Your brand has a voice, you just may not have identified it or honed in on it yet. In today’s episode, Samantha Pollack joins us to share the value of crafting a distinct brand voice, how copywriters can help find and match your voice, and why you should integrate that voice through your messaging.
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Guest Bio:
Samantha Pollack is a Positioning Strategist & Copywriter for service providers, creatives, BIPOC women, AuDHD folks, activists, queers, weirdos, and other smart/cool people. She’s known for her ability to capture her clients’ voice—and craft messaging that makes THEIR clients feel seen, safe, and excited AF to get to work.
Sam believes the most important asset in your business is your audience’s trust, and she’s working to build a new marketing paradigm rooted in honesty, kindness, and slowing the fuck down—while making (and paying) sustainable wages.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.
Find it Quickly:
00:25 – Meet Sam Pollock: Positioning Strategist and Copywriter
01:06 – Understanding Positioning Strategy
02:51 – Crafting Ethical and Empathy-Driven Copy
04:28 – Voice and Personality in Copywriting
05:43 – Challenges of Hiring a Copywriter
08:52 – Discovering Your Brand Voice
12:06 – The Role of AI in Copywriting
21:49 – The Stress of Writing and Overcoming It
26:42 – The Art of Revision and Publishing
27:38 – Building and Evolving Business Systems
28:34 – Crafting Client Experiences
29:19 – The Importance of Editorial Passes
33:17 – Word Count and Audience Considerations
41:02 – Frameworks vs. Processes in Copywriting
43:27 – Empathy-Driven Copywriting
Connect with Lindsay
Website: cultofpersonality.co
Podcast: cultofpersonality.com/podcast
Substack: copsoapbox.substack.com
Instagram: instagram.com/cultofpersonality.co
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the business first creatives podcast guys. I am interviewing yet another copywriter today, but this copywriter is new to my world. And so I am very much looking forward to hearing what she has to say today. Sam Pollock refers to herself as a positioning strategist and copywriter.
So I can’t wait to figure out what that means. Sam, welcome to the podcast.
Sam: Thank you for having me.
Colie: It’s so lovely. I mean, you know, sometimes I get a pitch and I’m like, invite immediately, send the email. So why don’t you tell the listening audience a little bit about you and what you do in order to center the conversation that we are going to have today?
Sam: So I do refer to myself as a positioning strategist, and I guess I’ll talk about that first. So what that is, Is all of the pre work that I would normally do. If you hired me to be your copywriter, I would do a ton of research and strategizing and comparative analysis and nerdy stuff that I just absolutely love to do.
To center your brand, your offer, Your ideal client, all of the things that kind of make your business, your business to, orient it in the space, in the online space or the whatever space, but most of us are online these days. And determine the best ways to talk about it, really. And then, , based on that, we craft messaging, voice of the brand, personality, and all of the sort of ways that you show up, with your words.
online. And yeah, so when I’m working with a client, I do it in a couple of different ways. The big kahuna is just the one on one like bespoke copywriting where I’m literally writing. The things from scratch. And there’s a few smaller bite ways to enter into something with me. That’s a little more chill.
Um, I do a lot of like brand audits and editing where you could send me like your sales page and I’ll, what I call Samify it. Um, so that’s just like taking what you already have, which already has, you know, the information. That it needs to have, but it needs more punchiness or the, the information needs to be rearranged or it needs to do a better job of overcoming hesitations or whatever it needs.
I’ll, I’ll make it happen. Yeah. Oh, and I, uh, I center my work, in an ethical empathy driven way, I would say. So I’m really more focused on connecting with the reader and the potential client in a way that they truly, Feel good about. So like, if you imagine when you’re interacting with a piece of content on the internet, just like how you’re feeling when you’re reading it.
Like I was just saying before we started recording that when I went on your website for the first time, I felt like Pew, Pew, like stars and rainbows and colors and like gifts, and it was so, it was just such a fun experience to be on your website and that’s like what you want, right? Like, I don’t want to feel sold to when I land on your page necessarily, even though I.
Clearly realize that you are in business and you have service that you sell. So yeah, it’s about making people feel seen safe. and excited and not necessarily sold to giving them what they need. Yeah.
Colie: I mean, that means that my website did its job. Yay
Sam: Yeah.
Colie: Because I, I am personally not somebody who shies away from selling, but I do have an aversion to being sold to in a very hard way. Like, I don’t need you to convince me seven ways from Sunday that I need what you have, I just need you to very clearly tell me what’s in it and if it’s something that I need and I vibe with you and I think that I’m going to learn well with you or that you are going to provide me a service.
That is amazing, but also that we like our vibe check would be a plus. I mean that’s what’s going to determine whether or not I hire you. But you’ve already mentioned the words voice and personality. So I do want to kick off this conversation with those two words because this is something that you really focus on as a copywriter.
So you’ve already mentioned that my website is oozing with personality. I did actually write all of my own copy. I have hired copywriters in the past, but not to actually write my website. But
Sam: Interesting.
