Bryan McAnulty: Welcome to the creator's adventure, where we interview creators from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. My name is Brian McAnulty. I'm the founder of Heights platform. And today I'm talking with Jasmine Williams about how she grew her copywriting business. How creators can tailor their writing to better speak to their audience and the lessons that Jasmine learned as an online course creator.

Hey everyone. We're here today with Jasmine Williams. She is an award winning writer, content marketing expert, and the founder of Jasmine Williams media, a boutique content marketing consult. And she's also the founder of Clickworthy creatives and education, hub, and community for freelance creatives.

Jasmine helps creative entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and startups scale scale, their businesses with strategic storytelling and copywriting. Jasmine, welcome to the show. Awesome.

Jasmine Williams: Thank you for having me.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Thanks for coming on. So we read on your website that you've been freelancing for. More than 10 years now.

And in 2018, you quit your full-time job to start your own business. Jasmine Williams media. So can you tell us a little bit about your story and how did you get started? Why, like what made you decide to quit the nine to five job and become an entrepreneur?

Jasmine Williams: Yeah. So in terms of freelancing, so why I've been freelancing for over a decade is because I actually started when I was still in school, I studied journalism in university.

So to make some extra money on the side, I started Lance writing and that was my first time kind of trading my skills for money online. Mm-hmm and, but it was always just sort of something on the side. It was. A little bit of extra grocery money, fun money. Like I never really knew how I could really turn that into a career or a, a business.

So when I graduated, I, you know, ended up in marketing, kind of bounced around a couple of jobs but never really found a place where I felt like I fit and. That was really frustrating for me, cuz I knew that I had these skills as a writer, but just didn't also fit into this corporate world. So I wasn't really sure what to do.

So while I was in my last nine to five job, I was actually working at a nonprofit that helps. Entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. And as the content person there, I was writing these blog posts and managing social media. And I kept looking at these entrepreneurs and I was like, actually, I wanna be the, an entrepreneur.

I don't wanna just write about them. So that's kind of where I really started thinking about it seriously. Like what could I do to, to build a business? And then it finally occurred to me. Oh, I could do what I'm doing in house as on a freelance basis. Like there's definitely companies or individual clients who would hire me to write blog posts for them or manage their social media, which is that service I offered when I first started.

So once I kind of had that idea, then I was like, All I really need to figure out was like how to really build the business. So I started reaching out to people and asking some questions and also kind of planting some seeds as well. Like I would message some clients that I worked with in the past on a very freelance basis, letting them know, Hey, I'm thinking of going full time with this.

If you have any extra work for me let me know. So I started off pretty casually, but that was enough to at least get some interest and get a few gigs. And when I had. About half my income, I'd say of in freelance gigs, sort of lined up. That's when I really felt ready to, to really try it, cuz I really felt like I was at a crossroads either.

I could keep doing things on the side and feeling kind of unhappy in my day to day job. Or really take the leap. And knewing, I had a bit of a landing pad, I guess, like I wasn't diving going from full-time income to no income. I knew I would have some money coming in. So I just felt like that was the right time to give it a shot.

And I just sort of. I told myself, you know, give it like maybe six months. If you fail to grow beyond this point, then you could start looking for jobs. But I guess that the rest is history. I'm still here. I'm still running my business almost four years later. So in that cliche way, I, I haven't really looked back.

That's great.

Bryan McAnulty: So I'm curious, I'm thinking about like, from our audience's perspective, if someone's listening to this and they want. become a freelancer. And they're thinking about going, starting that path right. Where you were at that time. So you mentioned like you had a little bit of a cushion, you start, you got to the point, it was like half of your income at that point.

Mm-hmm but like those first six months. So I think that's great that you committed and said, like, I'm gonna take six months and see what happens, but yeah. How were those six months for you? Like, did it, did it work kind of well from having those clients and building those relationships, asking about the.

Or was it something like you were working nonstop for those six months? Like how, how did that happen basically for.

