Freelancer Visibility Series #1

Are you tired of being the industry’s best-kept secret? You’ve got talent, you’ve got skills, but you’re stuck in VA-land doing low-paying admin work. Meanwhile others with half your ability are getting booked out (and charging way more). You don't need another tool or tactic, you need visibility and authority.

This week, I sat down with my friend and fellow visibility nerd Rob Marsh, a seasoned direct response copywriter, marketing strategist, and co-founder of The Copywriter Club, to break down his Authority Framework. Rob’s worked with big names like American Express and Pluralsight, but his real magic is helping freelancers step into their authority and start charging what they’re worth. In this episode, he shows you how to build credibility, attract high-value clients, and position yourself as an expert without needing a huge platform.

Listen to learn more about:

• How to use Rob’s Authority Framework to get visible without being everywhere at once
• Why being the “best kept secret” doesn’t get you paid and what to do instead
• How to build trust and expertise (even if you’re newer or still figuring it out)
• The secret to borrowing authority when you don’t have a big audience (yet!)
• Why waiting to “feel ready” is keeping you broke

If you’re feeling invisible, overwhelmed by marketing noise, or stuck in “I’m not ready yet” mode, this episode is your wake-up call. Rob’s practical advice and my real-talk stories will help you get unstuck, show up confidently as the expert you are, and get visible AF without burning out.

Sponsored by AI Copywriter in a Box 

Struggling to create client content fast? Stop wasting time starting from scratch. AI Copywriter in a Box helps you craft high-converting, client-ready content in minutes—emails, social posts, sales pages, and more—all in your client’s unique voice. I use it myself to skip the endless revisions and get premium content done fast. Use my affiliate link & get $50 off with the code UNICORN. You can use the AI Copywriter for up to 4 different clients. Grab yours now!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

• Watch Rob’s FREE The Authority Framework™ workshop: Become the best-known, highly paid expert in your niche. This shows you what to do—before you start posting content or building your list—so that your audience will eagerly line up to hire you when you go live.
• Listen to my episode on The Copywriter Club podcast about how writers can offer additional services and expertise to their clients
• Join The Digital Marketer’s Workgroup: Are you already doing marketing work but need more clients and a stronger referral network? Join a tight-knit community of freelancers and get access to behind-the-scenes conversations, support, and troubleshooting that every solo marketer needs. Plus, you'll benefit from advanced trainings, networking opportunities, and exclusive job leads. Apply here!

Connect with Rob:

• Instagram: @thecopywriterclub
• Facebook: The Copywriter Club
• Website: http://thecopywriterclub.com/ 

Connect with Emily:

• Facebook Community: Emily’s Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant Lab
• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr 
• Facebook: @emilyreaganpr

3 ways we can work together: 

1. Need to build your digital marketing skills and set up solid workflows so you can confidently put yourself out there for freelance work? Get on the waitlist for the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School where you'll learn in-demand marketing implementation skills to launch or grow your work-from-home business. I also share job leads directly with students, making this a true gateway to flexible, meaningful freelance work. Ready to get started sooner? You can jump into the self-study program right now.
2. Already doing marketing work and have a few clients? Want a stronger referral network? Apply for our Digital Marketer’s Workgroup—a tight-knit community of freelancers just like you. Inside, you'll get behind-the-scenes support, advanced trainings, and troubleshooting that every solo marketer needs. Plus, I’ve shared over 3,000 job opportunities with this group—exclusive leads you won’t find anywhere else. If you're ready to grow your business and connect with a supportive network, join us here!
3. Looking to hire a Digital Marketing Assistant? If you want to expand your team & grow your business, submit your job opportunity here. I'll share it with the skilled unicorn marketing assistants inside my workgroup totally free.

>>> Download my Top Ten Most Requested Digital Marketing Tasks & Services 

Rob Marsh 0:00

The best writers and the best marketers aren't always the ones that we see or that we even think, hey, I need to work with that person we see, the person who has the visibility, who's out there talking about it.

Hey, welcome back to the marketing freelancer, the podcast that helps you work smarter, market better and book out your services. Okay, if you're ready to stop being the industry's best kept secret and start attracting high value clients. This is the episode for you. So coming off our recent episode where we talked about the book playing big by Tara Moore, we talked about stepping into your power, owning your voice, and this episode and the two coming after it are the perfect follow up, because we're diving into how to build authority and visibility as a freelancer. What's really cool is, when people come into our digital marketers work group, we take a quiz, it's an assessment, and tells us which phase we're in and what we need to concentrate on. Visibility is important in all factors, but really, when you're leveling up into project rates and day rates, and you're starting to go beyond just starting your business, visibility gets even more important, and you being positioned as the expert, so that clients are begging to work with you. You hold all the power. This is also where you can charge more, like no duh. So to help us do this, I invited one of the best in the business. Pinch me, he's even here. Rob Marsh. Rob is a direct response copywriter and marketing strategist. He's written everything for from TV ads to direct mail to case studies. and he's work his client list. His client list includes major brands like American Express plural site, and today he focuses on writing high converting sales pages and landing pages for tech SAS and health supplement brands beyond his work as a writer, you probably know Rob as a co founder of the copywriter club, really excellent podcast where he normally say that copywriter Club, where he coaches freelancers, copywriters on how to stand out, get hired and charge more without constantly hustling for clients. He's my brother from another mother. He is coaching the copywriters out there while I'm coaching the marketing assistants. So today, I asked him to break down his authority framework, how freelancers like you can position yourself as an expert, even if you're new, build trust with potential clients so they stop price shopping you and get visible in the right places. You'll get visible in the right places without feeling like you have to be everywhere at once. Plus, YouTube, Rob is brilliant at helping service providers go from the best kept secret to the sought after authority, and that's exactly what we're doing today.

Plus, I'm going to share my story of how I met Rob. You're going to learn about what it takes to build authority, why you don't have to be the best to be seen? Because I know that limiting belief is in our head, how to build authority faster and most importantly, why, we need to stop waiting until we feel ready. All right, let's jump in.