Colie: how do you work with someone if they have a lot of personality versus someone who isn’t like, An outwardly, I don’t even know how to phrase this because this is definitely
Sam: Someone who does it.
Colie: someone, someone who doesn’t like someone who is not all rainbows and already has a strong brand voice, like, how do you work with those two people?
Or how do you think that they should approach their own copy differently, depending on how much personality they have and how much personality they actually want to infuse into their brand.
Sam: this is such a good question. And I love that you asked it. So really the process would, would be the same. the details of the process might be different, but, it would actually be more challenging. It’s actually more challenging to come in and work with an established brand, with an established voice.
That is. Transitioning into sourcing out their copy from having been doing it all themselves. So like if you who write, writes all your own copy, your very clear idea of how you want it to sound and feel and you feel confident in doing your own writing, if you were to ever get to a point where you were gonna hire it out, it, and I’m sure maybe you’ve experienced this before, you’d have a challenge in like letting go of the reins and trusting somebody to write in your voice maybe,
Colie: You mean that’s not just my Enneagram coming out? Okay!
Sam: I feel like that maybe it is like maybe everyone in this position is the same number enneagram, but it’s something I’ve experienced before a lot takes a long time to build up the trust with someone else who’s gonna be you essentially. And I’ve done that kind of writing before, for a really like personality driven brands that was like, I’m fairly well known, but you would never know that they weren’t the one writing the copy, which is kind of my goal.
And the other, it’s hard, you don’t find that many, like, well known copywriters who are actually very good at, like, transforming themselves into this other person. It’s really like ghostwriting, almost. The tagline on the top of my website says copy that sounds like you, not me. So I feel like. A lot of the sort of hot shot big name copywriters, you can tell that they, or I can’t anyway, you could tell that they wrote it like, and I think that’s kind of what people pay for.
But I don’t want your website to sound like I wrote it. I don’t want someone to go to your website and be like, Oh, I know Sam wrote this website. I want them to feel like all Colie, right? So I’m avoiding the question, but I have a whole process for like getting into that space. So if you have, and it would be, I’ll talk soon about how to do this for yourself because I think it would be weird to just like watch your own videos of yourself talking, but that’s what I do.
If you have any video content, any audio content, I consume the shit out of that because I’m listening for like that literal, the cadence of your voice. And how it feels and the rhythm of how it feels when you’re, when you’re speaking out loud. Um, any sort of written content that you have, I make mood boards.
I’m, I’m all up in Pinterest making mood boards, which is usually the purview of designers and more visual things. But it just really, I don’t know. I like to have a visual. I like to have colors that I’m looking at. I ask people for music that they like. I ask people who their style icon is. And it’s not because like now your website is going to look like, it literally like someone just recently told me their style icon was Sharon Stone from this movie, the quick and the dead, or she’s like a bad ass, like Western cowboy hat, cigarette smoking, big long coat.
I was like, that’s cool. I get, that’s like a vibe. Right. That doesn’t mean her whole brand is now going to look like a cowgirl. It just gives me words. Like, so now I think, okay, badass. I think like coming into a room and you’re like, nobody messes with me. So I’m getting all like, well, this is a podcast for creatives.
Y’all know what I’m talking about. I can feel I’m getting out. Woo. And then I do this and then I do this. Um, but so even if you were like a quote unquote, more boring person, you still have answers to those questions. So, and, and you still have an audience, ideal client. that you’re hoping will be attracted to your words and to your work.
And they have a way that they like to be talked to. So some of that you can do by literally just asking them, you ask your own customers, like, what do you like about working with me? What do you, what do you value the most about the work that we did together like two years ago? A lot of times the answers that they give you are not quite what you would have thought they would be.
And it’s good to also do that every so often. So even once you like feel like, you know, and it’s good to just kind of like check back in, like for a long time, I was marketing myself as like a feminist copywriter or some, something along those lines, like back when everyone was kind of like making that switch.
But after I talked to a few of my clients, I realized they don’t actually care about that. They care. I mean, they don’t not care. They want to be like ethically. In the lines and making sure they’re not like using exploitive marketing tactics and all these other things. But that’s kind of just like a bonus of how I do it.
Um, it’s also just like a non negotiable value. Like if you’re a predatory asshole, can I swear on this podcast?
Colie: Oh,
Sam: Sorry. I
Colie: you asked
Sam: like, I mean, I didn’t think I need to ask, but it just, you know, just starting to drop, drop colorful language without permission. If you’re a shitty person, I don’t want to work with you anyway.
But, what my clients valued the most about me always is how good I am at like becoming them on the page. So that’s kind of what I lead with now, because I’m, I am really good at that. And it’s not as common because it is really hard thing to do.
Colie: literally, this is the question that I think everybody has in their mind, and while you have just detailed how it is that you do that as like a done for you provider, like most people, are scared to hire a copywriter because if they have a lot of personality, they’re like, how are they going to sound like me?
And if they don’t, they’re worried that because they don’t know what they should sound like, that how, how can you sound like me when I don’t even know how I should sound? And so I do feel like having that as your tagline or as your header, is It, it kind of cuts that conversation out of the needs. And I mean, of course, I’m sure you continue down the page to explain how good you are and how you are able to do these things, even though you are not them, but like, you are definitely hitting one of the pain points and one of the objections that a lot of people have when it comes to hiring a copywriter or even.