Jasmine Williams: Yeah. I mean, it was, it was definitely tough. I learned a lot. Like I feel like the first couple of months I kind of coasted a little bit, like I had some gigs that were pretty secure, so I wasn't super focused on building the business.

I just felt kind of comfortable and it wasn't actually, until I lost like a main gig, that was a pretty big chunk of my income that I realized like, oh, I really need to take this seriously. I can't just, you know, put all my eggs between like two or three. So that's the point where I really started reaching out, looking, asking for help.

I was going to networking events. I started working with a, a business coach. I can't even remember exactly when, but pretty early on, like within the first year. Cuz I did realize like I had the skills to offer the services that I was offering. But in terms of the business side of things, I was grossly under informed.

I. Didn't really know much about sales or marketing beyond like marketing for a business. I didn't really know how to market like a small business, like my own. So definitely I just worked with a coach and then was a fortunate to find some mentors as well, who had built similar businesses. And definitely in those early stages was a lot of emails of like, this is project rates.

So make sense, like, does this make sense? Like I was, I just was kind of like. I guess you could say faking it a little bit, just trying to just figuring things out, but it was, yeah, definitely messy. Definitely not as polished as I was as I am now. But yeah, I think I, at least once I started, I think once I landed my first client that was outside of friends and family, that's when I really felt like this had potential because of course your friends and family, they are most likely to support you.

That's like when you're doing a startup, they always say to raise like a friends and family round, like they're gonna be your, your day one. . But once I landed a client who didn't know me, like we just met I think through like an online networking thing that I had joined and, you know, I, I met with him even looking back.

I feel like I did everything wrong but I still was able to end up working with him. And that was really, I think, a turning point for me and being like, oh, this can, this is a legit business now. Like you're not. Kind of biting your time. Like you have the skills to actually work with people who don't know you.

And that's when I just really started leaning into it. Yeah. I took like a sales training program. I just like anytime I would hit a bit of a roadblock or come to a point where I'm like, I don't really know what I'm doing. I would just try to look up programs or trainings or workshops that I could attend to kind of, to build my skills in those area.

Bryan McAnulty: sure. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, definitely. Freelancing is like this balancing and like juggling act that you have your skill that you're, you're trying to do and provide as a service, but then you have to learn how much do I charge? Well, how do I make an invoice? Well, should I follow up with these clients?

Well, how do I promote everything? And then you, you have this big project and then you do the big project and you say, oh, well, should I promote myself again now? Where, where is the next project? And exactly, definitely. Yeah. There's a lot to. To deal with and learn LL at the same time there. So you help clients and other entrepreneurs with their copywriting and their content strategy.

Mm-hmm when you start working with a client, what is like the biggest mistake that you notice in terms of content or copy? Just the, the biggest thing that you, you see, people tend to do wrong.

Jasmine Williams: I. Like the potential clients that I work with, like work with yeah. Before they work with me. Hmm. Yeah. The biggest mistake I think, is really thinking.

More about what you want versus what your audience wants. So like a thing I tend to say is that like your website, it's not about you. like, it should be a reflection of you. It should sound like you it feel like you, but it's not for you, it's for your customers. So that's a mistake. I find a lot where people, when they're kind of DIYing stuff, they tend to write a lot of it's very, we focused.

Content. It's like we do this. We are amazing. We have this many clients and this many awards, but it doesn't really speak to the customer because the customer wants to know what's in it for them. Like really, they don't care how many clients you have or awards you've won. They just wanna know what you can do for them.

Mm-hmm and you know how much it'll cost them, whether it's gonna get them a return on their investment as well. So I feel like that's usually. I find a sticking point when people come to me and I kind of look at their websites at where it's at before we work together. That's usually I'd see the biggest mistake.

It's like, it sounds good, but it's just not speaking to your audience so I can kind of tell why they've they've come to me or why it's not working for them. Like it should, because it just needs a bit of a re remixing and refocusing in that, in that area.

