Business Blasphemy
Sarah Khan, Business Advisor and Leadership Consultant, is calling B.S. on the hustle-focused status quo of business and entrepreneurship, and getting real about what it takes to grow a business or career and NOT become a statistic. In each episode, Sarah helps navigate the rampant B.S. that permeates business strategy, marketing, operations, and mindset that has business owners hustling and pivoting themselves into burnout. She cuts through the noise and gives you guidance on how to view the status quo with a more discerning eye. If you're ready for success without the B.S., buckle up for hard truths, fun rants, terrible puns and (more than) the occasional curse word.
Business Blasphemy
EP87: From Pastor to Powerhouse: Crafting Copy That Sells with Dawn Apuan
What happens when a life of ministry takes an unexpected turn towards entrepreneurship? Join us as we explore the compelling story of Dawn Apuan, a former pastor whose career pivot was spurred by a critical review from her religious leadership. This unexpected challenge not only led to panic attacks and depression but also ignited a passion within her to empower female entrepreneurs through her expertise in copywriting and funnel strategy. Discover how Dawn transformed personal adversity into a platform for helping women find their voices in the business world.
Ever wondered why women own 40% of businesses yet generate only 4% of revenue? We tackle this perplexing statistic by diving into the intricacies of marketing strategies that cater to women's unique needs and motivations. Traditional shame-based tactics often miss the mark, especially when women value more than just financial success. Our conversation highlights how validating aspirations for family and personal fulfillment can lead to powerful, authentic marketing that resonates deeply with female entrepreneurs.
The path to empowerment is often riddled with challenges, particularly in male-dominated spaces. Dawn shares her personal journey of finding and asserting her voice amidst skepticism and negativity. Her story underscores the importance of resilience and staying true to one's values. By fusing technical expertise with a heart-centered approach, Dawn offers a blueprint for creating empowering experiences for women in business. Tune in to discover how embracing diverse perspectives and adversity can enhance your leadership journey and lead to authentic empowerment.
Guest Bio:
Dawn Apuan is an expert copywriter and funnel strategist. Former pastor and non-profit Executive Director, her mission now is to help female entrepreneurs sell out even their most expensive offers with messaging that brilliantly captures their voice to attract dream clients - without costing them time and energy creating it. Her unique ability to craft words into wealth has helped hundreds of clients get results in 24 hours or less, and some clients make five figures overnight without sales calls!
Connect with Dawn:
- https://www.dawnapuan.com
- IG @dawn.copyqueen
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawn-apuan-copyqueen/
Get your free copy of the 15 Copy Keys Dawn uses to get epic results for her clients: https://www.dawnapuan.com/copykeys
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The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello, blasphemers, welcome back. Actually, now, on reflection, that's kind of funny that I call you all blasphemers. You'll find out why in a second.
Speaker 1:I have with me today Dawn Apwan. She is an expert copywriter and funnel strategist. She's a former pastor and nonprofit executive director. Her mission now is to help female entrepreneurs sell out even their most expensive offers with messaging that brilliantly captures their voice to attract dream clients without costing them the time and energy creating it. Her unique ability to craft words into wealth has helped hundreds of clients get results in 24 hours or less. Seriously Hot damn. We're going to talk about some of that. And some clients make five figures overnight without sales calls. So you know we're going to be asking the big questions. Dawn, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is going to be juicy. Okay, I'm going to be asking the big questions. Dawn, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Oh, this is going to be juicy. Okay, I'm going to make a note because I do want to ask you about that 24 hours. Okay, I want to dive right in and ask you a little bit. I usually save this until like the middle of an episode, but I'm really curious to know how you went from pastor and nonprofit executive director to entrepreneurship. Like what is your villain origin story?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a story that I love sharing, because I always say I'm an accidental entrepreneur. Yeah, yeah, you know, I, as I said, I was a pastor with my husband. We have 32 years combined ministry experience between us and I had my little girl and, as you know, when kids come into the world, it changes our world upside down in the best way possible. And I have these pictures of you know, those little backpacks where I was wearing her all the time. You know, leading worship on guitar, everything I did. She came with me and that was all well and good. I just integrated her right into my ministry and then, when she was about a year and a half old, my husband and I had a review done by the regional leadership and they basically told us that we were failing at our current position because our church wasn't big enough. We didn't have large enough numbers. Yeah, we were. I was shocked. I went into that review. Basically, I my daughter was a year old at that time and I was like I'm crushing it, like I'm a new mom. I haven't let one report be a day late, even the week I gave birth. You know, I was just like I am a rule follower, generally speaking, unless I think the rule is stupid and like I did it all right, you know, I was keeping up with everything and a new mom and I just I was really proud of myself. And then it felt like I just got sucker punched and that review process was six hours, like it was all day that we spent with this leader, these leaders. They came to the church, they interviewed our staff, they met with the board like it was just this whole thing, and I had to just fake it all day. That was the beginning of the six hours and the rest of the time I just had to fake a smile like everything's okay. When I just felt crushed and nothing changed right away they went back to their regional offices and whatever, and my husband was like, oh, what that probably means is that we're going to get moved.