Trusting something like ChatGPT to help them write. It’s like, well, I mean, I’m going to put it in and it’s not going to sound like me, so why bother? I mean, all of these things are valid things, but it doesn’t mean that it should stop you from hiring someone and or trying.
Sam: And, or trying, yeah, and I think you’re starting to hit on, aside from the little touch on chat GPT, which is a whole other thing. Podcast that we could talk about, but, you’re starting to hit on something that I’m finding is a really big challenge for people who are working on their own, marketing copy, which is what is your voice?
So, and that’s something when I take, when I like have, I know I’m talking like done for you, but like, I do teach people how to do this and like coach people through it too but one of the first questions I asked somebody is like, what’s your brand? Like, tell me about your brand and you’d be so surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t be at how many people are like.
I don’t really know. And they’re not like beginners. They’re not like, I’m just starting out and I don’t know what that means. They’re like, I’ve been in business. I’ve just been like chasing clients and doing work and do whatever. I don’t know. Like my brand is like, I don’t have one, do have one.
It’s just sort of not, like a, it’s like a
Colie: It’s not well expressed yet. Yes,
Sam: lumpy alien that has, yeah,
Colie: I mean, I get the same thing as a systems done for you provider. So a lot of times when I ask people, like, what are your systems? And they’re like, oh, well, I don’t have any. That’s why I hired you. I’m like, yeah, no, you don’t have systems set up in HoneyBook and or Dubsado, but you have systems.
You have processes. Okay. Let’s start from the beginning. When someone reaches out to you, where are you typically talking to them? And they’re like, well, what do you mean? Okay. Instagram or your website. And they’re like, Oh, most people are on my website. But every once in a while I get one on Instagram. I’m like, okay.
Well, let’s talk about the next step. Once they contact you, what happens next? And so I, as a Done For You provider, am asking you a series of very specific questions so that you can tell me what you have not already identified as your processes, because everybody’s got them. Whether or not you’re sticking to them, whether or not they are consistent, almost everybody has a process that they go through.
Now, can I make suggestions? on ways to improve it. Absolutely. But it’s the same thing for you. Like you’re asking them questions to kind of pull their brand out. And it’s like, okay, I promise you have personality. I promise you have a brand. And maybe I am going to suggest some things to you that you haven’t thought about, or when you’re really desperate, like you said, voice of customer is amazing.
I mean, I have a whole product where I’m like, You should be asking these things on autopilot. Can we put this inside of your CRM so that you are getting that feedback at the end of working for, with every single one of your clients. But I don’t want to digress too much.
Sam: Oh, I love digressions. Um, yeah, it’s like you have to get really granular because your client is not a done for you systems person. They’re, uh, whatever they are, right? And they’re out there doing that work. And they are making do with whatever, you know, Duck tape, whatever shit they’ve got, or I’m sure it’s a spectrum.
I’m sure some people show up better. I’m not a very great systems person, but, but I’ve been through this and I know, like, I have been asked these questions that you’re asking. I have been that person. I am not anymore. So you would be proud, but I have been that person who’s like. I don’t, I have a notebook with chicken scratches in it, like, literally, but yeah, I have a similar thing.
That’s why I started asking questions like, what kind of music do you like? Like, what do you like to look at? What do you, just because it gets people out of their heads. I think people get really stressed out when they start thinking about their own, like, brand and like, what does it all mean? And, Like who is my brand and why do I even have to have a brand anyway?
And like people, people have various feelings about social media and having to show up there or not having to show up there. And, just the idea that everyone is a brand now is like, can be annoying.
Colie: Brands.
Sam: personal brand role. I roll, I know I’m like an eye rolly Gen X er and I get it. It’s all, it’s all made up that it’s dumb.
It can be. And like, this is where we’re at and we’re all doing business online. And. If you’re online at all, I just wrote an email to my list about my space and how that was my first experience in becoming a brand, even though it wasn’t like called that, that, or we didn’t think about it that that way, then I was like, really into it.
I was like, really into curating this experience. I think I’m older than you, but, but like, it was. It was like, really? It was like, I’m 46. Oh,
Colie: Oh, you’re older than me.
Sam: Hey Um, but you never know sometimes people are like 32, um
Colie: I know
Sam: And they’re like, what’s Myspace?
Colie: when they say, you know, like, like in the business world, I feel like it’s very common right now. And anytime I meet someone that’s under 30, I’m like, my God, I was in high school when you were born.
Sam: I know,
Colie: wow, . Mm-Hmm.
Sam: you know, I feel like this is a super digression, but I feel like because of my age, I have a relationship with technology that is really serving me specifically right now, because I like came of age in a pre internet world. I had to figure out how to do all these things. So I’ve like been figuring it out and like messing around with stuff. And playing around and teaching myself basically everything. So any new thing that comes up, any new, like even chat GPT is like, I’m not freaking out about it. I can see why people are, but it’s just like a tool to play with and it can be cool. And I’m actually having a lot of fun with it lately. But if you are going to use it to write your copy, I have some advice.
