(upbeat music) - You juggling the challenges of running a business while raising your little ones. Do you crave more ease in balancing your professional ambitions with the demands of parenthood? Well, sit tight, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Alison Caffrey, and I understand the growing pains that come with building a business while nurturing a growing household. Think of this as a soft spot to land when you feel like your ambitions are starting to become just a little overwhelming. Welcome to Growing Pains. Hey, and welcome back to The Growing Pains Podcast. I'm your host, Alison Caffrey, and today I sit down with Joanne Homestead. Joanne is a copywriter extraordinaire, and she talks about how the words that you say inside of your business mean a ton. I actually share a lot of my personal struggles with offload and copy at my business operations agency, and she really helps me through this process, which I honestly feel like was a fun little coaching mechanism for you guys if you are in a position where copy and really bringing the right voice to your brand is a struggle. So Joanne is an expert email copywriter, holistic copy coach, and obsessed storyteller. She's got 15 years of experience creating captivating and aligned messaging and as a master teacher. She is so, so, so incredible. She teaches entrepreneurs how to sell with integrity and actually create their very own email style and consistency to the audience that they build. She's a mom of two little ones, and she says she loves a good cup of chai to feel her creativity and passion for storytelling and marketing. We talk about all the things, making sure that you have a proper voice for your brand, and I even, like I said, jump in and share some of my own copywriting struggles. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Joanne, and I will see you in five. (upbeat music) Joanne, welcome to Growing Pains. I am so excited to have you here. - Thanks, Alison. I'm so happy to be here to talk about all things mom and business. We will sure get into that, and I'm sure many more, but for everybody listening, let's just get a quick acclimation. Tell us a little bit about the business that you currently run and the family that you have out. - Yeah, so I have an email copywriting and copy coaching business, and I specialize specifically in storytelling. I am an obsessed storyteller, and so I feel like everything we talk about today picked the wand for hours on, because I'm like, I got like 10 stories for that. But that is what I do. I have two boys, one is six years old, and I was just telling you, Alison, that he just started his first day of kindergarten today, and so there've been a lot of tears from the parents. He was so great, and then I have a younger son who is two and a half. He turns three in December, and it's so fun to see how different they are and how they really complement each other, and they really bring out the best out of each other. And then my husband, who is my greatest supporter and watches the kids full time while I run my business. - That's a gift. We're in that same camp. My husband stays home with the boys too. - Yeah, it just makes my heart very happy to know that he's with the kids, and they could spend time with him that way, so. Yeah, and yes, and we all live right here at home. My home office, we have, I would say not the acoustics. If you whisper down the hallway to the other side of a house, you will hear it. So you can just hear everything in our house. - I can hear my two and a half year old outside in the backyard right now playing. I'm sure that's a lot too for two boys. I know when my dudes are really in the thick of playing, it's just always yelling, always banging trucks together, which is so interesting. They love crashing the cars. So do your boys play really loud too? - They, yeah, they get really loud in our house. The stomping and the running and the crashing. My younger son is definitely a lot louder. My older son is, he's actually pretty, he's pretty quiet, he's pretty mellow. But when they get together, then it gets, then it does get really loud in our house. And yes, sometimes I'm like, mom used to go somewhere else to work right now. That's just too much for me. - I was just gonna ask, like, how do you compartmentalize that? Because for us, like, I got the noise canceling headphones at first, and then that wasn't like something I really wanted to be doing. And then I remember being distracted a lot by, like, the crying sounds, like when the kids were more in the infant stage, or, like, loud bangs, like a smash, a toy or something. So do you have, like, any early stage, like compartmentalization tactics or coping mechanisms when they were, you know, really loud? - Yeah, that is such a great question. One is, I love, I love being outside. And so we have a backyard where we have a big tree that gets shade and we have a picnic table right out there. So I actually work, I try and work outside quite a bit. My background is that I taught for 15 years. And so I had always this feeling of being, feeling trapped in the classroom. I mean, I loved teaching. I loved the kids. But being trapped in that classroom, like the four walls just was not, not my thing. So I actually try and work outside as much as I can. And then I realized going to the library that's very close to us, it's a nice little library. That's a great space too. They have free Wi-Fi. I go there. And then I, since, I feel like since I've been a teacher for so long, I'm just used to all of that background noise you can hear in the classroom. - Ah, yeah. And so I'm able to kind of just like block it out unless again, if it's like a, if it's a tantrum, like the tantrum or the fighting in the screaming, that's where I can tell my body like tenses up. If I hear that, I can't, like I can't focus in where I'm just like, ah, I feel, I feel really, really tight and tense. And that's, that's probably the biggest piece that's, you know, I'm not able to like compartmentalize that. And that's where I realized like sometimes you just need to leave the house. You know, there's like certain times of the day, you know, that'll happen. So I just get rolled on that like, okay, this is a good time to go and work outside the house. - I love that you're weaving that in. 