In today's episode, we have Susan Jerrell, the founder of My Copy Pro LLC and the Course Creators Copywriting Academy. 

Susan is a launch copywriter and her laser-focused mission is to help course creators, coaches, and online entrepreneurs Write copy that turns cold leads into 🔥 on fire 🔥 fans who are ready to buy without using sleazy sales tactics so that together they can make a positive impact in the world. Susan wants readers to feel good about what they are buying and her ideal clients to feel good about what and how they are selling.

We chat about:

➡️ The biggest mistake you're doing when writing your sales pages

➡️ Long vs short sales pages: what's more effective? 

➡️ How to grab your audience's attention in the first few seconds they see your sales page

➡️ The role of AI in copywriting

➡️ How to appeal to your audience through your copy

➡️ The ultimate copywriting hack

SUSAN JERRELL'S WEBSITE

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I'm doing an interview today with an individual who's going to absolutely help you with your copywriting, with your language, with your messaging, so that your product services and digital content get the attention they deserve. My guest today is copywriter, Susan Jerrell. Welcome Susan. Hello. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Oh, happy to have you here. Thanks for accepting my invitation for this interview. My pleasure. So for those of you who might not know Susan, let me tell you about her really quickly because her skills are those that you absolutely need. So you wanna make sure you know her. Susan is a launch copywriter.

The founder of My Copy Pro LLC, and the course Creator's Copywriting Academy, her laser focused mission is to help course creators, coaches, and online entrepreneurs write copy that turns cold leads into on fire fans who are ready to buy without using sleazy sales tactics so that together they can make a positive impact in the world.

Susan wants readers to feel good about what they are buying and her ideal clients to feel good about what and how they are selling. Susan, these are such valuable skills to have because nowadays with the online market, there's so many icky sales tactics involved and there's a term for that. A lot of people refer to that as

Bro marketing, you know, there's this other version of fake it till you make it type of marketing. so it's good to see that you're trying to approach this in a more honest way, coming from like an integrity point of view as opposed to faking it or pretending that you are someone that you're not yet.

Right. I think we owe it to ourselves as well as to our clients to always be honest with what we're doing, because in the end, it does not serve us. If we are trying to fake it when they purchase it, they're going to learn otherwise, and it's going to hurt your reputation in the long run. So leaning from a place of integrity is really the only kind of copywriting that I will do.

And you know, I have turned people down before who've wanted to go the hard sell, what I call icky marketing. And that's just not me.

So why don't you tell me a little bit about your mission to write copy with integrity. I know this is a big point for you. So

I believe that it's really possible for you to sell your offer without sounding salesy or feeling salesy.

Like you shouldn't feel bad about offering a service that you know is going to help someone. And if you are selling with honesty and integrity, you won't feel bad because you know for a fact that you're going to make a difference in people's lives. And I think we've seen a lot of bad marketing and that we.

Sometimes just think that's what it's going to be. And it makes us very, very cautious and makes us really doubt everything that we're told. And you know, my goal is that if we have enough people that start selling with integrity, we can start. Quacking away at that so that people actually realize that selling is all about solving a problem and that our ideal audience comes to us with a problem that needs solved and we're doing a disservice if we aren't selling to them.

But then we also are doing a disservice if we're selling to them in a sleazy way. and I think you can do both. I like to think of it like, you know, if we had a medical doctor, And he had a remedy for someone's medical problem, but then wouldn't give it to them. You know, that would be doing them a disservice.

And I think if we are honest with the way we write things and we're using integrity and we are generally providing them with service, then we can get rid of all the icky tactics because we are helping them. and it will totally shift the perspective of us as sellers, as well as, you know, our audience who are potential buyers.

So, you know, I have this. Grand idea that if we all come together as service providers and copywriters, that together we can revolutionize the marketing world. We don't have to fall for those sales tax tactics.

Oh, I so agree with you. on, on all your points, but especially one of them where you said, by not selling to our audience or doing a disservice to them if our product is what they're looking for, what they need to help them.