Hey, Rob, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here, especially because you mentor copywriters. You know what this business is like when we're freelancing? Tell everyone Hello. What about you? How you got started? I love hearing how people started their businesses. Yeah. Well,

Speaker 1 0:34

I got started a long time ago. I mean, before the internet was really much of what it is I started, actually, my real start in copywriting. I was planning on going to law school. I had taken the LSAT I like, I scored well enough I was going to go to the school I wanted to and I thought, well, maybe I'll add a Master's of Public Administration at the same time. So the year before I was going to go to law school, I started in this master's degree, and it was the most boring thing I'd ever been like, it was so boring. I was sitting in these classes thinking, and it's not fair, because they weren't law classes, necessarily, but I just remember thinking, wow, I cannot do this. And about the same time, I met a girl at a party, and she kind of liked me and asked me to work on a freelance writing project with her. And so I was like, okay, yeah, I'll do the writing thing. The writing worked out. The girl thing didn't. And you know that I made $300 on that first project, writing an article for it's for a company. It doesn't even exist anymore. It was like a multi level marketing company, and they needed some content for their newspaper, their actual newspaper that they sent out to their members. And yeah, when I realized I could make money writing like I was off to the races. And so I've worked in house, I've worked at an agency. I've done creative director stuff. I've, you know, written TV and radio and print stuff. I did a lot, lot of direct response, mail and TV and radio, and eventually ended up working on my own as well.

Rob Marsh 2:05

So did you do any formal training? Did you just jump right in? So

Speaker 1 2:10

I didn't like have a degree in copywriting or anything like that, but I was really lucky to be paired with some senior writers at different times my career, when I was hired in house as a copywriter, I was talking with the creative director, and, you know, obviously I had no experience other than this one article that I had written, and I was thinking, I can I can write. I, you know, I got a degree in history, so I knew I could write. And I just basically said to him, Look, give me three months. If I don't deliver what you think I need to be delivering, I'll quit. You don't have to fire me. And I guess that was enough of a pitch. And he paired me with another senior writer, guy named Brent Bluth, who's now retired. I owe a ton to him and how he taught me, you know, the the basics of writing. We had a subscription to communication arts magazine, so I studied that. I had a bunch of designers who were helping, so I was mentored at that early stage, but nothing more formal than that.

Rob Marsh 3:04

Oh my gosh. That's amazing. That's amazing. So what's your favorite thing to write copy for? Like, what do you like to write today?

Speaker 1 3:10

Sales pages? I love sales pages and funnels. It's a fun problem to solve. And yeah, so if I give an opportunity to write a sales page, especially for, like, health supplements, you know, that kind of a thing. I just love it. But I also read a lot of funnels for like SaaS or for our own products in the copywriter club.

Rob Marsh 3:29

Oh, my goodness, what would you tell a copywriter who's just starting how to fast track what you just did? Well, I

Speaker 1 3:37

mean, honestly, I don't know that fast tracking is what you want to do, because I think there's a ton of value in actually learning how to write an advertorial or an actual letter that's going to land in somebody's mailbox and and see what the responses are. And so, yeah, I know a lot of people want to get to the upper levels really quickly, but I'm not sure there's the value. Is there? In fact, if you don't understand those basic things. It's way too easy to replace you these days with AI. I think it's it's learning you know how to get a response, how to write, how to understand the customer. That sets you apart from tools like ais that can almost do our jobs now,

Rob Marsh 4:16

oh my goodness, yeah. I wish I would have known about copywriting. I think I told you before we recorded, that my background was journalism, and I always had a knack for writing. I did broadcast electronic media. I was the one girl who didn't want to be in front of the camera, and I only chose that because I didn't want to do print, because I could tell it was archaic and like, I just didn't feel like you

Speaker 1 4:35

were ahead of me. I was, I was the print guy for a long time. Well, I knew I was going to

Rob Marsh 4:39

be, I'll be straight up a slave to the college newspaper. And I did not want to do that, so I avoided it at all costs, but I just didn't know copywriting was a thing. And like, Do you have any advice for someone who might be good at it, or, you know, you and I talked about this on our podcast? Like, feeling like you can compete the. You can call yourself a copywriter when you don't feel like one, or when you see people like you with all this experience like, who is going to make a good copywriter? And how do we know we're ready to call ourselves that? I'm gonna bring this up again, because I think my audience, I know my audience struggles with it.

Speaker 1 5:16

So there's a couple of different ways to answer this question, really, but if you want to be a copywriter, then you need to be writing copy, maybe even every day, right? And I'm not just talking about like, hand copying what other people are doing, but writing actual copy for your business or for clients or for friends. If you can't find a client, find a friend that you can help for free. It's really important to get those first couple of assignments done. There's, you know, a lot of times we hear this idea we shouldn't work for free. Well, you're not working for free if you're doing an assignment for a friend who can give you a testimonial. There's lots of ways to get paid money. Is only one of them. So working for a testimonial or for a case study, or for experience, like all of those things are really valuable. Now, if you've been doing that for five or six months, it's time to start charging money, you know, or even for, you know, three or four clients. Now it's time to start charging something for what you're doing, but you have to be writing. As far as, when are you ready to call yourself a copywriter? Well, if you're writing copy, you're a copywriter, obviously there you need to be doing something capably right, like you can't just be putting words on the page and nobody's responding, or nobody's reading, or you're not getting some kind of an action from them, like that is part of writing good copy. But if you're getting that, if you can change people's minds, if you can get them to take action, if you can get them to click a button to download something or to buy something, you're a copywriter,

Rob Marsh 6:38

yes. And what's the best place to get better at this. What would you suggest? Well, I would

Speaker 1 6:44

I would say the copywriter Club is a pretty good place to do it. We actually focus more on the business side of copywriting than on the actual writing side, although we do have some programs that will help people become better writers. But a lot of copywriters are pretty good at the writing part, and we're pretty bad at telling our story, at figuring out our products, our processes, how we talk about what we do, how to price what we do fairly, so that we get paid what we deserve. And those are the kinds of things that we focus on at the copywriter club.

Rob Marsh 7:13

Okay, good. That was one of the questions I was going to ask you next. So like, what a segue? What does your business look like now? Tell everyone what you do, especially if someone on my podcast hasn't met you before?