Just, just, I think people know if they’ve, if they’ve tried to use it, it’s like unblock your Destiny colon, it’s the same thing every time.
Colie: I mean, I feel like the thing that needs to be said about using any AI tool, whether it’s chat GPT or something like hoppy copy or just anything that’s, or even the new AI features inside of HoneyBook, because now HoneyBook has AI in there where it will
Sam: Everything does now,
Colie: Everything does, but I think the thing that everybody should keep in mind is that whatever comes out, that is always your first draft, whether or not you have a conversation with the AI in order to tweak it, to make it sound more like you, to add in the details that it didn’t know to include, or whether or not you are just using that as a first draft, and then you are just Completely rewriting it using your words on your own without going back and forth.
But there is almost nothing that AI kicks out, at least for me, that I would ever think, oh, you know what? I’m sold. Publish. Like, that’s an absolute no.
Sam: there’s certainly an art to. You I have done some research and workshops and stuff in, in learning how to teach it, like how to, how to put something out that is like closer to what you want. And there’s something to be said for that, but like, the way I use it, honestly, is like, sometimes I’m stuck.
Like, just because I do this for a living doesn’t mean I don’t like sit and stare at a blank page and like, learn. Want to throw my laptop in the river. And when I’m there, especially if I’m doing my own work, I’m like, I’ll take a break and I’ll go work on something else. But if I’m working on something for a client and there’s like a deadline and I’m like, this is so dumb, I need to deliver these emails by the end of the day, why don’t I have anything to say?
I’ll go in there and just start putting crap in and I usually get crap back, but it just gets me, I don’t know. It just stops me from being stuck. Yeah. And even though every single subject line of like, well, this all sucks, but like one in. 12 is maybe something and then I can sort of start there, but it just basically makes a blank page not be blank anymore.
And honestly, that’s the hardest part.
Colie: the blinking cursor is the curse of us all. I will say the, the last thing that I did with chat GPT, which I don’t think that I would have thought about this if I hadn’t had a few random ass conversations about AI recently, but I am in the process of taking my website and making new pages for the tools.
So in other words, I created a Dubsado page and that page now has information on my Done For You service, my self paced course, all of the tools inside the shop, as well as my freebies. And then I needed one for HoneyBook, but okay, it’s the same, like it’s almost all the same stuff except for like the links and maybe that I’m calling a HoneyBook workflow and automation versus a workflow.
So I was like struggling to go through and like rewrite the sections. And I was like, you know what, I wonder if I could make chat GPT do this for me, because it’s not even that it needed to be that different. I just needed it to not be an exact copy so that Google. knew that they were different. So I took my header and plugged it in and was like, can you give me five different ways to say this in a different way?
And it did it. And I was like, that third one’s not bad, but let me tweak these two words. And then I just plopped it up. Cause the other thing that I want everybody to think about their copy is whether or not you hire someone like Sam and you pay them a lot of money to write your copy or you DIY it, copy is not forever.
Your offers change, your brand changes. And so I think a lot of us. for almost anything in our business are really stuck on getting it perfect the first time. And there is almost nothing that is set it and forget it. Like even if you hire Sam and you change things a year down the road, you’re not going to be starting from scratch unless it’s like a brand new business with a brand new personality and like all of that.
You’re still going to be able to use the core of what she gave you.
Sam: Mm hmm.
Colie: To make the new offer or whatever it is. But I think that we’re all just too stuck in trying to be perfect the first time, instead of putting it out and letting it breathe and then modifying it as we need to.
Sam: Oh, a thousand percent. And also, I think this goes back to what we were talking about before of like people just getting really Locked up and stressed out when they sit down to write. And I, I know, I know a few different like web designers who specifically, like, will tell me how much they hate writing.
And it’s like, just, it’s a stressful experience. And it’s like, every writer knows that writing is really hard. It’s not like, it’s not like we secretly think it’s easy. We all know it’s hard. We just, I don’t know. We like it. But yeah, it’s like this, the pressure of having it have to sell something.
The personal attachment that you have to whatever this thing is that you’ve created. And so, yeah, most of the people I work with, they’re not like, they don’t have like dropshipping businesses. They have like businesses that come from their heart and their creative power and their like passion and they want to help people and they want to like make the world a safer, better place and all these things.
So it’s like a lot of pressure, to sit down and, Get all of that out on, quote, paper, quote, unquote. And have it do exactly what you want it to do, where you want it to be and where it is when you see the words that have come out of your fingertips
Colie: Mm
Sam: can be frustrating. Also, like most of the time when you’re writing your own copy, there’s some sort of time issue, like you’re launching and these emails need to really go out.
And, or you’re like, you know, the longer I procrastinate writing the sales page, then I, then no, one’s ever going to know about this offer in the first place. There’s just like a lot of. Stress. And honestly, that’s what ruins your voice. I think a lot of times, like two things I see that like prevent people from really like sitting and shouting out their voice or just powerfully be, not everyone has to have big personalities like you and me, like just sitting calmly in their chill vibes and being grounded and calming whenever somebody comes to your site.