I've experienced personally, when I just started on my journey, I almost felt embarrassed to sell. I felt bad. I would shower my audience with all this free content like. Blog post talking about all, in my particular dish, obviously, like legal requirements and how to do this and how to do that.

And then when it came time to actually sell, I'd be like, how do I do this? How do I mention it? So that's, they, they don't think that I'm trying to sell to them, but I was trying to sell to them. It's just that my. You know, mental roadblocks. I was thinking, felting, trying to make money off of them and I'm being sleazy, you know, so I would embarrassingly mention it really quickly and then pass and I'd be like, oh, I have all this free content for you.

So I was a terrible, terrible seller, initially because I felt bad to do it. But then with time, , you come to realize that. You are a business, at the end of the day, you need to sell to exist. But obviously you can do it in a way where it doesn't feel pushy, it's not icky, it's not false advertising, you know?

Yeah. It just makes sense for your audience. Yeah. And

I think a lot of the sales, the course creators that I've worked with, they have that same roadblock. It's like we have this mental image of, you know, someone like banging us over the head with, you need to buy this, and oh, well, I'll throw this in and I'll do this.

And you know, it's only this much and you know, I think we've seen it too much and we have been on that other end, so we don't wanna come across that way. And then we go to the far extreme of like, we don't even bother. You know, we've got people waiting right now that want to buy, but we don't wanna say anything.

We're too cautious. So there's a fine middle ground

in there. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. so since we're talking about, you being a copywriter and your skills as a copywriter, why don't we kind of start in the beginning and you tell me how did you actually get started on this journey? How did you become a copywriter?

Well, this is actually my second career. I was a high school journalism and English teacher for 32 years, and I loved it, loved my students, but after 32 years in the spring of 2019, I just decided. It was time to do something else, and I was still young enough that I didn't wanna wait until I was like too exhausted to do anything else.

So I basically, I've always loved writing, that's why I majored in journalism and English, and I taught it for all those years and. I just decided, okay, I'm gonna do something that I wanna do for myself. I've always wanted to make living, doing writing, and I just kinda stumbled upon COP on copywriting and I thought, you know, that's something I can really do because I have the journalism background that made that transition super easy.

And, It let me write every single day and actually make a living from it. So since then, I started working with a marketing coup, a couple of March marketing coaches who were teaching course creators how to create their coach, but they hired me to do the copywriting side. Mm-hmm. And that's kind of just where I naturally gravitated to.

And I think part of that's that teaching background. I love teaching people and I love working with people who are teaching people. so I just kind of really focused on those co courses,coach coaches and course creators. because it allows me to do both. And then I started my own online course for that same reason.

I can teach people how to do copywriting. And I get to teach and I get to write. So,

so it's almost like a natural extension of Yes. Your, you know, first career as a coach, I mean, as a teacher,

right. It, it is and it's, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot. A whole different world because it's, I finally get to set my own schedule and eat when I want and, you know, take bathroom breaks when I want.

All those things teachers never get to do.

Absolutely and my husband's family site, we have probably six or seven teachers, like his cousins, six or seven of them are teachers from. Oh, like from grade level to high school? , it's difficult. It's definitely one of the, in my opinion, at least most important careers you can have cuz you are literally shaping fut , futures, right?

You're shaping mentalities, ways of thinking. so to me, like there's no greater profession out there. And unfortunately it is not the. Kind of profession that the world, not just this country, like the world doesn't appreciate very much. it's not viewed as something serious. It's not viewed as something important.

The pay is terrible, the hours are terrible. So, you know, hopefully it'll get better for future generations. But yeah, I do not hold out hope for that. This

great, that, that's why I stuck it out. I loved the kids, so

yeah. Yeah, one of my, , best friends, , from back in college. I'm one of the smartest people I know.

she ended up becoming a teacher. It was her calling even when, , we were going to U C L together as undergrads. , teaching was her thing. Like she would go find opportunities to tutor, to teach other people. You could tell from the very beginning this person who came into this world to be a teacher.

so, yeah, , I, I respect that so much, Susan. So let me understand this. So you went from being a, a journalist, being a teacher to a copywriter, and I, as we said, it is sort of a natural extension because you're still writing, but obviously copywriting is a little different from just writing. Right.

