Marketing Powerups

Marketing Powerups Trailer Bonus Episode 34 Season 1

Sarah Stockdale's 3 Copywriting Exercises to Write Copy That Sells

00:00
Sarah Stockdale, Founder of Growclass, shares 3 copywriting exercises to write copy that sells. Download the free powerups cheatsheet: https://marketingpowerups.com/034

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🎉 About Sarah Stockdale
Sarah Stockdale is the founder of Growclass, an online growth training program and community for marketers. 
Sarah has spent her career growing early-stage technology companies — focused on digital marketing, scrappy growth strategies, data, and retention. Sarah was one of the early hires at the Canadian Fintech giant, Wave, which H&R Block acquired in one of the largest Canadian exits of all time. She then led growth teams at Tilt, growing the Canadian business from scratch, launching in 8 countries, and building what is still the largest-ever international college ambassador program. Tilt was acquired by Airbnb in 2017.

🕰️ Timestamps
  • [00:00:00] Improving Sales by Connecting Customers to Solutions
  • [00:00:54] Understanding the True Nature of Selling
  • [00:03:33] Using the 'We' Exercise for Better Marketing Copy
  • [00:09:06] Understanding Audience and Tapping into Emotions: A Discussion with Sarah Stockdale
  • [00:16:10] Transformative Marketing: Putting the Customer in the Protagonist's Role
  • [00:18:10] 42 Agency - My Number One Recommended Growth Agency
  • [00:18:56]  Ahrefs Free Webmaster Tools
  • [00:19:10] Effective Copywriting: The Power of Authenticity and Values Alignment in Marketing
  • [00:26:55] Powering up your career with meaningful relationships: Sarah Stockdale's journey in Marketing and Tech
  • [00:31:32] The Superpowers of Being a Marketer with Sarah Stockdale
  • [00:37:17] Building an audience as a parachute in the economy: A discussion with Sarah Stockdale
  • [00:39:44] Ramli John invites listeners to subscribe to the Marketing Powerups newsletter, podcast and YouTube channel
✨ Useful links

What is Marketing Powerups?

Marketing Powerups is a show for marketers looking to boost their marketing and career to the next level. Ramli John interviews world-class marketers to uncover the secrets, strategies, and frameworks behind their wins. In each episode, guests reveal three things: (1) a marketing power-up, (2) a real-world example of that in action, and (3) a power-up that’s helped them take their career to the next level. Marketing Powerups will help marketers step up their game, level up their careers, and become the best they can be.

When people think about sales, they think about that sleazy car salesperson trying to

sell you something you don't want. Now, Sarah Stockdale,

CEO of Grow Class, disagrees with this. When we talk about growth,

people are talking about hacks or they're talking about, you know,

how to dupe someone or persuade someone into doing something. And when

I think about sales, it's really just doing your job so that you are

connecting folks to a solution that's going to solve a problem that they have and

being really great at empathizing with those customers and articulating

that problem so they can see themselves in the solution. In this Marketing Pops

episode, you learn first, two exercises to help you improve your website copy.

Second, an example of a company that has done such a great job with

the website copy. Third, the power of storytelling and creating

an enemy and building that up against your customer and helping them

win that. And number four, why building a personal audience is

a must for marketers. Now, before we get started, I've created a

free Power Up cheat sheet that you can download and apply. Sarah's three tips

to write copy that sells. You can find that marketing powerups.com or in

the show notes and description below. Are you ready?

Let's go. Marketing powerups ready.

Go. Here's your

host, Rambly John.

We're going to be talking about writing copy. That sales

that really sells. You'll have this definition

of sales that I really love. You had this presentation that

I'll link in the description in show Notes. When people think

about sales, they typically think of sleazy salespeople,

but that is a misconception according to you. I'm curious,

what is selling to you? Yeah, I think so.

A lot of the time when we talk about growth, people are talking about hacks

or they're talking about how to dupe someone or persuade

someone into doing something. And when I think about sales, it's really just

doing your job so that you are connecting folks

to a solution that's going to solve a problem that they have and being really

great at empathizing with those customers and

articulating that problem so they can see themselves in the solution.

