So Crisp with Jay Crisp Crow

Welcome back to Sam Winch, the course creator who sounds like she could be a lunchtime food, for our special So Crisp Listener's Choice series. Sam's 2020 So Crisp episode is one of our most listened to episodes, and for obvious reasons: 1. She's a superstar 2. February 2020, when her episode - Courses, Content, and Fibs About Passive Income - hit airwaves was right before the whole world changed. So, now she's back to talk about what has changed in her world, in her industry, in the world of courses, and for us, too.

Amber Dennis recently said to me, “sometimes it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. And the fact she’s my baby cousin from my favourite side of the family may be a bit of a disclaimer as to why she never had to pitch to be on this podcast. But, ultimately, she’s wrong about the balance of importance of her statement. Because the most important part of this incredible blend she’s put together to create herself – and the world – wheeliegoodperth is, in fact, what she knows. With 35 years of lived experience of being a disabled person, just as many major operations under her help, and an adulthood of being a wheelchair user, Amber has – what you could safely say is – a darn fine knowledge base about accessing the world in a different way. In 2021, after years of barriers to her inclusion and access, and throwing in some pretty major life changes, AND having never run a business before, in the midst of a pandemic, she launched wheeliegoodperth. And boy, has Perth responded with a resounding YES PLEASE. So many of the fine women I interview on this podcast are at the point where they’re years and years into their first, second, multiple streams of income over multiple businesses. Amber is fresh, wheeliegoodperth is brand new, and I thought it would be helpful for our startup listeners to hear her story so far and be able to ask her all the questions while being so new to the business world is still such a recent turn of events for her.

I’m starting to think I have a hidden talent. I think it might be making a career out of copywriting seem like the ultimate in life goals, because every year I welcome massage therapists, business coaches, naturopaths, and women from all other walks of life into my group coaching and 1:1 mentoring crew and slowly, but surely, they figure out they could be conversion copywriters. And they’re right. Gabi Angelina spent her childhood wanting to be a writer, but like so many of us, was told that wasn’t the most sensible choice for an income-generating career. So she was a teacher, then a Principal, then a music specialist, then owned a business teaching piano, taking that online when COVID hit in the US. Moving her entire business model to a virtual one led her to realise she had a specific talent for making tech easy - she consumed courses like cornflakes and actually implemented what she knew - with very little stress or fuss. She understood funnels, and zaps, and automations, and upsells, and the way humans access information through a building block system - slowly being educated to get to the point they can figure out what they really need - that all just made sense to her. One of the reasons I was so interested in having Gabi on So Crisp is her inherent and strategic understanding of how copy is used to hold a reader by the hand and get them from point 'slightly interested' to point 'I need this in my life'. What sealed the deal was a story Gabi told me about a large course group where all the women were getting tied in knots trying to figure out all these itty bitty details of tech and systems, when they were really missing the big picture: their messaging. Take a listen:

Dance mums, we’ve got to stick together. Because if the cost of endless shoes and lycra shirts and perfectly plain pairs of black dance pants that retail for $500 doesn’t send you a little batty, the politics might. But the #DanceMum life makes for good stories. And good stories is what Mel Daniels is all about. In fact, she’s semi rejected the traditional funnel concept of content marketing and relied on… well... content for the content marketing! This month, funnels feature heavily at So Crisp. Next episode we have a Kajabi funnel expert walking us through all the things we worry about that aren’t even remotely important when it comes to funnels and today we have Mel teaching us what to do if funnels don’t tickle our fancy and we want to scrap them altogether. Take a listen:

Here’s truth: no one wants to subscribe to your newsletter. Literally, zero people want another bleeding email in their inbox to deal with. Nope, nada, zip. So writing: SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER is boring. And also offputting. And not in the least bit enticing to, well, anyone. Here's what to do instead.

