In the 417th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with case study copywriter Dana Owens… and of course we talked in depth about writing case studies. But as we talked, Dana shared her connection secret for getting plenty of leads for the work she wants to do. It’s a great idea that any copywriter can borrow and use to grow their own business. But to get it, you’re going to have to listen. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

Stuff to check out:

Dana’s Tools for Case Study Writers

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

The Copywriter Underground

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh: One of the client finding ideas I like to talk about is making connections with other service providers. Instead of thinking of other copywriters as the competition, think of them as business associates who can support you in all kinds of ways including by sharing leads. I’ve mentioned more than once that copywriters have shared leads with me that have resulted in more than six figures worth of business over the years.

With results like that, of course you should connect with other copywriters and content writers. But there may be an even better group to connect with when it comes to getting clients. It’s just one of the things we cover on this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, and my guest for this episode is case study copywriter Dana Owens. We covered a lot of ground in this interview including how Dana kind of stumbled on this perfect partner for leads in her busines. If you write case studies it’s a connection idea you can steal and use today. But if you write any other kind of copy, you can use this idea as well, you’ll just have to figure out who your perfect connection partner is. So stick around to hear more about it.

Before we jump in with Dana…

It’s been a little while since I’ve mentioned our special report called How to Find Clients that features more than 20 different things you can do, starting right now, to find your ideal clients. It also shares the 4 mistakes you absolutely can’t afford to make when looking for clients—if you do, you are dead in the water… and it also shows you five things you need to do before you reach out to the people you want to work with IF you want them to say yes. This isn’t some dainty one page PDF you’ll forget about in a day or two… it’s 36 pages jam packed with ideas that either we’ve used in our own businesses or we’ve seen other successful copywriters use to grow theirs.  You can get your free report by going to thecopywiterclub.com/findaclient   that’s all one word. Get your free report now.

And with that, let’s go to our interview with Dana…

Hey Dana, it is so great to see you. Welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. You know how this goes because you’ve been part of The Copywriter Club world for a long time, but let’s start with your story. How did you become a copywriter?

Dana Owens: Well, first of all, I’m so excited to be here. I actually learned that copywriting was a real thing from the Copywriter Club podcast. Seven years ago, I remember taking a road trip with my husband. And that was like back in the day where I had to connect his iPad to the car through a USB cord. And I had like 10 episodes of The Copywriter Club Podcast downloaded. And throughout the road trip, we listened to the episodes. And that’s when I realized copywriting could be like a real career and a real business. And that’s when he also learned it. So the fact that I’m talking to you today is just like, I don’t know, a funny, funny, full circle moment.

Rob Marsh: So that’s amazing.

Dana Owens: Yeah. But I started, um, I got involved in copywriting. Like I wish I would have started so much earlier than I did, but I graduated with a journalism degree and became a journalist for one year. Um, I went to work for a local, I’m from Michigan. So it was like a local small town paper and was the police reporter into the police beat. I was so naive. I mean, I had my trusty journalism degree, but had no idea what I was doing. And it was kind of a bust that first year there. I have a lot of funny stories, but I realized I did not like journalism because basically, especially as a police reporter, all I was doing was reporting on bad news. And so I’m an optimist. I wanted to report on only good news. And I was like, Dana, you are so naive. Like, how are you ever going to get a job just reporting on good news? But what I learned through that job is that I loved interviewing people. So I took that. And then I actually went, I moved to Chicago and I started to work as a creative writer for an advertising company, just a little teeny advertising company. And, um, that’s where I kind of started to figure out that copywriting was actually a thing. Although it took me another, I mean, so several years to actually start to, um, start doing copywriting formally. and start to really turn my attention directly onto writing for sales and marketing. So I got my start indirectly through an entrance through journalism and advertising. But it was really when I had had my kids and was like, I’m looking for just a little something to do on the side that I was contacted by an old boss of mine who really was the one that pulled me into copywriting. And that was, gosh, 10 years ago. It’s only grown and grown and grown since there.

Rob Marsh: So what kind of work were you doing in the agency, in the small ad company that you were working for as a writer? What were you writing?

Dana Owens: I was primarily, this sounds so boring now, but I was primarily writing like website copy, but really product descriptions for, they were a professional photography company. And so every single thing that I was writing about had to do with some type of professional photography equipment. And that was, again, just so not for me. I’m super creative, and I want to be exploring big ideas and positioning things in a picture-particular way. And it was definitely not a position that I was going to be able to stick with long term, but it really did set the foundation for the work that I do today. But that was it. There was no way I was going to be a pro at professional photography equipment, but I started learning about the sales and marketing world in that way. So it was beneficial.

Rob Marsh: Yeah. Especially when we talk about high-end equipment, you know, that you have in the, the, you know, the world of photography, like everything looks the same. Obviously it’s not the same. And so being able to sell one product over another does become a, I mean, that’s a skill and being able to identify how they’re different and who they’re for, I think could be incredibly useful.

Dana Owens: Well, it, it, that is a really good point. And also it was so highly technical because the people that the audience that I was writing for, they understood the differences between the brands of all of these different lenses and all of these different light boxes. And they understood the outputs and all of this technical stuff. And so I really had to learn it myself and it was so boring to me at the time, but what it has really translated for me. in, you know, when I started in the areas of copywriting that I was really interested in was how to take technical information or complex information or even jargon from that that was well known, you know, in one industry and how to make it more palatable and understandable to different audiences. So now that you’ve brought me back to those days, like it’s it the connection is very clear that, you know, Having to specialize in an industry like I did for that amount of time, I think it was like four years I worked in that job, it really did start to build that skill of being able to communicate things, communicate complicated ideas and technical ideas in a way that people liked to consume it. So that was helpful.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, I had a similar experience early on in my career. I worked for a day planner company, imagine writing about day planners for four years. It’s like, OK, well, this year’s edition of the day planner is blue as opposed to black, or this edition of the day planner has quotes. And yet it’s that repetition actually polishes your ability to connect with an audience and figure out what it is that they need to know about in order to buy. So, yeah, those It feels boring. It feels repetitive, but it also develops a really important skill set for copywriters.

Dana Owens: It totally does. And I think, you know, I was like new o