So really when you're selling, you're just connecting those two things together. You're connecting

the people who need help with the help that they

need. And that's such a good definition where sales

is about helping, like you're helping them solve a problem essentially

is what you're talking about. Yeah, I think people think about sales as extractive,

right? I'm taking money from someone, I'm taking something away

from them and I like to think of it as additive. I'm providing

a service, I'm providing value, I'm doing something

in service of this person. And if you're selling something terrible,

then yeah, it's going to feel sketchy. But I

don't want to work for companies, I don't want to mentor and

train marketers that are going to go and sell things that aren't adding real

value to their customers. That's such

a great frame shift where it's more

of an additive experience and really trying to understand the

person's problems and how your product can help solve

that specific problem is what you're really getting at.

And that's where the copy that you talked about that self

really comes in. It's really about understanding what the problem is.

I'm not going to what

is that? Really share it too much.

I'll let you share it on its own. But the first one is really about

making people feel seen. And you have this really great exercise.

I love it so much. I don't want to spoil it. It's called the we

exercise. What is this we exercise that you

mentioned in this presentation? Yeah. So it's a super

simple two minute thing that any marketer

or brand can do to just gut check whether or not

your marketing is in communication, is in conversation

with your customer. So what I want you to do is open up a Google

Doc, blank Google Doc copy and paste all of the

copy from your homepage, from your recent sales email, from your

ad campaign, whatever it is that you're working on. Paste that into the Google Doc,

then control find for the words we, us or our.

And highlight every time you talk about yourself or you're

talking in the third person. Because when

someone is arriving at your homepage or when someone is reading your

sales email, they are having a one to one experience.

You are talking to one person. They are sitting alone at their laptop or

they're sitting on the subway looking at their phone. They're not in a

collective and they expect to be spoken

to, not spoken about. And so what

you're going to do with all of these sentences where you've

got we us an hour is you're just going to highlight

those and you're going to change that to second person narration. You're going

to change that to you copy. So you are speaking directly

to your customer. This is your pain, this is

what you are going through. This is what you are experiencing.

And once you make that very honestly,

easy, simple, quick shift, folks are going

to start feeling like you are speaking directly to them.

You're speaking about their problems. And your copy is going to resonate so

much more with folks. It's going to feel less like a company talking

about me and more like a person talking to me.

And it's really like driving home that point that when you use

the you second person version of

that, it makes people feel you're talking about it. It makes people

feel seen. It makes people feel like that

company that brand gets me, gets my power bomb.

Exactly what you're saying here. And I think there's hesitation sometimes

around speaking directly to one person because brands

are like, well, we have these three user demographics that we're going

after. And so we're kind of trying to speak to all of them.

We're speaking in third person narration about ourselves and our features because we

don't want to alienate anyone by speaking directly about a specific problem

set. And if

you're speaking to three people, you end up speaking to no one. So you really

have to choose. And I'm saying that to myself. It's really, really hard

when you are trying to sell something to choose a person and write just

to that person. But I

have a couple of folks from the grow class community that like,

maya, hey, Maya, if you're watching this, I write to

you all the time because that's

the core person that we want to be solving problems for. And what

you just said there is interesting because I'm guessing Maya

is a real person, right. And you're

imagining yourself talking to a real person versus this

made up persona or this thing that you

have created of your ideal buyer

versus if you can hear them talk

and actually see them, maybe you've already chatted with them in

the past. That makes it more real rather than this made up thing,

is what I just got from what you said there.

Yeah. User personas are only useful

if they are tied to reality. Like, if they are tied to

a real human experience of an actual customer who you

intend to target into the future and who has had a delightful

experience with your product. Like, this is a person you have solved a problem for

and you know there's more of them out there. You know that there is

enough of a market of people resembling the

real person that you've had real conversations with and that you actually

understand. Sure. You can absolutely build a buying persona

around that. The buying personas that fail are the ones that are just like

mark is between the ages of 22 and 35.

He works in finance downtown and takes the subway to work. Mark has

1.2 children. Mark doesn't exist.

Mark's not real. Mark doesn't give a shit. So we

need real humans to have real conversations

with. That's so good. And it really drives home the point that

it's important for us marketers to sometimes

there's this wall between marketers and

then the customers. And then having that maybe a

few conversations make it more real because there's

that human connection. Like you've seen, you chatted

with Maya, you've chatted with that buyer, and it makes it more

real. Rather than mark with 1.2.