Bryan McAnulty: Sure. So when you started saying that, actually I thought of another way as well, which maybe you meant too.

So there's the one way that you described more of the, like the client? Not really speaking to the customer of like what they can get for them. But I was also thinking, like, in terms of the language that the business might use, being something that they understand, like terminology, that's natural for them, but doesn't really have meaning to the customer.

And, oh yeah, I guess like, for me, in my own experience I started out as like a freelance graphic. and then eventually moved into more like web design and then web development. And I felt like at times a lot of my service and work that I was doing was being like the translator between the client and like a software developer, because a software developer wants to talk about all of this programming terms and everything and the client that doesn't care about that.

And doesn't understand. So, how can you say those things in a way that communicates the actual value that the client will.

Jasmine Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Like it's kind of a gross analogy. But actually as my business coach, who would always say your clients don't care how the sausage is made, they just want the sausage.

And so that's a thing that I would see a lot where, especially if I'm working with like a tech client, they'll go on about like, oh, our platform has this new feature and analyzes this. It's like, you're, they don't really care. People don't really care unless it's a super technical audience, then maybe they might care.

But for the most part, they just want the results. They don't really care. Your platform gets them there. They just wanna see the outcome. And I find, yeah, the companies that really Excel in this area. And especially since I work with a lot of technical clients, the real, like. Key to compelling copy. And branding is just focusing on that end result, like showing the customer, talking about how your platform, your, your product has changed their lives.

Like that's what really gets people bought into it. It's not the features, it's not the fancy upgrades. Like that's just all a part of the sausage .

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, definitely. One of the things that we say to our customers, like typically coaches and course creators, is that the, the title of your course and what you're promot.

It has to be about what the result is that you're gonna provide to your customer, because like they don't, your customer doesn't wanna learn anything in particular. They just want the result. And so that's what you have to communicate to everyone. And I imagine I wanna talk about your course in a little bit in a minute, but I imagine you have a good starting point with that, cuz you already understand that from a copywriting standpoint, so that's.

Yeah, but first, so I want to ask we know that good copywriting can have an impact on the business and like potentially increase sales for the business. So is this something that you've seen with either your client's business or even your own, where like you make a change to some wording somewhere, and then it has this big difference in sales or leads or.

Jasmine Williams: Yeah. I mean, this is actually something I'm working on right now. I'm recording a bunch of videos with my clients just to get more of their feedback. But I find for, especially for a lot of the copywriting clients it, it's never like the copies. Just the copy. You know, there's a lot of different pieces that is involved usually in like a web design project.

So I'm always like hesitant to say like, yeah, my copy was the key to this. But feedback that I tend to get is that there is more of the qualitative feedback. So I'll have clients tell me, like somebody came to my website and they said that something. The wording on the website really spoke to them.

And that's what made them book a call. Or I have another client who creates products in the legal space and a big goal of the project was to just make the legal stuff accessible. Like we just didn't want it to seem intimidating. And so that's feedback that she gets a lot that the website is so accessible.

It's so engaging makes people feel really confident. So that's the kind of feedback that I I get and that I'm really proud of. Cuz ultimately when people come to me, I always ask like, what are, what are your goals? So I'll ask them, what does success look like for them? So when they define success and say that they've achieved it in that way, then I'm super, super happy about that.

But that's technically like the results that I see and what I try to achieve with copy is just to really make it feel like you're reading the person's mind. And even when I write for my own stuff, I get that feedback a lot where people are like, how did you know that was in my head? And I'm like, I dunno, I guess it's just magic, but, but not really.

It's, it's a lot of research and like being, understanding the customer and psychology and all the pieces that go into copywriting. It's not just the writing. There's a lot of extra other parts of it. Like a big part of my process is. Doing interviews. So I always interview my client before I start writing, just to get, understand their tone of voice.

The pain points better really get them to communicate in their own words. So I'm more just assembling the copy than really coming up with something from thin air. But yeah, that's generally the, the feedback that I get. It's like I work with clients that usually have like something that they all tend to have in common is they have some sort of technical kind of product or something.