Alex Meadows is one of Perth’s most fabulous hairdressers. She doesn’t do your Nan’s hair (though she would if your Nan was cool) but instead her IG showcases an array of delectable and delicious colours like rainbow ice creams. Squished together in a stretch limo, talking about hair and what do you do for a buck and suddenly I’m showing Alex my little guy’s Instagram and he’s booking his first ever gig performing alongside a whole bunch of professional performers. Because I am the ultimate dance mum. During that “what do you do for a living?” conversation, straight after Alex said she was a hairdresser, she said “but I’m running my first huge charity event next year” and I was fascinated. Who decides they can take something like this on with no experience of running events? What could possibly go wrong? And would she tell me if I asked her? I know there are plenty of you in events who have been hit hard by the last 2 years and plenty more of you who would love to do something like this, so Alex agreed to come on So Crisp and share it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly cries.

The entire time I was watching Clarkson’s Farm I was mulling over that meme that offers up the concept you can pretty much do anything if you pretend you’re a mediocre middle-aged white man. And… if Jeremy Clarkson can run a farm, my smart women can certainly write copy that makes them money.

This episode is a little different than other So Crisp episodes you’ve consumed, the format is new to myself and my team (that makes us sound super professional, but in reality, it’s me and my adult son, who is a whizz with the tech) but I’m confident you’ll still be able to follow along. Instead of one, live guest, this episode features multiple sets of audio from some fabulous women. Our guests today are: Tori Haschka Monique Mulligan And Laura Greaves These guests are all women who made the transition from whatever they were before to published authors and novelists. Some of them even published books during COVID. Now, it’s no secret I sometimes treat my own podcast like a therapy session or, in this case, like an opportunity to have a massive brain pick! And I thought, if I wanted to know how people made a transition from business owner or career woman or mother to published author, perhaps some of you lovely listeners would like to hear about that too. So, welcome to Season 4 of So Crisp and let's get on with the show!

When I first started my copywriting business I was quick to correct anyone who said I was in marketing. Why? I just thought it had a bit of an… odour about it. A bit of a whiff of hard sell, Spammy McSpammy pants, FOMO manipulating stench. That was before I realised I wanted all my ideal clients to be smart, savvy businesswomen and therefore, I’d need to treat them that way. Be totally transparent, showcase the solutions for objections they had, expect cleverness. And that changed the way I wrote and marketed. And also meant I wasn’t really invested in the umbrella someone else chose for me to live under. Today’s guest is also particularly interested in marketing tactics and how the words we use have a negative or positive impact on our clients and customers and our relationships with them. Were talking unethical marketing and how to flip that for something a little more sustainable and clean with Rachel Kurzyp.

"Fat girls shouldn't be front-of-house". My boss said that. And then replaced me with a not fat girl. Just a couple of months before I was due to take long-service leave. I didn't do anything about the non-dismissal-for-fat-girl-reasons besides: carry those words around with me for the next 8 years. Today's the day I'm letting them out. But first, I'm showing you how I used them as a tool to step away from the stories in my own head and make my brand so quintessentially Jay, it's practically uncopy-able. (Though a few have tried.)

Have you ever looked, critically, at the industry you’re in and thought “this whole shebang needs a massive, fat, juicy shake up”? Most of us have. In fact, most of us are in business because we’ve seen a gap, and we think do you know what? I reckon I could fill that gap, or do a better job, or just I see a small proportion of the clients and customers who use that particular thing and I don’t think they’re being served the way they could be. So, we start something. Usually, it’s a small something. Not small for us, but in the grand scheme of things, not like INDUSTRY SHAKING either. Just our corner of the world… jiggling a bit. Not Branka Injac Misic. Branka set her sights on the Superannuation industry. Can you imagine? And then proceeded to launch something a little left of centre, something that had never really been done before. Can you imagine that? Something that had never really been done before, in a world where there are no original ideas, where everything's been done before, in some fashion. And really, how quirky can superannuation get? Well, this is a little bit of that story. And a little bit of just how different one idea can be.

