February 24, 2025 • 33 mins
Rob Marsh from The Copywriter Club is a direct response copywriter who specializes in email and sales pages. Today, we talk about building a leading community for copywriters.
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Rob shares his journey from direct mail to dominating the copywriting scene for tech and health supplement companies. He opens up about the unique challenges and transitions in his business, including evolving from a partnership and how it impacts the services offered.
Learn how authenticity and unique elements, like his signature Chuck Taylors, make him stand out in the crowded world of copywriting.
Watch the next episode on YouTube, "Why not all "bro" marketing tactics are bad and what that means for your business, featuring Rob Marsh" (releases Feb 26th)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Art of
Online Business podcast.
In this episode and the nextone, we'll be covering many
things that have to do with theart of copywriting, and if you
have already subscribed and arewatching the YouTube channel,
then you can see what, hopefully, is a familiar face.
If he's not familiar to you,you should get familiar.
This is Rob Marsh and he is thewell, he's a direct response
(00:23):
copywriter who specializes inemail and sales pages.
He's written everything fromdirect mail to TV, to case
studies and a book.
He's worked for clients likeAmerican Express, pluralsight,
and today he writes primarilyfor tech SaaS companies software
as a service, if you will, andhealth supplement clients, and
in his free time you might catchhim running playing pickleball.
(00:46):
Ouch, you know, I tore tendonsa year and a half ago.
Let's not talk about that.
Yeah, let's not go there.
You said hanging out withfamily, rob.
Okay, you're a family man.
I like that, and this partcaught me trying very hard not
to have a second donut.
Rob, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hi Joe, thank you, I am honored to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thank you.
I am honored to be here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I must say I know that in amoment we'll jump in and talk
about like a snapshot of whereyour business is at right now
and we'll go back in time to youknow the journeys that you've
had.
I'm thinking of that song themountains are high, the valleys
are low.
I'm sure it's been a journey,but I always notice that I'm
intrigued when I readcopywriters writing and it's
(01:30):
like there's always a littlesomething in there that just
tickles my brain.
And when I read your bio thefirst time before you hopped on
into the studio it was the andtrying very hard not to have a
second donut.
And I wonder, like can youexplain just to me what is that
thing that copywriters do thatjust sparks a little bit of
intrigue or tickles someone's?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
fancy.
I mean, that's exactly it,right, you're trying to break
the pattern of normalcy and sowith a typical bio, of course
you're going to read all of theclients that they've worked with
or the experience that you have, right.
But you want to do somethingthat's just a little bit
different, and so those kinds ofthose kinds of things maybe I
(02:07):
might reference.
In fact, a lot of peoplereference the fact that I drink
way too much Coke Zero and Itend to wear Chuck Taylors.
So you know, these variousthings that are maybe a little
bit unique to me or maybe notunique, but are different, and
when I talk about them I'mdifferent from other copywriters
.
That's how we do it.
So it breaks the pattern, makesyou take notice and hopefully
(02:28):
remember me as a copywriter thatyou want to talk to, and I
guess we can use that for ourclients.
If we do that for our clients,then their customers remember
them and want to work for them,and that makes us better
marketers, right?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I did notice the Chuck Taylors on your website,
thecopywriterclubcom, becauseIdo also have not Chuck Taylors,
but definitely plenty pairs ofConverse, including a customized
pair.
Did you know you can customizethem on the?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
website.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've got afunny story about Chuck Taylors.
My daughter, maybe 10 years agoshe's about eight or nine years
old and I noticed that she wascleaning our bathrooms and I
mean, eight-year-olds don'tnaturally clean the bathroom,
right.
So I asked my wife what's goingon with this and she's like,
(03:17):
well, you can't let her knowthat I told you this, but she is
working to save up some moneybecause she wants to buy you a
birthday present, and herbirthday present was a pair of
Chuck Taylors.
She wanted to get me pink onesbecause she thought that it
would be hilarious if I had towear these pink shoes around.
They were out of pink ones, andso she bought me these white
(03:38):
ones that have these really coolred and blue laces.
And so for her I basically saidthese shoes are too special to
just wear around, so I only wearthose shoes when I'm on stage
presenting.
And I always wear them when I'mon stage presenting, which again
is another way to sort of standout, but they're, yeah, they're
kind of unique and fun.
So anyway, I, yeah, I have athing for for Chuck Taylors.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That is so cool.
I tried to get my daughter intoa pair of believe it or not
pink ones, because that seems tobe the only color she will wear
other than black boots.
But she just wouldn't go for itand I was like, yeah, you can
get a pair and I can get a pair,because pink would match my
uniform, which is always blueshirt and either blue jeans or I
(04:23):
actually just bought two pairmy first ever pair of green
jeans, like one's moss andwhat's one's like a lighter
shade of sage.
It's called Okay, pretty stokedabout that, but she wouldn't,
she wouldn't, she wouldn't dothe shoes with me, unfortunately
.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I mean, I feel your pain.
My kids don't do what I tellthem to do either.
How old are yours?
You said when she was eightyeah, so she's my youngest.
She's now 19.
So my kids range between 28 and19.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Tell me it gets easier.
Mine are eight and six.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Some things get easier, some things are not
easier.
But I will tell you, it getsfunner, it gets more and more
fun, and I mean you already seethis going from young toddlers
to these preteens, teenagerslike it just gets more and more
fun, Even as hanging out with myadult kids, it's just a blast.
We're always laughing, having agreat time.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That's good.
Speaks to parenting.
Done right when you're having ablast.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I hope so, or maybe they just came, we just got
lucky, they just came this way.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
It does feel like that sometimes I sit, not sit
lay like many times now, my kids, having exited the toddler
stage, like my wife and I, spenda good amount of time looking
back at when they were babies.
It's like through that periodwe were waiting for it to get
better and easier, but now we'rejust like, oh, we miss them.
Exactly.
(05:45):
This is a harsh transition, ormy attempt at a segue into
wanting to know what are thevalleys and the peaks, if you
will, the successes that you'vehad and challenges along the way
that you look back fondly on asyou were building your business
.
But before you do that, can youjust share with a listener a
snapshot of your business as itis today, in the beginning of
(06:10):
2025?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, so my business is in a period of transition.
We launched eight years ago andat the time, my partner Kirahug
and I worked hard to build thisbusiness and provide training
and a membership and events, allfor the copywriting community
and we did it in a way that wasmeant to be really inclusive.
There's some things you know inthe marketing world where you
know it tends to be verydominated by direct response
writers, who are, you know, thebro marketing tactics, you know
(06:39):
that are so famous out there,and it sometimes is an
uncomfortable place for peopleof color or women or even men.
And so we just thought we'regoing to build a business that's
about copywriting andeveryone's welcome newbies,
experts, everybody and it's notabout anything else other than
(07:00):
just everyone getting better asmarketers.
And we did that for seven yearstogether, and then last year,
my partner, kira, decided thatshe wanted to do something else,
and so we are sort of goingthrough that process of
transitioning all of the offersthat we did together and
figuring out okay, what can theCopywriter Club offer for people
(07:21):
when it's just me, or me andsome future partner?
You know, who knows what willhappen in the future?
And so, yeah, working through,what programs work, how should
we price them?
You know, are we still servingthe same audience?
If so, how do we serve them?
Well, all of those questionsthat we're really starting to
work through.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Wow, those do not sound like simple questions to
resolve.
Yeah, they're not.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I mean, you know from just working out how do you
recreate something that twopeople you know created together
and one of those people is nolonger.