Speaker 2:So we had been at that church for five years and and it's a system where every three to seven-ish years they usually move you to another location. But we had half custody of my husband's kids, so we needed to be in the city where we were in order for that not to be tremendously difficult, because they were with us one week and with their mother the opposite week and we had to drive them to school every day. So what ultimately ended up happening? Two months later, we did get the call that they were moving us and, although it was a nearby city, what happened was, not only did we get demoted to, we were not in charge anymore, so other pastors then were in charge of us and dictating our schedules and things like that. I also was not allowed to have my daughter ever at the office, which she had come all the time or I had worked from home prior to that because we had autonomy where we were and, like I said, I had never not turned anything in or been at any event, I had done everything. So I lost all ability to be with her. They wanted me to put her in childcare, which I started having panic attacks and got very, very depressed. Yeah, all that was happening.
Speaker 2:We moved to the other city. We were averaging 35 to 40 hours driving a week because of that shared custody. It was super intense and I had a one and a half year old and I was having panic attacks every daycare place I visited. I could not do it. I ended up finding an in-house nanny, but we were only given a certain amount of money for childcare.
Speaker 2:So it just was very difficult and the people who oversaw us had zero compassion for having kids. It was just seen as a burden, and I was not okay with that and so I made the decision in my mind. We actually went and talked to the regional leadership because my husband thought I was going to commit suicide. He was like he would come home on the lunch hour and check on me to make sure I was okay. It was a very dark time in my life and so we went to the regional leadership and we said we were just vulnerable and honest, of like this is what we're struggling with. I'm having a hard time, we're talking about the panic attacks. And basically that leader folded his arms and said well, what would you possibly do if you didn't work for us? Just no, like zero compassion whatsoever or any attempt to work with me or hear what I was doing and struggling with.
Speaker 2:So from that point on, we had that meeting and I was like okay, I'm going to Google work from home. So you can imagine what things come up on a Google search of work from home. It's everything from coupons to cash apps to to transcription, to everything in between. So I found digital marketing and it was a $99 course and I'm like, okay, I can afford that. Got that course, discovered how to build funnels, run Facebook ads, ended up doing the upsells and stuff for that program. So then I became an affiliate marketer the upsells and stuff for that program, so that I became an affiliate marketer Now.
Speaker 2:Affiliate marketing, if you want to talk about like a bro world, which copywriting is as well, but affiliate marketing really was. And that's where I started. I'm grateful for that season. It was not where I was ultimately meant to be. It's very much a dog eat dog world and you have to kind of be ruthless and be the 21 the 21 year old boy that loves Lambos and things like that to really do well.
Speaker 2:I was usually the only girl on the lead award of 20 people within that program. So but I'm grateful I learned so many skills that I've used in the last five years of you know how to build all the tech, how to run Facebook ads, how to do copywriting really, and my ads and my landing pages converted really well. So people started coming to me and asking me for help within this affiliate marketing group because they had spent $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 on Facebook ads and not gotten a sale, which was heartbreaking. I'm like, oh, that's awful. And then eventually I learned about copywriting and I was like, wait a second, I could get paid just to write, super cool. I had no idea. I thought copywriting was the little C in a circle like trademarks and things and yeah.
Speaker 2:So once I discovered and I met a few female copywriters and they were like, yeah, this is all I do, I just freelance, basically contract work. And at that point in time that was in the summer, and so from January to August I had made like $2,800. So really low, cobbling together $150 here and $300 there to load emails for people and like I just would do anything that people would pay me to do tech wise and things like that. And then so that was January through August and September. I still remember the day September 6th. I was like I'm going to be a copywriter, and so I changed my whole website, I made a new lead magnet and I got my first copywriting client September 25th.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow 15 days later, and by December 31st, I'd made over $35,000.