How do you even get the .2 kids there? I worked with

the bank when I was consulting that one of their personas

had 2.5 children.

2.5.5. Couldn't just

choose. Couldn't just choose. We took the average.

So good. This whole discussion about having that

you statement, I feel like that drives the second tip that you

provided around really tapping into people's emotion.

You're so good at exercises because this is the one that you have around

customer storytelling exercise what is

that and how does that tie back to tapping into

the people's emotions? Yeah, I would say some

marketers find these exercises really challenging.

When you say, I want you to shift into second person narration and

speak directly to the pain and the story of a

specific customer, it's hard to conjure that image in

their head if they haven't done this kind of work. So what I

always ask people to answer is, like, if your customer,

if the person that you're trying to talk to in your marketing woke up at

03:00 A.m. Thinking about something to do with the pain

that you're trying to solve, what is that anxiety,

what is that voice in their head telling them? And so

what that forces you to do is this kind of extreme empathy

with your customer. So not only why do they use my

product, what might they be doing when they use my product,

but what is the

moment of fear or pain or anxiety that they are having

in their most vulnerable moment that you are

set up to help solve for them? And then what is

the context that they're in when they're seeking for this, seeking the

solution? What emotions are they feeling? What are they

hoping their life looks like after a lot of the time,

we are talking about features

and demonstrating

the capabilities of a product, when really all that person

wants to know is, is my life going to be a little bit better after

this? Is this annoying thing going to go away? Are you going to help me

pull this sliver out of my toe? And so you really need to

know what that sliver is and what it feels like to have it so

that you can articulate what that solution is going to be like for that person.

It ties back to a LinkedIn post you wrote

around knowing that Customer's Dragon.

It is so good because it brings up ideas of

King Arthur and Shrek and the dragon.

Shrek, I love, like, really knowing your customer's dragon.

And this storytelling exercise you're talking about is like, what is,

I guess, the biggest dragon that they have at this moment that keeps them

up at night is really what you're talking about there?

Yeah. And to be honest, that conflict doesn't have to be.

When I say dragon, I think people think, like, it has to be this big,

ridiculous pain. And then someone's like, I'm selling hair extensions. Like,

what pain? What pain are you talking about? So what you

have to do is get into the moment of tension where that

person is looking for a solution to a problem.

And maybe that problem is just like, my ponytail looks thin and

I want it to look great. And that's going to enable this

confidence for me to go to this wedding next weekend that my ex boyfriend's going

to be at and I'm going to feel great. And so that's enough

tension that you can dig in and find a story and tell a story to

that person that's going to resonate with their current where

they're at and teach them about what that transformation could look like for

them. What you just said there, about the hair

extension feeling that confidence and

making me look I'm not sure that confidence

builder is so important. I think people, especially in B two B,

there's often this hesitation to

my buyer is logical. They go through this.

Buyer is logical. Everyone is emotional. No buyer is logical,

I promise you. I know people want to seem emotional.

They can think of themselves as emotional, and that's something that you should know as

a marketer. But no one is buying from a place of logic.

Everyone is buying from a place of feeling and emotion. That's so

true. I was going to ask you a follow up to

that. What would you say to somebody who says that my bias logical?

You're saying that people also have the emotion.

People in B two B, when they buy together as

a group with stakeholders, there's also that emotional part

of like, I don't want to look like a fool,

my boss. Yes. The fear

of looking silly or the fear of being perceived as

less intelligent or less successful than someone is a real

thing that we have to think about. Especially in b two B. SaaS the

other thing is too people aren't like when you are

working at a company in a B two B scenario where you might be buying

software. Maybe you are thinking big

picture. Maybe you are thinking about the impact of this software on every single team

member and how it's going to integrate into your work. Sure, maybe you're thinking about

those things. You're probably thinking about your bonus.

You're probably thinking about your promotion. You're probably thinking

about what are the three things that my boss told me I have to do

so that I can get into the next salary band? So B two B

marketers need to understand what those motivations are. They need to understand

the person who is pulling out the credit card and making this purchase.

What are they being measured on? How are you going

to help them look good? How are you going to stroke their ego?

How are you going to make them appear smarter or more successful

to their boss? Because that is human motivation.