You know part of it and youknow where.
She played such a huge role ina lot of the coaching and the
charisma that she brought to ourpodcast and all of that stuff.
And trying to recreate that inher absence is not easy at all.
(08:09):
And on the flip side, there'sstill a huge need in the
copywriting and content writingworld for people who are able to
teach business skills, not justhow do you write the best
headline.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I had two ladies on my podcast recently.
They are a team, two sistersrunning a website design agency,
if you will, and I justremarked at how they managed to
pull a business together andkeep it successful for so many
years as partners, and you'vedone the same for eight years.
(08:44):
Years as partners, and you'vedone the same for eight years.
Can you speak, just you know?
Word of advice, encouragementto somebody who's listening
right now, who has a partner inbusiness but they're earlier on
in their journey.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, and I've got a lot of feelings around partners.
In fact, kira and I used totalk about this a lot when we
were, you know, both together.
I would say that having apartner allows you to go twice
as far, just as fast, right,because you can do twice as many
things.
The flip side of that, ofcourse, is, you know, there are
twice as many mouths to feed,you know, and twice as many
demands on the business from twopeople.
So when you're looking for apartner, you need to find people
(09:23):
who fill in the gaps just alittle bit.
If you are really good at ideasbut you're terrible at finishing
, I'd recommend finding apartner who's really good at
finishing and maybe needs or isopen to allowing somebody else
to come up with the ideas youwant to fit together really well
, because if you both bring theexact same things to the table,
(09:44):
you're going to find that thebusiness won't move twice as
fast like you hope that it will.
And the other thing that Iwould just say is that the way
two partners work togethermatters, you know, and so both
Kira and I, you know, I thinkcomplimented each other a lot in
, you know, sometimes she couldbe a little bit more charismatic
(10:05):
than me and maybe I'm thestraight guy you know in the
background, and then at othertimes she wanted to take the
backseat and I could stepforward, right.
So looking for a partner thatcompliments what you do instead
of duplicates what you do wouldbe my number one recommendation.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
All right.
All right, so these are intransition, but I see on your
website accelerator, fast track,small group coaching, the
copywriter think tank, thecopywriter underground, Correct?
You want to give us a rundownof what those are and like just
rough percentage of like whichone makes them up the most of
(10:42):
your revenue?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, so, and, like you said, this is in transition.
So the think tank hashistorically been our mastermind
and because you know we wererunning that together, we have
temporarily closed the thinktank, so there's a waiting list
for that.
We may reopen that at somepoint in the future and offer
that really in-depth one-on-onecoaching and events, that kind
(11:04):
of thing.
And when that was open and whenwe reopen it, that was $1,000 a
month, $10,000 a year.
So that's a rough point.
And we usually the numbers inthere fluctuated a little bit,
but we usually had anywhere from18 to 30 people at a time.
Then we also have theaccelerator and what the version
(11:25):
that we have right now isaccelerator fast track and
that's on our website still, butI am in the process of
completely revamping thatprogram.
So this is kind of really thenext big thing that we'll be
offering to our audience againis a renewed, recreated version
of that.
It is a program for primarilyfor copywriters content writers
(11:47):
but rather than teaching writingskills, we take the approach
that you are already probably apretty good writer and so we
teach the business skills thathelp copywriters succeed.
So things like how do youfigure out what your x factor is
, the thing that makes youdifferent from literally a
million other copywriters in theworld, so that you can charge
what you deserve to charge andyou can work with the clients
(12:09):
that you want to work with?
So you know a lot aroundpositioning.
How do you create services andproducts that meet the needs of
your niche or the people youwant to work with?
So you know a lot aroundpositioning.
How do you create services andproducts that meet the needs of
your niche or the people youwant to serve.
How do you work with clients,all of those kinds of questions
that come up branding, pricingso we go through eight modules
that go through that.
Like I said, I am working onour new revamp of that and we'll
(12:29):
be launching that here in thespring.
And then really the main pieceof our business right now is the
Copywriter Underground.
That's our membership.
It's, I think, super low pricedfor the amount of training and
coaching and various templatesand things that you get inside
that $87 a month and themembership in there has
fluctuated anywhere from, say,about 50 members to 300 plus and
(12:54):
we're working on building thatup substantially in the coming
year.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I had a copywriter when I first started my business
and actually worked with her.
She was a decent writer, but Ihad a system for writing ads and
I had referred her to theCopywriter Club, to that
membership, specifically becauseI remember, even way back in
the day when I first startedrunning ads, coming across your
(13:22):
ads and they were so intriguingto me.
Yes, because they werewell-written, but also because
the visuals that you had then,which are different from the
dinosaur sipping coffee andplaying around on your sales
page Now you had.
It was you and Kira underwateryeah, a telephone.
You were like phoning peopleand I don't know, swimming
(13:42):
underwater like at a Disney,like at a SeaWorld performance.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah they were.
They were different.
We did that on purpose.
We wanted to stand out, Right?
So you see, all of theseprograms that are out there and
when they pop up on Instagram orFacebook or whatever you know
the images is that's the firstthing that catches your
attention.
And we wanted something thatwas a little bit different.
So we had a photo shoot in aswimming pool.
We did it in in Charlotte.
(14:06):
It was really cold that day andyeah, we just it was.
It was a lot of fun and we'veused those photos In fact, I
still use those photos justbecause they're just different
enough.
You're like wait a second, ishe underwater or what's going on
here?
And then hopefully, you'regoing to read the ad and
possibly at least sign up forthe free thing or the webinar or
(14:27):
, hopefully, one of our programs.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, those are great .
It's like what are these fullyclothed people doing underwater?
What's what's going on here?
Like, yeah, it goes right backto that very first idea.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
We talked about the pattern interrupt right, Like
you want to do something just alittle bit different so that you
stand out.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I'm going to have to remember that and I'm going to
need to show my son your salespage, because he is, at the ripe
old age of six, in love withthe dinosaurs there you, there
you go.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Well, that's going to be part of our transition.
I have a feeling those imageswill disappear soon, but yeah,
well, they'll be there foranother few weeks anyway.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Well, I will, just after we finish recording, I'll
just download them there you go.
So, reminiscing back to anearlier time in your business,
tell me something funny.
I'll lead with speaking of myson and dinosaurs.
He watches this show calledPeppa Pig, which is not about
dinosaurs, but it is a cartooncoming out of the UK and
(15:23):
everybody sounds British.
Of course we don't watch it inEnglish.
It's in Chinese Mandarin in ourhouse because, you know, having
been in China for 12 years andthen exited during the pandemic
and got stuck in Mexico, that'skind of one of the ways that I
help keep his Mandarin alive.
Then we're vacationing inCancun, mexico, and we hear a
(15:46):
couple, specifically the wifeand the son, speaking.
The son's name is George and itsounds like they're straight
out of Peppa Pig, but like thereal UK version, and me and my
son had a moment giggling when Iwas like it's Peppa Pig and
he's like it sounds just likethem.
It was a cute moment.
So when you were starting yourbusiness, what's a funny moment
(16:10):
that makes you feel warm thatyou remember?
What's a funny moment thatmakes you feel warm that you
remember?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That is a really good question.
I'm not sure.
I'm not going to go all the wayback to the start of our
business.
I'm not sure this is funny, butit's intriguing.
It's interesting, I'll give youthis.
So March 2020, you all know whatwas happening back then we had
our live event scheduled in SanDiego.
