Guest post by Anna Long-Stokes

Hiring a copywriter (who is as amazing as Miss Jamie Jensen), will help you uplevel your business quickly. I recommend it to my business strategy clients ALL the time.

From my perspective, hiring a copywriter is similar to icing a cake.

Both will catch people’s eye and make them want to buy...but if they buy and the actual cake tastes like crap, they won’t be buying again and they certainly won’t have any incentive to speak highly of your cake in the future.Your business is the cake and copywriting is the frosting. Before you frost the cake (ie: hire the copywriter), you want to make sure that your cake is good and that it can pass a taste test!Whether you are toying with the idea of a new business or already in business and simply ready to create something new; I HIGHLY recommend that you get a few things in place first before you take the leap and hire that copywriter!

3 Things to have in place before you hire a copywriter:

CLEAR MESSAGING

There is a misconception that if you hire a copywriter, they will create a business message for you. What do I mean by business message? I call your message your “umbrella statement”. It’s all the unifying elements pulled together into one cohesive concept that defines what you do and often who you do it for.My business message is “build the empire you were born to rule”. It is a one-liner statement that encompasses the umbrella message that covers everything that I do and create. I help people build empires...and not just ANY empires...the ones they were born to rule.While a great copywriter can help you create an amazing tagline, it’s not their responsibility (or typically their skill-set) to help you define your message. It makes their job a LOT easier and your copy A LOT better if you have done the work to clarify your message BEFORE you hire the copywriter.

CONFIDENCE

Most people don’t want to admit that they are truly and utterly terrified of putting themselves out there and asking people to buy. Any insecurity that you have in your personal life is magnified by 10 when it comes to launching a business and putting yourself in the public eye.The thing is, confidence sells. If you’ve created a business or product that you’re proud of and that you know delivers what you say it will, you will be way more confident and you will sell more.While I’m not saying that you should wait until you are 100% confident before trying to sell, it IS helpful to have a true understanding of HOW you help your customers. If you don’t clearly understand this, you will struggle with confidence and your copywriter will have to quite literally make stuff up to make you sound good. And while this may be “good enough” to sell a few things, it likely won’t really get you the traction you desire.

The #1 thing that I’ve seen raise people’s confidence is beta testing their biz idea or new creation BEFORE deciding to market to the masses or hire a copywriter to help them create the “perfect” sales page.

Beta testing doesn’t have to take long and it will help boost your confidence levels because you will get to see firsthand whether or not whatever you have created is impactful (reality check: it WILL be, and once you are assured of this, you will feel amazing).Clueless about beta testing? I created a short & sweet, highly affordable course to take you from free to paid, FAST! Learn more here.

SPECIAL SAUCE

Guess what? The FIRST beta test I ever did was a service called the “Special Sauce Sessions”. I offered these on a sliding scale to about 10 women as I was trying to figure out what my special sauce was.

What is “special sauce?"

It’s that thing/skill/trait, etc that you totally excel at. It’s that thing that comes so naturally to you that you hardly even realize it’s amazing. If you’re selling a product instead of a service, you had better believe that your product has a special sauce too! Being able to relay your special sauce to your copywriter is crucial because they will be able to create non-generic sales copy and find the right words to capture all of your uniqueness. If you hire a copywriter and they ask why you are unique and your response is “I don’t know,” they won’t have much to work with!

So how do you find your "special sauce?"

Well, this is 2-part.

Part 1:

Of course, I always like for people to beta test so that they can ask clients for direct feedback about their experience.

Sometimes our special sauce is right in front of our nose, and until we ask a client to help us define it, it is too close for us to see.

The first time I got feedback from clients I was FLOORED. Multiple people told me that I was a nice mix of strategy and support and that I was a nurturing hardass….which pretty much sums me up and I had never even thought of it that way before! So test your stuff and ask for feedback. You might be surprised by what you find.

Part 2:

A second strategy to help you find your special sauce is to ask your friends and family. I have all of my Idea to Empire course participants do this because many of them have not run a beta test yet, so they have to start with where they're at.These little informal surveys that you give your friends and family will help you identify skills or traits in yourself that others look up to, but that you might not even realize!Another fun way to figure out your unique marketability is to take the Fascination Advantage test by Sally Hogshead. It may not help you clarify exact skills, but it will give you a better idea of how OTHERS are attracted to you. I took this test a year ago and it was super illuminating and helped me to better understand why certain types of marketing worked better for me than other types.

In summary, I’m not advising that you wait until you are “perfect” before you hire a copywriter, but the more clear YOU are when you hire a copywriter, the better the copy will be that they deliver. I promise!

Do you have any questions about any of these elements above? If so, ask away in the comments section or post in the Champagne Room so Jamie and I can answer! And if you're READY (wahooo!!!) head right over here to check out YHC's smokin' services.Thanks!Anna Long-Stokes

More about the author!

Anna is an intuitive business strategist at Electric Empire. She has helped hundreds of rock star women turn their ideas and talents into successful businesses. When she’s not cheerleading or strategizing her clients’ successes, you can find her traveling the world with her husband Shea.