We want to look good. We want to do well. We want to be perceived

as intelligent and successful. And you should be enabling that

at every level of your marketing for your customer.

That's so good. I think people don't realize I

guess it goes back to the beginning where you talking to real buyers,

make you realize they want to

get promoted, maybe even this time they want

to keep their job. What's happening with the tech world?

We're like, yeah, I want to make sure I make the right choice here,

or else I might be part of the next

round of layoffs. So that's really important.

In terms of a company that's doing this well.

Do you have an example of a home page that is

really focused on making their audience feel seen and tapping

into that emotional as well as that social factor that we've been talking

about? Yeah, absolutely.

So this is going back a little bit. I don't know if this is still

their current homepage. And to be honest, there's been some political stuff

with this company. So I'm not endorsing this product at all.

But Basecamp, at some point, hired a really great copywriter. And this

person understands not only you

copy, they speak in second person narration really well. They speak

directly to their core user, but they use a really great

copywriting trick called the before and after trick.

So in grow class, we talk a lot about how you

are as the marketer, as the company.

You are not Luke.

You don't get to be Dorothy in the story of wizard of Oz.

You don't get to be the protagonist of the copy

that you're writing. That's not your role in the story.

No one wants to read a story about a B, two B, SaaS software as

the protagonist. Your customer is

the protagonist of this story. What you get to be as

the company, which is, I think, a very fun role,

is you get to be Glinda, the good witch. You get to be Yoda.

You are the person in this story that is enabling the success and

the development of the protagonist. You are removing obstacles for them.

You are waving a magic wand and making things better for them. You are

helping them pave a path. And so when I think about

before and after copy, like what Base camp did, what they are

showing is here is the conflict or the tension

or the problem that you're currently experiencing. Let me wave my

magic wand and show you what it could look like if

you had access to this software or access to this

product. So what they do really well is instead of

saying, we're productivity software for

your teams and we have these features, they say right now

you feel really disorganized. You feel like your work is all

over the place. You don't know where to find things. It feels like

chaos. And you create that tension and that conflict,

and you put your customer back into the moment when they feel that most acutely.

And then you give them the option of transformation.

You say, here's what this could look like instead. And then you

lay out a different version of how their

life could look after. And that's the galinda, the good witch. I've waved

my magic wand. Something has changed for you.

And now this is what we're enabling in terms of transformation for this customer.

Before I continue, I want to thank the sponsor for this episode, 42 Agency.

Now, when you're in scale up growth mode and you have to hit your KPIs,

the pressure is on to deliver demos and sign ups. And it's a

lot to handle. There's demand, gen, email sequences, rev ops and

more. And that's where 42 Agency, founded by my good friend Camille Rexton,

can help you. They're a strategic partner that's helped b two B SaaS companies

like Profit, AWOL, Teamwork, Sprout, Social and Hubdoc

to build a predictable revenue engine. If you're looking for

performance experts and creatives to solve your marketing growth problems today

and help you build the foundations for the future,

look no further. Visit 42 Agency.com to talk to

a strategist right now to learn how you can build a high efficiency

revenue engine. Thank you also to the sponsor for this episode.

Hrs Free Webmaster Jewels if you want to rank your website higher in search

engines, you have to make sure that your website doesn't have any technical

SEO issues, because if you do, that's like trying to run a race with your

shoes tied together. That's how you lose, and we don't want that.

Luckily, HR's Free Webmaster Tools can crawl up to 5000 pages

to find 140 common technical SEO issues that could

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you can sign up for Free@htrafts.com webmastertools

or find the link in the description and show notes.

Well, let's get back to the episode. That's so good.

I love that example.

I'm shouting out grow classes here as well. I'm on the homepage

right now. And you apply the same approach where halfway

down the page it says you're feeling unsupported at work.

There's this quote from Jess Piccoloto from Bolt.

It says, I feel like I've found my people. And you're really talking

about that before and after here. I guess it's very

deliberate, this approach to the homepage that you

have on growclass homepage.

Yeah, it's very much the story of a

lot of our customers, which is, I'm a solo marketer

at work, or I'm part of this team, but I don't really feel like I'm

being invested in in terms of my education. A lot of the time

I feel out of my depth. My boss will ask me to do something or

I'll be given a project at work. At startups,

you know, this nobody really tells you how to do things or trains you

or helps you in any way. So you're like, I kind of feel like I'm

out of my own here. I know I'm smart, I know I'm good at this.