(16:35):
We were at an old YMCA buildingso you know, the event was
actually in the swimming pool of, I mean, it's kind of a really
cool space or whatever.
But you'll remember likeeverything happened to be
shutting down that week.
In fact, a lot of people wereemailing like, where are you
guys going to have the event?
And we made the decision to goahead with the event in the face
of everything.
The hotel was super gratefulbecause everybody else had
(16:56):
canceled.
You know they still have peopleto support and a lot of people
who came in were also supergrateful because we heard over
the months after that.
You know that was the one thingthe fact that I was able to
hang out with all these coolcopywriters, you know, talk
about this thing.
That was the thing that got methrough the next three months of
(17:18):
isolation is that I had forgedthese bonds and whatever.
So that's, that's not.
I'm not sure that, like I said,this will be funny, but
obviously we're going throughthis in the face of the pandemic
, at the risk that you knowpeople will get sick.
It turns out only one persongot sick on that trip.
Everybody else got home safely.
That one person happened to beme.
I caught COVID in the airportcoming home.
(17:39):
I was one of the first fewpeople in the state of Utah who
had it and because of that, whenI was diagnosed, the CDC Center
for Disease Control flew peoplein from Atlanta to come to my
house.
I mean, remember this is whenwe had no idea what was going on
with COVID, how dangerous itwas, how it was spreading.
They came to our house twice totake blood from me, my wife, my
(18:02):
two daughters who were livingat home at the time and our dog,
because they didn't know evenif pets could get it.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And then they came back two weeks later.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah.
So and it turns out I was theonly one in my family who got it
.
I, you know kind of isolated, Iwasn't great at it, but you
know, from some miracle my wifedidn't get it, my daughters
didn't get it, everything wasokay.
But it was one of those thingsthat, yeah, if we had canceled
the event I would have, you know, avoided a little bit of that
weirdness.
But, I think a lot of peoplereally appreciated that we went
(18:32):
ahead and had that moment oftogetherness before we were all
separated.
For so long Were they in?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
like hazmat suits.
Is that what you're talkingabout?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, in fact they came to the
door.
You know they're standing 20feet back or whatever.
And they come to the door andthey're like do you want us to?
You know, suit up in the garageor somewhere so that your
neighbors don't see?
I'm like, I'm not worried aboutmy neighbors to come over.
So yeah, they were in hazmatsuits, full masks, it was.
It was nuts I mean, yeah, that's, but again we had no idea what
(19:05):
was going on, like this isliterally the first two weeks of
the shutdown right, andeverybody was freaked out and
you know, can we even go to thegrocery store?
And they were trying to figureout what was going on.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So yeah, it was kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
I remember, yeah, no, I'm completely envisioning
outbreak, you know, expectingyou to say that, like morgan
freeman came up on your, it wasjust like that it was, it was,
it was so funny, and and thefact that they even took, you
know, uh, blood from our dog wasanother thing that just like
boggles my mind, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Wow, wow, okay.
So, if we're not going to goback all the way to the
beginning, where do you feellike the most significant point
was?
Towards the beginning ofstarting the Copywriter Club,
the point that made it theCopywriter Club and let's call
it a defining point where youcould have gone another way,
maybe back to your profession,started a different kind of
(19:55):
business.
What was that point?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah.
So the very beginning of theCopywriter Club happened when I
got an email from it might havebeen Bluehost or someone.
It was basically saying hey,they just opened up all of these
new domains and if you buy itright now you can get them for
like $2 or whatever.
And so I thought, well, let mecheck out and see what's
available with the wordcopywriter in it.
(20:19):
And I was just I'm a copywriterand thinking, oh, I'll do
something with this.
And one of the domains was dotclub.
And that just got me thinking.
I was like huh, copywriter club.
There were clubs back in theeighties and nineties for
copywriters in the ad worldwhere they would get together
and give awards and differentthings, and but they're mostly
(20:40):
faded away today.
And that just got me thinking.
I thought that'd be aninteresting business, or maybe
podcast or whatever.
And then, because Kira and Ihad become friends and we were
in a mastermind together, I justreached out to her and said you
said, do you want to start apodcast and do this thing
together?
And she said, yeah, I thinkthat'd be great.
(21:01):
It probably ought to be morethan just a podcast, though.
Let's figure out a way to turnit into a business, so we
launched the podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
January 1st, I'm going to cut you off.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Okay, cut me off, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You reached out to a fellow Mastermind member to
start a podcast and then abusiness.
What two businesses were youdoing separately in the
Mastermind, or what was themastermind?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
We were both running our own copywriting businesses.
Okay, Working with our clientson the side, because we were in
this Mastermind together, we hadshared, you know, sales pages
with each other, gotten feedbackand just had, you know, we'd
met a few times and just kind ofhad that you know a good
friendship, and so it just itsort of made sense.
And then I was also thinking,just knowing my personality I'm
(21:46):
a bit of an introvert, knowingthat I'm, you know, gen X,
whatever and thinking about whowould be attracted to a podcast
that's just about, or that'sjust me as a host.
I was thinking it'd be betterif I had a co-host who brought
something like we said when wewere talking about partnerships
a little bit different.
And so Kira's millennial,obviously female, I live in the
(22:06):
West, she lives in the East, andthere was just enough
differences that it felt to melike we'll have a broader appeal
, and so that's a big reason whyI thought, yeah, she'd be a
great co-host, that's sointriguing.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I just can't.
I cannot fathom being in amastermind and then seeing
another meta ad manager andbeing like let's team up and
co-host a podcast.
That is very intriguing to me.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Well, and a big part of what we talk about in the
Copywriter Club is that allthose of the copywriters content
writers out there are not yourcompetitors.
I mean, yeah, in some waysmaybe you both want to work for
the same kinds of clients, butin reality we have so much more
in common than the fight betweenus to win a client over the
(22:53):
other person, and I'm going tovibe with the clients that vibe
with me and you're going to vibewith the clients that vibe with
you.
And so we just never really sawa reason not to.
And I think, just again becausewe appealed to two different
audiences, or maybe severaldifferent audiences.
It just broadened the appeal ofour show.
But the thing that really madethe difference, we launched with
(23:15):
four episodes on January 1stand at the same time we opened
up a Facebook group, and thething that really made the
difference, I think, was that westarted to reach out to every
single person that we could findwith copywriter in their title,
and we just send them a message.
People we didn't know.
We just say, hey, we juststarted this group for
copywriters, come and check itout, come and hang out with us.
(23:37):
And we went from and we didn'tdo any advertising to bring
people in, it was all directinvites.
But we went from zero membersto over a thousand members in
about four months and we doubledit again two or three months
later.
And that I mean just thatoutreach of community building,
I think, was the thing thatreally made the difference.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Okay, so Copywriter Club version 1.0 was fueled by
you and Kira in the DMs oremails emails, dms, anytime.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
like if we could find a group of copywriters or a
copywriter we would just messagethem and say, hey, come and
join us.
What was that message?
Literally we just started thispodcast.
We just have this group comeand talk about copywriting with
us and come and hang out.
And I mean we didn't.
We were not selling anything atthis point.
(24:34):
We just had this group and youknow small payments to keep the
podcast going.
You know hosting fees orwhatever.
But we just sort of watched whatconversations started happening
, naturally between all of thepeople in the group, and we
started to see people withquestions about things like how
do I price this kind of aproject?
How do I differentiate myself?
Should I niche, should I notniche?
