Episode #6 - The Hidden Power of Words: An Interview with Joy Capps

Exciting News!

We're thrilled to announce that as of July 2024 our podcast name is changing from Coming Home to Joy to Joy-Led Business!  Rest assured, our mission remains unchanged: empowering Christian women like you to discover joy in entrepreneurship, with practical wisdom, heartfelt encouragement, and a faith-centered approach. Tune in to the Joy-Led Business podcast and continue your journey towards business success and fulfillment!

This episode of 'Coming Home to Joy Business Podcast' is an engaging conversation with Joy Capps, an accomplished copywriter with a mission - to inject faith, authenticity, and ethics into business communication. Explore how she uses her 'Joyful Copy' approach to challenge and shape marketing communications in alignment with the teachings of the Bible. Are you ready to revolutionize your approach to copywriting? This might be the episode for you.

- **Links mentioned:**
- Website: [joycapps.com](http://www.joycapps.com)

- Book: [Joyful Copy](https://www.amazon.com/Joyful-Copy-Marketplace-Ethically-Authentically/dp/B0B5BNCGC8)

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joycappswrites/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoyCappsWrites

- LinkedIn: [Joy Capps](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joycapps)

- Podcast: [Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur Live] https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomDrivenEntrepreneur

- Podcast [The Joyful Communications Podcast] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joyful-communications-podcast/id1687729253

Discover the Secret to Getting Organized and  Having Work-Life Balance in Your
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Transcript

Copy

Tina Joy 0:00

All right, welcome to the coming home to joy business podcast. I am grateful for the opportunity to be sharing the mic today with fellow joy. component. Joy Capps. Joy Capps is the author of Joyful Copy. She is an amazing, over the top experienced copywriter. And since copywriting is something that we all need to do, if we're going to have a business that we love for a lifetime and have joy in our business, doesn't it make sense to talk about copywriting? And I'm not going to teach you. So welcome joy.

Joy Capps 0:42

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here, Tina joy on the joy podcast, bringing joy home podcast. I think it's so interesting that everything we're talking about today is focused on the concept of joy, your name, my name, the name of the podcast, the name of my book and what God calls for us to do in our lives. his joy.

Tina Joy 1:06

How cool is that? It is really cool. I am g met by accident sort o story. I you also know who was tex he was late for a meetin The joy confusion, we should call it. That's how we met through the joy confusion, right? Yes.

Joy Capps 1:33

Yes. It was, it was quite entertaining because he, he has a propensity to as you know, to reach out randomly. Like he's been having this ongoing dialogue with you and you may not have spoken with him in weeks or months. And I was like, Oh, okay. I guess I'm supposed to be on a call with him. And little did he know he was texting me. And it was just really interesting. It caused me to reach out to you and say, Hey, we need to talk.

Tina Joy 2:01

And that's, I think that's so true. It's, it's, you know, we've talked, we talk on this podcast about relationship and why relationship is really important. And what's really fun is just exploring those relationships. So I had actually been getting ready to order your latest book. And so tell us more about you and this book, Joyful Copy before you jump in or while you're talking about that, can you make sure you explain to us What copywriting is a lot of us are going, okay, and I know in the book, you have a really great definition and explanation of What copywriting actually is. So let's start

Joy Capps 2:42

there. Okay. Sure. I'm happy to do that. So let me, let me preface this by you can listen to this conversation. You can read about it in my book. You can Google and get the results. There's just many different ways to dissect this, but my favorite way to explain to people the nuance between copywriting and that's W R I T I N G and copy writing. R. I. G. H. T. I. N. G. Is one has a little are in the circle at the top and the other one doesn't. That's one nuance. One involves a lawyer. And the other one doesn't, right? One involves the rights that you have around something that you've written legally and the other one doesn't. It, it, it involves using words to connect with your customers. And so. What, what happened? This story that I'd love to share is I, I'm a scuba diver. That's my passion hobby, and I was diving on a boat. I've done thousands of dives and, and so this piece is not uncommon that in between dives. I like to talk to other divers and find out what their story is. What do they do for a day job? You know, what makes them tick? And the diver sitting next to me was an attorney. And so we started talking and she then asked what I do. And I said, Oh, well, I'm a. professional communication strategist and copywriter. And she cut me off at the chase. And she says, I need your help for my clients. And I listened a little bit more. And what I found very quickly was she was thinking that I could help legalize the content, the terminology, the things that her clients were creating and doing. And I had the opportunity to share with her. No, that's Copywriting R I G H T. And what I do is I use words to help customers connect with businesses. And so that is the huge nuance between the two. I've actually had people, Tina joy, reach out to me and invite me to speak at their conferences. And in the same paragraph, they have intermingled gone back and forth between copywriting W R I T. I N G and copywriting. R I G H T I N G. It's comical to me. Anyway, there's your, there's your nuance. So I love