So were there any struggles on your journey. Were there anything like specific, any strategies, any secrets that you had to learn along the way to make you a more effective copywriter?

I think had I just had my English background, it would've been a huge difference. But I found there was the way I was taught to write through journalism and then teaching it to students for all those years, the short sentences, the talking directly to an audience, the yyou know, getting to the key core problems, all of those things mm-hmm.

Were things that I already did naturally from my journalism background. And I think for most people, if they were just going straight from what they learned in school mm-hmm. Trying to be a copywriter, it would be very, very difficult. Because that's one of the first things that I try to tell people is that, you know, people who say, well, I wasn't very good at English in school.

I'm like, that's not a problem, because what you learned in school, Didn't prepare you to write copy, it prepared you to write papers for the educational world and mm-hmm. People won't read that when they're trying to learn about something. Not exactly.

Copywriting. Exact opposite, in fact. Exactly.

So, you know, from my own background, I was fine because of having the journalism side.

there were so many carryovers, but for people in general, What they had learned in school, if they just tried to jump into copywriting. And I see it all the time when people ask me to rewrite copy that they've written that's not selling well. you know, it's because they're trying to write like they learned in school.

You know, we learned, write five sentences in a paragraph and have a topic sentence and, you know, all that's great when you're trying to impress a teacher. But when you're trying to get someone to understand what you're actually doing and how, how you can help them. They won't read five sentences in a paragraph.

You know, there are so many things that we just don't do, and we're told not to write in, first person and, and don't use the word you and, you know, forget all those rules. Apply doing copy.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I guess let's focus on your core audience. You said they are online course creators, they are coaches, entrepreneurs.

I'm assuming one of the main things that your ideal customer needs help with are their sales pages. Am I correct in that?

That is correct. That is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome because. There's a lot involved and there's a lot of steps that mm-hmm. Really need to be put in a specific order.

If you're going to get to pull your audience in and hold them on that page.

Interesting. So, , tell me, have you discovered any myths, any misconceptions about sales pages when it comes to writing copy? I think

the biggest myth, and I see it all the time in Facebook groups, but I've also had, you know, people question me and that is they think that no one reads sales pages anymore.

And, you know, they're outdated and we don't need them. And you know, I've even heard people, they'll tell me, well make it super short because no one reads it. Mm-hmm. And oh, definitely. The thing is they don't read every word on a sales page, and I don't think we should ever think that they will. But the thing is, we don't know which parts they're going to read because the part that you are interested in may not be answering the question of what I'm interested in.

So the purpose of a whole sales page and especially the long sales pages, is that number one, we don't know what our reader really wants to see. We don't know which thing we're going to say is going to land with them. Some people go straight to their frequently asked questions. They never look at another thing.

There are a few, and I mean very few who will probably read most of it, but some of them are going to want to know what the bonuses are. Others are going to skip right down and want to know what are they gonna get out of it. Some are gonna start at the beginning and try to even figure out, well, is this something that even solves the problem?

That I'm looking for. So I think that biggest myth is that nobody reads sales pages. It really needs to just be reframed. They aren't gonna read the whole thing, but if we leave sections out, we are completely eliminating people who might be interested, but you've left out the part they really need to know.

So basically if you use a long sales page, you're taking them on a journey and. Some of them are gonna want a short journey and that's why you break it down into sections so they can just skip down through the journey. But some people need a lot of time to think about it. I'm a thinker.

You know, I'm not somebody who's gonna read like three words and say, oh well I'm gonna sign up for this $600 course or this $3,000 course. I need a lot more information and I need more time to think about it. Cause I like try to think logically. So we have to keep that in mind and that's why I think that myth.