So Facebook has a bit of a marketing conundrum. It'd like sex not to exist. It seems racism and sexism are fine, cyber-bullying, not so much a problem. But sex? Nope. (Oh, don't feel too left out, sex, FB also doesn't like breastfeeding images, breast cancer images, or sometimes even classical art if a nip is involved!) Facebook's guidelines for Adult Products or Services state, "Ads must not promote the sale or use of adult products or services, except for ads for family planning and contraception." And they're not the only ones. When was the last time you saw anything advertising healthy sexual relationships anywhere online? Anna Walsh is like so many of us - frustrations turned into a spark of a business idea. Sick of engendered stereotypes and attitudes towards women and sex, Anna created happymash as an online space where women can feel comfortable learning about and discussing their own sexual wellness. Bonus: happymash sells pleasure products for women - as her tagline says - get to know yourself! Recently, my opt in FB ad was rejected because I told readers their new copy would make their own reader want to lick the screen. I was out for about 3 weeks while my FB ads expert sweet talked the couple FB people still working there during lockdown. I can't imagine what it must be like to run a business like Anna's, so helpful to modern women, but so totally censored on every platform. In fact, when we first booked this podcast episode, Anna's Instagram had been shadow banned - couldn't find her for love nor money. And it's that kind of consistent censorship we'll talk about on this episode, amongst a couple other fun things! ***** Use the discount code SOCRISP20 for 20% off the Know Yourself Range from happymash. YAY! Shownotes for this episode are here. ***** This episode was brought to you by The Good Bite. The Good Bite is a nutrition business like you've never seen before. Based on a holistic and kind approach, Em Zilic will show you how to be good to yourself, be good to others, and do good for your community. How? By designing nutrition plans to suit your individual health and lifestyle needs. By chucking body shaming and weight obsessions out the window. And by donating a percentage of profits to social causes that do good in the world. To live good, you've got to feel good - inside and out. So take a good bite out of life and savour every bit of it!

I was teaching a class on Brand Voice at a conference and Jenny De Lacy was in the audience, she'd already done her bit - a De Lacy classic on confidence and the camera, and I mentioned her in an answer from a question about finding an audience, building a fan base, getting people to be a bit in love with you. I said something like, "Jenny does this really well, she has a free group and gives away oodles of information and advice about working the camera and creating engaging videos and tech and...and..." and as I'm talking Jenny is slowly crumpling - finishing up with her head in her arms on the desk and I'm slowly tapering off my sentence looking in horror at someone having some kind of mid-business crisis. And she said, "I wish I wasn't quite so well known for giving away free advice". And it wasn't just that. Jenny had painted herself into a bit of a niche. Ohhhh, there it is. That hole you've dug for yourself as a business owner when you're actually really good at something, you've been doing it for ages, your audience knows exactly what they get from you, but you are living with some serious business regret. Fast forward a year or so and Jenny is changing things up. Only she's so established in her field for doing this one particular thing and now she's got to drag her fan base with her. Today on So Crisp we're getting a rare behind the scenes look at the process one rather internet famous woman has to go through to take her business from something she's super well known for and change it into something else, because she's fallen out of love with it. We're talking changing directions - but when people are looking. Please applaud for Jenny. She's a brave, brave woman. Shownotes for this episode are here. **** This episode is brought to you by one of my favourites, Fiona Fell. Website maintenance isn't the sexiest of topics, but just like you need to grab a bite to eat and jump in the shower regularly, your website needs to be cared for too; to keep it ready and open for business. It's fundamental to the success of your business, and you want peace of mind that it will be up and available for your audience 24/7 - without interruption. More and more websites are getting hacked and attacked, including the big players like Twitter and Facebook as well as millions of small businesses every day. One of my favourite website geeks (she's self-labelled, so it's OK for me to call her that), Fiona Fell, offers WordPress Website Care Plans that save you time and headaches, give you peace of mind, and boost your website performance. Site management and security is no longer an option, it's a MUST. Don't wait until it's too late. Pick the WordPress Website Care Plan from Fiona Fell that suits your business best, and get: · No lock-in contracts · Priority support · Tech rescue · Daily monitoring · Backups and recovery, and · A 90 day money back guarantee And why do I love her so much? She's a pro at taking website techery and explaining it in jargon-free, plain English - so you can leave the geekiness to her and simply have a website that works for you. Visit getwphelp.com to find out more! *** Want to start working on your own Brand Voice? Use...