Tina Joy 5:14

this cause you know, sometimes we tend to get really paranoid and we want to make sure we've got everything protected. So we think about copyright, that's the copyright. And that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about This phrase is so great using words to help our customers connect. When I talk about marketing, I talk about, it's essentially, like being a waitress and saying, okay, this is what I have This is who it's for. Do you want it? It's not about pushing people to fix, figure out, you know, persuade them to think some different way. And we have to do that with words a lot. So this is where your expertise comes in and copywriting. Is different than being, an author well, let me ask you, how is it different than writing a book? Because you've done, both. Yes.

Joy Capps 6:04

Well, it's interesting you ask that particular question, because when I wrote the first draft of my book I didn't know what I didn't know. Right. And, I, I took my rough First draft and I sent it out to a couple of people that are in my close inner circle and said, what do you think? And I didn't even realize what I had done. I had used copywriting techniques, what you do on a webpage or in an email or any type of content that you create for marketing. And I had used that throughout the manuscript. And it did not translate well, and I didn't even realize it. An example would be I have a propensity when I'm creating those marketing elements to put an occasional word in all caps or to bold a particular phrase or word here or there. And that is not what people need to see or how the mind works for an actual book. Huge difference, right? And so it's definitely an interesting nuance, but the thing that I think is compelling to me is that in the wide world of marketing and the wide world of communication, there's one thing that's at the core of it. I don't care what you're creating. There's one thing that's at the core of it. And do you know what it is? Copy words, writing, because marketing and all the elements, the slices of that that go with it, public relations, whatever it is, those things don't exist without words, without content, without copy. Yeah,

Tina Joy 7:42

it's so true. It's so true. You know, I work with people in the Golden Heartland community and at their request, we are spending the entire month on email

Joy Capps 7:52

marketing in what we're focusing on.

Tina Joy 7:54

And the first question that came up was, I don't know what to write. I don't know what to put in the email. That's why I don't do it. And so, this is a great topic for us. And I'm so grateful you wrote the book on it. So your book is titled Joyful Copy. what is Joyful Copy? What makes copy joyful?

Joy Capps 8:14

Great question. So I think I need to give a little backstory, Hoping you would. Yes. So I have spent over 30 years working as a communications professional. I've done it for agencies. I've done it for my own business. I've done it for corporations, for startups and those that have gone public. I've, I've had an exciting career. And throughout that journey, I've worn a lot of different hats, predominantly the director of communications. Depending upon what the company was, and I got really adept at creating content that would connect with people, but it would pull on strings that sometimes weren't authentic, sometimes weren't true. And the thing that is somewhat telling is that I was a Christ follower the whole time, and I did not realize that I had been drinking from the proverbial fire hose of hype and manipulation. I had learned at the feet of really good people with well meaning intention, but they were teaching me worldly ways and those worldly ways. Are subtly mired in nothing but hype and manipulation, twisted realities. And without going through my entire work history, cause we don't have time for that. I, I had a scenario play out where the Lord, actually several, but one in particular where the Lord really got my attention. And he said, Hey, joy. This is not aligned with me. And that opened up Pandora's box in my mind. What do you mean? This isn't aligned with you. And fast forward, the Lord showed me that I could take best practices that are taught in marketing communications, and I could filter it through the word of God and create what I now call as joyful copy. And I'm interchanging that with joyful communications. And that means that. Every single piece of content or strategy or communication that's created. I filter through the Bible. Now, if you pause and think about that for a second, you're like, wow, that's really time consuming. The Bible's like yay big, has a lot of verses. So how do you do that? And through this journey that I lightly touched on, the Lord helped me hone in on really three core verses. And those core verses are what we filter the content that we've written through to make sure it's aligned in the three core verses. I'm certain your listeners are going to already be familiar with and that's Galatians which is the fruits of the spirit. And then Philippians 4, 8, which is well known as the believers thought life whatsoever. Things are true whatsoever. Things are. Praiseworthy think on these things. I'm paraphrasing, but those contextual pieces, those elements are attributes of God's character of who he wants us to be easier said than done, because the world will interpret. certain character traits in a certain way, but he means it in a much deeper, richer, more meaningful way because he created emotions and he gave us our emotions. And so the things that we create, if we make sure that we take those best practices and filter them through those Emotions, those character traits and make sure that it's void of anything. That's the antithesis of that. Any of the negative character traits, the hype and the manipulation then we can have joyful copy and we can still connect with our customers without having to do anything that's nefarious or underhanded. I love