That's sort of hard to explain. and I feel like that's kind of my, my sweet spot is, is taking something that feels sort of technical feels a bit intimidating and making it not intimidating to the customer, which of course then results in sales. Cuz once people understand you and understand the value, then sales are it's, it's a no brainer.

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. All right. So not only do you have this business where you're helping clients improve their copy, but you also sell online courses and you created this C. Clickworthy creatives for aspiring mm-hmm copyright freelancers who need help launching their own businesses. So right. When, when and why did you decide to create this online course in this community?

Jasmine Williams: Yeah, so it's something I didn't necessarily know it was gonna be a course, but I knew I wanted to create an offer for new and aspiring creative freelancers. Cuz pretty soon into building my business, I just started getting a lot of requests for like pick my brain type of calls. People are just like, your business is so cool.

Like I wanna do this too. Like, can you help me out? And for a while I would, I would just hop on 2030. And you know, just let them pick my brain. But I noticed that I was getting a lot of the same questions over and over again. Like how do you find clients? How do you get started? How do you price, like some of the things you mentioned before mm-hmm so at first I just wrote a blog post.

I was like, here are FAQs. I tend to get and Have at it but then I noticed that there's even more questions people would have. So it's like once they figure out their pricing, it's like, okay, well now how do I package myself or okay. I, how do like, okay, you told me I should go on Facebook groups.

What should I say? You know so I just noticed that there's a lot of questions that people had, and of course you can Google and there's so much out there for free. But I, I just felt like there was a bit of a gap in the market for just a succinct place where creatives especially could go and just learn like business fundamentals.

Cuz I know for me, like I don't have an MBA. I didn't really take any business courses. So I just really. Learned a lot of things practically as, and as I, as I went and I felt, and especially too being a copywriter and like, I also know I have a, a skill for breaking things down and making things and explaining things to people in a way that makes sense and doesn't overwhelm them.

So putting all those pieces together, I was like, okay. I knew I wanted to create some sort of educational something I toyed around with. Making a, like a blog or some sort of like in doing interviews, like there's a lot of different ideas I had. And then I think it was 2020. When I think with the pandemic courses really started to take off.

Like I saw a lot of people creating courses. and actually one of my clients I worked with Amy Porterfield, who has a course where she literally teaches people how to create courses. Mm-hmm . So that felt very meta to like work with somebody like that. It just felt like, I think it's a course. I think this is what this idea is meant to be.

So once I kind of. Landed on the idea of a course. It just all started coming together. I just started writing down the, the typical questions I get. And soon those questions turned into modules and the modules turned into worksheets and I just realized I had so much information already up here. I just needed to organize it.

And I also, I, I pre-launched the course, so basically I just created a course outline of what I wanted to teach. And then the first round I kind of. Built that plane as I was going and like, I had my notes and everything, but yeah, kind of created the course. I was going just to make sure that there was a market for it because one thing I was always really skeptical about is that I'm creating a course for early stage business owners, a market of people who might not be quite ready to invest in this kind of education.

So for before I built anything, I just really wanted to see, like, is there a demand for like a very premium level. Course education for this market. So, and once I proved that with sales, then I just started building and, and putting the whole thing together.

Bryan McAnulty: Great. Yeah. I mean, that's a great way to do it.

I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you heard others talk about that. I mean, Amy Porterfield talks about that as well, that it's really powerful to hold this. Pre-sell pre-launch for your course. And that's something that we like to really stress to our creators. That really the biggest mistake we see is.

Either people never get their course launched because they just always are perfecting it, but not perfecting it for anyone in particular yet because they haven't launched it or the, by the time that they finally launch it, it's not really speaking to the right problems or they're maybe even still missing things, even though they spent so much time because they haven't gotten that audience feedback, they haven't validated the market.