And the arguments that go bothways around that here's a
(24:55):
customer problem.
How would you deal with this?
Or my client gave me this kindof feedback what does that mean?
All of these discussions weregoing on in the group and from
that feedback we took that andsaid our first product is going
to be this copywriteraccelerator and we're going to
answer all of those businessquestions that keep coming up
over and over and over.
And so we launched that.
(25:17):
Six months after we launchedthe podcast, 20 people joined,
$1,000 a piece and we were offand running.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Sounds like a successful start.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, it was, it was great.
I mean I was really pleasedwith how well it went.
Now, I mean, you know $20,000total.
You know, in six months mostbusinesses, I think, would look
at that as a win.
Obviously, we have two partners, so you know we're splitting
that and you know all that.
So you know you need toconsider all of that stuff when
(25:47):
it goes in.
We weren't making millions byany stretch, but, yeah, we have
had this constituency of peoplewho need help running a business
and I will say, although we aimat copywriters and content
writers, the principles that weteach in that program work for
anybody who's freelancing.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Gotchacha.
Okay, so podcast.
Then the think tank.
You guys are separating likegoing separate ways.
Now you explain that care isstill on behind the scenes in
the business.
Was there a time where youalmost went separate ways
previously during the eightyears?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
no no, no, at least I mean I at least from my
standpoint, I've I never uh upfor me Like our partnership has
been solid and even though we'resplitting now, we're still
great friends.
I admire the heck out of Kiraand her writing ability and what
she's doing and you know, lastyear she we just had that
conversation where she's like,you know, this is just.
(26:43):
I'm not getting the same levelof joy, it doesn't light me up
the way that it used to and I'mthinking about doing some
different things and I 100%support her in that.
Obviously, we should do thethings that light us up and that
bring us joy, and if yourbusiness isn't doing that,
there's something wrong, right.
And so when we had thatconversation, I'm like there's
(27:04):
no reason I'm going to forceanybody into something they
don't love.
So it was the right time forher and obviously I would love
it, if you know, if that hadn'tchanged.
But you know, in forcing thetransition, who knows, we'll end
up with something that'sdifferent and hopefully
sustaining but still lights meup.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I mean, I can understand and relate the
business the former businessthat I worked in that owner
transitioned, I believe, twotimes, like eight years is a
solid amount of time in theonline business world.
And, yeah, you know you want tofollow passion, either
completely different way or aslightly different way.
Speaking of which, you have twopodcasts and I didn't know that
(27:46):
before, but it looks likeyou're also dabbling in AI.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, we've had that podcast.
I think we've done about 22 or23 episodes.
We haven't done a new AIpodcast in quite a while, but we
have like there was, especiallyas AI was coming online.
I think there were so manyquestions about it that we
wanted to address those a littlebit separately from our normal
podcast, and so we had a lot ofguests on talking about you know
(28:11):
what does it mean?
Where is it going, what aresome of the tools, especially
that writers are using, and wedid some interviews around that.
But it also felt like, afteryou know those 20 plus episodes,
it was becoming a little bitmore mainstream.
So, while we talk about AI onthe Copywriter Club podcast
still, I don't do very many AIonly episodes these days- so,
(28:32):
they're still there.
If people want to go and learn,you can check them out.
They're on YouTube AI forCreative Entrepreneurs and they
can check that out if they'reinterested in that angle.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It's funny that you say it's becoming a bit more
mainstream and still I feel likein our very special circle of
online business owners marketers, if you will it seems
mainstream to us.
But then whenever I slip up andjust casually mention AI to any
of my family, my in-laws of myfamily, they're like what?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I have a daughter in college
and you know every she comes outat least once a week, you know,
and she's she's in a historycourse and I studied history in
college.
So she's like, hey, you know,what would you write for this?
Like, well, this is what I'dwrite.
Why don't you just ask for afew ideas from ai?
And like, don't ask ai to writeit?
But you know, like give them,give them the question and say,
(29:27):
you know, give me five topics onthis.
And she's like, oh yeah, Ishould.
You know, I should do that.
Ai is awesome for generatingideas, really good for
generating ideas.
I definitely agree Not great forwriting copy necessarily,
although you can get it there.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Why isn't it great for writing copy?
Before we move into the nextepisode where you're going to
talk about why not all bromarketing tactics are bad and
what that means for yourbusiness.
Why isn't AI good for writingcopy so far?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So I think that and I should say with a caveat you
can get good copy out of AI, butit takes writing the right
prompts, it takes the discussionback and forth with the chat
bot.
Whatever you're using, you canget it there.
I think a lot of copywriterscan write good copy faster than
that conversation requires.
So there is that caveat.
(30:18):
But I would say the reason thatit doesn't do real well is
because good copy is differentand surprising and intriguing
and vulnerable and human.
And AI bots are based oneverything that was written
before, so it can fake some ofthat stuff a little bit, but
it's not vulnerable, it's nothuman and because it's based on
(30:41):
everything that's existed in thepast, it's not usually original
when it's writing copy.
Now, like I said, you can getit there by the back and forth
or by having the right promptsto help with that.
You can certainly get it towrite headlines, hooks, those
kinds of things and do a prettygood job of it, but it's not
human and I think the more AIthings we see, the more valuable
(31:04):
actual humanness it going to be.
It's just going to become.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Good, that was a quote that just slipped my mind.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
You said good copy is I said a whole bunch of things
right, yeah, I mean it's yeah,it's.
It's creative, it's vulnerable,it stands out, it's human.
It's surprising it.
You know it's new All of thesethings that we, as humans, are
really really good at coming upwith.
It's surprising.
It's new all of these thingsthat we, as humans, are really
really good at coming up with.
It's emotional, and a robot ora chat system can pull elements
(31:37):
from that and it predicts whatit thinks we need to hear.
But it's not real, and I thinkwe're going to get really good
at telling the difference.
I think we already are.
Yeah, Well, certainly those ofus that see it almost every day
are getting much better at it,and I think we're going to get
really good at telling thedifference.
I think we already are.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, well, certainly those of us that see it almost
every day are getting muchbetter at it.
Speaking of which, I thinkwe're going to title the next
episode Unlock Bro MarketingSecrets with a rocket emoji at
the end.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Two sentence intro, two sentence outro.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, it's, yeah, oh, wow, oh wow.
Well, thank you for being onthis first episode like and
letting us kind of glimpse justbits and pieces of the journey.
But really I felt like I got toglimpse a bit in piece like
pieces of, and learn about youand some of the challenges of
your business.
And just the time right now asyou're transitioning to a
copywriter club, that is, acopywriter club with Rob.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, I thank you.
It seriously is an honor to beon your show.
I like what you do, what youand your wife both do on the
show.
It's fun.
I always learn something, soit's just it's my privilege to
be here, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Thank you.
I forgot to say to you andlistener that my wife is not
here because she's with the kidssuper far North in Michigan.
Because randomly I'm veryrandom but I was like have they
ever seen snow?
And the answer was our daughtersaw snow when she was like two
years old.
Our daughter saw snow when shewas like two years old.
(33:10):
So she took them up to herparents on Lake Michigan to see
snow and I just saw a picture ofit about an hour ago.
There's like five feet of snowand they are having a storm.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I think they're supposed to get a storm this
week too, so yeah, really good,great.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So they're going to have the time of their life.
We'd come back to Mexico Superthankful for 70 degree weather
and blue skies, all right.
So we're going to hop into thenext episode, dear listener.
That is linked up in the shownotes below.