Speaker 1:Holy moly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was wild. I was like, ooh, I finally found the thing, my calling the thing. I hit six figures by 11 months and then the following year I doubled it, like I just I, yeah, it's like I finally found what was in alignment and was like, oh, yes, and it just kind of took off from there and I loved getting to help clients with that. So many people struggle with how to say what they do and then how to write compelling sales pages and emails and all the things. Yeah. So that's the journey in a nutshell. All the things, yeah. So that's the journey in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Okay, first and foremost, the level of rage that I feel on hearing that story because, oh man, I need a minute. But, like the level of intense rage I feel because it is so similar to my story being laid off on mat leave, not being given any compassion, losing my job twice, it's insane. And the worst part about it is it's not just the two of us, right, there are so many mothers who pay the motherhood tax over and over and over again and it's never about and, to be honest with you, I'm really actually kind of surprised. I don't know why, but, like when you said that they were unhappy with your numbers, I'm like God, even the church is worried about followers and likes. Like I don't. It doesn't make it make sense to me. Do you know what I mean? It's not about the depth of connection with your parishioners or anything like that. It just feels very. I don't know why that surprised me, but it did.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that story, because I feel how hard it was to have lived it and I know how hard it can be to relive it when you have to tell the story. So thank you for that. When you found your calling, when you found copywriting, and you were like, yeah, this is the thing that I want to do. I'm really interested to know, because you talk about how marketing to women is markedly different than marketing to men, and marketing in general is a very male dominated space. It has been for a long time and it probably will be, and it still is to a big degree. So what are the differences? Why is marketing to women? Why does it have to be different? What are the differentiators there?
Speaker 2:Such a good question. Yeah, so it is predominantly male dominated, although I have seen shifts in the last five years. I went from being maybe the only girl in the room to now there's a few of us.
Speaker 1:But there are more women in the space, but they're still doing it in a very bro kind of way, and I don't hear very many people talking about how marketing to women is different. So this is why it really intrigued me what you had to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a conversation that I haven't seen a lot of. I'll see it here and there. They'll talk about it, but in pro marketing, a lot of times they're focused on agitating the pain, for example, whereas women we get it already. We want to know that you understand our pain, but we don't need you to like, twist the knife, twist the knife, twist the knife, because we do that ourselves. And what we really need more of is the aspiration, belief. Women struggle a lot more with belief, confidence and enoughness, and that's a big part of marketing is that people have to believe that it'll work for them. So, number one, you have to get people to believe your solution is going to work, just regardless. But with women, I think we're a little more skeptical and we also have less confidence in ourselves. And that's the core thing with belief is it's not just believing that your solution works, it's believing that it can work for me and men in general are bigger risk takers.
Speaker 2:So a very interesting stat I learned was for business owner. I mean, you think about so? Women own 40% of the businesses, but we generate 4% of the revenue. Wow, yes, I'm on a mission to change this, because I think that it's just wrong. That and the whole conversation around the mom tax and all of that, like there's just so many things and you know there's different reasons for that. I think women you know you and I are perfect examples of this. We have other things going on than just our business. Yeah, we're not young, single and working 16 hours a day.
Speaker 2:We have houses to manage groceries, to buy food to cook drop off and pick up, take care of.
Speaker 2:So we're juggling so many more things. It's not just about the business, but so not only is it very unequal in how much we're generating, but what's interesting in this risk factor with men is that we 93% of female owned businesses are successful. We have a hugely, very high success rate. 11% of male owned businesses are successful 11% compared to 93% but that 11% generate 96% of the revenue. So and this all ties in to men I think they have a different level of confidence, I would say arrogance in some circumstances, and a different level of risk. Yeah, just throw it into the business, he has no problem.
Speaker 2:Whereas women are like no, I'm going to make some money and create a budget. Yeah, so I have a little savings, so then I can do ads, and they're just like little, little, little little little, versus just, oh, I'm going all in, but that's why you see 11% success rate. But their success is like really big, does that make sense? Like it's just very interesting? And it all has to do with you know how we market to women, as well as having that conversation of you know helping them believe that it's possible for them that we don't have to take these huge risks.