Jasmine Williams: Right.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. All right. So your online course is a great stepping stone then for these freelancers who want to start their own businesses. And from what we've seen about it, it's not just the like classic self-paced online course. Cuz many people have these different definitions of like what an online course actually is and what, what that's gonna include or.

And so what you're offering is more of this full mentorship program, right? Where you have, aside from the lessons you offer this community and one-on-one support for six weeks as well. So I'm curious, how important is it for you to be offering this one-on-one mentorship? Or how important would it be for your customers to have that when starting an online business?

And is that something you feel like you got when you were starting your.

Jasmine Williams: Yeah. I mean, I kind of based the, or at least the, what inspired me to build this course was the mentorship that I got, like the business coaching I got and then a friend of mine who was a mentor to me as well. I, I was so lucky to get access to them really early on and that they saw something in me and were willing to, you know, spend time.

Cuz a lot of people who are more established wouldn't necessarily be so generous. So I just felt like, how can I. Make give this sort of support to other people who might not have the connections that I had. So yeah, definitely. I wanted there to be a personal live element to it. I also just know that as a freelancer, it can be a very lonely solitary path.

And I felt that like the community element would be an important piece of it. So you're not just learning on your own. Learning with other people you realize you're not alone. Like I have a newsletter now and I get so many emails when I send it out every week of people being like, oh, I'm not alone.

I'm not the only one dealing with this. So I think for, especially for people who maybe aren't in major cities or just don't have like, Entrepreneurial networks where I'm based in Toronto, Canada, where it's, there's a very big startup scene here. But in if you're in a smaller town or just a different market, you might not even know what's available to you.

So yeah, the community piece was, was very important. It was also just, kind of by design cuz I didn't have anything built. So I sort of had to do it live cuz I didn't have any recordings or anything like that. I was just delivering it live to as I was going. But now actually that I've run it a few times.

I am in the, in the works, creating like a self-paced version of the program, because I just really wanted to deliver it live to make sure that the content hit, that people liked it. I didn't wanna spend a ton of time recording videos that people, you know, hated or didn't watch. So now that I know that the lessons are good and people respond to them yeah, one of the things I wanna offer is kind of a tiered option where there's a self-paced version and a live version.

So, you know, depending on people's budgets or capacity, cuz I also find a lot of the people in my program tend to be parents like freelancing is a, a very good business career path for people who need really flexible schedules. Mm-hmm so that's also a thing too as well where it's like, I had some feedback where people like, I just can't make the calls at that time or people in different countries, different time zones.

So yeah, as much as the community aspect is important, I am thinking of how I can make still have that. Aspect, but have it just having a little bit more asynchronously like we have a slack channel, that's a part of the program. But that's a big thing as I'm kind of prepping for my next launch is like, if I launch an on demand version, how do I still make sure that people get that community feel?

Cuz I think it is important part. And I think it's what sets me apart from other. Maybe programs or other teachers who are doing this where it's like, yeah, you're just home watching videos and that's about

Bryan McAnulty: it. yeah, absolutely. Well, I personally feel that the community part is really important. I think that, yeah, in, in almost every case, there's other, there's certain cases where maybe it's not needed or doesn't make sense, but for the majority, of course, creators, I think it's really important to build some kind of community along with your course.

So, yeah, I think you answered part of this as with the last question. I'm curious, probably if someone's listening to this and says like, okay, so you started your own business and now you've making this course to teach others too, but there's this big gap where they're gonna say like, wow. So Jasmine made this incredible course and it's got a community, it's got lessons, it's got the live component.

So you explained a little bit that with the pre-launch you kind of recorded it as you went with the live the live portion of it, and then turned that into some of the. But yeah. How did it, how did it really happen with what you offered in that first launch? So like, were you nervous about offering a community when you were launching it for the first time?

Like, would you, if you didn't get enough people to join or anything like that, when basically what did that first version of the course include?

Jasmine Williams: Oh, yeah. I mean, it was so nerve wracking. Like I felt like I was kind of hedging the risk a little bit by just knowing like, if this cuz even of course just preparing to launch something is a lot of work.