We're going to talk about thegood side of bro marketing and
how that can benefit yourbusiness.
(33:42):
This title, this topic, cameout of nowhere and I was so
delighted when I read that wecan talk about this.
So, rob, I can't wait for that.
And well, listener, until thenext time you hear from me or
see me, take care, be blessed.
Bye.
Welcome back to another episode of the Art of
Online Business podcast.
In this episode and the nextone, we'll be covering many
things that have to do with theart of copywriting, and if you
have already subscribed and arewatching the YouTube channel,
then you can see what, hopefully, is a familiar face.
If he's not familiar to you,you should get familiar.
This is Rob Marsh and he is thewell, he's a direct response
(00:23):
copywriter who specializes inemail and sales pages.
He's written everything fromdirect mail to TV, to case
studies and a book.
He's worked for clients likeAmerican Express, pluralsight,
and today he writes primarilyfor tech SaaS companies software
as a service, if you will, andhealth supplement clients, and
in his free time you might catchhim running playing pickleball.
(00:46):
Ouch, you know, I tore tendonsa year and a half ago.
Let's not talk about that.
Yeah, let's not go there.
You said hanging out withfamily, rob.
Okay, you're a family man.
I like that, and this partcaught me trying very hard not
to have a second donut.
Rob, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hi Joe, thank you, I am honored to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thank you.
I am honored to be here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I must say I know that in amoment we'll jump in and talk
about like a snapshot of whereyour business is at right now
and we'll go back in time to youknow the journeys that you've
had.
I'm thinking of that song themountains are high, the valleys
are low.
I'm sure it's been a journey,but I always notice that I'm
intrigued when I readcopywriters writing and it's
(01:30):
like there's always a littlesomething in there that just
tickles my brain.
And when I read your bio thefirst time before you hopped on
into the studio it was the andtrying very hard not to have a
second donut.
And I wonder, like can youexplain just to me what is that
thing that copywriters do thatjust sparks a little bit of
intrigue or tickles someone's?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
fancy.
I mean, that's exactly it,right, you're trying to break
the pattern of normalcy and sowith a typical bio, of course
you're going to read all of theclients that they've worked with
or the experience that you have, right.
But you want to do somethingthat's just a little bit
different, and so those kinds ofthose kinds of things maybe I
(02:07):
might reference.
In fact, a lot of peoplereference the fact that I drink
way too much Coke Zero and Itend to wear Chuck Taylors.
So you know, these variousthings that are maybe a little
bit unique to me or maybe notunique, but are different, and
when I talk about them I'mdifferent from other copywriters
.
That's how we do it.
So it breaks the pattern, makesyou take notice and hopefully
(02:28):
remember me as a copywriter thatyou want to talk to, and I
guess we can use that for ourclients.
If we do that for our clients,then their customers remember
them and want to work for them,and that makes us better
marketers, right?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I did notice the Chuck Taylors on your website,
thecopywriterclubcom, becauseIdo also have not Chuck Taylors,
but definitely plenty pairs ofConverse, including a customized
pair.
Did you know you can customizethem on the?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
website.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've got afunny story about Chuck Taylors.
My daughter, maybe 10 years agoshe's about eight or nine years
old and I noticed that she wascleaning our bathrooms and I
mean, eight-year-olds don'tnaturally clean the bathroom,
right.
So I asked my wife what's goingon with this and she's like,
(03:17):
well, you can't let her knowthat I told you this, but she is
working to save up some moneybecause she wants to buy you a
birthday present, and herbirthday present was a pair of
Chuck Taylors.
She wanted to get me pink onesbecause she thought that it
would be hilarious if I had towear these pink shoes around.
They were out of pink ones, andso she bought me these white
(03:38):
ones that have these really coolred and blue laces.
And so for her I basically saidthese shoes are too special to
just wear around, so I only wearthose shoes when I'm on stage
presenting.
And I always wear them when I'mon stage presenting, which again
is another way to sort of standout, but they're, yeah, they're
kind of unique and fun.
So anyway, I, yeah, I have athing for for Chuck Taylors.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That is so cool.
I tried to get my daughter intoa pair of believe it or not
pink ones, because that seems tobe the only color she will wear
other than black boots.
But she just wouldn't go for itand I was like, yeah, you can
get a pair and I can get a pair,because pink would match my
uniform, which is always blueshirt and either blue jeans or I
(04:23):
actually just bought two pairmy first ever pair of green
jeans, like one's moss andwhat's one's like a lighter
shade of sage.
It's called Okay, pretty stokedabout that, but she wouldn't,
she wouldn't, she wouldn't dothe shoes with me, unfortunately
.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I mean, I feel your pain.
My kids don't do what I tellthem to do either.
How old are yours?
You said when she was eightyeah, so she's my youngest.
She's now 19.
So my kids range between 28 and19.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Tell me it gets easier.
Mine are eight and six.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Some things get easier, some things are not
easier.
But I will tell you, it getsfunner, it gets more and more
fun, and I mean you already seethis going from young toddlers
to these preteens, teenagerslike it just gets more and more
fun, Even as hanging out with myadult kids, it's just a blast.
We're always laughing, having agreat time.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That's good.
Speaks to parenting.
Done right when you're having ablast.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I hope so, or maybe they just came, we just got
lucky, they just came this way.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
It does feel like that sometimes I sit, not sit
lay like many times now, my kids, having exited the toddler
stage, like my wife and I, spenda good amount of time looking
back at when they were babies.
It's like through that periodwe were waiting for it to get
better and easier, but now we'rejust like, oh, we miss them.
Exactly.
(05:45):
This is a harsh transition, ormy attempt at a segue into
wanting to know what are thevalleys and the peaks, if you
will, the successes that you'vehad and challenges along the way
that you look back fondly on asyou were building your business
.
But before you do that, can youjust share with a listener a
snapshot of your business as itis today, in the beginning of
(06:10):
2025?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, so my business is in a period of transition.
We launched eight years ago andat the time, my partner Kirahug
and I worked hard to build thisbusiness and provide training
and a membership and events, allfor the copywriting community
and we did it in a way that wasmeant to be really inclusive.
There's some things you know inthe marketing world where you
know it tends to be verydominated by direct response
writers, who are, you know, thebro marketing tactics, you know
(06:39):
that are so famous out there,and it sometimes is an
uncomfortable place for peopleof color or women or even men.
And so we just thought we'regoing to build a business that's
about copywriting andeveryone's welcome newbies,
experts, everybody and it's notabout anything else other than
(07:00):
just everyone getting better asmarketers.
And we did that for seven yearstogether, and then last year,
my partner, kira, decided thatshe wanted to do something else,
and so we are sort of goingthrough that process of
transitioning all of the offersthat we did together and
figuring out okay, what can theCopywriter Club offer for people
(07:21):
when it's just me, or me andsome future partner?
You know, who knows what willhappen in the future?
And so, yeah, working through,what programs work, how should
we price them?
You know, are we still servingthe same audience?
If so, how do we serve them?
Well, all of those questionsthat we're really starting to
work through.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Wow, those do not sound like simple questions to
resolve.
Yeah, they're not.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I mean, you know from just working out how do you
recreate something that twopeople you know created together
and one of those people is nolonger.
You know part of it and youknow where.
She played such a huge role ina lot of the coaching and the
charisma that she brought to ourpodcast and all of that stuff.
And trying to recreate that inher absence is not easy at all.