Speaker 1 7:23

Yeah, so I kind of have two businesses. One is my freelance business, where I write for clients. I do that less today than I did, say five or six years ago, when I was really, really in the trenches. But I do like to keep writing for clients, because the industry changes. You know, sometimes it's harder to get clients than other times, and it's just really good for me to keep a hand in it. So I'm currently working with a SaaS company to write some case studies about some features that they just launched and the tool that they're doing. So I do that, guess I would say on the side that used to be my main business, that's now kind of my side business, and where I focus almost all of my time is with the copywriter club. We basically have programs and coaching for copywriters who, like I said, want to get better, especially the business side. But as writers, I have a podcast as well. Have lots of different workshops and small products to help people, you know, understand some of the things that we teach, things like building your authority. And you know, how do you find clients? Or, you know, how do you write emotional copy? Right? We have products like that, and then coaching. As well as as copywriters need help building the business that they're building. I don't

Rob Marsh 8:33

know if I know the story of how, because we have similar businesses, right? Like we were both practitioners, we do the work, we do the client work, we found ourselves coaching. How did you start doing that? So

Speaker 1 8:45

as I was working my freelance business, I got an email one day from Bluehost, and the email said, Hey, there's all of these new domain names that are coming online. You know, instead of.com or.edu.net think there were like 10 initially, now there's, there's dozens, maybe even hundreds of them, and one of them was dot club, and I just had the idea. It's like, Huh? I wonder if like something copywriter club, if there's an idea that. So I just bought that URL, and it just kind of sat in my account for a little while. I was in another mastermind with a bunch of copywriters, and I thought, you know, maybe I want to launch a podcast. And the idea of the copywriter club, you know, started as a podcast, and then I partnered with my then business partner, cure hug. We ran the copywriter club, the podcast, and, you know, the programs together for about seven years. She decided to move on from the business last year, and so I've been doing it on my own since then.

Rob Marsh 9:44

So it really started as a domain, and yeah, not really a plan. I

Speaker 1 9:49

didn't, I didn't start out thinking, Hmm, I'm going to start coaching copywriters. What can I do? It actually was, there's an idea. I wonder what that could turn into. We started with the the podcast. We launched a Facebook group at the same time. We launched the podcast, and we started inviting all of the copywriters we could possibly find. We would search them out online and just say, hey, come join this group. And we started watching the conversations that were happening in the copywriter Club Facebook group. And we saw, you know, people asking a ton of questions about, like, how do you choose a niche? How do I price this product that I have? How do I find clients? And we took those questions, we put them all together, we created our first program, not really a course, it's, you know, a program that people would go through just to figure out all of those business things. And that's really where the coaching launched. Oh,

wow. It's so fascinating to know you didn't start with like, that end game. You're not like the 22 year old VA coach who's like, suddenly, you know, coaching everybody, because she could see where the money was, like, it just happened naturally, and then you created the product to fit the need

exactly the person who starts out thinking, oh, I want to be a coach. I don't have any experience. Yeah. I mean, I've got quite a bit of experience. I've worked, you know, in ad agencies. I've worked in three different in house groups. I've built a company that wasn't a copywriting business, right, a software company. Like I've, I've done the things I went got an MBA. So, like, when I help people, it's coming from a pretty broad range of experience, and not just because I took a course at, you know, a Life Coach School,

yeah. Oh my gosh, thank you for that. Okay, I'm curious because you've had all this experience. You've had all these copywriters come through. What's the number one reason that keeps somebody from not launching their business? Because I know you and I both get the starter questions like, why would someone not do it? What do they tell you?

I think it's mostly out of fear. You know, that people feel like they're not ready. There's a lot of imposter complex, even with people who have the right experience or the know how, we tend to question ourselves and say, Well, maybe I'm not ready. I need to know more about this thing. There's one more book to read, there's one more course to take, there's one more coach to work with. And so we hold back until we feel like we have the confidence to move forward. And the thing about confidence is it only comes from doing the thing that you need to get confident at, and so you have to have some kind of courage first to step out and say, Okay, I'm going to do this thing. Obviously, you don't want to brag that you can, you know, get all of these results or whatever, because you don't actually know that. But as you do the thing, you start to get the results. That builds the confidence. And so I guess if I were going to say, you know, advice to somebody who's who thinks, Well, you know, maybe I'd like to do this. Do it. Step out, go and do it. Don't wait for somebody to anoint you and say, yes, you're ready. You become ready by by stepping forward and saying, Okay, I'm gonna try this. Yes,

I just had this conversation with a an old junior high friend who her job just moved her to. She's in Omaha, and now she has to commute to Lincoln, and she just DM me out of the blue. I don't really talk to people from high school, and she's like, how did you do it? What did you do? And she's asking me all the business questions. And it's so interesting to be in that situation. And I was stepping back and thinking about it, I'm like, I'm not the best person to tell you to start a freelance business or, you know, a consulting business, but in the end, she just needed to hear that. What you just said, Just do it. You already have the skills and the specialization, and I don't know she will. We'll see what happens. Well,

it takes a certain kind, right? I mean, especially if you get a freelance, you need to have the ability to go and find clients. You know, as you're starting out, you might be lucky. I certainly was. When I first launched, you know, to really do freelance, I had a lot of contacts, because I'd been working in house and so many different areas. So I could reach out to all of my warm contacts. They knew the work that I could do, but after about a year, you know, those relationships, it's not that they dry up, because you can keep working with them, but that's not enough to sustain your business, and so you've got to start bringing in new clients, and that's where freelancing can become hard for some people, especially introverts. And there's a lot of copywriters who are very, you know, very introverted. We don't necessarily love coming out of our homes or our offices or whatever, but you have to have that ability to reach out to people and say, Hey, you have a problem, and I can help you fix that, or I can help you solve that, or I can take you from where you are now to where you want to be, and let's work together,

beautiful, because that's what we're going to talk about today, is this whole idea of building your authority online, so that a you're visible. People trust you. People come and pay your prices. They're not trying to get you know a copywriter for 20 bucks an hour. So you have a framework you're going to share with us,

right? So I have thought a lot about this, you know, because, as I've seen people in the copywriting world. In the marketing world, it struck me that the best writers and the best marketers aren't always the ones that we see or that we even think, hey, I need to work with that person. We see the person who has the visibility, who's out there talking about it. And so as I started thinking about what it takes to build authority. Authority. I put together this a little framework that helps me think about it and think through the way that these different pieces intersect and the things that I need to be doing. And so, yeah, I'm happy. I'm happy to share that with you. Well, I guess let's

start with the whole reason, like, why do we need authority anyway as a service provider?