So even though the course wasn't built, I still had to market it. I still was like showing up online and sending out emails and building my list and all of this. So if I. If I got no sales, that still would've been a huge waste of my time and effort. But fortunately I did get enough sales to, to run it and felt like I didn't completely waste my time.

So that was really good. So the first version of the course, it's actually not too dissimilar from, from that first version. So. what I would do. It was two calls a week. One was a lesson and one was, oh, like a Q and a call. Then they also get access to a bunch of like homework for each module and there's the slack community.

And oh, and then the first round, actually I had a whole bunch of guest speakers. So that was also very ambitious of me. I managed to pull it off, but there was, it was actually three calls a week. So that's a lesson I kind of learned where it was just a lot of calls. I think for everybody. So after the first course the second round was just two calls a week, the live workshop, the live Q and a, and then I had one bonus guest speaker and the rest were all just the recordings from the first round.

So people would still access the content, but it wasn't live anymore. And then I did the same thing for the third round, just brought in a guest, a bonus guest speaker, and then kept the two live calls a week. But For this fourth round, I'm aiming to do it now, drop it down to just one live call a week.

And that will be for the more premium live version. And then the on demand will just get access to the recordings and the slack channel and all the materials. So I still feel like it's quite a robust program, but just in my experience now having run it three times, like. People really love those Q and a calls.

We actually, I called them freelance therapy calls, cuz we end up just talking about just the stuff that you don't feel comfortable about talking in public, just the emotional side of freelancing, just those awkward moments. And people really love those calls because it, they get my advice, but then I'm also really a big value of mine is just learning across.

So I always encourage people. I'm like, yes, I'm the instructor. But like all of you are coming from. Backgrounds and different experiences you're coming from corporate. You've probably hired people who are like, like the people in this room. So we all have experience to share. So that I think is such a huge valuable part of the course.

And so, yeah, definitely. I wanna keep that live component, but I also understand that there's just some people who probably like to learn on their own and don't have the time or can't show up live, or maybe just wanna save some money. So that's the goal with creating an on demand version of.

Bryan McAnulty: Great.

Yeah. Well, that's awesome. That's I think a really great example of how you, you took something that you started building as you went, and then you learned about, well, what's working good for me. What's working good for my customers. And then how can I improve that for everybody? Yeah, exactly. So with now you have your business and your courses.

What is really your main source of revenue and what do you feel like you enjoy the most? Do you feel like you're gonna shift only to courses? Are you gonna always try to do both? Is there one you enjoy more than the other.

Jasmine Williams: that's the million dollar question, right? Yeah, I definitely get asked that a lot.

I'm sure a lot of creatives who have courses probably feel that way where you're balancing both. I'll say, yeah, transparently my consulting work is still the majority of my income. I think it works out to my course income works out to about 5% and then consulting is 95%. So definitely not. At the moment enough revenue to completely go full time.

But it's honestly, it's a question that I've been grappling with for pretty much since I launched it, because I really do love delivering the course. And I like, I I've seen the results that people have gotten. The feedback I've been got I've gotten is amazing. On, I wouldn't keep doing it if people didn't like it.

So I definitely feel like it's a valuable offering and people get a lot out of it. But it is almost like a completely different business. Like I kind of joke to people that I'm essentially running two businesses now. Like I have my consulting business and I have a course business. They're kind of, they're different audiences, different goals and very.

Ways, like the way I have to build them is very different. Like with a course business, it's very much based on like, you're building your audience. Like you just need to have a lot of people to sell to. That's what I kind of realized early on. Like I had a pretty considering the size of my audience at the time.

Like I think it converted relatively well, but in order to keep growing, you just need to keep bringing people in. Yep. So like the marketing of it is like, it's just a, is a very. I wouldn't say overwhelming, but it's definitely has to be a big, big piece of, of that, of the success of that versus my consulting.

