Copy And

11. How to Hire a Copywriter (And When a VIP Day Makes Sense)

• Sam Burmeister | Conversion Copywriter @ Nomad Copy • Episode 11

Share episode

Hiring a copywriter can feel like comparing apples to oranges — one charges hourly, one offers retainers, another sells VIP Days, and somehow they all call themselves “copywriters.”

So… where do you even start? In this episode, I break down how to hire a copywriter without losing your mind, what actually matters when comparing options, and when a VIP Day makes more sense than a long-term project or retainer. If you want copy that sells (and sounds like you), this episode will save you time, money, and a lot of second-guessing.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The real difference between copywriters, content writers, and “sales copy”
  • When hiring a copywriter is about a time gap vs a skills gap
  • How VIP Days work — and who they’re best for
  • What to look for before trusting someone with your messaging

Resources Mentioned:

Find Donna and the CEO Sprint podcast at this link!

To find Danielle at DM Squared Media, go to dmsquaredmedia.com/nomad. 

Connect with me:

Nomad Copy Services → sales pages, emails, websites, and more.

Get on my calendar → if you’d like me to write your sales copy for you!

Free Opt-In Copy Bot → Write high-converting opt-in pages in minutes

Watch episodes with subtitles on my YouTube

Nomad Copy Agency writes copy that CONVERTS for service-based businesses. Inquire about done-for-you services here.