Speaker 2:Women are more calculated in like, okay, is this investment going to pay off? Is this investment going to pay off? You know, I think of both, invested in masterminds and coaching and that self-development. So it's not that we're not unwilling to invest in ourselves. We really are, especially if we see that there's a gain. And you know, when it comes to women that are moms, a lot of times that's tied into our kids, right, wanting to leave a legacy or be able to take the kids on a vacation, or lots of things where we're driven by other factors than just money. Yeah, but money gives us the choices.
Speaker 1:The choices yeah.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, we still are, in some ways, money driven, but it gives us those choices that we want to do with our family, that time freedom. The choices, yeah, day, or, you know, go to school events and not have to get permission from a boss to be able to go. Or, you know it's been summer so I've worked way less. Or worked at night, after she's in bed, because that's when I can get stuff done and it's fine, and I get to play with her during the day because she's home and you know we have a few precious years, right. So, yeah, it's just it's. It's different how you talk to us. You don't need to like drill in all the pain and everything we already we already know how shitty it is.
Speaker 1:Or we do, we should on ourselves, yeah, I think we're harder on ourselves than anybody else needs to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh heck. Yeah. So the marketing yeah, it does not need to be so intense. Like there's a lot of shame. I feel like guilt and shame marketing and real marketing and we don't need that. We do that to ourselves.
Speaker 1:I I will never forget. There was a period last year, I think, or the year before time is a flat circle, I don't remember when, but I remember it enough that there there was a period where it was really popular to and it might still be this way but shame people into like if you don't believe enough in yourself, of course you're not gonna take the chance to work with me. You know, you don't believe enough in yourself, you don't believe enough in your ability to make the money, and that kind of marketing has always annoyed me to the point of wanting to, like say something to these people. And to your point, I feel like, yes, say something to these people. And to your point, I feel like, yes, at the end of the day, we're all money driven. And I've kind of gotten to the point where I don't even know that it's necessary to talk about income, because we all need to make money. That's like a given, that's like the baseline. If I'm going to work with someone, I need to make money.
Speaker 1:But what are all of the other things that your offer and your way of doing things brings to the table in addition to the money that enhances my well-being or my life or my relationships, because I feel like for women, there's just inherently more on the line, and I don't know if that is as true today as it was maybe 50 years ago or even 20 years ago, but it certainly feels that way. It feels like something that is collectively still haunting us, in a way that if I don't make the best decisions all the time, there are more things at stake. So my kids will suffer, my home will suffer, I will suffer, whereas men and I know a lot of I don't know how many men listen to this podcast, but I'm sure there are some who are going to hear this and say that's not true. But you know what? It's true for some men, even if you're a father, you can detach from the outcome, right, and I think that's a very small part of why it's harder for women to take risks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we feel like a whole lot more is on the line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it's, it's all up to me, like if I take a sick day, who's going to take the kids to school and who's going to worry about appointments? And you know, and it's, it's easy to flippantly say, well, your partner should help, or blah, blah, blah. But it it really? Society's not set up that way and that's a whole other conversation that we could.
Speaker 3:You know, it's a total detour to where we're going to go today, but we'll have to come back.
Speaker 1:We'll circle back one day and talk about that because, man, I have things to say, but I will never forget someone saying that to me. I had shared an experience and someone that I've known for a very long time. She piped up on my social media and was like why isn't your partner doing it? And I'm like, because he also has a job and it's a higher paying job than mine and he has more at stake. Right, I'm the one who has the flexibility and that's why I'm taking care of it. And it was just such a flippant comment and it just it irritated me to the point of like I don't know. Anyway, one of the things you mentioned as well and I think this kind of dovetails nicely into how to talk to women you mentioned eight main emotions that I guess factor into how we buy or how we perceive things. Are you happy to go through what those are?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can talk about that and it has to do with some of the things we've already talked about. Like, we market to what we want, right, and then we give them what we need but in this desire.