I literally just need a support network and

some hard skills training, and that's what

grow class is. So again,

taking a very common customer story that we have,

writing that narrative, putting them back in that moment of tension and then saying like,

hey, we can actually resolve that tension for you. And going back to

coming to this from a place of authenticity and values

alignment. We have the receipts. We know we can actually

do that for people. So I wouldn't

be writing that story if it was an aspirational story. I know we can do

that for people. We have the receipts, we have the testimonials, we have

the data to support it. So that's, again,

like, you can do a lot of black magic with good copy.

And I really want people to use these tools for good. When you're

talking about a receipt, like two thirds on the page here, like, average salary increase

for pro class grads 27,006.

That's such a powerful,

I guess, social proof or proof on its

own showing that value. That receipt you're talking about that

you're backing up what you're saying with these

words where I also want to call it one thing that I really

love that is on this page, it says you deserve to

make more money and feel good about your career. I feel like that

goes back to Yoda. You're talking about know,

we're on your side. Yoda is on like,

we're we want you to win and we're

on your side. Exactly. That copy is saying that right

there. My entire job,

my entire team's job is to

make that real for as many people as we possibly can.

And that means finding the right people that are going to be successful inside

of grow class. That means supporting the hell out of the people who join us

and giving them access to as many tools and resources and network as

we possibly can. There's a lot of online courses,

so that's also, like objection statement busting because a lot of people have

had bad experiences with online courses. Fair, that's not

our fault, but it is our problem. We have to differentiate

and provide the proof and the receipts and the results and then

again, provide people a way out. So another thing that I recommend a lot

of the time for copywriting is if you are in an industry

like we're in online course sales, you know how many bad marketing courses exist

on the Internet? So do I. It's a mess out there.

So we have a 14 day money back guarantee.

We've never had anyone ask for it,

but we would willingly give it to anyone if they asked for their money back

because we know you need to feel safe when you're making a

big purchase, especially if you've been burned before.

And that's our responsibility to make sure that you

feel safe. You mentioned something there that we didn't

touch upon about how everything, some of the stuff

you talked so far is about handling that objection without

mentioning the objection itself. You're talking about we

have the receipts to back it up. Speaks to objection that you just said

you've been burned by a bunch of people have been burned by bad marketing

courses in the past, and you're directly handling objections there.

Yeah, that's another thing that I would say to

write really great copy that's going to convert and sell

your customers, you have to not only be aware of their

problems, their pain, the context that they're in, how they're feeling

when they're experiencing the problems that you're solving.

You also have to be aware of all of the reasons they'd say no,

all of the very legitimate reasons that they wouldn't buy from

you. And if you don't

have an answer for each of those things, then your job is to go out

and find that answer or create that answer so that

you can have a really authentic

way of speaking to those potential objections and

handling them in a way

that is values aligned and true.

So if someone asks for their money back,

we'll give it to them. It's true and

understanding not only someone saying, oh,

your software is too expensive, because that's what people say all the time.

What's behind that? What is

driving the feeling of scarcity that they

have? Is it the marketing budget got cut?

Is it that their team is being laid off? Is it that you are only

providing yearly versus monthly payment options?

What does too expensive mean to that person? And then how can you pick that

apart and build a different story for them?

And part of that objection around expensive often is like,

I don't feel like I'm going to get the value in return out of

this payment what I'm paying.

Right. That's why the receipt part is so good because it's right

below it. We're like, sure it costs you this much,

but your return on average that we found of our

students is 27,600.

And then my brain is like, okay,

if I put in this much, I get ten times that's. No brainer. That's a

no brainer decision. Exactly what you did there, your team

did with that cop. That's what you're saying.

Yeah, exactly what you

said. When the objection is that something is too expensive, it doesn't always

mean that your pricing is wrong. Sometimes it means that your positioning

is wrong in the market or you haven't justified the expense

to that customer. You haven't given them enough value in exchange because

again, it's not extractive, it's added in.

You should be giving back ten X of what you are taking.

It's going back full circle to the very beginning.