Tina Joy 12:05

what you're saying. And the thing I loved about your book and your work is it's so in line with. The things that I find with our listeners and the people that I work with is they don't want to be that you use a phrase hyper manipulation and our businesses don't grow because we don't want to be that salesperson. We don't want to be that person that does that and. There's so few places in the business training and the business coaching world where people are raising their hand and saying, you don't have to be that. And what I'm hearing you say is, not only do you not have to be that, but you don't even want to be that. That you can actually be incredibly successful with your copy and with what you write to connect with your customers by filtering it through the things that matter the most to you. Absolutely. So that, that is so hopeful, I'm excited, I was excited, I was like, oh yay, I don't have to do the things that feel yucky,

Joy Capps 13:06

You don't, but there's a nuance here, a thread that I feel compelled to, to pull on just a tidge. There's a lot of people that, you know, there's a ton of copywriters and communication strategists out in the marketplace. And there's quite a few that are Christ followers, but the thing that really makes joyful copy different is I'm not. focused on the things that others may be. I'm not focused on money. I am not focused on innovation or trends or expertise or I don't know, emotions. Those aren't the things that I'm focused on. What I am purely focused on is making sure that whatever I put out in the world is going to meet a need that someone has, and it's going to do so ethically and authentically because it aligns with the word of God and nowhere in there, do you see the traditional money, traditional expertise, guru led all those different things. That's not even there. Right. And that's what

Tina Joy 14:10

is so great about it. I think you give what your work does and what the book does is gives hope to those of us that thought I can't do this business thing because in order to be successful in business, I have to be somebody I'm not. And what I'm hearing you say is no, you can be the woman of faith, the woman that is focused in my relationship with the Lord. And. Be successful in connecting with your customers because it's really about that. Absolutely. Connection more than is about anything else.

Joy Capps 14:45

Absolutely. So tell me

Tina Joy 14:48

about your business. So how has this shown up? You've talked about your career in corporate America and to some extent,

Joy Capps 14:56

what are you doing now? So I have my own LLC. I've had it for, I want to say 22 years now. I'd have to go back and do the math. I've had that for a significant amount of time, but right now I'm in my 10th year of business full time. This journey and the Lord has had me serving believers and nonbelievers alike to help them create copy that connects with their customers. And I've done it over the years in a variety of ways. I've done it in a coaching. Element where I actually come alongside and show people, Hey, let's do this together. And then I've actually done it for you this particular season that I'm walking out and it seems to be a lengthy season. The Lord has said, joy, I need you to take a stand in the marketplace with this message that I've given you to really hone in on. Christ following business leaders, Christian business leaders, and moral compass followers. Moral compass followers are people that maybe don't profess to be Christians, but they do know there's a better way and they are drawn to the principles, the teachings of the Bible, right? So hone in on. Christian business leaders and moral compass followers to challenge them and teach them a better way of connecting with their customers. And in this particular season, how that's showing up is he's got me doing more. Workshops, more speaking opportunities and interviews like this. He also has me offering less of the coaching perspective, you know, the one on one and really doing done for you with a handful of clients. So, it's a different. Dynamic for me. And I have to share that. It's something that each day is, is new and refreshing. Cause the Lord takes me in directions. I didn't even anticipate.