(08:09):
And on the flip side, there'sstill a huge need in the
copywriting and content writingworld for people who are able to
teach business skills, not justhow do you write the best
headline.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I had two ladies on my podcast recently.
They are a team, two sistersrunning a website design agency,
if you will, and I justremarked at how they managed to
pull a business together andkeep it successful for so many
years as partners, and you'vedone the same for eight years.
(08:44):
Years as partners, and you'vedone the same for eight years.
Can you speak, just you know?
Word of advice, encouragementto somebody who's listening
right now, who has a partner inbusiness but they're earlier on
in their journey.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, and I've got a lot of feelings around partners.
In fact, kira and I used totalk about this a lot when we
were, you know, both together.
I would say that having apartner allows you to go twice
as far, just as fast, right,because you can do twice as many
things.
The flip side of that, ofcourse, is, you know, there are
twice as many mouths to feed,you know, and twice as many
demands on the business from twopeople.
So when you're looking for apartner, you need to find people
(09:23):
who fill in the gaps just alittle bit.
If you are really good at ideasbut you're terrible at finishing
, I'd recommend finding apartner who's really good at
finishing and maybe needs or isopen to allowing somebody else
to come up with the ideas youwant to fit together really well
, because if you both bring theexact same things to the table,
(09:44):
you're going to find that thebusiness won't move twice as
fast like you hope that it will.
And the other thing that Iwould just say is that the way
two partners work togethermatters, you know, and so both
Kira and I, you know, I thinkcomplimented each other a lot in
, you know, sometimes she couldbe a little bit more charismatic
(10:05):
than me and maybe I'm thestraight guy you know in the
background, and then at othertimes she wanted to take the
backseat and I could stepforward, right.
So looking for a partner thatcompliments what you do instead
of duplicates what you do wouldbe my number one recommendation.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
All right.
All right, so these are intransition, but I see on your
website accelerator, fast track,small group coaching, the
copywriter think tank, thecopywriter underground, Correct?
You want to give us a rundownof what those are and like just
rough percentage of like whichone makes them up the most of
(10:42):
your revenue?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, so, and, like you said, this is in transition.
So the think tank hashistorically been our mastermind
and because you know we wererunning that together, we have
temporarily closed the thinktank, so there's a waiting list
for that.
We may reopen that at somepoint in the future and offer
that really in-depth one-on-onecoaching and events, that kind
(11:04):
of thing.
And when that was open and whenwe reopen it, that was $1,000 a
month, $10,000 a year.
So that's a rough point.
And we usually the numbers inthere fluctuated a little bit,
but we usually had anywhere from18 to 30 people at a time.
Then we also have theaccelerator and what the version
(11:25):
that we have right now isaccelerator fast track and
that's on our website still, butI am in the process of
completely revamping thatprogram.
So this is kind of really thenext big thing that we'll be
offering to our audience againis a renewed, recreated version
of that.
It is a program for primarilyfor copywriters content writers
(11:47):
but rather than teaching writingskills, we take the approach
that you are already probably apretty good writer and so we
teach the business skills thathelp copywriters succeed.
So things like how do youfigure out what your x factor is
, the thing that makes youdifferent from literally a
million other copywriters in theworld, so that you can charge
what you deserve to charge andyou can work with the clients
(12:09):
that you want to work with?
So you know a lot aroundpositioning.
How do you create services andproducts that meet the needs of
your niche or the people youwant to work with?
So you know a lot aroundpositioning.
How do you create services andproducts that meet the needs of
your niche or the people youwant to serve.
How do you work with clients,all of those kinds of questions
that come up branding, pricingso we go through eight modules
that go through that.
Like I said, I am working onour new revamp of that and we'll
(12:29):
be launching that here in thespring.
And then really the main pieceof our business right now is the
Copywriter Underground.
That's our membership.
It's, I think, super low pricedfor the amount of training and
coaching and various templatesand things that you get inside
that $87 a month and themembership in there has
fluctuated anywhere from, say,about 50 members to 300 plus and
(12:54):
we're working on building thatup substantially in the coming
year.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I had a copywriter when I first started my business
and actually worked with her.
She was a decent writer, but Ihad a system for writing ads and
I had referred her to theCopywriter Club, to that
membership, specifically becauseI remember, even way back in
the day when I first startedrunning ads, coming across your
(13:22):
ads and they were so intriguingto me.
Yes, because they werewell-written, but also because
the visuals that you had then,which are different from the
dinosaur sipping coffee andplaying around on your sales
page Now you had.
It was you and Kira underwateryeah, a telephone.
You were like phoning peopleand I don't know, swimming
(13:42):
underwater like at a Disney,like at a SeaWorld performance.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah they were.
They were different.
We did that on purpose.
We wanted to stand out, Right?
So you see, all of theseprograms that are out there and
when they pop up on Instagram orFacebook or whatever you know
the images is that's the firstthing that catches your
attention.
And we wanted something thatwas a little bit different.
So we had a photo shoot in aswimming pool.
We did it in in Charlotte.
(14:06):
It was really cold that day andyeah, we just it was.
It was a lot of fun and we'veused those photos In fact, I
still use those photos justbecause they're just different
enough.
You're like wait a second, ishe underwater or what's going on
here?
And then hopefully, you'regoing to read the ad and
possibly at least sign up forthe free thing or the webinar or
(14:27):
, hopefully, one of our programs.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, those are great .
It's like what are these fullyclothed people doing underwater?
What's what's going on here?
Like, yeah, it goes right backto that very first idea.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
We talked about the pattern interrupt right, Like
you want to do something just alittle bit different so that you
stand out.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I'm going to have to remember that and I'm going to
need to show my son your salespage, because he is, at the ripe
old age of six, in love withthe dinosaurs there you, there
you go.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Well, that's going to be part of our transition.
I have a feeling those imageswill disappear soon, but yeah,
well, they'll be there foranother few weeks anyway.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Well, I will, just after we finish recording, I'll
just download them there you go.
So, reminiscing back to anearlier time in your business,
tell me something funny.
I'll lead with speaking of myson and dinosaurs.
He watches this show calledPeppa Pig, which is not about
dinosaurs, but it is a cartooncoming out of the UK and
(15:23):
everybody sounds British.
Of course we don't watch it inEnglish.
It's in Chinese Mandarin in ourhouse because, you know, having
been in China for 12 years andthen exited during the pandemic
and got stuck in Mexico, that'skind of one of the ways that I
help keep his Mandarin alive.
Then we're vacationing inCancun, mexico, and we hear a
(15:46):
couple, specifically the wifeand the son, speaking.
The son's name is George and itsounds like they're straight
out of Peppa Pig, but like thereal UK version, and me and my
son had a moment giggling when Iwas like it's Peppa Pig and
he's like it sounds just likethem.
It was a cute moment.
So when you were starting yourbusiness, what's a funny moment
(16:10):
that makes you feel warm thatyou remember?
What's a funny moment thatmakes you feel warm that you
remember?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That is a really good question.
I'm not sure.
I'm not going to go all the wayback to the start of our
business.
I'm not sure this is funny, butit's intriguing.
It's interesting, I'll give youthis.
So March 2020, you all know whatwas happening back then we had
our live event scheduled in SanDiego.
(16:35):
We were at an old YMCA buildingso you know, the event was
actually in the swimming pool of, I mean, it's kind of a really
cool space or whatever.
But you'll remember likeeverything happened to be
shutting down that week.
In fact, a lot of people wereemailing like, where are you
guys going to have the event?
And we made the decision to goahead with the event in the face
of everything.