We need to just change it a little bit. They aren't gonna read every word of it, but if we don't have it all in there, we are short-changing those people who need more time and need more information.

Interesting. So what would you say is the biggest mistake when it comes to people writing their sales pages?

Without a doubt, the biggest mistake is people want to talk all about themselves. And all about their offer. And what I always say is a sales page is about three things. It's about you, your offer, and your audience. And the only thing that really matters on the sales page is your audience. Because no one wakes up in the morning and says, okay, I'm gonna go find a course today and take a course on X, Y, and Z.

They just don't never, no one ever wakes up and wants to take a course. What they do is they have a problem and they want it solved, and they're looking for solution. Mm-hmm. And if we make our sales page all about us, they don't really care who we are yet. If we make it all about our course, they don't want a course, they want a solution.

So I think the biggest mistake is that we spend way too much time talking about ourselves and our course. We forget our audience and where they're at, and we just expect them to just be excited because we have a course. And I've yet to meet anyone who's excited about. Of course they're really excited because I think if they're problem solved and once they realize, oh, this person can solve my problem, then they're ready to listen to what the course is.

But until then, it's a lot of wasted air.

Okay. So we hear this a lot in the marketing world. you know, this phrase give them. What they want or sell them what they want so that you can give them what they need. How true is this with copywriting? I think

it's very true in a lot of things. I made this mistake really early on.

sometimes you, it's better to work on others people's things because you can see it better. But I did a, a challenge last year and I knew that people weren't really identifying their audience because I work with course creators every day and I'm like, they don't really know who their audience is. And so I did this challenge, which mm-hmm.

Basically was a big flop because they didn't realize that They didn't know it. They didn't think that was something they needed. Mm-hmm. I knew they needed it, but they didn't have that need. so, I think getting to know what your audience actually wants is important because once you see what they want, they wanted to have more people signing up for their things they didn't know they needed more people.

Who were their actual audience, and they just hadn't been clear on their audience. So you can, mm-hmm. You can reword things and it does this, I mean, it's all leading to the exact same thing, but if we can show them what they want, like the possibilities of what they want their life to look like, and then we can show them how our solution will help them reach that, then third step, they see what they need and that we are what they need.

To reach what they want.

Absolutely amazing. Susan. This is opening up a lot of doors for me, like mental doors for me because as you're talking, I'm actually thinking about, you know, all the sales pages that I have written or all the sales pages that I have read for other people on courses that I bought.

And a few stand out now from my memory. And that's because they had all the elements that you are , discussing right now. The, the ones that I have forgotten were very much, self-centered, right? , I did this, I appeared in this like I was featured here. I sold this much, I made this much money. And at the end of the day, like, or at the end of that sales pitch, like, I don't care how much money you made, I don't care where you were featured, tell me how you can help me.

Like how does that, not me Exactly. Yeah. So, It's, it's very true. so we've touched on this briefly as we were discussing sales pages. You mentioned short, short sales pages, long sales pages, and you know, there's this whole debate out there, especially now because it used to be that longer sales pages where the norm.

And now we're kind of, Slowly, it seems like transitioning towards either, , short sales pages or I have even seen, seen examples where people completely forego sales pages and sent people directly to a checkout form. so why don't you, , tell me your opinion on, from a copywriting point of view, , what's more effective, a short sales page or a longer one.

And how much are we shooting ourselves in the foot by sending people directly to a checkout page.

So unless you have a super hot audience that knows you really, really well, and they've just been sitting there waiting for you to say, take my money, I would never send someone just to a sales page or to just to a sign out by now page.

most people, most of our audience, Aren't that hot. And by hot I mean they know you so well that you could sell them anything and they would buy it because they've been following you for years. They read everything you send out, they follow you on podcasts, they do everything and they, it wouldn't matter what it is.

If your name was on it, they would buy it. Most of us are not in that situation and most of the people that I work with are not in that situation. most of. The course creators that I work with are fairly new as far as selling. They have maybe one course, they've maybe sold it before. you know, I've worked with some who've sold for quite a while, but you're always bringing new people in.