It's pretty, the, the marketing sales process is very simple. I usually just get on a call with people. They tell me what they want me to do, and I, you know, send the proposal. They like it. I'm in and that's it. And I only need a few sales a month to really keep it going. Cuz I have like retainer clients and.

That sort of stuff. So it's, it's something it's still kind of a question mark for me, what I kind of want to do going forward. I feel like this year, I'm doing a lot for, for round four. Like I think creating the on-demand version, bringing in more experts for the live version. I have like a whole note in my app, like in my notes app, which is ideas of what I want to do.

I wanna launch an affiliate program as well. So I just really wanna try to make this fourth launch. The best or fourth round, like the best ever and see what happens. But right now I'm kind of still committed to doing both. Like I see the course as just a way to just take a bit of pressure off the consulting side.

So, and it, and it already has like, there's definitely. having a course has definitely given me a bit more financial freedom where I don't feel like, oh, I have to take on another client to meet my goals. I can kind of just market the course and know if I get enough students then like, oh, cool. I'm good for a couple of months.

So that's kind of been my approach. But yeah, I think at the moment, I'm not fully ready to go full-time into it, but we'll see, maybe by this time, next year, things might look a little different. I think definitely the on demand will also be an interesting thing as well to see if that opens up a different market for, of people who would be interested in it.

But yeah, at this moment, I honestly, I really genuinely love both. I love teaching. Like, I didn't know, I would love it so much, but I genuinely really enjoy. Teaching the course and really helping people in that way and making an impact. But I also really love doing the writing that I do and, you know, writing a cop, doing a website copy project and seeing somebody be like, oh my gosh, like you put my words into you made them better.

You took what was in my head and made it into amazing copy and, and seeing just how my clients have grown, even since working with me and what they've done and the. They have in them theirselves and their businesses. Like I was talking to a client who I helped just kind of did a bit of ghost writing for him.

He had some great ideas for blog posts, but needed them polished a bit. And now he like has this coaching offer and all these other things and has really built up his like, Become like a thought leader in his space and it really started with our work together. So it, I just find it hard to, to let that go because I still find a lot of satisfaction in it.

Well, yeah.

Bryan McAnulty: I mean, to be honest, I don't think you have to, you don't have to choose one. You could do both. It's okay. To, to during both. And I think that's, it's

Jasmine Williams: stressful to run two businesses, but I, yeah, I, I, I think I'm just gonna keep doing both cuz that's what I want.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. I mean, I think that's true for a lot of creators.

Yeah. Even if maybe you could argue, well, if you focused a hundred percent on this or a hundred percent on that, maybe eventually you could earn a little bit more one way or the other, but yeah, if you enjoy doing both, then why not do that? So it's an interesting point. You make that the, the marketing is a little bit different because building an audience, having to acquire a lot of customers versus like the one to one relationship, but.

Have you found any tricks so far that have helped you kind of do something that promotes for both? I mean, I, I guess there is the, the synergy already that having this course and explaining yourself as like a thought leader in your space is gonna help you build confidence in clients. But has there been anything else that you've found so far and may, maybe not, but that has helped you kind of kill two birds with one stone in in your marketing?

Jasmine Williams: Yeah. I mean, I was surprised that the last time I ran a sales webinar for my course, I actually did land a copywriting client because somebody loved the presentation so much and loved my confidence. And the way I, I, I guess, talked about the program. That she hired me to, to write her website. So I, I have found some synergy between the two, which is, is kind of surprising, but I guess makes sense.

Cuz in order to teach somebody how to build a business, like I should be pretty confident and successful in my own. And I feel like I am. But I found actually like my, at least for my consulting business right now, it's, it's pretty much mostly referral based. I, I always say like, good work gets you good work.

So I'm fortunate that my clients have refer me to other people and love the work we do, or even come back to me for and do other projects together. So I don't have to do a ton of marketing. I'd say to, to, to keep like earning what I'm, where I'm at right now. But definitely for me, like social media has been a huge marketing channel.