Tina Joy 16:56

I did an interview with a podcast called Lead Upside Down. And the podcast is all about doing business with the Lord. And we talked a lot about leading upside down and walking with Jesus is more like following the leading. So you mentioned several times about the Lord and the season that he's leading to. How

Joy Capps 17:14

has your faith played out in all of this? It's gotten stronger. He's transformed. My relationship with him I've actually gotten to a point where I've, I've taken something that was taught to me as a little girl and I've made it my framework, not only for how I show up in life, but also how I show up in business and how I conduct. Communication strategy sessions for myself and for others. And it's a simple framework. I write about it in the book. When, at the time that I wrote what, what we have in the book, my perspective was not as strong as it is now. And that is the joy framework. And I know that sounds like I'm doing a play on words, but hear me out. You may or may not have heard of this, but it's Jesus first other second and yourself last. And by approaching. Life and business that way I find myself inviting the Holy Spirit into all that I do and asking him to guide and direct what I'm doing and That is a game changer. I mean I used to in comparison be guilty of creating stuff and And then after I was done taking it to the father and saying, Hey, daddy, God, check this out. Would you bless for me? In this pretty, don't you want to put this on your, your virtual refrigerator? Lord, isn't this gorgeous? You know, like, and, and yet he had nothing to do with that creation because I did it all on my own. And so The strong nuance here is back to that joy framework where I'm putting Jesus first. I'm putting him at the center of all that I'm doing. I'm not compartmentalizing him in any way. Yeah. I like that.

Tina Joy 19:03

And I like what you're saying about others. Second, when we think about copywriting so much of my challenges, you know, you start a business and the first thing you have to do is copywriting, but you don't realize it because the first thing you do is tell

Joy Capps 19:16

people about what you're doing. Right. Right. And we spend so

Tina Joy 19:20

much time thinking about us. Right. And then our copywriting comes out with all about us, right? And not them. And then we wonder why people don't come, right? So one of the first tenants of copywriting is to write about them and what's in it for them, you know, for, with, you know, what, what's in it for me and

Joy Capps 19:42

all that. But what you do is take

Tina Joy 19:44

that through a lens of, I've worked with Jesus. Yeah. That's pretty

Joy Capps 19:51

exciting. Yeah, it is. And, and it's really cool. Because he shows me new revelations all the time. One of my joy isms that I say all the time, as I refer back to the ultimate how to guide. And what's really cool is that he has revealed to me and continues to reveal to me new things in the word and God's word. And he shows me how he's nothing new. That we're doing here has it's already been created before. Right. And he shows me examples of him showing up through God's word all the time and how marketing principles are through that and how running a business is through that and on and on and on. It's just really a lot more compelling than going to some guru and finding out what they did and trying to copy what somebody else did. Right. Yeah,

Tina Joy 20:44

I did that. I tried so hard. I spent so many thousands of dollars trying to figure out a way to copy what somebody else did that did not fit me. And it doesn't work for you,

Joy Capps 20:55

right? Well, then people will gladly take your money. They will gladly take your money.

Tina Joy 20:59

Your credit card company loves it, right? And one of the reasons that I focus in marketing first and focus in marketing so much is because that's tends to be where We get stuck and where we then spend a ton of money because we really don't want to do it because we think we have to

Joy Capps 21:17

do it in a way that doesn't do

Tina Joy 21:19

what you're doing is providing that hope for us that doesn't have to be that way. Right. It's really getting to know people, talking to people, knowing what you have, not being real interested in their decision because you can't control their decision.

