TCC Podcast #249: Building a Copywriting Portfolio with Aly Goulet

We interviewed Aly Goulet for the 249th episode of The Copywriter Club podcast. Aly is a SaaS copywriter and content strategist. She started her content writing business while still in college, and took it all the way when she graduated. By using her cold pitch method, she’s been able to book clients in her niche and she breaks down how she made it happen in this episode. Here’s the rundown: The scrappy method and when it may be time to start investing in your business and skill set growth. Skyrocketing and hitting goals in your business in 1 year. How many cold pitches you should send a day if you want to find clients fast. Why you should actually narrow in the type of clients you want to work with. What to include in your monthly retainers and how you should go about pricing them. When your cold pitches should be long or short and why. Perfecting your project management process, so you don’t get lost in all the moving pieces of retainer deliverables. How even copywriters need automations to keep up with their projects and save time. What you can start doing to get out of feast and famine mode. The science of connecting with people on LinkedIn. (Plus, your new cold pitch message.) The quickest, easiest way to become visible online. Why you shouldn’t put your own business on the backburner. (Hint: You won’t forget about your clients.) What happens after you start hitting your income goals. What’s next? Do’s and don’t of creating an epic portfolio. The newest WordPress plugin to make building out your portfolio easier. (You’re the best, Aly!) How the Think Tank has helped in reaching her goals in her business. How thinking of your business as an asset will propel you forward tenfold. If you’re tired of the merry-go-round of gaining clients, tune into this episode or check out the transcript below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Think Tank Brandon’s episode Brandon’s website Aly’s website Aly’s premium portfolio plugin Full Transcript: Rob:  If you're a regular listener to this podcast, you no doubt have noticed the many differences in how copywriters make their living. Most of us earn money from writing content or copy, but still structure our businesses differently. Some charge by project, others work on retainers, and still others offer day rates and VIP days. But that's just the beginning in the differences that we have as copywriters. Some copywriters consult on funnels and offers that audit websites and campaigns. Some structure their work so that they earn royalties, when a promotion does well. And still others create their own products to sell. Today's guest on the podcast is Aly Goulet. She's tried several of these approaches, very successfully, and recently launched a WordPress plugin to help copywriters show off their best work. We'll talk more about that in a minute. But first I need to introduce my guest host for this episode, Brandon Burton. Brandon is a copywriter and a brand voice strategist, and he is also the community manager for the Copywriter Club, Facebook groups. Brandon, welcome to this episode. Brandon:  Thanks for having me, Rob. I really appreciate it. Rob:  Yeah, of course. So, before we get to all of this other stuff, just really quickly, not only do you manage our communities on Facebook, but you have your own community. Just take a second to tell us a little bit about that. Brandon:  Yeah. I started a community called Our Children's World, quite recently. And yeah, it's just helping parents tackle the reality in the next few years and helping us raise children who can survive in it and thrive in it. Rob:  Awesome. And you have a couple of young kids yourself, so you're like a man deep in it. Brandon:  Yeah. Yeah, like yourself. Yeah. I've got free. Yeah, they definitely made me realize this conversation we're having. Rob:  Awesome. And if after listening to this episode, if you like what you've heard from Brandon, check out episode number 215 of the Copywriter Club Podcast, he was our guest for that episode and talked a little bit about his approach to Brand Voice and some of the stuff that he does for us. Again, thanks Brandon for joining me for some of the additional comments in this episode. Before we get to Aly Goulet, and our interview with her, I want to just quickly mention the Copywriter Think Tank, that's our mastermind for copywriters and other marketers who want to do more in their business and their work, whether that's creating a product or a podcast, or a video show, whether you want to build an agency, product company, like what Aly is building. Maybe you want to become just the best copywriter in your niche. That's the kind of stuff that we focus on with the members of the Copywriter Think Tank. If you'd like to learn more about how you can join, we promise no hard sell, just information, visit copywriterthinktank.com, and maybe you can join this group of extra ordinary business owners too. Okay. So, let's jump into our interview with Aly, and find out more about her business and the clients that she works with. Aly:  The WordPress plugin creator part happened a lot later. So, I'll start with the writer and content strategist. It all really happened by accident. I was working a job where I was just really exhausted and working nights. And I was coming to the end of that opportunity where I had to figure out if I wanted to extend my role or not. And I really didn't want to. So, I decided to go on an internship site because I was still in college at the time, and start applying for remote internships. And pretty soon, I landed my first client who was paying me to write blog posts. And that's when I was like, "Oh, wait a minute." Because I've always been interested in writing, so it was something that came naturally to me, but it wasn't something that I realized that people would actually pay me to do until I saw those opportunities there. And so, for a little while I was doing content, I was doing outreach for a radio show. I interned for an independent artists booking shows. I was doing everything I could remotely that would make me money. But writing clients were the ones that I liked the most. So, ultimately, that's what I settled into. Kira:  So, you started your writing career while in college? Aly:  Yes. Kira:  Okay. So, how long were you doing it while you were still in college before you graduated? Aly:  So, it was about two and a half years. Yeah, two and a half, three years, part-time. And it was going really well. During college, it's what helped me pay for school. That's what I was using that income for. And I didn't want to stop the momentum. So, once I graduated, I'm like, "Okay, this is the thing we're doing now." Kira:  How did you build momentum once you graduated and you were committed? You're like, "This is what I'm going to do. This is my career." How did you gain that traction early on after graduation? Aly:  Yeah. So, the funny thing about the way that I started is I was really scrappy in the beginning and I did not spend any money on anything at all. And when I decided that I was going to do this full time, I thought, "Okay. Well, I need to invest in my professional development here." Because I had no professional experience in anything at all. Writing is really the only thing I've ever done professionally. So, I joined a mastermind the first year that I decided to go full time in 2018. And I went through that whole program and it was so helpful for me. And it's the thing that kick-started me into being able to go full-time and realize what that really takes. Kira:  When did you get to the point where you're like, "I figured this out. This is great. I'm going to keep doing this. This is working." Aly:  Yep. By the end of that program, which was a six month program, I had met the goal of doubling my income and surpassed it. So, I was like, "Okay. This is a thing that I can do for sure." I had proven that to myself. Kira:  And what did you do in that program? I'm sure some people listening, might be wondering, what is that program? And what were the activities that you focused on in that program that helped you get to that point? Aly:  Sure. So, if I can give it a shout out, it was the 2X Accelerator by Carol Tice. It was a really good program, just walking through the basics. I remember the first module very clearly was like, where's your low hanging fruit? Right? So, going back to people that you have worked with and trying to get projects. I won't go through every module, but basically it was really methodical. And the part that changed everything for me was marketing and networking. I really started getting on LinkedIn a lot more during that program and making connections. And so, I think before that, I really wasn't telling anybody that I was a writer. I was just pitching things and taking jobs when I got them. I had my Upwork profile, but I wasn't really visible at all. And doing that was my first experience with getting a little bit of visibility and branching out of my non-existent network, at that point. I say branching out, but I think I had like 35 LinkedIn connections at the time. Kira:  And how many connections do you have today on LinkedIn? Aly:  Over 5000. So, it's been quite a change on that front. Kira:  Okay. So, can you just talk about your growth from graduation 2018, right? Aly:  Yeah. I graduated at the very end of 2017. So, my first month going full-time was January 2018. Kira:  Okay. So, since graduation from college, 2017 to now, 2021, can you just talk about the business growth in terms of numbers or anything you're comfortable sharing, just to show the power of what you've been doing and how it's worked? Aly:  Yeah. So, I mean,