much fun. He was 1st clients that I worked with that had a really clear understanding of his unique voice. You know, it was very opposite of a lot of the other. Financial advisors that I had worked with, who are just maybe a little bit more generic. We're okay with being a little bit more generic on their website. He had a really well defined niche, which I really enjoyed and I just had so much fun writing this website for him and what I loved about working with him was. That he came back, after I submitted the first draft, you know, he had a few tweaks or whatever, but he just said over and over again. You've absolutely nailed this. you know, you were able to capture my voice in ways that I couldn't have even done. Um, I feel like, you know, I wrote this, but so much better. And, uh, he would just tell me, uh, Again, and again, it through emails, you know, oh, I had left, you know, the Google doc printout of the copy on my counter when we had a plumber come by and he said that he just happened to pick it up and like, read through it. And he was like, wow, this is so good. You know, he would just let me know when people loved the copy that I had written for him. And so that was just really great to get that kind of feedback. Not just once, but on an ongoing basis, because that happened several times. And so then after the website, we ended up working on another project together, uh, an ebook or a lead magnet for his business as well. And that was also, it was great because I. Knew that he already left the work that I was doing for him. The topics that he was writing about were things that I got really excited about. There were topics that I was already passionate about. And so I had a lot of fun kind of just working on the project. Um, it certainly wasn't a drag for me by any means. And what I really loved about this experience was. it taught me a little bit about my own packages that I was offering as a copywriting or as a copywriter. It, it helped me kind of say like, okay, I'm really going to lean into website copy for financial advisors who have a specific niche, right? It, it helped me just, I don't know, tighten up what my signature offers were, I suppose, and start to offer and attract more clients like him. Whereas up to that point, I had just kind of been taking projects. You know, whoever wanted me to do something, I would, I would do it, and I would figure it out. So, Just having that really great experience with the client, I think helped me kind of shape my business and take it into a new direction that I otherwise wouldn't have taken it into.

Kristin:

love that. What I love about the story most is some of the most meaningful client relationships. They go beyond the initial project, like, it seems like you and Mark have like a wonderful relationship outside of just a project that you wrote for him, right? you chat all the time and work with each other in different capacities. this is reminding me of another project that I had done with a business coach who actually ironically lives in the same town as me. And, I had worked with her on some copy for her business in 2022, I think it was. And, Then we just became friends. Like we went to lunch and then I was a client of hers and we started to just kind of form a relationship where, you know, it extends beyond the copywork. And that is always so fun because you get to be in your expertise and deliver them something really valuable for their business, and then you get to see them in their expertise, help you in a different facet. So I love it. I

Hillary:

Absolutely. Well, I know that we could go on and on and on about different clients that we have absolutely loved working with. but I think having these two kind of standout experiences has been really fun to share. And so. Thank you to all of our listeners of the Teachers Make the Leap podcast. And we will catch you on the next episode of Teachers Make the Leap.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of Teachers Make the Leap. We can't wait to help you make the leap from teacher to thriving business owner. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe to the show on your favorite listening app and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. We'll see you back here next week.