Speaker 2:so you have the pain and the aspiration, and the eight core emotions correlate directly to pain and aspiration. So in the pain side there are five, and then the good there's three. So and I mean that's a whole other conversation, like labeling emotions good or bad, which I try to avoid, but the positive or negative ones and what we would normally label negative, there's pain, shame, guilt, anger and fear. So you've got those five and, like we've already mentioned the guilt and the shame, you might see a lot more in bro marketing, like a lot of pressure and focus on those right. Pain is a little more vague. But the point is to think about those five and see if you can identify one core emotion, like one main one that your people are really struggling with. So you know, to give an example, like, if it's somebody who wants to lose weight, it might be shame driven, but it's. It's not about just losing the weight, losing the way we we talk about it, like peeling an onion, right. So that might be the core emotion and you start at that top layer of like they want to lose weight, but why? Why do they want to lose weight? They want to fit in their skinny jeans again. Why? Because their husband doesn't look at them like the way he used to, or they're not having sex as much as they used to, or they want to feel desirable, like. Those are the layers that you have to get down to, but it's still like shame motivated. Does that make sense? We don't need to shame them in our marketing because they're doing it themselves. But that's you. You need to put yourself in their shoes and be like okay, what is the biggest driving emotion? Or why they might buy. Because we buy on emotion and then we justify it with logic, right, so? And it's usually a painful emotion, because we're more driven to get away from pain than to have pleasure. So that's why it's harder to sell just on the pleasure or the preventative things, because people have to be in pain. It's just the reality. So where does the aspiration fit in? Yeah, great question. So aspiration would be like joy, love and peace.
Speaker 2:Those emotions, and in marketing I always say you're going to have a balance of both of them, because people people have to understand that you get them. So you have to at least speak to and identify the pain and the problem that they're experiencing, but you don't have to stay there and, like, really twist the knife. You can then say, you know, here's what's possible, here's the joy you can feel, the love you can have for your own body. For example, if we're using the weight loss, if we're using um, you know, like a business owner, example of people going back to you know, 10 K months or seven figure years, whatever. The uh esoteric goal line is that, uh, people go for these days, for these days.
Speaker 2:But if we focus on that, it's not just about the money, as we were saying before, it's what can that money do for you? Is that you feeling proud of yourself because you built something that might be impossible for most? Or proud because you are providing for your family, that you're showing your kids and for us women I think it's especially true for those of us that have girls we're like, we're showing them what's possible, we're showing them what it's like, what it looks like to show up, especially in, say, like a male dominated arena and you still go for it and be courageous and be brave and do hard things. Yeah, there's just, there's so much. So that's where I would say the, the, the aspirational emotions come in and you need that because women, women need that Like that. That is what drives us a lot of the time is the things that we deeply desire.
Speaker 1:And it's possible, exactly yeah. Why do so many women struggle to talk about what they do? Because that's another piece of the marketing copywriting puzzle, right, like we have all of this information about pain point marketing and aspirational marketing and whatnot, but why do we still struggle so much with talking about what we actually do and how it benefits people?
Speaker 2:I think it's two prong. One is just confidence in how badass we are, right, we tend to not have an overinflated self-esteem or view of ourselves. So there's that, which I think is one component. And another component is so often we're just too close to what we do. It is so helpful to have somebody else who's objective to be there and hear you and then just say, yeah, but what you really do is this Like I walk people through a process and I have a whole training on it how to say what you do in 10 words or less.
Speaker 2:And the example I always share is this one gentleman that I was helping who went on and on and on and he said he had narrowed it down to 42 words, like a 42 word sentence. And he read the sentence. It was very long, I have no idea what he said. And after that I unmuted. We were on Zoom and I was like so what you really do is and in seven words I said what he did and he was just like like mind blown in that moment. He's like how did you do that? He's like I have a notebook here of 400 pages of notes and you haven't seen it. How did you boil it down to seven words and I'm like that's what I do, number one, but it also is just somebody else. Like we get so in our heads. Women are often so over analytical and we overthink things and it's just. It's hard to step back and be like, oh, here's the simple thing and it seems so obvious. Once you say it out loud you kind of feel silly. You're like well, duh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's like that old saying that you can't see the pickles when you're inside that, or you can't see the label when you're inside the pickle jar.
Speaker 2:right, yeah exactly Same concept. So you know whether it's working with a copywriter or another biz bestie who can just you can bounce ideas off of, and then it's really just having somebody else who is not inside the pickle jar help. You see, that label, I think, is just invaluable. I mean, I've had so many clients who see exponential growth after clarifying what they do and being able to say because not only do you become more confident if you can say in 10 words or less what you do, you're just more confident sharing it and then people remember. People are not going to remember a 10 minute explanation of you fumbling through trying to describe what it is that you do. Nobody's going to remember that.