Hold on to your hats, good people, I'm here to preach some home truths from a copywriting perspective. Despite what you have grown up being told, I don't believe website sliders are actually necessary and in some cases could even be doing more harm than good. The reasons? Let me break them down for you. *** This episode is brought to you by one of my favourites, Fiona Fell. Website maintenance isn't the sexiest of topics, but just like you need to grab a bite to eat and jump in the shower regularly, your website needs to be cared for too; to keep it ready and open for business. It's fundamental to the success of your business, and you want peace of mind that it will be up and available for your audience 24/7 - without interruption. More and more websites are getting hacked and attacked, including the big players like Twitter and Facebook as well as millions of small businesses every day. One of my favourite website geeks (she's self-labelled, so it's OK for me to call her that), Fiona Fell, offers WordPress Website Care Plans that save you time and headaches, give you peace of mind, and boost your website performance. Site management and security is no longer an option, it's a MUST. Don't wait until it's too late. Pick the WordPress Website Care Plan from Fiona Fell that suits your business best, and get: · No lock-in contracts · Priority support · Tech rescue · Daily monitoring · Backups and recovery, and · A 90 day money back guarantee And why do I love her so much? She's a pro at taking website techery and explaining it in jargon-free, plain English - so you can leave the geekiness to her and simply have a website that works for you. Visit getwphelp.com to find out more! *** Want to start working on your own Brand Voice? Use the code: SOCRISPPODCAST to get 15% off your Brand Voice Development workbook right here.

Kick ass businessing and maintaining of an actual life. That's what my guest today promises the women who work with her. It's a big promise. Because business alone is work enough. It's more than a full time job, it's a complete lifestyle and, often, a total life changing event. Having a family is also more than a full time job. It's every moment, every second, you eat sleep dream kiddos and money and kiddos and worries and schooling and feeding them properly and worrying about their relationships and trying to keep your marriage on track while your mission doesn't suffer and remember a social life oh, and if you have them, don't forget the kiddos. And while some business coaches and online strategists believe in putting your best, most filtered, professionally dressed foot forward - Angela Henderson encourages us to scrap those beliefs daily. Turn up as yourself. Hoodies and eating Nutella from the jar to boot. She's getting So Crisp with me today to talk about what she brings to the table - humanity. Shownotes for this episode are here. This Cuppa Copy minisode is brought to you by the Crisp Copy Brand Voice Development Workbook. For less than a pub lunch, this workbook will take you through - Building a Word Bank - Writing Brand + Benefit Statements so you can compel folk to read more of your website - and a series of helpful ideal client questions - the ones actually relevant to helping you write your copy Use the code: SOCRISPPODCAST to get 15% off your Brand Voice Development workbook right here.

You may have seen her dancing on the Instagram. Or making green smoothies. Or working with her husband. Or grooving with her kiddos. In fact, you may BE on Instagram because of her. You may have joined her massive and incredible free FB community or signed up to her paid one (hey hey, I'm in there too!). In which case, she probably encouraged you to do some social media visibility things you weren't sure you'd ever do. Don't worry, you're not alone. And they worked, right? Your e-commerce store might have more sales and better conversions because of what you've learned from her. She may have gently nudged you towards rethinking your perspective, reassured you about your positioning, or emboldened you to ask for help - and then act on that advice. Today, I'm getting So Crisp with Instagram royalty, Tracy Harris. Or, as you may know her, the Mums With Hustle absolute boss. Oh, and big juicy hint! Stick around after the outro to hear what we continued to talk about after the podcast episode recording was officially over! The post-recording convo is just as good as the episode itself! This episode is brought to you by the Crisp Copy Class, the self-guided course option. It's a comprehensive copywriting course for women ready to write bank-making copy on a bootstrapping-friendly budget. Over 30 hours of recordings, oodles of downloadable worksheets, tutorials, and structural guides, everything from About pages to Sales pages and all the copy in between, all with lifetime access. Whet your whistle here. Shownotes for this episode are here.