Like, that’s the whole thing too. Any, whatever it is. People have a hard time connecting to like that special little shiny little nugget that makes you you and it’s because of just the stress of writing and then it’s also because it’s weird to see yourself through that lens and a lot of times that’s all I’m doing when I, when I have a done for you client, I’m just taking in everything that I’ve ever seen you say.
And I’m saying, you know, what is really freaking awesome that you say that I’ve never seen anyone else say before is this little thing right here and I’ve seen you mention it all over your intake form. You said this here. You said that over there. You know what? Like, that’s your fucking thing, man. Like,
why don’t I turn that into like a bad ass tagline for you and put it at the freaking top of your homepage? You know, people bury that stuff. it’s just, there’s many reasons, you know, there’s like internalized. Yeah. Capitalism and like women don’t like to think of themselves as like the powerful, whatever, like whatever reasons we have for not feeling comfortable just being like, like opening my trench coat and showing you the whole thing. two things are easy to overcome if you like, take the time to learn. And also let go of the idea that whatever the first thing is that you write has to be the last thing that you write because it just, it really shouldn’t be. You really should plan on doing multiple drafts and plan on the first one sucking.
Colie: Well, and I feel like when I write my copy, I feel like it brings me back to like my college and grad school days, particularly grad school, like, I I would come right up on a deadline and that was when I was actually motivated to do it. So I would try a few times to like, you know, get the ball rolling, but there was something about that looming deadline.
That just all of a sudden kickstarted the words and I was like, okay, and I’d write draft one and then I’d revise it and revise it and revise it over and over again until it sounded like something that I could turn into a paper to turn into my professor. Now, when you’re in college and you’re doing that, there is a finality to it.
Like you turn it in, the professor gives you a grade unless they allow you to like edit or whatever, but you get a grade. I just think anything that I’m putting on my website or any blog post that I write or. I mean, I’m ashamed to admit this, but any Instagram caption. Like sometimes I think my Instagram caption is just amazing.
And then when I go look at it, I’m like, you know what, why did I write that shit? And then I’m editing it and I’m putting it back up. And while I am not someone who is constantly changing things, I mean, I do understand the concept of letting things breathe and these things. I just don’t think that there is anything permanent in my business.
Sam: Mm
Colie: that can’t be modified when it needs to be. So if the tagline really worked and all of a sudden, three months later, I’m like, you know what? I’m not really in love with that tagline anymore. There is nothing preventing you from hitting edit on your website page, modifying that tagline and hitting save. And then it’s done.
Sam: And also, don’t do that all the time.
Colie: I mean, not constantly, but I mean that, Hey, I, I do not disagree with you, Sam. Like sometimes I’m like, Ooh, that one page, but I’m also someone. That when I start to do it, like I will revise something and then, you know, hit save and I’ll be like, no, that’s still bothering me. And so sometimes it takes me a few days like of just tweaking tiny things and then when I’ve got it.
Oh, I know that I’ve got it and I hit save and I walk away and I don’t think about it anymore. But like sometimes there’s just this thing in my brain that’s like, hey Colie, Like that’s still not there. Now it doesn’t prevent me from hitting publish though. I think that’s the difference between like me and many other people is that I don’t mind if it’s published and it’s not hitting perfectly.
Eventually I’ll get it there. It’s fine.
Sam: Yeah. I do. Yeah.
Colie: you’re a words person. I mean, I, I don’t know if I feel that way about systems, though. I mean, I also come from the belief that your systems will grow. Like, I believe in a minimally viable system, if you will. Like, if you are not sure what you want your business to do, whether it’s me helping you or you doing it by yourself, I want you to To create a system for what you need now.
And then in two months after maybe you’ve had five clients and you’re thinking to yourself, you know what? That email doesn’t quite sound like I needed it to sound, or I have this amazing client testimonial that I got. I want to throw that in there. Like, again, you shouldn’t be tweaking it on a weekly basis because you’re probably going to fuck something up in your system that’s not going to work.
But other than that, I mean, it is something that it is something that lives and breathes. And so as your business expands, you can expect your systems to expand in the same way. Just, I mean, that’s how I also think about copy, but I am definitely not a copywriter. there’s the ongoing forever editing. That’s part of it. And then that’s can be comforting and also stressful. I think it just depends on who you are. Right. But then I also think there’s something to be said for just like, all this stuff that we’re talking about makes you tight when you’re writing.
Sam: And when you’re tight, your voice is like, like, it’s not breathing. And it’s, it’s like, Um, you tend to default back to like super academic, lengthy SAT words, or you tend to like over explain. This is something I see so much people do. There’s nothing wrong with it. You should absolutely do all of the over explaining. That you have to do, but then you should go back and take most of it out. Because it’s all really good. Like the way that your mind, this is the other thing too, is like the way that your mind sort of works through information is one thing. And so if you’re writing, and this is another thing I’ll say too, we were talking about staying up all night and.
for college papers. I had a really hard time like when I started doing more like formal writing workshops and learning like going to writing conferences that weren’t necessarily about copywriting. The idea of a first draft like stressed me out because I just see it all as kind of like one big thing or also like I don’t, I don’t really just like free write and let it all hang out and then go back and edit.