It doesn't matter if you've been in the business for one year or if you've been in it for eight. You're always bringing in a cold audience and you, it's very difficult to sell to a cold audience because they don't know you well enough. They aren't convinced yet that you understand them and that you have an offer that's really gonna solve whatever problem they have.

and right now, in the economic times that we're in, people are very cautious about spending money. So, I think that in the long run it's going to serve you to have a longer sales page. Mm-hmm. Now, if it's a low ticket item, not nearly as important. Although honestly I got signed up for something like a, I don't know, a month ago it was a $5 workbook and the sales page, I read every word of it cuz I'm just a copywriting nerd.

But, it was a full fledged sales page. The same thing. A $5 item for a $5 item. And I thought that was so interesting. but he got rid of anybody's doubts. I mean, if you could get through that sales page, you're like, $5. He spent more time on this than, you know, it was crazy. Mm-hmm. But, If it's a low ticket item, I think you can get by with a short sales page.

If you're trying to get someone to pay for a webinar or a paid challenge, I think you can get by with a short sales page. Mm-hmm. I still think it's probably gonna have five or six sections. So if you're thinking like a one section sales page, those work for a freebie your lead magnet, but otherwise, People want to know too many things, especially what's in it for them.

They want to do benefits, and then if you're selling them at some point you do have to tell them what they're buying. You don't start out with that, but it's very hard to do all those things in a super short

Yeah. Sales space. Absolutely. I can see why. so another thing that I've, I'm curious about, and I'm sure our listeners are as well, when it comes to sales pages, obviously.

You know, we have all kinds of sections on a sales page. you know, starting from like the most basics such as about page, the product page, the price, the price point for the product, maybe some of the features, bonuses faqs, whatnot. So we have a lot and some have more than others, but is there one particular section that you would pick as a copywriter to be.

The most important one not to skip on or not to miss out from your particular sales page?

Well, the very first one is your very, the first section where it has the main headline and then it has the subhead, and that sounds like, well, no one would ever skip that, but I just did a copy audit today and it had a headline and a subhead, but it didn't answer that, why would I care about this?

It had the name of the program. But I didn't know what her program was, so a title told me nothing. you've got really one chance to make that first impression and get them want to read more of the page. so unless it's, unless you have a program that like everyone automatically just knows the title of and, and knows what it's about, I wouldn't even put the title in that first section.

What they really want to know is, What is it going to do for them? What are the benefits? So I usually say select three key benefits. Obviously most courses are going to have more than three. Mm-hmm. But pick the three key things that you know your audience wants. Make sure that's in that top section. If you can grab their attention with a headline that speaks directly to them and lets them know what you've got and who it's for and what it can do for them.

They're gonna keep reading. So I think that first section is very, very important, and I know you only ask for one, but I always think you need to frequently asked questions because you can get o overcome so many objections. And there are really a lot of readers who just go scrolling straight there because they know they can get all the key things shortcut.

Yes, it's, it's like, okay, I don't wanna read all this, but I'll just go see what she really thinks is important. So that's why I try to tell people it's okay to repeat some of the information somewhere that's already on the sales page in those frequently asked questions. Because those shortcut takers, they're gonna make a quick decision.

And if you leave out something super important in the frequently asked questions, You may lose them. So I think frequently asked questions. So that's basically the top and the bottom of the page I think are the most important because those are the two things people look at the most.

Absolutely. I mean, you always look at the beginning and, , at least that's how I read a book.

Least my husband always makes fun of me. That's how I read a book. That's how I watch movies or shows. I have to know for me, , but basically there's no such thing for me as ruining the plot. Like, oh, I want it to know, what happened. I wanted to be a secret. I didn't wanna find out about this from, that's not me when I'm reading a book.

I read the first page and it's to grab my attention. I need to feel like, okay, I wanna read more. Mm-hmm. If I don't, after the first couple of pages, I'll put it down, but if I still feel like I wanna read this, I turn to the back page and I read the absolute last page if I'm still intrigued. I'm buying that book or the same thing with shows.