Speaker 2:But this guy, for example, his phrase was I help homeowners eliminate their electricity bill and he was in solar energy. That was the phrase I gave him. So his whole business was solar panels in Arizona where their monthly bill in the summertime for air conditioning would be over $2,000. So if you had somebody who was like, hey, I can eliminate that electricity bill for you, I'd be signing up If I lived down there and his business was obviously very geographically focused. So it made sense. But it was so simple and so clear. I mean, this was four years ago, maybe I gave this phrase to him. I still remember it because it's just so easy. And you know, in business, so much of our business is relationships, it's referrals. But if people cannot articulate what it is that you do, they'll never refer you because they don't know how and they don't know who is right. But if you know you run into somebody who's like complaining about their electricity bill, you're like, oh man, I know this guy and he can help people and I think it's.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've always wondered about that because there I have been in so many masterclasses and workshops and I've worked with coaches and that is always the thing the I help statement or the I work with statement because there's always this fear.
Speaker 1:I think and definitely with people that I've spoken to about the struggle is you really don't want people to A misunderstand what you do. But so many women are multi-potential, it's multi-talented, they do a variety of different things and it's like how do I fit the entire kitchen sink into that and I'm guilty of it, right how do I fit the entire kitchen sink into the help statement so that I'm not eliminating potential clients and I'm not alienating people that I could potentially work with, because I want to make sure everyone knows all of the wonderful things I can do. And I find that it's really hard to hone in on the one thing. I mean that's something that I challenge my clients to do is like find one thing and go all in on it for at least three or four months just to kind of build up that momentum and whatnot. But the level of resistance that people have to that is bananas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up because I would say 99.9% of the people I've worked with bring it up. They're like well, I don't want these people to not think I don't work with them, I'm like. No One mentor used the analogy of an hourglass, like where the sand goes through, and that's how she described niching. She said you should niche down so that you're at that narrow point where the sand goes through. She's like that's where your million dollars is, is that point, and then you can broaden later. Right, an hourglass is big and then it gets small and then it gets bigger.
Speaker 2:But, until you dial in your million dollars in that little passageway. And that's niching down. That is not speaking to everybody, because I love to use the kitchen sink phrase, because we talk about that in copywriting and we basically say, even within an email, an idea, just like our statement of who we help. It's one idea, it's one main promise, like one, one one. There is huge power in one. It's not your Christmas family newsletter in one.
Speaker 2:It's not your Christmas family newsletter. Yeah, you want to be all things to all people. If you want to make money and you want to have impact, you need to narrow it down, for sure.
Speaker 1:And that is so scary. It really is. It really is Right, especially nowadays when people are, I think, struggling to make money. These days, like 2024 has been a shockingly challenging year for a lot of people, and I think that there is this fear that, you know, if I, if I continue to niche or if I stay really narrowed in my focus, it's going to be a challenge. But when you look at the data and when you, when you actually talk to people who are doing well, they're sticking to one thing, and it's not that you can't offer it in a variety of ways, but also having like 11 T billion offers is not the way to go. I don't think.
Speaker 2:The more focused you can be, the better, and I'll give an example of that, too, that some of your listeners might relate with. So, let's say, if you're a real estate agent and you're trying to use Instagram to make sales, right, you have two courses that you're looking at. One is Instagram for business owners and one is Instagram for real estate agents. The Instagram for business owners is $99. The Instagram for real estate agents is $497. If you're a real estate agent, which one are you going to buy?
Speaker 2:It's five times as much, yeah, but you're going to buy that one because you know that it's going to work specifically for your niche. Yeah, okay, so we can translate that to what we do when we niche down you automatically can charge more because you have expertise with that particular niche not just the be all end, all solution. Vague Instagram course for business owners right Like it's.
Speaker 2:I love that example because I think it helps people really see like oh, okay, I get it I get why narrowing it down and becoming the go-to person in XYZ niche helps, because then people are willing to pay more premium prices for a solution that's going to get them what they want. It's another example, like when you know in the copywriting world people are like, oh, that might seem really expensive to hire a copywriter. I should just use chat GPT. I'm like well, if your heart's failing and you need heart surgery, are you going to go to a general practitioner or a certified nurse's aid and ask them to do your heart surgery? Or are you going to see if you can find the best heart surgeon in your area? Those kinds of analogies. They make sense to us. But we make all kinds of crazy decisions in our business that don't follow those same principles of niching down and investing in things that are actually going to move the needle forward in the way we want rather than just like a generic band-aid solution.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that my experience has told me is that we live in such a microwave society like we need instant, instant gratification, instant success. And niching down is not only scary, but when you don't see results immediately and you see someone else being successful, you see someone else doing something it's like, oh well, they're successful. So if I glom onto that, I can be successful too, and you're never giving your commitment to the niche or to really anything the due time that it needs to be successful, because I think what people don't realize is that it takes a little bit of time to get the traction, but once you get it it's like boom windfall. That's why the people you see that are successful are successful doing what they're doing, because they're very focused and they're very deliberate about what they're focusing on.