I’m constantly sort of editing and writing at the same time, which. You’re not quote unquote supposed to do, but, um, if I find myself doing that and then I get, sometimes it’s just like, that’s just my process, you know, but sometimes I’m like, I should just keep moving forward because now I’m super stuck on this one stupid line.
And I’m like, now it’s been an hour. Maybe I’ll just skip, skip to the next section. Um,
Colie: in the grand scheme of things, that one sentence is probably only going to bother you. It is not going to bother anybody else that is reading your paper, your website, whatever it is.
Sam: right. So there’s like that other little internal voice that’s like tapping me on the shoulder like, hey, maybe move on. Um, this
Colie: Done is better than perfect.
Sam: Totally. That, that’s something I need to paste on my laptop and look at. But yeah, so all of the Things that you need to like get you through the night, I would say.
So Your brain is like, well, uh, so I am this kind of copywriter because I started out in the industry and it was full of broke marketers and I didn’t really like it and I was like pushing again. Then I was trying to, you’re like doing all that. And you’re like, so I landed on this and now like, that’s fine.
Right. That’s all true, but nobody cares. It, it, there’s a context in which they might care to hear about that. Maybe in a long form, like a sub stack newsletter or something, but on, uh, depends on what you’re working on, but like on the top of the sales page or about page, it’s just like, whatever idea you arrived at, at the bottom of all of that, put that at the top
Colie: And move on.
Sam: and move on.
Yeah, so it really, I think copywriting in particular benefits so much from an editorial pass. Whereas when you’re, if you have like a long form content, like I have a sub stack and I love my sub stack because my emails, I’m a wordy writer. So I like to write long emails. I like to read long emails most of the time, but I don’t like it when people tell me to.
be shorter. I see the value in that. I’m always practicing that, but I love my Substack because I can just be like, what’s up? It’s 2000 words. When you have something like that, and then you have a population of readers who are like accustomed to that existing on that platform, then you don’t maybe have to do the same kind of rigorous editing as you would do for something.
And also a Substack newsletters job is. Really just to keep people subscribed to your sub stack or to get people to subscribe to your sub stack It doesn’t have as a job. That’s as close to the money. I would say For a lot of people. I mean some people some people I guess they monetize their whole business on their sub stack But we’re not we’re not Lindy West up in here.
Not yet. Anyway, um,
Colie: one of the things that we discussed before we hit record was fewer word count, and I think it’s interesting that you’ve brought this up in the context of you. Like, don’t tell me to write. Don’t tell me to keep it short on my sub stack. I get to write as many words as I want, but. I mean, the word count is something that needs to be taken into account, depending on what the purpose of the messaging is, where it goes, because while you can write 1500 words in a blog post in no way, shape or form, I mean, you can’t even put 1500 words in an Instagram caption.
I’m being utterly ridiculous on purpose, but like you have to keep. the audience and where you’re posting in mind when you are writing this. So how is it that we can get better at saying what we need to say in fewer words so that we don’t be like, Hey, you know, I graduated in this year and I have this degree.
And then all of a sudden, 10 years later, here I am as a photographer and now a system strategist. I mean, most of you don’t need to know that. Like you just don’t.
Sam: No, no. I mean, Yeah. I mean, and then again, too, it depends. Like, is that, so it’s like a bio. That’s one thing, but, uh, we, we were talking about before is like the type of copy that say a photographer would need. Let’s say you’re at some particular photographer’s like portfolio website. You don’t need a lot of words because you are a visual.
You work in a visual medium. That’s the service you provide. Look at how beautiful my photos are. Boom. The words help evoke the vibe and no one is going to hire a stranger that they don’t know if they can trust, especially not. So maybe eight, 10 years ago. Sure. I’ll hire this guy.
Colie: portfolio was enough.
Sam: Right. But now people have, people are more savvy.
People are more scared. Money’s different, all the things. So, people need to kind of have a sense of who you are, but they don’t, again, need to know where you were born, how many pets you have.
Colie: Who cares what your favorite Starbucks drink is? That’s my favorite thing that people say now. Don’t tell me what your favorite Starbucks drink is.
Sam: Yeah. I ask questions like that on people. I have a separate questionnaire for about pages because like people just get so fricking stressed about them. They’re really hard to write, I will say. But I have a bunch of dumb questions like that. I, my, one of my favorite ones is, like what was your high school archetype, who were you in high school?
And I don’t even really do anything with it on the page. I just kind of want people to get out of their heads and like, stops being stressed out, to be, to be totally honest. But the, this is a tough question because it’s really a practice skill. Editing is really, hard to do. I think it’s so fun to do.