That's a great example. Last episode, on last episode. I need to know like those two. Otherwise I'm not wasting my time watching it. I have a little bit of an addictive personality when it comes to those things, uhhuh. So if I'm putting my time into something, I'll put my entire time into it. I'll sit down and I'll binge watch a show or I'll binge, , read a book in like one sitting.

So I need to know it's worth my time to do this. Yeah So, Susan, let's talk about a fun topic, right? Ai or at least that's fun for me. Like, I love ai. Ithink with, especially with the current technology that we have that's being developed and the ones that already exist, specifically chat GPT, there's so many fun things you can use it for.

But there are a lot of people out there with all kinds of different professions, including my own. There are lots of attorneys out there who are scared of AI because they think AI will replace their jobs. I don't hold that belief. I'm actually one of those people who says, use it, but use it strategically to help you, not to replace you.

I wanna know, what's your take on ai, , and copywriting? Do you think it'll ever, ever replace human copywriters? Well,

I think only time's gonna tell that. I think right now we're going through this time where everybody's jumping on board, but they haven't taken the time to like consider the long-term repercussions or to consider what happens when everyone, if everyone's using chat g p t, everything's going to start sounding the same because it just keeps regenerating things that it pulls from the internet, so it's just going to keep repeating.

Things that are out there. I did listen to your podcast on AI and copywriting laws, and that's one thing that I find super interesting. Teaching journalism law was like one of my favorite things because I love dealing about all the copyright issues and different things, but I don't think people have thought beyond that.

What's gonna happen as far as, as the copywriting side goes, I think there's a place to use it. I think you can get ideas from it. Mm-hmm. You can get outlines of things for it. If you are creating a course and you just want, you know, or I'll say you're doing a webinar and you want four key points that you wanna talk about, and you can give it a topic, it can start giving you some ideas to start with.

I think that that serves a purpose and it can save you a lot of time. But I also think that if you don't make what they give you yours, then you have lost all authenticity. In my book, you're throwing your integrity out the window because it's not really you. And here's why I say that, is that we've already talked about people aren't out there just excited about buying courses.

They typically buy them because they learn to like you and trust you and think you can teach them well. The only way they can get to really know that is if you are vulnerable and you. Talk to them like real people. Mm-hmm. AI can't evoke emotions. They don't understand your problems. They can't build relationships.

They can't match your brand voice and I've worked with several people lately who've like tried to use chat GPT and then they look at it and then they have a mess. They have all these sales emails that just don't quite do what they need it to do. Mm-hmm. It actually has the information. But it's not going to sound like them or reach their audience.

And I've just basically had to just take 'em and just start all over and say, well, that's nice, but let's just do this. Same thing with the sales page that someone had hired me to fix. It was just like starting over because it misses out on those. Unique aspects that, you know, I copywriters spend a lot of time getting to know their client and how their voice is the brand voice and try to sound exactly like that.

AI can't do that yet, and AI can't understand the audience as well as someone who would actually go talk to the audience. Mm-hmm. So, I think there's a lot of things. you know, the cadence within a normal email sounds totally off. I wrote for a lady and I was trying to get her voice and I signed up for her emails.

Three different emails, had three completely different voices, and I just contacted her and I said, I'm having trouble figuring out how you sound because in one you sound like a southern bell. In another one you sound like you are. You know, this college professor, it's all proper grammar and you're talking so.

Non personally to them. And then I forget what the third one was, but I'm like, I don't know who you are. And she just starts laughing and she's like, well, there's AI for you. She goes, I don't know who I am either anymore.

Oh God. Yeah. No, I can't see how that might happen. , I, I use AI in my business, not for the legal side because when it came out, it was all the rage.

and I remember there were, A lot of, , social media threats and posts out there that, oh, you don't need to pay an attorney anymore to write you a contract. You can just ask chat g b t to create your terms and conditions or to write a contract for NDA or whatever. And initially I was like, oh. What happens if, you know, this writes just as well as we do.