Yeah, I think it goes back to that whole idea that I was just saying is the best copywriter isn't always the one that people hire. In fact, you can be the very best copywriter in the world, and if nobody knows about you, it does not matter. You cannot share your gift with the world. You can't change anybody's life, and you can't change your own life. You can't make money because nobody's coming to you because they've never heard of you. They don't know you know how you can help them. So it's absolutely critical that we have some kind of authority or celebrity. Some people might call call it an influencer. I think an influencer is a little bit different, you know, because an actual authority has the first piece of the framework, which is expertise, real expertise in the thing that you do. And this applies not just to copywriting, but to design, to programming, to social media, to anything that you're stepping forward and saying, hey, I can help you solve this problem. You have to have some expertise. And now, in saying that, that doesn't mean you need 10 years of expertise. It doesn't mean that you need to have, you know, 10 clients under your belt that have all delivered, you know, X results, but it does mean that you've got to be able to do this thing relatively well, so that as you continue to grow your expertise and share what you're doing, people can look and say, oh, yeah, that person understands that thing. So how

do we show expertise? Does this mean a portfolio? Does this mean case studies? Yeah,

there's lots of different ways to do it, and there's kind of a combination between these three elements that that lead us to do it. So let me push that question off just a little bit. All right. Okay, so the second element of the authority framework, after expertise, is trust. You know, it's one thing to be an expert, but you've also gotta have the trust of prospects, of your audience, of the people who you are able to serve. And trust is built in the doing, in delivering what you say. So you know, if you say, Hey, I will hit this deadline, you gotta hit the deadline. If you say, here's the estimate. You've got to hit the estimate. You know, if people are trusting you to do something, you deliver that thing. So that's that's maybe the best way to build trust. Obviously, there are other ways to, say, borrow trust. And in fact, this is something that I did as I built the copywriter club that really helped me. So I launched this podcast, the copywriter club podcast, and I invited experts in the copywriting World to Come and join me and you know, and to talk about the things that they do. Well, one of the the benefits of that is, when people see you talking to other experts about the thing that you are an expert at, they start to trust you as if you are also an experienced expert, and we launched an event and had the same kind of a thing. So, you know, I throw an event and people who never would have heard of Rob Marsh but have heard of people like Paris lampropoulous or Mike Kim or Danna malstaff or, you know, all the myriad of experts that have come onto our stage and shared their knowledge and expertise with you know, again, the people who showed up to my event, that reflects well on me. So obviously you need your expertise, but you also need to be doing things to build trust as you're growing your expertise.

Yeah, I love that. I think a lot of us are familiar with no like trust factor. But does this mean we all have to be on podcast because the introverts and some of us might be just like, cringing,

yeah. So that actually brings up part number three of the framework, which is visibility. And so do you need to be on podcast? No, you don't need to be on podcast, but you need to be somewhere. You need to be somewhere where people can find you. So, you know, there's not really a way to build authority if people can't see you. And so you can do this in so many different ways, right? Podcasting is one, and podcasting is a great way to do it. In fact, I recommend podcasting for the specific reason that podcasting is the most intimate source of media available anywhere. So think about this. We all experience, you know, advertisements, media, marketing, outside of ourselves. You know, it's on the Billboard, it's in the magazine, it's on the radio, it's on the TV, it's in the flyer that comes in the mail. It's on the screen right, like it's it's out there. But with podcasts, almost everybody listens to podcasts with headphones on, and when you hear a voice inside your head, that is a very different experience than experiencing marketing on the outside. Now I'm inside your head talking to you in the same place you do your thinking, and that is a really special place to be. Me, and so I understand a lot of people don't want to hear their own voice or whatever, but there is something in podcasting where we can connect to listeners better than any other kind of marketing. So I think people should consider that. But having said that, you can write a book, you can write blog posts, you can, you know, create videos. You can post content that doesn't have you in it at all right, like there's, you can create workshops and webinars, and, you know, there's so many ways to show up and do this thing. So it doesn't have to be podcasting, it doesn't have to be video, but it has to be something. You have to choose something.

I feel like a lot of people think they need to go out and start their own podcast, and usually I'm advising the service providers. I don't know it's a case by case situation, but it's not always the best to go out and do your own like you did, like I did, kind of blindly and naively. But I think guesting on shows is a really good place to start. My first visibility unintentionally, because I was very naive when I was really like the beginning was teaching a workshop and a membership on how to, like, comb through Google Analytics. It was the old version, and just see where your traffic's coming from. And I was just teaching creative entrepreneurs. And, I mean, my calendar blew out from that because everyone needed that kind of technical, you know, marketing help. Do you remember yours? My

first podcast was the one that I started, so my very first episode was my own podcast, yeah, and I was bad at it. I if people go back and listen to those first 10 episodes, there was actually a point where, you know, as I was listening to myself, I used to do all of the editing for the podcast, and so I would listen back three or four times, and I just like, Man, I am just not great at this. And at the time, Kira was my co host, and I realized that she was actually a really good question, asker, and so I started, I'm like, What's the difference between what she's doing and what I'm doing? And I started with a list of questions. And that was kind of my go to, is like, okay, you know, we answered that question. I'll go to my next question, Kira. Kira was listening to what the person was saying and following up with like, oh, wait, that's an interesting idea. I mean, I don't know why this was a new thing to me, like, Oh, listen to the people you're talking to. Come on, Rob. But as soon as I realized that our podcast changed, and it was less in fact, we stopped sending questions to our guests. We basically say, Hey, we're going to start with your story, and then we're just going to go wherever the conversation goes. Because I know there are some things I definitely want to ask when I have you, Emily on the show, right? I know you're expert at, you know, finding the marketing assistant thing and the unicorns and PR. Like, there are things that I know I can ask you about, but it's best if that comes out of your story and the conversation rather than, you know me just saying, Okay, now tell me about PR, okay. Now tell me about marketing assistance. Okay, tell me you know that that actually ends up being kind of a boring podcast.

Those are the worst I I've been on a few where the guests did that and it felt like it didn't really matter what I answered. They were already moving to the next thing. And I like the conversation, and I sometimes like to turn around and ask the host a question. So I'm like, Well, what did you see? What did you witness? And to me, that's just more fun. But yeah, I think a private podcast would also be a good place to start for some service too, to, like, test it out, see how it's doing, use it, you know, strategically within their funnels, and demonstrate those three, you know, expertise, build the trust what's your fourth one in the framework?