The hotel was super gratefulbecause everybody else had
(16:56):
canceled.
You know they still have peopleto support and a lot of people
who came in were also supergrateful because we heard over
the months after that.
You know that was the one thingthe fact that I was able to
hang out with all these coolcopywriters, you know, talk
about this thing.
That was the thing that got methrough the next three months of
(17:18):
isolation is that I had forgedthese bonds and whatever.
So that's, that's not.
I'm not sure that, like I said,this will be funny, but
obviously we're going throughthis in the face of the pandemic
, at the risk that you knowpeople will get sick.
It turns out only one persongot sick on that trip.
Everybody else got home safely.
That one person happened to beme.
I caught COVID in the airportcoming home.
(17:39):
I was one of the first fewpeople in the state of Utah who
had it and because of that, whenI was diagnosed, the CDC Center
for Disease Control flew peoplein from Atlanta to come to my
house.
I mean, remember this is whenwe had no idea what was going on
with COVID, how dangerous itwas, how it was spreading.
They came to our house twice totake blood from me, my wife, my
(18:02):
two daughters who were livingat home at the time and our dog,
because they didn't know evenif pets could get it.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And then they came back two weeks later.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah.
So and it turns out I was theonly one in my family who got it
.
I, you know kind of isolated, Iwasn't great at it, but you
know, from some miracle my wifedidn't get it, my daughters
didn't get it, everything wasokay.
But it was one of those thingsthat, yeah, if we had canceled
the event I would have, you know, avoided a little bit of that
weirdness.
But, I think a lot of peoplereally appreciated that we went
(18:32):
ahead and had that moment oftogetherness before we were all
separated.
For so long Were they in?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
like hazmat suits.
Is that what you're talkingabout?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, in fact they came to the
door.
You know they're standing 20feet back or whatever.
And they come to the door andthey're like do you want us to?
You know, suit up in the garageor somewhere so that your
neighbors don't see?
I'm like, I'm not worried aboutmy neighbors to come over.
So yeah, they were in hazmatsuits, full masks, it was.
It was nuts I mean, yeah, that's, but again we had no idea what
(19:05):
was going on, like this isliterally the first two weeks of
the shutdown right, andeverybody was freaked out and
you know, can we even go to thegrocery store?
And they were trying to figureout what was going on.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So yeah, it was kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
I remember, yeah, no, I'm completely envisioning
outbreak, you know, expectingyou to say that, like morgan
freeman came up on your, it wasjust like that it was, it was,
it was so funny, and and thefact that they even took, you
know, uh, blood from our dog wasanother thing that just like
boggles my mind, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Wow, wow, okay.
So, if we're not going to goback all the way to the
beginning, where do you feellike the most significant point
was?
Towards the beginning ofstarting the Copywriter Club,
the point that made it theCopywriter Club and let's call
it a defining point where youcould have gone another way,
maybe back to your profession,started a different kind of
(19:55):
business.
What was that point?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah.
So the very beginning of theCopywriter Club happened when I
got an email from it might havebeen Bluehost or someone.
It was basically saying hey,they just opened up all of these
new domains and if you buy itright now you can get them for
like $2 or whatever.
And so I thought, well, let mecheck out and see what's
available with the wordcopywriter in it.
(20:19):
And I was just I'm a copywriterand thinking, oh, I'll do
something with this.
And one of the domains was dotclub.
And that just got me thinking.
I was like huh, copywriter club.
There were clubs back in theeighties and nineties for
copywriters in the ad worldwhere they would get together
and give awards and differentthings, and but they're mostly
(20:40):
faded away today.
And that just got me thinking.
I thought that'd be aninteresting business, or maybe
podcast or whatever.
And then, because Kira and Ihad become friends and we were
in a mastermind together, I justreached out to her and said you
said, do you want to start apodcast and do this thing
together?
And she said, yeah, I thinkthat'd be great.
(21:01):
It probably ought to be morethan just a podcast, though.
Let's figure out a way to turnit into a business, so we
launched the podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
January 1st, I'm going to cut you off.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Okay, cut me off, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You reached out to a fellow Mastermind member to
start a podcast and then abusiness.
What two businesses were youdoing separately in the
Mastermind, or what was themastermind?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
We were both running our own copywriting businesses.
Okay, Working with our clientson the side, because we were in
this Mastermind together, we hadshared, you know, sales pages
with each other, gotten feedbackand just had, you know, we'd
met a few times and just kind ofhad that you know a good
friendship, and so it just itsort of made sense.
And then I was also thinking,just knowing my personality I'm
(21:46):
a bit of an introvert, knowingthat I'm, you know, gen X,
whatever and thinking about whowould be attracted to a podcast
that's just about, or that'sjust me as a host.
I was thinking it'd be betterif I had a co-host who brought
something like we said when wewere talking about partnerships
a little bit different.
And so Kira's millennial,obviously female, I live in the
(22:06):
West, she lives in the East, andthere was just enough
differences that it felt to melike we'll have a broader appeal
, and so that's a big reason whyI thought, yeah, she'd be a
great co-host, that's sointriguing.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I just can't.
I cannot fathom being in amastermind and then seeing
another meta ad manager andbeing like let's team up and
co-host a podcast.
That is very intriguing to me.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Well, and a big part of what we talk about in the
Copywriter Club is that allthose of the copywriters content
writers out there are not yourcompetitors.
I mean, yeah, in some waysmaybe you both want to work for
the same kinds of clients, butin reality we have so much more
in common than the fight betweenus to win a client over the
(22:53):
other person, and I'm going tovibe with the clients that vibe
with me and you're going to vibewith the clients that vibe with
you.
And so we just never really sawa reason not to.
And I think, just again becausewe appealed to two different
audiences, or maybe severaldifferent audiences.
It just broadened the appeal ofour show.
But the thing that really madethe difference, we launched with
(23:15):
four episodes on January 1stand at the same time we opened
up a Facebook group, and thething that really made the
difference, I think, was that westarted to reach out to every
single person that we could findwith copywriter in their title,
and we just send them a message.
People we didn't know.
We just say, hey, we juststarted this group for
copywriters, come and check itout, come and hang out with us.
(23:37):
And we went from and we didn'tdo any advertising to bring
people in, it was all directinvites.
But we went from zero membersto over a thousand members in
about four months and we doubledit again two or three months
later.
And that I mean just thatoutreach of community building,
I think, was the thing thatreally made the difference.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Okay, so Copywriter Club version 1.0 was fueled by
you and Kira in the DMs oremails emails, dms, anytime.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
like if we could find a group of copywriters or a
copywriter we would just messagethem and say, hey, come and
join us.
What was that message?
Literally we just started thispodcast.
We just have this group comeand talk about copywriting with
us and come and hang out.
And I mean we didn't.
We were not selling anything atthis point.
(24:34):
We just had this group and youknow small payments to keep the
podcast going.
You know hosting fees orwhatever.
But we just sort of watched whatconversations started happening
, naturally between all of thepeople in the group, and we
started to see people withquestions about things like how
do I price this kind of aproject?
How do I differentiate myself?
Should I niche, should I notniche?
And the arguments that go bothways around that here's a
(24:55):
customer problem.
How would you deal with this?
Or my client gave me this kindof feedback what does that mean?
All of these discussions weregoing on in the group and from
that feedback we took that andsaid our first product is going
to be this copywriteraccelerator and we're going to
answer all of those businessquestions that keep coming up
over and over and over.