It’s one of my favorite things to do. It’s like cutting the block of marble to reveal the David. It’s like cleaning a really dirty room and making it all sparkly. It’s so satisfying and it is so. It’s such a breath of fresh air to like cut all the gobbledygook and come out with this like really sharp, clear message that just like, takes your breath away, um, to practice doing it.
There’s some questions that you can ask. They’re hard questions to grapple with sometimes, but one of the questions is, is this something people need to know? And if you think the answer is yes, then the next question is why? Do they need to know it? And then if you have an answer for that question, then the next question is, is this something they need to know right now?
And again, why? And you have to be pretty ruthless with yourself, because if you’re just asking yourself questions, you can just give yourself whatever answer you want. Do you have to get good at having more of a critical eye? In the writing world, we call that killing your darlings. That means you can write something that you feel really awesome about, and it just doesn’t need to be there.
You just gotta cut that shit out. You can always find somewhere else to put anything that you cut out. You can make Instagram, you know, I feel like Instagram captions and reels and stuff, they’re just like lower stakes. Like, if you have something you really like, just put it over there. I mean, not that it’s like a trash can for your, for your copy scraps, but like, you know, it’s It’s not as, is it?
Colie: No, I swear, when this episode comes out, that’s gonna be a graphic. Instagram is a trash can for your copy scraps. Haley, can you make that a graphic? Thank
Sam: boy. Oh boy. Well, I mean, you know, I’m not getting people from my Instagram who are like, hi, let me pay you 10, 000 to write my website. It’s more experimental, I guess is what I’m saying. Slash slash trashcan. But yeah, I think this is comforting is like when you have something that you don’t want to cut, just try cutting it.
In Google Docs, you can always bring it back. Try cutting it and see how it feels without it. Right. And usually when you, when you did it right, you’ll be like, Oh, this is a complete thought and I don’t actually need that other thing. And if you have a blog or if you have like some other sort of place where you put more, this is a thing I do with about pages a lot too.
And I think it would be good for like bios, photographer bios and things that need to be shorter is like, go ahead and write the whole entire thing. Then go put that in a blog post or something. But, The things that people need to know are like, why do you do this for a living? Why do you, what do you do?
What’s, what about your like approach is special or unique? Or do you have some technique that you’ve been like really obsessed with? Like, I don’t know why this just popped into my mind, but I remember a while ago when Jack White had that band, the Raconteurs. And they were using this like old tiny mic from the forties.
And he was like really into this microphone and he was obsessed with it. And it was, it’s a whole like part of this like audiophile conversation, something like that. You know, like if you have some, weird passion or like weird thing about what you do, that would be interesting to know. Or like in my bio, I talk about who I like to work with, which, which also sort of.
Speaks to who I don’t like to work with. because if you’re, if you read that and you’re like, this is liberal freak, then yeah, you wouldn’t like to hire me. but repel. Uh, yeah, but so I talk about who I like to work with. I talk about what I do for them, centering on my ability with voice, um, and positioning.
I have an F bomb in my bio. Well, I have like AF, something AF, which just looks better in writing. But if I say it a lot, I say excited as fuck or something. And I talk a little bit about my values. Like this is what I’m trying to do in the world. And that’s it. I have, I have a longer version and a shorter version, but none of them.
Oh. And it says something about like how I wrote copy for a brand that got featured on Oprah’s favorite things one
Colie: Oh, I know you put that in your, yeah. So I know Oprah.
Sam: I know Oprah. Yeah. We’re, we’re six degrees, one degree of separation from Oprah. I mean, she’s read my copy, but maybe she didn’t read it. Whoever works for
Colie: Somebody on her
Sam: does Oprah’s favorite things.
Colie: Again, I know Oprah.
Sam: Yeah. So, I mean, but yeah, that kind of thing should be in my bio because that’s dope. Yeah. So is that helpful? What I just said?
Colie: It is.
Sam: Editing is challenging.
Colie: Editing is challenging. So other than removing things and then kind of reading it and making sure that it’s, you know, good to go, what is it that you would say about like thinking about a framework versus a process? Like how are those different for like someone who’s going to DIY their copy versus someone who’s going to hire a professional?
Sam: right. So when people think of copywriting frameworks, I think what they’re usually thinking of is a template. Yeah.
Colie: Mm
Sam: when I think of a framework, it’s like, like I have a sales page framework that that’s what it’s called, but it’s, it’s really, almost like a little ebook really like it’s, it doesn’t just say put this here and like, hope that hope have fun figuring out what that is.
Put your big idea up top. Well, what’s that? I have language like, well, what is your big idea? Where does it come from? How do you know what it is? Here’s a bunch of examples. Like all of that stuff is in my framework. So to me, a framework is like, is the process, but I guess that’s, makes it confusing. So I think a lot of people think of like swipe files is something people have from copywriters where it’s like, take my emails and then you have someone else’s emails that you quote unquote swipe that you can now send to your list.
And hopefully you’re doing something to make them not sound like they were someone else’s emails. But that’s a big thing. People think of like a template, like, this, you know, your, your name goes at the top of your about page. And then after that, you put your credentials. And then after that, you put the biggest pain point.