Like, are we losing clients? Is this a thing? Is this going to happen? Are we going to become irrelevant soon because the software is gonna do our job for us? And then I wish I had recorded it because this would've been a nice, fun video to post or like do an episode on, but I sat down and I asked Chat GPT to write me five different contracts.

I gave it parameters, I gave it scenarios. So details, like I didn't just ask it to write something randomly. I actually gave it a lot of direction to write contracts for me, and it did a decent job in the way you wrote those contracts. Like the language. If a non-trained person, , non-attorney, let's say, , reads that contract, reads that output, that.

Generated. It sounds legitimate. It sounds like it was written by an actual attorney because it did use a lot of legal terminology. It had like nice headings and clauses here and there. , but I wrote my own. And then I started comparing them. Like, if I was to write this particular contract for a client, what were some things that I would put in there like to safeguard this client, you know, , what are some scenarios I would've considered when writing this contract?

And it was nothing alike. I. And not in a way where, you know, obviously different people or a computer and a person have a different writing style, but the one written by Cha g p t was so basic, so elementary that if a business owner somebody outside of just starting out and not having anything to deal with, it would be fine.

If you're absolutely just starting and you don't have a business, you don't have assets, you don't have clients, nothing to worry about. Okay. Use that. But if you're somebody who's even been in a business for a year or a little bit less, then those contracts would not have protected you against anything.

I wish I did that, a video because I actually compared and contrasted a lot of Chad G p T writings. It's not reliable. It cannot, at least in my profession, at least for now, it cannot substitute for actual human output human generated work. Because we have a brain, we have critical thinking. We have emotion that comes into play with everything that we do, whether it's copywriting or legal work or medical work, whatever it is.

I don't think that can ever completely replace a human being. But as I said, I do feel there's a time and a place for it. There's a use for it. as you suggested, we can get ideas off of it. We can ask it to generate ideas, we can ask it to rewrite things if we need to, you know, , to paraphrase things if we need to.

I use it a lot for my social media posts. Mm-hmm. obviously I give it very detailed prompts, but I'll be like, okay, I need, , come up with like top five tips for this. Let's say coaches top five tips for coaches for, , trademark infringement situations. And then obviously it gives me like quick tips.

Sometimes it repeats itself, but I take that and then I build on it. I add my own, like I make sure it sounds, it's coming from me, it's my voice, my tone. So I do think there's use for it, but I agree with you completely. I don't think it's going to, at least for the timing, it's not going to replace humans.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that people connect with other people, and it's our uniqueness that makes us mm-hmm. Stand out and appeal to our particular audience. So AI can't do that. They can't be us yet. So until they can, I think, you know, we're still gonna need to be there.

Absolutely so back to your profession, back to copywriting.

What is one piece of advice that you would give to someone who is starting out writing their copy? Where should they start or what should they do?

the first thing I would tell them to do is to throw out most of the things they learned in school. You don't wanna write formally, you don't wanna write like you're trying to please a teacher because you're not.

What you need to do is you need to write like you were writing like a friend. So I would suggest that you think about how you actually talk, not how you think you should talk, or how you think someone expects you to talk, but just if you were gonna sit down with a cup of coffee, In a coffee shop with a friend, how would you address them?

How would you talk to them? Do you use slang? Do you occasionally curse? Do you use contractions? What kind of terms do you use to talk to them? And when you start writing the way you talk, you're gonna very quickly start appealing to your specific people. and I think that's the biggest thing is that.

We've been taught almost through school. And I'll take blame as an English teacher that, you know, you have to write a certain way and it has to sound a certain way. And we get all worried about that and we think, oh, we aren't good writers, but we're all pretty good talkers. And, and for a copy writing, that's really what you need is you need to be able to have a conversation with someone.

So that would be my biggest tip is, is right, like you talk and just relax a little bit. It's okay.