Well? So it's those three. I'm going to share my screen now because I set them up like as a Venn diagram, because there's places where they intersect, yeah. And I think it can be really helpful to look at the ways that they intersect as we think about this. So when you think about how expertise and trust intersect. That is your content. You know, if you're just listening in your your headphones, I apologize that there's a visual element to this, but if you want to see the visuals, I will share a link at the end of our interview, and you can jump in for free see the little workshop that I have that I walk through this. But where expertise and trust come together, that's your content, right? You're teaching the stuff that you know to an audience in a way that helps people to trust you again, whether that's something that you're writing, whether that's something you're teaching like you did you know, teaching about Google Analytics, whether it's some other thing. This is your content, your way of showing up. And the great thing about this is, the more you do it, the more trust you build. The intersection between trust and visibility is your audience, so they they trust you. This is where you're showing up and being in front of them so that they can see who you are, what you do. And then the intersection between expertise and visibility as your platform, and this is where you promote. So you know, whether you do this through paid ads or whether you do this through organic content, you need to be thinking, Where is my audience? I'm going to be on that platform. So you know if, if you're talking to coaches, there are a lot of coaches on Instagram. You. Probably want to be there if you are talking to marketing, let's say marketing, VPS, directors of marketing, they're all on LinkedIn. They also might be on Facebook or Instagram, but they show up on LinkedIn in that role, right? So you definitely want to be on LinkedIn. Maybe you also want to add some other thing if you are talking to content creators. And you know, maybe you want to help them with social media, right? They're on a place like Tiktok, right? So you want to be there where they are. The way that expertise, trust and visibility come together leads you to know, What content do you want to teach? Who are you teaching it to, and where are you teaching? And then what's crazy is, the more you teach, the more you have content to promote. And the more you promote, the more you engage the audience that you have. And the more you engage your audience, the more they're going to ask questions and say things that give you more ideas that turn into content for you to teach. And it kind of, you know, is this, this cycle that it just suddenly becomes really easy. So the very first time you show up to teach something, can be really hard, but by the 10th time, and you start promoting it and engaging, and then the 20th time, or the 30th time, it almost becomes a flywheel, where it's so automatic and part of what you do that it's a natural part of your business. Does that all make sense? Yeah,

it does. And I really liked what you said about the engaging part with your audience, because I'm constantly getting feedback, ideas, comments, questions that push me deeper. So I'm not even getting sick of my own content, because it just exactly follows the circle around over to the other side Exactly.

Yeah, the more you engage, the more that this reinforces itself. And again, this is all about building authority. As you do it, your authority grows and people, more people are attracted to you. They come to you for answers, for help, even just for inspiration. And a large chunk of that audience may never engage with you one on one, but they're watching what you do. They, you know, are following your advice. They're trying to implement it into their own lives. So like I said, it's it's a flywheel. Then once you get it going, it's almost hard to stop. So

where the heck do you start? If you're somebody who just graduated from UDMA school, they're hanging out in the work group. Like, I have a whole assessment where you come in in the work group and you find out your phases, and a couple of them, like, push very heavy into this type of, you know, visibility, like getting yourself out there, being seen in position as an expert. But then I think about the people in phase one, how do you plug yourself in? Yeah,

and I think you're exactly right. Depending on where you are in your career, in your knowledge base, in what you're doing, changes things a little bit. So if you are just starting out, you've got to start with expertise. You've got to grow that specialty, that one thing, and you've got to find one problem that you can solve for somebody, that somebody's it's painful enough that somebody is going to pay you to solve it for them. Right? There are all kinds of problems out there that just don't ever rise to that level of okay, it's so painful I'm going to pay money for it. I'll just tolerate that stuff. And that's not a good enough problem. So you've got to start with that one problem. Once you have that though, now it's about, okay, how do I talk about this thing that I do? If you know how to solve a problem, you probably have a process that you go through, certainly by the third or fourth time you've done it enough that you know, okay, these are the four or five steps that I need to do to to solve the problem. Now you've got a process. A process is an idea that you can talk about that's content, right? The problem that you solve is content. The solution that you deliver is content, the more that you do it for clients. Every one of those is a customer story. Or, you know, what we often tell we'll call case study, right? That's content. Anytime somebody brings you a problem and you're thinking about it or presenting ideas, that's content. If you learn a new approach for you know, maybe you hire a coach, or you go through a program and that helps you to understand maybe a better way to do the thing that's content, right? So you want to be documenting all of these things that you're doing and sharing that on the platform with your audience?

Yeah, sometimes it can be as simple as me. I'm just thinking of things I did in the past, strategically sharing the sales page I just built. I didn't write them, but I would design them, and just sharing the insight, or, like, how I took the next step a little bit behind the scenes. Is there a difference between more, like, higher authority content and just regular content? Or does it all fit into your framework?

Think a big part of the difference is how much authority you've built over time. So you know, in the copywriting world, there's a copywriter. His name's Gary bensavanga. A lot of copywriters haven't heard of him, but those that do revere him as probably the best living copywriter in the world today, he's famous for like nobody could ever beat his control. So when he would write something, if anybody else went up against him, you wouldn't beat him like he just he. Never lost. That's that's probably not entirely true. He probably lost once or twice, but his reputation is that he never lost. An incredibly smart guy. He sold his a course about his, you know, process and how he does it, you know, charged 1000s of dollars. You know, held a live event. You know, to come somebody coming from that level of authority is seen as an authority by virtue of all of the things that they've done through the career. But I will tell you, there are copywriters with two or three years of experience who are teaching pretty much the same things that Gary would teach. They don't have the same level of authority because they don't have the same experience. They haven't done it as many times, but the concepts are very similar, sometimes even the same, right? And so as far as like is there a higher level or lower level, I would say it's mostly differentiated by your own expertise and experience and what you bring to the table. With The one exception is if you have your own ideas that you start to teach. And this is where, this is where I think content becomes really different is when you have your own IP and you can talk about it in a way that is unique to you. Now, it may be the same ideas or similar ideas, but because you're talking about it in your way, in your voice, to your audience, maybe your process, the steps are a little bit different from the way that I would do it. Or you've got an idea and you express it like I just showed you my authority framework, right? Those kinds of ideas also help build authority, because those are yours, and you own them, and really, you are the only one that can talk about them, because, again, they're yours, right?