Speaker 1:And I love that you're talking about this because I think, especially this year in 2024, with business having been so challenging for a lot of people, I have been seeing people doing things that don't necessarily make sense for what I know them to offer or what I know them to do, but they're trying to kitchen sink their business, to hedge their bets, and I get it Like when you are in a position where you're not making money or you're not making enough money, you'll do whatever it takes to make it. But it's also having a little bit of faith in your particular area, because the people who need you are going to need your particular service, not anything they can get from anybody, if that makes sense. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that All right. One of the focuses now of my business is leadership for women, and what I'd love to know is you personally, being in a space that has been traditionally male dominated, what have you had to cultivate about how you do things, maybe differently, or what have you had to do to really show up as a leader in your space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will admit it's tough in some rooms for sure, to feel like I even have a voice and it's not unfounded. I mean, there are some groups I've been in where there's been a lot of, I'm going to say, negativity toward women, just an arrogance of women aren't as good of copywriters as men are. I don't necessarily believe that that's true. I think there are men and women that are very gifted. We just aren't as loud in general as the men are. So, similar to what I imagine the corporate world is like. We kind of have to fight our way, be seen and heard and to show up confidently in those rooms, and I wouldn't say it's been without fear. But I kind of just take a deep breath and I'm like, okay, I'm here, I'm going to stand my ground and it has been interesting and I've talked with some people about how it is scary because the general feeling and I've gotten this over and over again Zoom rooms and live events this feeling of inferiority we're better than you, whatever, whatever.
Speaker 2:But standing up for that and still being present, not being afraid to be present, not being afraid to have my voice be heard, but it's like a constant. I would say it's a constant thing I bump up against.
Speaker 2:I had a conversation with somebody I worked with recently who's? He's a man that owns an agency and I do some of the writing for his clients, and we had the conversation about he's like you know, I don't I want you to tell me what to do, like you are an expert at what you do, so give me feedback, whereas most and I told him I said it's unusual because most men are like, well, I already know. Like what she can teach me that I don't already know. So it's been an interesting field to be part of and really it's just showing up over and over and over that the only failure is giving up.
Speaker 2:So, to be a leader is to keep showing up, and one of my favorite definitions of success is we said, success is atonement, and atonement just means at one with and in religious circles that means something different for us but at one with ourselves. We talk a lot about alignment, especially female entrepreneurs, and we are a success and we are successful when we're at one with ourselves, living in alignment, sharing our gifts, our passions, and so that is really what I've tried to remind myself in self-leadership of. Am I being successful? By staying in alignment with my values, with my voice in the world and not giving up? You know, being resilient, af all the time, regardless of setbacks or whatever is going on in family life or whatever, it's still showing up every day and and feeling like I matter. Even if the groups I've been in haven't necessarily always expressed that same value For me, I'm still willing to show up, and not every group has been that way. I don't want to say like men are bad or anything like that.
Speaker 2:It's just. It is a different environment. Men are different. Thank God, they're different than women, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a socialization thing and it's a corporate thing and it's a patriarchal thing and it's blah blah, blah blah, but it's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we can choose to live in a victim story of you know, it's not blah, blah, blah, but like I chose. And that's one of the things that I've loved about entrepreneurship is, you know, when I was still in that, what became a very abusive work situation before I was able to get out, I heard the phrase everything is for you, not to you, and I would repeat that phrase to myself many times a day and the phrase everything always happens for my highest good, in divine timing. I would say that like a thousand times a day, some days through tears, because it was so hard and painful at the end, like it got really bad and really ugly.
Speaker 2:but I would repeat those phrases and choose all the time, every day, day in and day out, not to be a victim and say, okay, how is this for me? So when I get in situations that are predominantly male or something I'm like, okay, well, I can choose to be a victim, or I can choose to just learn from the situation and be like what can I learn from them? Like they're brilliant marketers. And there are a lot of men that are really really good at copywriting, and I learned a lot from them, right.