Well, thank you for sharing. I want to shift gears and talk about career power

ups. Those are things that have accelerate your career. You've been in marketing

now for mentioned over 13 years. You've had

stints at Ted Talks as director of Sponsorship Tilt.com,

as head of Growth before they got acquired by Airbnb. And now you're CEO and

founder of Grow class. What's a power up that's helped accelerate your career?

That's helped you level up in terms of your career

so far, I would. Say the thing

that has helped me the very most has been relationships.

And a lot of people say my network. I don't

really think of it that way because, again, going back to

what we were chatting about earlier, network feels

the word feels a little bit more transactional than the way I like to think

about it. I like to think about how

do I build intentional relationships where we can add value

to each other through our careers and we can just jam and have fun

and help each other and just make friends. So, to be honest,

when I was really, really early in my career, I would go to all of

these networking events in Tech where I was one of the only women in

these rooms because this was a very long time ago,

but I was there because I was trying to

learn how to do my job. I wasn't there because I was trying to build

a network or make friends, but it was like a byproduct of just being in

those rooms all the time. I just made all these friends with these really smart,

incredible, lovely humans who I'm still in touch with now. And the

world in marketing, in Tech is a

very small town. It feels very big when you first enter it.

It's a very, very small town and I grew up in a very small town,

so I know what those dynamics are like. So treating

your career like a small town and treating all of the people that you interact

with as more than a network, as potential friends and

investing in those relationships that is going to

show up for you in so many incredible ways that you

are not going to expect. So yeah,

go out and make a whole bunch of friends is

the best thing that I did for my career that I'm grateful to my past

self for. When you think about

you said the word network sounds so weird.

Like when you think about network, you think about pewters and there

is almost like that lack of humanness

right. The term like networking

makes me think of business school when everyone was trying to how many business

cards can I hand out? And now we live in a world where business cards

don't make sense.

But no one in business school tells

you to go make a bunch of friends, right?

It might be a weird question in terms of like how

do you make friends? I know

it myself. But for people who might be early in their career,

who is tuning in? Is it

about finding connections like hobbies outside of work or anything

else? Your advice on how people can find make

that real connection instead of the business card transaction

that we might have learned in school? I think you're

like the most perfect example of this. Just be insatiably curious

about other. People. I think when

you're out, whether or not it's at a tech event or

just having coffee with someone, a lot of people think that

their job is to come off as impressive, which means

that they talk a lot and that's okay. But the

way to develop a relationship is to deeply care about the experiences

of the other person and get really curious about who that person is and what

motivates them and what they care about and what that's going to give you is

the ability to help them because you're going to know what they need.

So that is what creates that authentic

relationship, that authentic curiosity about the

people that you interact with in your career, and then the

work that it takes to maintain those relationships and check in on

those people and see how you can be of value to them

past that one interaction. That's so good. I feel

like that applies to what we just talked about before, where you caring

about buyers and being curious about it.

It's almost like you're building that relationship even with that

buyer so that you can speak deeper on a deeper level

with there. That's such a good tip there in

terms of one final question. If you can give yourself your

younger self a piece of advice, it could be one advice or

two piece of advice, or however many you would want.

What would be something that you would share, travel back

in time and then give a younger version of Sarah as

an advice? It could be about career, it could be around marketing, it could be

about life. Buddy would be that advice you'd give if you're a younger you?

Yeah. I think for a long time growing

up in organizations that were engineering focused, I felt

like when we were talking about before, like, you have to appeal to the logic.

I really felt that the superpowers

that I felt like I had as a young marketer in

empathy and customer development and writing,

I guess I didn't value those things about

my skill set. And I thought that in order to be successful in these organizations

that I had to be the hardcore growth hacker, that I had to get

really wonky about data. And I did, and I learned

SQL, and I did all those things, but the

superpowers that kept coming up and kept giving me opportunities

were the things that I was naturally good at

writing, taking care of people, empathizing with people, building community,

and I didn't value those skills. And I

spent a lot of time trying to be a different kind of marketer.

And I just hope that folks just take

advantage of the things that come naturally to you and

don't feel like because you're not a wonky

experimental growth hacker in a blue patagonia

vest learning out over pivot tables in SQL

that you are any less valuable, your skill

set, the things that come naturally will

help. And then I think the only other thing is just

like, yeah, make friends, be kind to people, be good to people.