Yeah, I'm glad you separated that out, because I feel like there's a lot of pressure to show up, like Alex hermosi With 300 different reels like you know, and then everyone's copying him on the stage. Don't

do that. Alex has a big team. Don't copy Alex. And not only that, but what's crazy is Alex is playing a totally different game than you or I or most other people are playing. He is not trying to land a coaching client. Alex is looking for people where he can invest in their businesses, right? So he's giving away a ton of stuff for free because he he's in a whole other game. And when you or I look at Alex and we're saying, oh, whoa, I need to be doing what Alex is doing. Well, we're, we're not even in the same business as Alex. And I'm not talking about coaching gyms. I'm, yeah, I'm talking about, like, the investment side, and what he's really doing. It's, it's really dangerous to look at those that level and say, oh, I need to be doing that. Well, I've actually thought

about someone who is a guest on your show. Oh my gosh, Emily, don't butcher is it Heather parody? Yeah, Heather, you know, it's awesome. I Oh, my God, that was such a good episode. But I was thinking about that. And when I heard that episode and watched her reels, I thought, wow. Like, it's a whole nother level of like thought leadership to bring but we don't, you're saying we don't actually have to do that when we're starting and when we're service providers. We can, you know, I'm going to regurgitate things that are out there and show what we're doing and still show that we're an expert without having original ideas. Yeah,

exactly. Now, if you learn it from somebody, please credit them. You know, we should be giving credit. So you know, if you're talking about Eugene Schwartz's five stages of awareness, say, hey, Eugene Schwartz talked about this in his book breakthrough advertising. But you're still able to talk about those five stages and how you might apply them to a campaign or a funnel in your niche, right? Like, make that content apply to your audience in a way that's unique to you. Give gene credit for the thing that he came up with, but you're now showing people how to apply that idea in their business. That's fair game, you know? I wouldn't ever take your framework and say, you know, I came up with this, right? That's blatantly dishonest and unethical, and don't do that. But if somebody were to say, Hey, I learned this interesting authority framework where, you know Rob talked about expertise and visibility and trust and how they engage, right, give credit and then apply it to your audience like that's fair game,

and tag Rob and he'll start with you, and then build a relationship with Rob. Yeah, I've heard of some of the drama going down on Instagram right now where they take the framework and they just, like, switch out 1p for another, and we're like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't do that, and we can't blame chat GBT either. Like, it needs to be your stuff. Yeah,

it's there was, there was kind of some drama a year or two ago on Twitter where you know somebody who was teaching a writing course accused another writer, you know, of stealing their content. And you know the content was things like, teach what you know, you know stuff that it's so like baseline copywriting, stuff that you're just like, wait a second, you didn't come trademark that. Yeah. So, so, I mean, there's, obviously, there's a level of stuff that you can teach that's just kind of like it's just the information that's out there. But if you are learning something from a mentor, from a coach, or you've seen something on a video somewhere, and somebody's, you know, walked through their version of it, give credit, right? Just, it's a good way to do business.

I'm. But you brought that up. Okay, I know you're not going to like this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is there any way to build authority faster?

Well, sure. I mean, you know, the obviously, the expertise thing, you've got to bring that to the table. But the more visibility, the more you show up, the faster that's going to happen. So, you know, we were talking about, you know, whether people should start a podcast, you know, on their own. When I started my podcast for copywriters, there were two other podcasts for copywriters at the time. Today, there's dozens, right? And I would say, Okay, you probably don't need a podcast about copywriting, but, you know, your niche may need the ideas from copywriting and marketing taught to them in a way that's specific to that niche. So go ahead and start a podcast for that. But I would say, if you really want to do this faster, yeah, start showing up in more places. So get on stages and teach the thing that you that you want to teach. Get on podcasts and talk about it. You know, write the book or write the articles or the blog post, and you know, put your energy into that. You know, whether you're posting it on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever, yeah, you can do it faster if you start showing up and doing more. Most of us have the trade off is okay, but we also still have to do the work. Like visibility itself doesn't pay the the reason that we build authority is to attract the clients that we can help solve their problem, and you still got to do that,

yeah? Because what I see in our world is, you know, somebody puts their name in for a job opening, the client goes and stocks them out. They're not impressed, and Gone are the days like four years ago. I said, Oh, you don't need a website, but it's gotten competitive. The market has changed. Even the title virtual assistant has evolved. There's less education about what it is. And I see time and time again, freelancers, even in my own community, not putting the effort into those pieces which are high authority is like you need to look like you know what you're doing and demonstrate your expertise. And I think what really irks me is when I don't know. Let me pull out example. Somebody is niching into copywriting, but yet they don't have a well written website. It's like first marketing asset, like, get that done? Yeah,

I think website tends to be table stakes. I do think that there are copywriters who are able to, you know, not have a website. They do things that are very similar. So this is actually something that we're actually talking about in our membership this week. But you do need a landing place where people can come and see what it is that you do. It doesn't necessarily have to be a website hosted, you know, on Bluehost, or whatever it could be that you are directing people to a Google Doc that has the things that a website would have. It's going to help you build trust. It's going to talk about the problem you solve. Problem you solve. It's going to directly address, you know, the the problems that your clients, your prospects, have, right? So like you can do that it does. You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars or have fancy photography, but you do need a place where people can find stuff about you. There are a bunch of services, like something got me and, yeah, you know, bento, you know, where you can basically put up a real quick one page, just a bunch of links to your things or whatever. Like, you know, those services exist for a reason, and if you're just getting started. But I think the bigger thing that you were saying, beyond a website is, like, well written. I mean, if you're a copywriter, you've got to be able to write, right? There's table stakes. If you're a designer and you're going to show me a design, it better look design, right? It's got to be something better than I do. And I'm not a great designer, but if I look at it, I think, oh yeah, I could do that. Then you got a problem. Or if a client can look at it and say, Oh yeah, I can write that. I could design that. I can think like that, then you've got a problem you need to be. This is again, going back to the expertise, like you've got to have something that they don't have, that you can kind of it's your flag to plant. That

makes me think what kind of content would undermine you, and, you know, erode your authority. And obviously what you talked about like you're selling yourself as a graphic designer and everything's like a pre made Canva logo. Yeah, anything else, but I mean anything else when it, when it comes to, maybe the the content we're putting out that could undermine us, that you could think of,