In 2018, the UN women organisation wrote a list of facts and figures about economic empowerment. In it they stated, "women's economic empowerment is central to realising women's rights and gender equality." Did you know "women constitute around half of the 258 million migrants who live and work outside their countries of birth? Migrant women and girls outnumber men and boys in all regions except Africa and Asia." That's also from the UN women facts list, and speaks directly to the need for economic literacy and licence to play a central role in ensuring equity for women and the success of the economies they work in. Grace Mugabe is doing something about that very issue, right here in Australia, on the ground. She brings her extensive experience in Accounting with her corporate background to deliver financial literacy to provide practical and comprehensive financial education that is affordable and accessible for women and disenfranchised communities. Today, we're talking about financial literacy. Not just for businesswomen, but for all women. How having it changes lives and communities and society. And with Grace in the So Crisp hot seat, we're bound to learn something. This episode is brought to you by the Crisp Copy Class, the self-guided course option. It's a comprehensive copywriting course for women ready to write bank-making copy on a bootstrapping-friendly budget. Over 30 hours of recordings, oodles of downloadable worksheets, tutorials, and structural guides, everything from About pages to Sales pages and all the copy in between, all with lifetime access. Whet your whistle here.

Imagine facing all the fears you currently have when starting a business, or running a growing one. The chutzpah it takes to go out on your own, have the confidence to be visible, ask people to pay you for your wisdom, quit your job, take up space, communicate your worth. Now imagine facing that with the added process of translating all your business communications from your "heart" language to English. Riki Deale is on the So Crisp podcast to speak about her lived experience of launching her parent education brand not in her "heart" language, as a businesswoman for whom English is a second language, along with some tips for all of us to communicate with each other with a little more compassion.

I was going to talk to you in this episode about websites, how cool they are but how you don't really need one just to start, especially as a freshly minted copywriter, but a face full of cold has lead me by the sniffles to a new topic. Like a snotty segue. Boundaries. And buffers. Now, many of you know I run my fabulously life-changing business on 20 hours a week. That's 20 hours total. To get done all my client work, meet with my 1:1 copy mentoring clients, build new things like all the courses that currently live in my head, do my own admin, talk to my team, and promote myself. How do I do that? Boundaries made of titanium. And a touch of sparkle. Diamond encrusted. Erk, probably shouldn't mention crusted. Let me tell you about the Crisp Crow version of boundaries and buffers and how I blend it all to make it work. And how it's saved my bacon a thousand times over. Ironically, this episode is brought to you by the boundary setting boss - Anita Kaiser. Anita has a program called Better Boundaries for Empaths and HSP Entrepreneurs. It's a 2 month exploration through why you, as an empath (hey, relatable!) or highly sensitive entrepreneur feels constantly overwhelmed and exhausted by other people's emotions. Because you can love your business and still feel that way, which is why you need this work. If you'd like to work with Anita to create strong yet loving boundaries so you can feel energised and confident to grow your business consistently, skip along right now to her website right here. (Also, stick around to the end of the episode where I test out my new poddy mic with a fluey-fuelled rendition of 'Hello' - or something like it. Because how else do you test your new mic?!) Shownotes for this episode live here.

Neha Awasthi put her hand up, I thought to ask a question, towards the end of a presentation I was giving about brand voice and taking up space at the Artful Business Conference. She beamed her billion megawatt smile at me, looked me dead in the eye, and with a twinkle asked, "have you thought about hosting a podcast? You have such a voice for it" And this was my introduction to life with Neha as a fast friend, confidante, business referral partner, and cackle buddy - she's always straight down the line, says what she means and stands strongly behind it, and is so inherently charming, it can put you a little off balance. Neha sees women. As in, truly sees them. So it's not so much of a surprise to find out what she does. And what her big mission is. Unmuted. Take a listen. This episode is brought to you by the Crisp Copy Class, the self-guided course option. It's a comprehensive copywriting course for women ready to write bank-making copy on a bootstrapping-friendly budget. Over 30 hours of recordings, oodles of downloadable worksheets, tutorials, and structural guides, everything from About pages to Sales pages and all the copy in between, all with lifetime access. Whet your whistle here. Shownotes for this podcast episode are here.