I tend to use LinkedIn more for my, to promote like my copywriting and content writing work, fortunately for me and the kind of work that I do, I guess for most creatives, our work can really speak for itself. So I'll just post like something I've written or feedback I've gotten. And that's usually enough to get some drum.

Some interest or get people booking calls with me. I also have a pretty refined niche. I work with HR and SAS tech businesses. So I, especially the HR niche, I find, I talk to a lot of people who are like, we don't really know a lot of people who specialize in HR content and actually understand this.

Industry. So that helps as well. Like once people kind of type in HR writer, my name pops up and that's what they've told me. So I guess I have a lot of like inbound sort of stuff working for me on the consulting side. Whereas yeah, the freelance is a bit more outbound, but I am experimenting with different tactics.

I started running some Facebook ads to a lead magnet that I have to help build my list. Yeah, I've been fortunate with social. I guess being one of the advantages of being a writer is that sometimes I've had some things go viral and that kind of brings some exposure and builds awareness. But yeah, for most up until like this year, it's been really just organic, just, you know, being consistent on.

Instagram, LinkedIn. And just trying to create content that really resonates with people, get them to understand me and how and how I work. And yeah, I find that tends to attract people who are looking for a service provider. Like me. Who's just very values focused and, and gets what they're trying to do.

Like I said, a lot of my clients end up having the same problem. Have a technical thing, want to make it simple. So just sort of reiterating that and showing what I've done is tends to work in terms of, of, of tracking clients.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think that's the right approach. I, I do feel like, especially in the last couple years, people get more hung up on thinking that they need to run ads right away.

Probably because there's so many people trying to make courses or, or cellular service about running ads for. Since that's where so much of the landscape has moved to for online marketing, but for most creators, I think it makes sense just to do what you're doing with the organic, the referrals.

Because if you try to run the ads too early, then you have the same problem, especially if you're not a copywriter that maybe your landing pages, maybe your content is not speaking to people the right way. And so then if your ads don't work, you don't know if, is it the page or is it your ads or something?

So it's better to, to get all that going and refine it a bit organically before moving to the ads. I think.

Jasmine Williams: Absolutely. Yeah. I agree with that.

Bryan McAnulty: Cool. So one of the questions we'd like to ask our audience is if they have any questions for our guests or for our audience, one of sorry, one of the questions we like to ask our guests is if they have a question for our audience.

So I'm curious, is there anything that you would like to know from our audience?

Jasmine Williams: Yeah, I guess I'd be curious to know if any of them like if they are freelance creatives or building a creative business, if they've had if they have a mentor or been working with a mentor I'd also be curious about like community as well.

If, if they've found any in value valuable like freelance communities or have tapped into any kind of networks like that. So that would be my kind of two pro. Question, like, do you have a mentor? How has that been? And do you have a community of people that you like can turn to and what's whether those kinds of communities great.

Bryan McAnulty: That's a great question. All right. Well, Jasmine, that was everything I had for you today. I think this was a great interview, but before we get going, where can people find you?

Jasmine Williams: Yeah. I mean, definitely my website, jazz Williams do CA that has everything I do, which talks about my copywriting work. But I also have a resources page on that website, which has links to all of the freelance resources and courses and things that I've built on social media.

Instagram is where I tend to be more active. So my handle is at Jasmine Williams media, all one word. Also on Twitter at the jazz Williams and my, I, sorry. LinkedIn is also jazz Williams media of anybody's active there, but yeah, definitely on my, on social or my website, or are the best ways to interact with me and just kind of see what I'm doing and what I have to offer.

Bryan McAnulty: Right. That's great. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Jasmine Williams: Awesome. Thank you for having me. This is great.

Bryan McAnulty: If you enjoyed this interview and want the chance to ask questions to our guests live tune in on Tuesdays. When new episodes premiere on the Heights platform, Facebook page, to learn more about the show and get notified when new episodes release, check out the creators, adventure.com until then keep learning and I'll see you in the next episode.