obviously, anything that's unprofessional, right? So, you know, if, if you are not well spoken, that can undermine you. Now, I'm not saying you need to have perfect English, or, you know, you need to have the Queen's accent or anything like that. For instance, let's say that your personal brand, you use the F word, you swear a lot, right? You are going to turn off a significant portion of an audience with that, and you just have to be conscious about that. If that's okay with you, great. Lean into it. Another one that a lot of people I see doing this, and they do it intentionally, is alcohol in their photos and on their web pages. Now, I know most people drink, right, but there's actually a scientific study that showed that if you are on your website with a drink in your hand, that people. People perceive you, and I'm talking about an alcoholic drink, not necessarily coffee or something, but they perceive you as less capable. And that's kind of an interesting finding. Now there are a lot of people, yeah, who who do it, and if that's your brand and you want to lean into it and you're okay with it, great. Just be aware that some of the ways we show up really do impact the way people think about you. If you're working with enterprise level clients, showing up in a T shirt might not be your best bet, even if they do Casual Fridays or, you know, nobody the company wears a tie. I'm not saying you need to show up in a suit, but you ought to look like you're showing up for work, right? Or

you can take your deaf lover t shirt, exactly, jacket over it,

put a jacket over it, and now you're you've stepped up your professionalism. Yeah, but I mean, again, people know your audience and the way you show up is different than you might show up for. You know, if you're prospecting and working with a client at, say, Apple or Microsoft, you want to present in a way that's not going to turn them off. It's going to show that you are capable. And as much as we hate that looks matter, or that this stuff matters. It does matter. It still matters. And if you want to impress people and be taken serious as an authority, sometimes it helps to dress it up a little bit. Yeah,

that's total trust. And by the way, why are half the men on the dating apps right now have an alcoholic beverage in their first photo? Like, you

know, is that and, and, I mean, I'm not into the dating app thing, but I wonder how that impacts, you know, like, how you think about them is, like, Wait, is, you know, is this somebody that I want to have a relationship with? Maybe, maybe not. But again, you know, people do all kinds of crazy things on dating apps, the weird photos and cropped out partners. And, yeah, there's fish.

Yeah, no, but that's interesting stat about the on the website, like how it affects us, because we are judging, and that's why brand photos, like getting some simple headshots are just make all the difference. Okay, I keep thinking about this situation in my head. I had a friend, an online friend, who was really well known as an OBM, like clickup expert, hopefully she never listens to the show, and then suddenly, 180 starts selling herself as a copywriter, and it was just kind of like, whoa. What happened? And these people just changing their specialties. And can you talk a little bit about, I don't know what I even want to ask here, Rob like, why was that wrong? Why did I suddenly not trust her, and what should she have done instead? Because I do know I have listeners who they're still evolving. They're figuring out their services, and, no, we don't have to have it all figured out. But what, what she did just just blew my mind.

Yeah, well, that's actually a really interesting case, because people do evolve. You know, you can go from being an OBM to a copywriter. In fact, a lot of obms are writing copy as part of their jobs, right? So I think what happens in those situations is it's a positioning problem. Once we position ourselves in a specific way, you can't just, like, flip a switch, turn that off and turn on a new positioning, and bring the trust with you, right? You've built a ton of trust in this thing, and I know you're showing up for this thing. So let me use, like a non provider example. So Volvo, Volvo famously positioned as the safety car, right? They were known for their safety. You were safer in Volvo. But if Volvo were to, you know, tomorrow, and they've actually started to move away from that positioning, which, in my opinion, is a mistake, but, you know, they just, they don't hammer that like they used to. But if they suddenly showed up with, you know, an SUV and tried to act like Jeep, you know, we'll go anywhere everywhere. That's so antithetical to what they were before that we wouldn't trust them to be that thing. Now, can they move from one to the other? Of course, you can gradually. So if I'm that OBM, be like, Hey, I've been doing OBM work, but as part of my work, I've found that I love writing copy, and I've helped, you know, my 10 clients create these sales pages or these email campaigns, and so I'm going to be leaning more into that. If I can help you with copy, let me know, right? Like there's step number one, where you're leveraging the old position to start moving into a new position, right? And then after a while, people are seeing you showing up, talking about email or sales pages, you shift maybe more into that copywriting identity, and you can bring the trust with you that way. So it's really just thinking through like, rather than an abrupt shift, you know, oh, I was this, and now I'm that it's more I I've been doing this, and I like this part of it, and I'm going to lean more into that, and it's going to get us to this next thing. I

like that because you're leaning into what you did in the past and still showing your expertise. And you think about it, that's how I even started my freelance business. I knew you would have a smart answer, by the way, but like, leaning into the thing I already did well, and then, like adding more on and adding more on, and then next thing, you know, I can't remember the last time I wrote a press release and got paid.

Yeah. I mean, it's it. It's all about your existing audience. You know, if, if an audience trusts you to do a thing, you need to explain to them. You know, the shift, if you don't have an audience, then it doesn't matter. Change from the thing that you are to the thing you want to be. Nobody knows what you were before, right? And that's where we go back to the whole idea of expertise and trust and visibility, like they work together, and if you didn't have that visibility, then it's a lot easier to shift your expertise. If you've got the visibility you need to help move your audience with you. Okay,

speaking of this, I have to ask if you were starting over with your audience as a service provider, what are the first things you would do, a

couple of things. So I would look for a group or two that I could join to be a voice in, you know, where I can again, start to build my expertise become trusted by those people who are in the group. That might be a paid group. Might mean hiring, you know, a mentor and being some paid coaching. It might be, you know, joining a group on Facebook or something like that, but to show up there as an expert. Number two, I would create an offer that would appeal to whoever my audience is, and that would also affect what groups I would want to join. So I would have some kind of an offer so that I could build an email list. Email absolutely critical. It's the one medium you can own. You can talk to directly. You know what I said about intimacy of podcasts, emails, intimate number two, because you can talk to somebody one on one, as opposed to broadcast everything, right? And so I'd have some kind of an offer, which means that I would need to identify a problem that I could solve that's sufficiently painful that I could charge money for it at some point and have that offer, and then I would start talking about that offer and how I solve that problem in these groups that I joined, so that people can start to see that number three, I would start to pitch podcasts, because I want to use other people's audiences. If I don't have my own audience, then I need to find people who have an audience that I can reach out to. And so especially, I would be looking for podcasts in my niche, not necessarily, you know, so I'm a copywriter, I would not necessarily be pitching copywriting podcasts because my customers don't listen to those copywriters listen to those and so I would, you know, if I'm going to be writing copy in the SaaS space, I'm going to start pitching podcasts that talk about SaaS marketing or business problems that SaaS owners, developers, founders, have, and talk about again, my offer, how I solve that problem. That's what I do. So start to cultivate my own expertise, create my own list, and then start borrowing other people's audiences.