And so we launched that.
(25:17):
Six months after we launchedthe podcast, 20 people joined,
$1,000 a piece and we were offand running.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Sounds like a successful start.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, it was, it was great.
I mean I was really pleasedwith how well it went.
Now, I mean, you know $20,000total.
You know, in six months mostbusinesses, I think, would look
at that as a win.
Obviously, we have two partners, so you know we're splitting
that and you know all that.
So you know you need toconsider all of that stuff when
(25:47):
it goes in.
We weren't making millions byany stretch, but, yeah, we have
had this constituency of peoplewho need help running a business
and I will say, although we aimat copywriters and content
writers, the principles that weteach in that program work for
anybody who's freelancing.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Gotchacha.
Okay, so podcast.
Then the think tank.
You guys are separating likegoing separate ways.
Now you explain that care isstill on behind the scenes in
the business.
Was there a time where youalmost went separate ways
previously during the eightyears?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
no no, no, at least I mean I at least from my
standpoint, I've I never uh upfor me Like our partnership has
been solid and even though we'resplitting now, we're still
great friends.
I admire the heck out of Kiraand her writing ability and what
she's doing and you know, lastyear she we just had that
conversation where she's like,you know, this is just.
(26:43):
I'm not getting the same levelof joy, it doesn't light me up
the way that it used to and I'mthinking about doing some
different things and I 100%support her in that.
Obviously, we should do thethings that light us up and that
bring us joy, and if yourbusiness isn't doing that,
there's something wrong, right.
And so when we had thatconversation, I'm like there's
(27:04):
no reason I'm going to forceanybody into something they
don't love.
So it was the right time forher and obviously I would love
it, if you know, if that hadn'tchanged.
But you know, in forcing thetransition, who knows, we'll end
up with something that'sdifferent and hopefully
sustaining but still lights meup.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I mean, I can understand and relate the
business the former businessthat I worked in that owner
transitioned, I believe, twotimes, like eight years is a
solid amount of time in theonline business world.
And, yeah, you know you want tofollow passion, either
completely different way or aslightly different way.
Speaking of which, you have twopodcasts and I didn't know that
(27:46):
before, but it looks likeyou're also dabbling in AI.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, we've had that podcast.
I think we've done about 22 or23 episodes.
We haven't done a new AIpodcast in quite a while, but we
have like there was, especiallyas AI was coming online.
I think there were so manyquestions about it that we
wanted to address those a littlebit separately from our normal
podcast, and so we had a lot ofguests on talking about you know
(28:11):
what does it mean?
Where is it going, what aresome of the tools, especially
that writers are using, and wedid some interviews around that.
But it also felt like, afteryou know those 20 plus episodes,
it was becoming a little bitmore mainstream.
So, while we talk about AI onthe Copywriter Club podcast
still, I don't do very many AIonly episodes these days- so,
(28:32):
they're still there.
If people want to go and learn,you can check them out.
They're on YouTube AI forCreative Entrepreneurs and they
can check that out if they'reinterested in that angle.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It's funny that you say it's becoming a bit more
mainstream and still I feel likein our very special circle of
online business owners marketers, if you will it seems
mainstream to us.
But then whenever I slip up andjust casually mention AI to any
of my family, my in-laws of myfamily, they're like what?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I have a daughter in college
and you know every she comes outat least once a week, you know,
and she's she's in a historycourse and I studied history in
college.
So she's like, hey, you know,what would you write for this?
Like, well, this is what I'dwrite.
Why don't you just ask for afew ideas from ai?
And like, don't ask ai to writeit?
But you know, like give them,give them the question and say,
(29:27):
you know, give me five topics onthis.
And she's like, oh yeah, Ishould.
You know, I should do that.
Ai is awesome for generatingideas, really good for
generating ideas.
I definitely agree Not great forwriting copy necessarily,
although you can get it there.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Why isn't it great for writing copy?
Before we move into the nextepisode where you're going to
talk about why not all bromarketing tactics are bad and
what that means for yourbusiness.
Why isn't AI good for writingcopy so far?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So I think that and I should say with a caveat you
can get good copy out of AI, butit takes writing the right
prompts, it takes the discussionback and forth with the chat
bot.
Whatever you're using, you canget it there.
I think a lot of copywriterscan write good copy faster than
that conversation requires.
So there is that caveat.
(30:18):
But I would say the reason thatit doesn't do real well is
because good copy is differentand surprising and intriguing
and vulnerable and human.
And AI bots are based oneverything that was written
before, so it can fake some ofthat stuff a little bit, but
it's not vulnerable, it's nothuman and because it's based on
(30:41):
everything that's existed in thepast, it's not usually original
when it's writing copy.
Now, like I said, you can getit there by the back and forth
or by having the right promptsto help with that.
You can certainly get it towrite headlines, hooks, those
kinds of things and do a prettygood job of it, but it's not
human and I think the more AIthings we see, the more valuable
(31:04):
actual humanness it going to be.
It's just going to become.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Good, that was a quote that just slipped my mind.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
You said good copy is I said a whole bunch of things
right, yeah, I mean it's yeah,it's.
It's creative, it's vulnerable,it stands out, it's human.
It's surprising it.
You know it's new All of thesethings that we, as humans, are
really really good at coming upwith.
It's surprising.
It's new all of these thingsthat we, as humans, are really
really good at coming up with.
It's emotional, and a robot ora chat system can pull elements
(31:37):
from that and it predicts whatit thinks we need to hear.
But it's not real, and I thinkwe're going to get really good
at telling the difference.
I think we already are.
Yeah, Well, certainly those ofus that see it almost every day
are getting much better at it,and I think we're going to get
really good at telling thedifference.
I think we already are.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, well, certainly those of us that see it almost
every day are getting muchbetter at it.
Speaking of which, I thinkwe're going to title the next
episode Unlock Bro MarketingSecrets with a rocket emoji at
the end.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Two sentence intro, two sentence outro.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, it's, yeah, oh, wow, oh wow.
Well, thank you for being onthis first episode like and
letting us kind of glimpse justbits and pieces of the journey.
But really I felt like I got toglimpse a bit in piece like
pieces of, and learn about youand some of the challenges of
your business.
And just the time right now asyou're transitioning to a
copywriter club, that is, acopywriter club with Rob.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, I thank you.
It seriously is an honor to beon your show.
I like what you do, what youand your wife both do on the
show.
It's fun.
I always learn something, soit's just it's my privilege to
be here, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Thank you.
I forgot to say to you andlistener that my wife is not
here because she's with the kidssuper far North in Michigan.
Because randomly I'm veryrandom but I was like have they
ever seen snow?
And the answer was our daughtersaw snow when she was like two
years old.
Our daughter saw snow when shewas like two years old.
(33:10):
So she took them up to herparents on Lake Michigan to see
snow and I just saw a picture ofit about an hour ago.
There's like five feet of snowand they are having a storm.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I think they're supposed to get a storm this
week too, so yeah, really good,great.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So they're going to have the time of their life.
We'd come back to Mexico Superthankful for 70 degree weather
and blue skies, all right.
So we're going to hop into thenext episode, dear listener.
That is linked up in the shownotes below.
We're going to talk about thegood side of bro marketing and
how that can benefit yourbusiness.
(33:42):
This title, this topic, cameout of nowhere and I was so
delighted when I read that wecan talk about this.
So, rob, I can't wait for that.
And well, listener, until thenext time you hear from me or
see me, take care, be blessed.
Bye.
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