Joy Capps 21:35

Right. Well, here's, here's a mistake that I think a lot of people make when it comes to business is I don't care who you are, what it is you're trying to sell. They, put the focus on themselves and they shine the light on how awesome and how wonderful they are. And I hate to break it to, to people. I kind of enjoy breaking this to people. That's not true. But nobody cares. Nobody except for your mom. Maybe your mom might think it's really cool that you've won all of these different awards. What people care about is something you referred to a few minutes ago, which is the with them. What's in it for me? How's what you're doing going to solve the problems that I have. And it's so important that we. Show true understanding and that that's another nuance of joyful copy. You see, it's authentic. It's genuine. You have to show understanding that extends beyond transactions. Yeah. And that's

Tina Joy 22:34

really this joy concept that you're talking about is it's not just about you and it's about understanding the others, understanding, you know, a lot of the people that I work with, they create things and they sell products rather than services and it's like,

Joy Capps 22:50

well,

Tina Joy 22:51

I made this. Okay. But who's it for? And what does it give to them? And that's what people are really connecting with is how is this going to change my life? How is this going to have an impact on me rather than who you are? And I think that's hopeful as well. For those of us who say. I'm just nobody. Why would anybody care about stuff? Right. I see that too. I see people say, well, I can talk about other people's stuff, but I can't, well, it's not about you. It's about offering what God's given you to put out into the market.

Joy Capps 23:29

And here's the thing. I, I, I have to be real on this point. It's you can, you can know. What to do. I have a lot of knowledge and understanding in my field of expertise, but taking action on it sometimes, especially applying it to myself can be challenging because guess what? I get in the way right here of myself. Yeah. So you have to, you have to go in with that mindset. And when that happens, And it happens to me frequently. I, I've learned at this stage in my journey, my walk with the Lord in business to pause and say, okay, that is from the enemy that is not coming from the Lord. And I repeat that. So Lord, I need you to put your super into my natural. I need you to help me in this moment. Beyond what I'm doing because I'm getting my head beat up against the wall or stubbing my toe on something that I ought not to be right.

Tina Joy 24:28

And that's what working your business with God is all about we could probably take that one topic and go for another hour and a half on that one topic. But. How do we find you? How do we find Joyful Copy if we

Joy Capps 24:41

want to buy the book? And then how do we find you if we want to connect with you? I'm so glad you asked that. So the easiest way to find me directly is to go to my website at joycapps. com. That's J O Y C A P P S dot com. And. There's a number of other ways that you can connect with me. I'm, I'm on Facebook both personally and professionally. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram, but you can get my book, joyful copy, how to show up in the marketplace ethically and authentically through any online retailer, Amazon, Barnes and Noble books, a million. That's an easy access I have another book that's about to come out through the U S. Chamber of Commerce. It's a collaborative effort and that'll be coming out in April and it'll have a similar way to be able to purchase it. My podcast, I'm actually on two. I have my own, which is the joyful communications podcast. And what I love about that, that your audience may be interested in is that I'm the first season is a solo cast. Where I focus on each one of the fruits of the spirit and I unpack this is what the world says about it. This is actual examples of how they use it in marketing in the world today. But this is what God's word says. And this is how you can use it authentically and ethically in your marketing communications. So they might be interested in that. And then last but not least, I'm a co host on the Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur live. Podcast, which airs weekly over YouTube or anywhere that you stream podcasts on Wednesdays at one o'clock PM Eastern time.

Tina Joy 26:23

Awesome. So I'm going to put links to all of that stuff in our show. Listened to your Joyful Communications podcast, and it's really helpful to dig into some of these topics that we've just kind of touched the surface since we don't, we could spend hours just digging into that so that you've broken it out so I can, listen to some training as well. Well, thank you so much for talking joy and talking copywriting. Thank you for bringing joy to copywriting because I have to do it and I don't like doing it. And this has really helped me to make some shifts in the way I approached the copy as well. And given me permission to not have to do it the way everybody else does it.

Joy Capps 27:09

So. Absolutely. Work matters and it's

Tina Joy 27:12

important and I'm grateful that you're here to share this with us as well. So those of you who are listening, make sure you're checking out Joy's website and her podcasts continue to be you and remember that change is just on the other side, stepping into who you are. We'll see you next time on the coming home to joy podcast.