I love that I love that I have a client I'm working with right now, and he's starting as the new kid on the block. I'm like thinking about how in your framework, or what are we already doing in your framework to boost his authority, because no one knows who he was. He was kind of a silent partner in this other business. And one thing we're doing for the trust is doing a state of the union with the other top people in his industry to talk about what's going on. And it's just like a live. It's just a live. We just don't call it like a Facebook live anymore. It'll be more put together, but immediately putting him in that top tier. Yep,

he started the borrowed authority, right? He's showing up with other trusted authorities. Yeah, that's fantastic.

Yeah. And what else are we doing? The email list is going and then I was going to say, like, podcasting, that's exactly what I did. I started pitching him last week for different shows. In his niche, we got a yes to a baby one. Like in his niche, it has like 50 reviews. And I'm like, It's go time. Like, this is all we need is just to start leveraging these appearances as well, and so it's fun. This is the work. It's fun for me because, like, I get to do this behind the scenes, but it's also fun to teach freelancers how to do this for themselves, like we can do it we have these skills. And your framework was awesome for kind of reminding us where we need to fit it and why we need to kind of be working on all of that at the same time, why it's so important not to just hide behind our keyboard and expect clients to fall in our lap.

Yep, yep, that's exactly right, you know. And I guess the next step for your client will be, you know, getting them on stages, right, you know, and having them show up at industry events or conferences. There are so many local type events that need speakers, even, you know, just to fill in for 20 minutes or whatever. There's just so many opportunities. And, you know, log on to, you know, whatever your event center, your convention space is in your town, and see what's coming, and see if you can't reach out to, you know, some of those event holders. There's just so many ways to do this.

I just joined my chamber. Finally, I've been a military spouse and never had any roots, so I finally joined Richmond, and my goal would be to teach a workshop just here in my own community, get those jitters out. I have done it before, but not really in my hometown, and I would say every freelancer, every service provider, should be doing that too, and you can rent out space in the library. You can do an event, right? Yeah, you can do a meetup, and you can start doing this, yeah, and if you do

that, obviously, you have somebody come with a camera. It doesn't even necessarily need to be professional, but you've got photos of you on stage. Have them, maybe video it now you've got a presentation that you can share as a lead magnet, or to, you know, send out to potential clients. You know, this is, you know, how I think about my process, like, there's so many ways to use this content once you start to create it, and it's just a matter of of being smart about capturing this stuff as we, you know, start to engage our audience, grow our platform. You're

a genius for saying that. I know my friend Brenda McGowan did that. She spoke at something local, and they recorded it. So now she has a recording, no, no master plan. But then next thing you know, Mike, you know, Stelzner, is like, Hey, let me listen to your talk. Let me vet you by what we already have. And like, Thank God, she had something, you know. And then that opened the door, opened the door, and now she's at social media, marketing, and marketing

is amazing. Yeah,

I'm gonna be her roomie nice. I'm gonna be the B roll girl. Rob

nice, yeah, well, there's, there's some coattails worth tagging along. Yeah,

yeah, no. I mean it'll be fun. Okay, so you have this authority framework for us at the copywriter club.com/authority, thank you for sharing that. I think it'll give us all the focus on what we need to do when promoting ourselves, talking about ourselves, because that's really hard. What's really fun is I inadvertently scheduled two public speaking coaches to come on my podcast right after you. So like, we'll just like, ride that wave into perfect how to speak. So okay, Rob, where's the best way to connect with you? So if

you want to connect with me directly, you know I'm on LinkedIn at I think that Rob Marsh or the ROB Marsh, but really listen to my podcast, copywriter club podcast, not just for me, but like I really do, bring on some amazing guests. Emily, you have been one of them, or will be one of them, depending on when we go live here. But there's so many smart things to do if you want to be a copywriter, a content writer or a freelancer of any kind, listen to that podcast. There are different ways to jump onto my list at the copywriter club.com and of course, you can always join our free Facebook group on Facebook. Just search for the copywriter club, and

I'm going to plug your podcast. You give really tactical how to so you know, teaching hooks, teaching copy. And I think any marketer should be listening. And I love those podcasts that that actually teach. So thank you. Thank you for bringing on good guests. I really do love it.

Yeah. I mean, the credit really does go to the guests. It makes all the difference. If it was just me, maybe. But yeah, the guests are awesome. Well,

that's because you were smart and started your podcast first. Okay, do you have any parting words of encouragement for a freelancer right now, just in the trenches, doing the work, wondering where their next client is coming from? Well,

I think when we're talking about authority, one of the big hang ups is, okay, I'm not ready. You know, we mentioned this a little bit earlier, and I would just say, just start. Just start with where you're at. Talk about the thing that you're doing today, if you didn't do something today. Talk about the thing that you just read today that applies to, you know, talk about what you're learning. Talk about the kinds of things you want to do. Talk about the kinds of problems that you want to solve, right? Like, just start, you know, whether it's one post a week or, you know, if you can't even manage that, you know, one post a month, but start. Don't wait to be chosen. Don't wait until you feel ready. You never will get there. You just have to start and the readiness will come. Oh

my gosh. I love that. Thanks so much, Rob, yeah, thank you.

If you like this episode, go DM Rob. Send him a donut emoji. Don't ask questions, just do it. He has a donut habit, okay? And tell him you enjoyed it. Expand your network. Reach out to him and thank him. Check out his podcast, the copywriter club. At the copywriter club, really good podcast, lots of marketing tactics over there, and you can also join his Facebook group, the copywriter club. Just search for it on Facebook. This is where you can network with other copywriters. Hint, a lot of service providers turn around and hire virtual assistants and marketing assistance. And this Facebook group has 15,000 people in there. A lot of our friends, a lot of the guests from our show. You should be in it all right. In the next episode, we're going to dive more into visibility when it comes to speaking. So I'll See you next Week.