'Cause I think for me for a while, I was like, oh, it would take so much time to like move all my stuff. I'm like, go to the library or go to a coffee shop. And then I think I mentioned before we passed record that we're currently moving. And when I was like in the thick of things, we didn't actually have Wi-Fi here. And so I would drive over to the coffee shop. And I ended up getting so much more done just because of like the change of environment. And like, I wasn't with my family. So there were no screams. There was no like, if I go to use the bathroom, someone's gonna be like, hey, well, how's it going? Which I do love that about working from home and being really connected with my family here. But yeah, it was just that being in another environment just felt so much more productive and more focused. And it was really a cool change of pace. - Yeah, the change of environment. I talk a lot about that with my clients who are my copy coaching program is talking about the physical environment. And is it helping you to write? Or is it just creating a lot of distractions and procrastination? And like, just like even just moving from your desk to the other corner of the room might be just everything you need to not get distracted with like, okay, I'm working on my client work here. And over here, I get to write my own copywriting and all that stuff. So yeah, physical environment does make a huge difference in terms of like feeling productive, feeling focused, not having screaming children to the back. I don't, all of that. - I can totally relate. I do my best writing in the mornings before the kids get up. And frankly, I haven't done, so I wrote a book last year and I hadn't do any of the writing in my actual office. I did all of the writing in my bed. Like every single word about my bed. And I was just like, this is where I'm cozy. I've got my coffee. And I wrote for about 90 minutes a day to get like the first draft down. And then I of course went through the editing process with our editor and stuff. But like every single word was in a different environment because for whatever reason, the distractions at the desk were just, it was just different. The environment was different. And I felt like I needed to do other work. So yeah, I appreciate that you give folks that guidance and that coaching because it is super important. I'm gonna talk about coffee though. - Yeah, let's take it. - Because I think before we press record, I did mention that copy in my, in this time in my business growth trajectory and life, copies are number one bottleneck at Operations Agency, my company that I run. And it's really, really hard because for us, there's so much copy that needs to be written. So why don't we start with like email copy, like conversion copy, editorial copy? I mean, there's so much stuff. So like how do we actually get a wrangle or a hold on what copy we even need for our business and where it's important and where we can use it? - Yeah, I am a big proponent of like finding where you want to go in your business instead of doing all the things because it's not humanly possible to do all the things. And if you did do all the things that also leads to a big burnout and I'm speaking from personal experience. Having gone through my own personal growth journey, owning my own business for the last four years, having a baby in that and then having my other son who is at the time when I started at two years old. So learning a lot about one, honoring our capacities. That's like the first thing is honoring where you are at right now and what situation you're in. I mean, when you have kids they're continually, there's like seasons for everything. They're changing all the time. So you're having to continually kind of like evolve with them and it's same with your business. Your business is continually evolving. So you really just have to also, so the first thing is like honor your capacity. Find where you want to focus in on 'cause there's so much copywriting you need to do for your business. So just pointing in, for me email copywriting is my favorite place. It's my happy place. I absolutely love it there. I got hooked into it right when I first started my business when I started writing for a couple of my clients just as a virtual assistant at the time and just getting like so much positive feedback for my clients saying that you write for my, to my email community. They're like, I write to them all the time. They never get a response. And you write and there's like 12 people responding right away. Like write when I sent it, 12 people just immediately responded. And so that's how I got hooked into it. So find your, find your happy place basically. Is it, are you gonna focus in on email? 'Cause then if you do, you can then repurpose, like repurpose your copy for other places. So that's what my clients do is, so they're focused on email copywriting specifically to their email community, but then they repurpose it for social media. If they're doing that, they can repurpose like their opt-in pages, their sales pages for other content, it can really be repurposed anywhere. So just find your marketing happy place, your platform happy place. If it's social media, even just pick the one place and then just repurpose. So yeah, I would say like really on-air capacity and then just find what platforms you wanna use, where do you wanna focus your copywriting and then repurpose from there? And then, let me think, like what is another piece with the copywriting? I think kind of like what we had already talked about, like that you, looking at your physical environment, you gotta love where you're writing from and feel like there's a flow. Like one of my clients, her place is on the couch. Like it doesn't have to be at a desk. Like you said, on the bed, like you felt cozy and it was just an easy place for you to get your thoughts out. So it could be on the couch. It could be for another one of my clients, we figured out she can't be working at her work desk 'cause she just immediately gets into her all her client work and she has a really hard time focusing on her own business because she has all that client work. So just moving to the other side of the corner of the room has really helped her to get to get focused and have a process and a system to then write. So creating like a customized system that works for you. How are you like, like what's the process? And this is like, this is like my teacher side. It's like figuring out like