So, , let's say somebody is writing their copy and they're not trained copywriters. Mm-hmm. Let's say it's a course creator or a coach or any other online entrepreneur sitting down to write their copy. What's your best productivity hack for them? How can this non-trained copywriter be as productive as they can be while writing their sales page?

I think the biggest mistake. Is that we sit down and we think we have to make it sound perfect. And even a copywriter doesn't expect the first draft to be the one they end up with. So if you spend more of your time actually gathering all the information, And it doesn't matter what format that is or if it's even in complete sentences or anything, but get to know your audience, what their key problems are, get to know how they talk.

know yourself really well and like what your values and mission are, because those need to come across if you gather all the information. First. Writing a sales page, I like to say is if you can bake a cake, you can write a sales page cuz it's kind of a recipe from beginning to end. if you have all the ingredients, but if you don't start with the ingredients, it's also like if you make a cake and you get ready to add the vanilla and you realize, oh, I don't have anything for supplement flavoring, you're gonna have a really different kind of cake.

So if you grab everything first, that's my number one hack. It's gonna save, you know, I have something called a sales team, sales page time saver, that I do first before I ever write. I find out all the information. Compile it on this one document, and then writing the sales page is the easy part.

Interesting. Okay. Thanks for that tip. So hopefully if you're at the stage where you're writing your own sales page copy, you will do, as Susan suggested, gather all the information that you need before starting out because. That will make the process a lot simpler. Susan does have a great pdf guide for you.

It's a free resource that you can download from her website. The link will be in the show notes. , the title of this free resource is Five Copywriting Secrets to Skyrocket Your Next Launch. If I were you, I would run to download this P d F guide because who doesn't want their launch to be successful?

again, I'll put the link in the show notes, so make sure to scroll down to click on the show notes so you can see the link. , as well as with, I'll put Susan's website and social media accounts on there for you as well so you can connect with her if you need her services. Speaking of Susan, what are some ways that a course creator or just an online entrepreneur in general, a coach can work with you?

What are some services that you offer for that?

I can write sales page, copy, landing page copy, whether that's for challenges or webinars or your lead magnet, any of those kinds of things and then any types of emails. So basically any type of pre-launch through launch copy, and I would say my specialty are sales pages.

Okay. And do you have some form of packages or bundles that you offer to people? Like, you know, for example, this bundle will include, I don't know, three launch emails and a sales page and whatnot. Just a hybrid.

Yeah. Actually on my, on my website there is a link. You can click on it, it'll download a PDF and it shows all the different packages.

Perfect. Perfect. So good to know there is an easy way for people to find out how to work with you Exactly. And the specific services that they need. Susan, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I have personally learned a lot from you today, and I feel like the topics that we have discussed would be incredibly beneficial to our listeners, and I'm sure they all will be walking away with.

A lot of notes and a lot of tips from today. Now, before we conclude today's interview, there is one question that I ask to every single interview at the end of that interview, and that is, , to provide one actionable tip to our listeners so that they can actually walk away from this interview, implement that tip to their businesses immediately, and see a result or some form of benefit.

What is that one thing that you can share with us today? Okay, this is

gonna be super easy. I want you to go to your landing pages or your sales page, and I want you to count the number of times you used the word you, and count the number of times you used the word I. Mm-hmm. The word. You should be used a whole lot more.

I, because you are not as important as your audience. So one quick way you can do that is just simply turn the phrase around. So if you had a phrase that says, inside my course I'll teach you how to blah, blah, blah. Just simply reword it and say, you'll discover two words, puts it on them. It's what they're going to do versus it being all about you.

The one. Teaching them but always use you more

than I Great. And a very easy tip to use. Very easy. Thank you, Susan. It was a pleasure. Once again, thank you so much for accepting my invitation to be on my podcast today.

Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.

Absolutely. Pleasure was all mine. , thank you so much for all of you listening to yet another great episode of Not So Risky Business podcast.

We will be back with you with another episode shortly. If you liked what you heard, leave me a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you. Bye-bye.