Speaker 1:Take what works and leave what doesn't, and adapt it to your.
Speaker 2:Shine my own light in my own way and you know my clients have predominantly been female. I do a lot of trainings in female masterminds. Coaches have me come in and do one hour trainings and things like that, or copy critiques, and it's mostly women. But what's really cool is that I can bring in the brilliance of copywriting that I've learned from all the bro marketers, but in a female way and a heart-centered way, and just show them bringing in the divine feminine. And how do you bring in heart and spirit and use your intuition to guide you with copy there's, I do. I walk people through certain visualizations that help them unlock that inner messaging and things like that. So I get to do, I feel, like the best of both worlds and bringing together some of the more spiritual side of things that women really love with that very black and white scientific copy in a way that's just more palatable than how the bros talk.
Speaker 1:It's a great example of how everything you experience teaches you something you need. You get to figure out what that is, but everything teaches you what you need, and then you get to take it and make it your own. I think that's where a lot of people get challenged and where they struggle is in feeling like they have to. Whatever they're given or whatever they learn or whatever they see has to be regurgitated in the exact same way. And when it brushes up against your values, you're not sure why you just internalize it.
Speaker 1:Especially women, we internalize it as I'm not good enough, I can't do this, this doesn't. You know, I'm never going to be successful in this way, but it's like no, no, no, everything works. You have to find the way in which it works for you, and so I love that you're able to do that. Before we go, I would love for you to share what's like one really simple thing people can do when it comes to talking about what they do or writing their copy around. You know their offer, their messaging. What's one really simple thing someone can do, like today, to just get on the path to making that copywriting easier for them?
Speaker 2:so many things I could share. Um, I'll try to go through a few real fast that come to mind. Reading things out loud, say it out loud. That's such a good filter. Use the Hemingway app. Bring it down, ideally to third grade level. Most people really struggle to write at a third grade level, so fifth grade max.
Speaker 2:You might be surprised when you plug things into Hemingway. A lot of times the clients I work with are writing out like 10th grade or 12th grade. It's too complicated for people. That's not meant to be rude, but we just we need to bring it down. So, yeah, those are some like really simple tools. The headline analyzer is amazing, for it's called aminstitutecom forward slash headline. That's another great resource Finding a few great tools that can really help you. I mentioned before bouncing it off someone or working with somebody to help you distill that message. The other thing I'll leave you with is just a story of a case study where a woman launched her course and she did all right, she did 45,000, where a woman launched her course and she did all right, she did 45,000, which you know not shabby.
Speaker 2:And then, after making a few changes to the sales page, those changes were left justifying text. So our brains literally have a harder time reading centered text. Left justified the text on the sales page and took out all instances of learn and teach that we cut those two words out of your vocabulary. Even though you are teaching people things they are learning, do not use those two words. She relaunched the course 30 days later with without those two words on the sales page and with left justifying her text, and she did $450,000 in 30 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she 10Xed. Those were the only changes made. It literally relaunched to all the same people on her email list and her social media, but it 10Xed her results. So small hinges swing big doors when you know little things like that, like just the design of the page and making it easier for your people to read it. So simple, dropping those two words, because our primal brain says, oh, that's hard, learning's hard, run away. Don't do that. Amazing results, amazing results. So I would say those are some of the top things to just small tweaks you can make that can really make a huge difference.
Speaker 1:My flabbers are gasted Like okay, we're as soon as we're done here, Sarah is running to her website changing a few things. My goodness, that's, that's fascinating. I love stuff like that, Like stuff that just kind of makes you go play. So thank you for sharing that. Dawn, Thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you? And if you've got anything you want to share with the audience, please let us know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Come find me on Instagram at dawncopyqueen. I love hearing from you, so send me a DM, tell me what blew your mind that I shared in this episode, or share your story. I just I love connecting with people and hearing about you and your business. So please come find me on Instagram and I believe you have a link for the 15 copy keys. So that gives a little bit more of things like the learn and teach, so little tidbits that can really dramatically change and improve your conversions.
Speaker 1:So I'll be signing up as soon as we're done. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you so much for being here and, as always, my friends, you can absolutely have success without the BS. We're living proof and I will talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and if you're feeling extra sassy rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.