This past summer, summer camp was my number one sales lead. And here's what I mean by that, is that I had a lot of people reach out to me and say, Sam, I thought I could handle my workload this summer. I have something launching this fall and. I have to drive my kids to camp. I thought that I was gonna have all this time this week, but like between driving and catching up on other things that I put off for when they're at camp, I can't do it. And I think it's super interesting that summer camp somehow ended up being the number one reason why people hired me for VIP days this summer. So I think that now would be a great time for us to talk about how to hire a copywriter and when to hire a copywriter and also. How to work with a copywriter. So let's go ahead and jump in. My name is Sam. I am your guide on this little copy adventure and you are listening to the podcast copy. And this is a marketing podcast with a copy focus. Why? Because copy is at the center of every piece of our marketing. Copy and design, copy and your sales strategy copy, and the way that you talk to your people. Copy and messaging. Copy. And how the heck do you make AI sound like. You, right. So today we're gonna talk about copy and how to hire a copywriter if you're just not ready to do it yourself, let's go ahead and jump in. First of all, I'm gonna tell you about how you can work with me as a copywriter. I work in a few different ways. The first is my membership copy on demand. It's currently closed, but you can join the wait list at the link in the description, in the show notes. But Copy on Demand is a membership where people who want to write their own copy get the accountability and feedback that they need to be able to write copy that sounds like them, but converts better, which is what I want for you. This is a podcast about copywriting. If you hire me, great. That's amazing. I love that for both of us. But if you're just here to learn how to become a better copywriter and you're getting a ton of value, just listening to me here, copy on demand is gonna be amazing for you because copy on demand is where you get feedback on your copy. So you listen to me say things here, you do it yourself, and then I help you with the context of your own business. The minimum commitment is a year. So you generate these better writing habits, whether it be the accountability to write often or write copy that actually sells based on your habits that you're picking up over the course of the year. So that's number one. Is the kind of this hybrid not done for you, not even done with you.'cause you're doing the writing, you're just doing it better. The second way to work with me is VIP days where we have a. Kickoff call a couple days before the full day of writing where we sit down and review everything that you've got for me, whether that be existing sales pages, you just telling me your ideas. You might have a website, you might have emails. It depends on what you want me to write for you, but you probably wanna bring to the table client voice, client feedback, past testimonials, any research that you've done on the offer that you have. And then you don't have to be present for the day of your VIP day. On your VIP day, a couple days later I will have marinated on what you've said, and I sit down and I write all day long. You've got me for seven hours and it is wild. What I can create in seven hours. It might be a full sales page, perhaps several emails. the most I did in a day was a full, launch series of emails and then the person hired me to come back on and do their next sales page in emails as well. We can also do a full four page website in a day. So there's a lot of options for you with a VIP day, but people always ask, what can you get done in a day? And that fully depends on what you need done in a day. As long as it's copy, I can write it. That can be anything from sales pages, websites, sales emails, ads, and anything in between. Anything that you use to sell. So that's thing number two. We had copy on demand and we have VIP days, but then we have project basis. A lot of people choose to do this when they have more than what can get done in a day. I do that a lot. A lot of times people come to me for a VIP day when they had a pretty okay launch and they know it would be better if they got my eyes on it. So copy on demand is, or VIP days are a great way to get both new and judged. Copy. Projects are almost the same except rather than getting as much done in a day, there's a clear set of deliverables. We say, this is exactly what I'm gonna be able to deliver to you. Typically over the course of a few weeks, we can take it in stages. What I did recently for someone is we wrote their sales page first. Two weeks later, we wrote their emails. That way we knew that the sales page was absolutely locked down before we started writing the sales emails. That would lead to the sales page. Then to wrap everything up, we did the ads that would lead to their opt-in and did their opt-in. So we did a full launch copy set over the course of about a month. Those are the three ways that you can work with me. I know there's other copywriters who work on a retainer basis, other copywriters who only work on an hourly basis. There's a lot of ways to work with people, and if you have a different way of working, reach out to me. I have a huge network of copywriters and I'm happy to point you in the right direction. Also, when you're hiring a copywriter, a lot of it comes down to style, and I do encourage you to shop around. Sometimes it's really helpful to have somebody who speaks very similarly to you, so follow people on Instagram, watch the way that they talk, look at their emails, and see how they speak to their audience. Does that feel comfortable for you? Just like an artist? Let's say you were to have Andy Warhol come in and do a mural, but you were hoping it would look like Monet. They're both incredible artists, but Andy Warhol is not Claude Monet and Claude Monet is going to not draw you. A Campbell's soup can absolutely not. He's gonna draw you lily pads. So when hiring a creative, make sure that you've seen past examples of their work before hiring them. Make sure that they do have experience doing what you need them to do. If somebody says, I've never written ads before, but I'm sure I can, I would take pause. If somebody has never worked in the professional services industries and doesn't know how to talk about things, like let's say you're an accountant or a financial advisor, if somebody doesn't know how to talk about those things. I would take pause before hiring them. So it's not uncommon to ask a copywriter to see examples of their work as well. So when hiring a copywriter, you definitely wanna understand their style, you wanna understand their level of experience, and you wanna understand the way that they work. I told you how I work specifically, but why would you hire a copywriter in the first place? Yeah, you might hire a copywriter like the person I mentioned at the beginning of the video, or the several people I mentioned who just didn't have time to write their own copy. You may also be in a rut where you say, I know how to write. In fact, I'll attest to this. Every one of my clients has really great writing skills. They just might not have great sales writing. So it could be a time gap, it could be a skills gap. The thing I hear over and over is why would I hire you as a person when I can just plug things into chat or Claude or elsewhere and get a sales page spit out? And the reason for that is, well, there's a lot of them, but the first thing is, it's really difficult to get your chat bots to write like a human, especially if they haven't already met the other humans that you're selling to. some ways to help make AI a little bit better would be to give them as much voice of client as you possibly can. Copy, paste your testimonials over there, other feedback. Maybe even give them examples of your clients' content so that they can see how your clients talk about things. You can ask your clients to send you voice notes, grab the transcripts, and then put them into one of your chat bots. It's helpful to know how your people speak. Language learning models like chat, GPT tend to write in cycles. They write in circles, so there's kind of this formula that you'll start to see where they say, problem, solution, anti solution. And that looks a lot like, you must be really busy. I'm gonna help you free up so much time in your schedule without the overwhelm. So that takes you to a high of, here's the solution, I'm gonna help you create so much time in your schedule, but then this anti solution of. Without the overwhelm or no. Fluff is another big one. We see a lot of times it says things in threes as well, so it'll also give like three anti solutions of no fluff, no overwhelm, and no extra time on your part. It's not actually selling something, it's. Trying to sell what it's not, which does not compute. And when you are saying things like fluff and overwhelm and those things, or you're taking people to an anti solution, you are significantly decreasing the chances that they purchase. So yeah, you could have AI write something for you, but that deep understanding of sales psychology is not present unless you train it. That way, and you could train it that way if you were trained on sales psychology, but if you were trained on sales psychology, you would be writing your own copy and not asking it to write for you. There's a lot of good things that chat can do. It can help you outline a page. It can help you find gaps in your page once you've written it. There are so many great uses for AI and writing. However, when you are putting your career on the line and saying, this is something that I wanna launch. Something that I need to get off the ground. Something where resonating from a person to person basis in a world where that human touch is continually diminishing. And I'll tell you, human touch is what's selling right now and always, and building trust is what sells. You need to have that human touch. So absolutely play around with ai, have a good time with it, but make sure that you understand sales psychology well enough before you go ahead and hit publish. And if you're hitting publish and you're not feeling confident or you're hitting publish and things aren't selling, it's another great time to tap in on a copywriter. Of course, I hope that copywriter is me because I do have over a decade of sales experience. I do have experience writing for plenty of six and seven figure launches. I'm also a very honest person and can tell you that most of the launches I write for are five figure launches because a lot of people aren't set up for six figure lunches, and that's okay. I'm here to see you sell more. I want to teach you through this podcast how to write copy that sounds like you, but converts better. But if you're in a place where you can't write the copy or you're not writing copy that sounds like you, but converts better and you wanna make the investment, that's when you reach out to me. If you're a fast action taker and you know that this is a great time for us to start a conversation. Slide into my dms on LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm on Instagram at nomad dot copy and LinkedIn at Samantha Burmeister. If you're a little bit more cautious, you're interviewing around for copywriters, I love that for you, and I'm so ready for that conversation. I'll make sure that the link to my interest form is also in the show notes so that you can grab that as well. I am always, always, always an open book, so feel free to reach out on any platform with any questions. I'm happy to answer future questions right here on the podcast. In future episodes, we are going to get a little bit deeper into different types of copy, especially next up. Next up on the podcast, we are gonna be talking about opt-ins and value ladders, If you've been on my email list for a while, you have heard this, but I can't stand the idea that we take people from a free thing to a paid thing and then suddenly they're gonna end up in our coaching program. Does that happen? Absolutely. But it is much more of a spider web than a ladder, and we are gonna talk about all the copy that you need to direct people from just being strangers on the internet to people who absolutely love paying you and how copy can help you do that. Again, my name is Sam. I'm the head copywriter at Nomad Copy Agency. Otherwise, I will see you next week, or we dig into value ladders and why I kind of hate them. Have a great week.