And then after that, you put another pain point. And then after that, you put how much this pain point sucks, right? And then I’m also making fun of pain point marketing, but. Then it’s like, it’s more like fill in the blanks, like Madlibs. And a process is different from that because you’re really putting yourself.
That’s what we’ve been talking about this whole time. You’re putting yourself through this series of questions. You’re like interviewing your own self, like, okay, well, what is this? What is this offer? Who is it for? Who would best benefit from it? Well, how’s it going to benefit them? What are they going to be able to do that they aren’t able to do right now?
Or, okay, well, why is that cool? Why does that even matter? Do a lot of, so what? So what? Okay, well then they can do this. Okay, well, so what? It’s hard to write to a blank page that just has like, put your big idea up top, colon, blank space. It’s hard to write to that. But if I ask you, why do you do, why did you make this offer right now?
That’s something, that’s a question you can answer, right? That’s something you can write to. So the process is really about a series, it’s really a series of questions and a thought process that you’re putting yourself through. And also really thinking through, my process anyway, is really trying to like, not just answer questions about your ideal client, like not just intellectualizing what you think they want, but really trying to like close the psychic distance between the two of you.
So you’re like inhabiting their brain and feeling what they feel. It’s really empathy driven. And it’s like, really, really not about you. It’s really about them. I mean, that’s something people say a lot about marketing, but.
Colie: A lot.
Sam: But I think it’s really, it’s challenging. I mean, I’m constantly doing this, what I’m writing.
I’m constantly, my own copy, it’s easier to do when I’m doing it for other people. But I’m constantly like checking myself and being like, I slipped into the fact that I really care about this offer that I created. And I really want people to sign up for it. And why isn’t anyone signing up for it yet?
And I like slipped into me, right? I slipped away from you and why this is so awesome for you and like centering the reader in the experience. It’s easy thing to say. It’s hard to do. It is hard to do. And then to also just continue doing it. But you can tell if you ever try this next time you’re working on a piece of copy that you’re writing, and you just get to where it’s feeling, it’s feeling like you slipped off the track somewhere.
Like, Try bringing it back to like, you’re writing what you want them to know versus what they need to know right now. And if you can make that switch back and, and shift into talking about what they need to know right now, sometimes that gets you right back on the track.
Colie: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, I, I find that really helpful and also just like annoying just cause it’s, it’s not something like, Oh, I learned how to do that.
So now I always do that. It’s just like a constant iteration of reminding myself and checking myself and, you know, having your own business is. It’s stressful, like, and for so many different reasons and there’s a lot on your mind. It’s hard to like shut all of that off for a minute and like really channel someone else’s desires because the truth is like everyone else is out here freaking busy as hell.
They don’t really care about like what you’re doing. So they’re just bit there.
Colie: you can do for them.
Sam: They care about what you could do for them. They care about what’s for dinner tonight. They care about like Gaza. They care about whatever else you always care about all the different things you’re thinking about right now.
Or like, people probably listen to this podcast and they’re like doing dishes or going for a walk or, I don’t know, at the gym. I can’t listen to podcasts at the gym. People do. You know? I’m saying there’s a lot of, I just get too distracted. I don’t work out . Just like sit there and do nothing. Sit there and listen to a podcast at the gym.
Mm-Hmm.
Colie: I mean, Sam, we’ve talked about a lot of things, but I feel like to summarize for myself, it’s that your copy is like a living, breathing part of your business, and that we should all be working hard on making sure that we are centering it around our audience and more our ideal client versus always talking about ourselves.
And like, I mean, I think for myself, it’s, it’s kind of like, it’s a weird, it’s a weird line to walk because if I ask somebody, well, what do you know about me? They would probably say, I know that you love Disney and that you went like every month for a year. And while that’s true, and I say that a lot of places, I am also very careful to always bring it back to, do you know how I afford to go to Disney every month?
I have this business and do you know what allows me to spend hours in the park and not constantly be checking on my business, my systems and automations? So, I mean, there is a way to bring some of that, you know, about you back to your business. But you also have to tell them like, Hey, I know you might not love Disney, but what do you love doing?
Like, what can I do to help you save time in your business so that you can enjoy more of this? And now tell me what the, this is for you.
Sam: Yeah. So that’s a great summation. There’s this intersection right between what you want to be known for and what your clients most value about you. And then there’s like a middle ground there. So,
Colie: And the marriage makes it work.
Sam: whoop. Yep.
Colie: All right, Sam, if people want to learn more about you, where can they find you on the internet? Because I literally think we went through this whole conversation and we never said what the name of your business is because it is not Sam Pollock. Well,
Sam: So my website cult of personality. co. I want to say there’s a page called cult of personality. co slash podcast where it just has like all the things that has my sub stack and you can join my email list or you can see what my services are. I feel like that exists, but I, I, I’m pretty sure it does.
Colie: I, I challenge you to go type that in because that’s what I’m going to do when we stop hitting record.
Sam: go find out and let me know. Um, But even, but then on Instagram too, that’s my handle. Culture personality.co, not.com, co
Colie: co. All right, Sam. Thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. It was awesome. Everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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