Don't be afraid to be cringey because you

have to fail in public. You have to build your career in public.

And if you're so scared to be cringey, you're never going to connect

with anyone or build an audience or do anything interesting.

I feel like there's a story there with being cringey.

Do you have a story of being cringey that helped you build that relationship

or that next level? Well,

I write a personal newsletter called we need to Talk About this.

And I also build grow class. Oh, no, all good.

I also build grow class. And I think a

lot of just putting yourself out there, putting your ideas

out there, trying new platforms,

trying different things. Sometimes you're going to post on

LinkedIn to Absolute Crickets, or you're going to start building a newsletter

and it doesn't work the first time.

And I think there was a long time early in my career that I was

really hard. I was really scared to be seen trying, and failing

that was scary, to be seen trying something that maybe

wouldn't work. And that's the only way that you do anything true.

I think it's really cool to be seen trying. I want to see more people

actively trying to build audiences or actively trying to

improve their writing or to make connections. It's cool

to try that's not cringy.

And I want to see everyone's unfinished,

unpolished effort online. That's so good.

How do you get over sometimes when I post on LinkedIn still, I have

this, I guess, hesitation,

like, oh, man, what will people think about me? And it seems like,

is it doing it more often helps you get over

that fear? Or what kind of advice would you have for people who are

like, I don't want to get over that cringiness,

so to speak? I think, honestly, the best

thing that I've learned about building audience

online is if it doesn't work, no one saw it.

So it doesn't matter. It didn't work because no one saw

it. You're like, oh, I'm so scared everyone's going to see me fail. No one

saw it. The algorithm didn't show it to anyone because it wasn't

good or it was the wrong time on Wednesday. It doesn't matter

why, but if it didn't work, then no one saw it,

and there's freedom in that. And then

at the same time, anyone who would watch

you try and fail in public and cringe at that

is not a person who's ever going to support you in the first place.

And I wouldn't want anyone to hold back their gifts

and the things that they might be able to offer a potential audience or

a young marketer who needs to hear the pep talk or the tool that they

really could use that would really help them in their career. I don't want you

to hold back what you can offer because

some girl from high school might make

a face when she reads it, because who cares? That person was

never going to be in support of you to begin with.

So, yeah, get caught trying.

Get caught trying. I love that. And I love that advice. Like, if it

doesn't work. Nobody really saw it anyway.

That's the nature of algorithms, right? Like, if it's crickets,

then the crickets mean no one saw it, so that's fine.

I keep saying this is the last one, but you've mentored a

lot of marketers through grow class and throughout your

career. Is that an advice you would give them to build an audience

earlier than later? Or what's your

thoughts? Yes. So especially in the

economy that we have right now, you were mentioning, like, a lot of people are

fearing that they might be laid off. It's a

fair fear. There are a couple of things that you can

be doing consistently that are always going

to serve as like a bit of a parachute for you, regardless of

what happens if you're working full time, if you're freelancing,

and those things are your relationships, your audience is a

form of power. So if you have people who are engaging consistently with

your content, who you are adding value to consistently,

that's a form of parachute. So if something were to happen

at your full time job, you have attention of

other people who could potentially help you find your next thing or sell

a book or do whatever you want to do. So that audience is cushion

and it's power, and especially for women and marginalized folks.

I never want people to be stuck in spaces where

they don't feel safe or valued. And so what you need to be

consistently doing in your career is building these different forms of

parachute so you never feel like you are stuck in those

spaces. So I want you to have a big audience, I want you

to have a big newsletter, I want you to have a big, powerful network

because those things are going to pad

some of the harder bumps that you're going to have along the road. That's so

good. It's really about giving you more options there. And like,

you talked about the parachute and I love that

you don't want them to get stuck in giving them, I guess, an out

if they're in. A place that is not yeah,

yeah. It's just another form of power that you can start

to build for yourself. But I want people to have more. Of such a

fun chat with Sarah to learn more about her work. You can go to growclass

co. They have a cohort coming up. You can also subscribe

to their newsletter, Grow Notes, right on that site.

She also has a personal newsletter called We Need to Talk About this.

You can find that at wntta co. Follow her on

LinkedIn, on Twitter, all those links are in the show. Notes and Description

thank you to Sarah for being on the show. If you enjoyed this episode,

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