TCC Podcast #422: Starting and Growing a Business with Megan Smyth

Starting and growing a copywriting business isn't easy. So when we find a writer who seems to have figured it out, it's worth taking a closer look to see what's going on. So for the 422nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I asked Megan Smyth to share more about her business and podcast and how she's gotten so many things right as she's grown. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff to check out: The Copywriter Accelerator Fast Track Megan's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  One of the things I love most about what I do at The Copywriter Club is the opportunity I have to see copywriters grow in so many different ways. They get better at writing. They build and develop amazing businesses that support the lifestyle they want—sometimes that’s something as dramatic as a full-time, six-figure business and other times it’s a part-time gig that helps pay some of the bills. And for copywriters who already have a business, it’s fun to watch them change and update the way they market themselves, create products, and find their ideal clients. Honestly, it’s a big part of why I do what I do. Hi I’m Rob Marsh and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I talked with copywriter and launch consultant, Megan Smyth. As you’ll hear during this interview, Megan is one of those copywriters who has made big changes to her business over the past couple of years. Megan’s a pre-med student turned copywriter and the business she’s created will inspire anyone who is just starting out or is ready to make a change—heck, I’m inspired by the progress she’s made. So stick around and listen to what Megan has to share about how she did it. Just a quick note… on this episode, we’ll mention The Copywriter Accelerator program that helped jump start Megan’s business and brand creation. That program is no longer available—at least in the format that Megan participated. However, we’ve taken all of the content, the 8 modules and blueprints and several bonuses and repurposed them into what we’ve called The Accelerator Fast Track. This version is designed to help you get results even faster. If, as you listen to us discuss that program, you are interested in how it might help you and your business, simply visit thecopywriterclub.com/fasttrack to learn more. And now, let’s go to our interview with Megan Smyth. Megan, welcome to the podcast. Tell us how you got started. How'd you become a copywriter, a course creator, now doing some coaching as well? You've come a long way. Megan Smyth: Yeah, doing all the things. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. It's an honor to be on this show. It's one of the very first podcasts I started listening to on this journey. So, you know, if we're talking about how I got started, very first copywriting and business podcast I ever listened to was yours. And I've learned so much from you and Kira. But yeah, so to kick it back, I did not grow up dreaming of being a copywriter. I've yet to meet anyone that even knows what that was at a young age. My plan was to be a doctor. So I studied pre-med in university, and I realized about halfway through that something was just not right. I was enjoying it, but not as much as my friends around me in the program. And I was sort of on this fast track to success. It seemed like I had it all figured out. I was in this great program. I was applying for early admission to med school and all these things. And there was just this voice in the back of my head that was like, this is not it. Something's not right. And so when all of my friends in the program were writing the MCAT over the summer, I took the summer off and I booked a one-way ticket to Thailand. And that was sort of my escape plan. Rather than tell everyone that I was having these doubts, I just left the country for three months. Just ran away from my problems, which is what you do at 19 years old. And I was just not sure what I wanted to do. I thought med school might not be it, but I wasn't sure what the other options were. And so I thought I would use this time to do some soul searching. I went to Bali. I did the whole thing. And I realized on that trip, what I really wanted to do was travel. That was a big motivator for me. I wanted the freedom to be able to work wherever I wanted to see the world and meet new people and have new experiences. And so I started looking for a career that would allow me to do that and stumbled into copywriting because I've always loved writing. And I just really fell in love with it from the beginning. I loved the sales aspect of it and the psychology aspect of understanding how people think and why they make decisions. And I started copywriting while I was still in university. And then I, you know, had a couple of clients on the side. I left my day job pretty immediately after graduating, which I don't recommend. Just don't head first into the whole thing. The same year I graduated, I was like, I'm going all in on this business. I launched a website as you do and waited for clients to just magically find me. They did not. And then in January, the next year I joined The Copywriter Accelerator and that is when things started to take off for me. Rob Marsh: So when you first launched, obviously this was before the accelerator or whatever, how did you get your first couple of clients? I mean, how did you even have the guts to say, I'm a copywriter, not knowing anything about it? Megan Smyth: Yeah, well, I didn't. That's a great question. So I applied for this job that I randomly found while browsing the web for things to do online, how to make money online. And someone had posted this job, and she was looking for actually a blog writer. And so that was how I started. And she was, at the time, yes, she was running a blog, but she was also running launches for her. She was a coach. And so slowly over time, I was watching her launch, and I had ideas and suggestions for how she could get more people in this program. And so she sort of brought me into that world of launching. And I ended up working with a seven-figure coach as my first client, just sort of out of the blue. I was 19 years old, I had no experience. And so there was a bit of luck involved, but I had the guts to apply to this job. And I basically said in my application, I have no experience, I have no qualifications, but I am willing to work so hard and I think I could do this. I think I could make a difference in your company." And she took a chance on me and to this day I'm very grateful for that. That sort of got my foot in the door and I just sort of gained experience as I went. Rob Marsh: I love that you had the guts to go for it because most of us, especially 19, 20 years old, most of us would be like, Oh, well, you know, I'm not qualified. And I think more, even more women than men, oftentimes we back up and, and aren't willing to step forward and say, well, I might not be qualified, but I'm willing to give it a go. So I love that approach. Megan Smyth: Yeah. Thank you. I was just going to say that I think a big contributing factor was, you know, I almost didn't apply for that job, but I, in the back of my head, I remembered reading the stats somewhere that, you know, men will apply for jobs if they only meet something like 40% of the qualification criteria, whereas women don't apply unless they have a hundred percent of those things checked off. And I just thought, screw that. I am not going to contribute to that. I'm going to apply. Cause the worst case scenario is they say no. And, you know, I tried to put myself out there and it worked out. Rob Marsh: Yeah, it's amazing. And it's probably should be one of the big takeaways from this episode. We're only a couple of minutes in and go for it is the lesson there. So you got into the copywriter accelerator and then you started to make some changes to your business. Talk about that and the thought process that went into deciding where you were going to focus your time, the kinds of clients you were going to serve, the kinds of services that you wanted to offer. Megan Smyth: Yeah, so by the time I joined The Copywriter Accelerator, I had been writing copy for over a year at that point, and I felt like I was getting really good at that side of things, but I still wasn't really treating it as a business. It was really hard to get out of that side hustle mindset when it had been a side hustle, you know, when I was in school, and then I had a day job working in medical research at the hospital all day, and it was hard to transition just my mindset around that. Now I suddenly had full-time hours that I could give to my business, but I had no idea what to spend that time on. And so, you know, in the accelerator, we learned all the different aspects of running a business. And that was when I started to really think through like, what is my marketing strategy going to be? How am I positioning myself? What is my branding? All of these things that sound like really basic, but you know, again, I was 20 years old and I had planned to work in the medical field. I had no idea what I was doing in business. It was all new to me. And I just, I loved it. I just kind of soaked up everything from Yunkira like a little sponge. I was like, how could I get the most possible out of this experience? Rob Marsh: Yeah. And, and then you've now you've launched a lot of stuff. So who did you ultimately decide to serve and what kinds of services did you launch with as you came out of the program? Megan Smyth: Yeah, so when I initially was in the program, we played around with niching. I was, like I mentioned, I started, my very first client was a coach and I loved working with female business coaches. And so I did a lot of work in that space, but towards the end of the accelerator and, you know,...