for students too, like figuring out, okay, what are the steps? What's the system? What's the process you need in place to help you be successful in order to do your copywriting? Is it time blocking? Is it more like you like to hop from project to project? So how is that gonna look? So it really looks different for everyone. I think I believe everyone can find their own system that works for them. - What's your preference, Joanne, and your experience or maybe, I don't wanna say the best way, but I know a lot of people who will write every day for a short amount of time to do some of those larger projects or like I do this, I write every day, I'll write a daily email to my email list. And that's kind of the thing that I do that like you were mentioned kind of syndicates to other platforms, we do a LinkedIn article, we do social media captions and that kind of thing from my daily emails. And the cool thing about that is is it creates a habit for me. So I then build on it, I have like this well now of like stories or topics that I wanna discuss inside of our daily email. But I know some people who are like, I write all my email copy in one day at quarter. Who could gravitate, I guess, toward either one? Because I've tried to do that. And if I'm like that day, I schedule, I'm not feeling inspired, but I'm like, I'll write two emails and I'll just die off. (laughing) - Yes, I know, there's like the two camps. There's the batch, like the batch camp. They all about batch it all, get it all done for like the month or two months out, whatever it is. And then there's like right when you're feeling inspired and right when right every day kind of like what you're saying. And personally for myself, I am not like the bad, I can't do the batch writing. Unless we're talking about email sequences, then I can get super focused and just write basically for three days, specifically for my clients. And I'm just hyper focused, like lasers are shooting out of my eyes and I'm able to write a ton of emails all at once. But I feel like it's a little different 'cause you're taking them on a journey. So it really is like, if you imagine on a map, but I'm going from like A to B to C to D to E to E to F, you know, all the way down. For myself, writing to my own email community, it is really just like, yeah, creating the habit when I first started my email committee that was two, two and a half years ago. I wrote once a month, maybe once every six weeks, which as an email copywriter, it seems like when you should be writing more to your email list. But when you're focused on your other clients and you're doing your client work, you're kind of focused on that. And for me at the time, that wasn't where I was finding most of my clients. I was just building my email committee at the time. So I knew that all I wanted to do was I just wanted just to start real easy, no pressure, just. I said, every four weeks, we'll say, I can write. And now I write weekly-ish, I like to say. And so it's just, I was being able to build upon it. So it started with four weeks, then I was like, okay, I can write every two weeks. And I did that. And I was like, okay, now I can write every week. So I was really able to build on that. And for me, it really is just sitting down, I have a day every week that I write Mondays or my days where I'm focused on writing to my email community. And I sit down, I have my list of story ideas, content ideas, all that stuff. So I can pick from that. And usually throughout the week, I'm writing notes down in my phone because I'm getting inspired all over the place. And I used to do this as a teacher too. Like every day I'm like, oh my gosh, I could teach about that in this way. And I would just, I would write it down. So I can do that tomorrow. So I write it all down. I look at what ideas I have. And I see like which one really inspires me. And then I go and I write it for that week. Sometimes I will write for two weeks for the email. So two emails in one of the days. If I know next week is like a busy week, I have a lot going on. But definitely just kind of feel it. I just, I kind of like to feel out from my intuition or from my heart like, okay, what do I feel like it's coming forth this week to talk about? - Hey, Ally here. I wanted to quickly jump in and ask if you would share this episode with a mom. And that means to hear what we're talking about today. When I started growing pains, I really felt so alone in business ownership and motherhood. Our employed counterparts really just don't understand a lot of my friends and family. Although well-meaning, they really didn't understand exactly what I was going through being at the helm of my business and actually having little ones at home to try to balance both sides of the coin. Now, if you know a mom who needs to hear this topic, I would be so delighted if you share. We don't run any advertising to the show. And we really get a lot of incredible momentum and listeners from our guests and our community who is willing to share about the episode. So please, please pay it forward to another mom who may be feeling that loneliness and isolation, it is the whole reason why this show exists. Now, back to the interview. - It's super interesting that you bring that up on the intuition side, because I definitely want to talk about storytelling. There's a lot of, so I don't have any background in teaching. I've been in operations for 10 years. And so the challenge, I think, when I first started emailing my list, 'cause I've always been a really great writer, but I would always want to teach them so many things and get so practical and just get to the meat and potatoes of what the thing is that I was trying to help them with. And in recent years, mostly from encouragement from my friend Cody Burch, who does incredible storytelling emails, he encouraged me quite a bit. He's like, "Elly, you need to tell more stories." Like the stuff that you're emailing your list about is amazing and it's really valuable, but they need to know that they need this thing first, and they need to also be thinking operationally in their brains like you do, which is impossible, right? Like nobody thinks like you think. And so it was like the oldest way to connect is storytelling. So I'm super interested to hear your opinion on this, because sometimes I legitimately giant kid you not, I'll email my list, it'll be a story. No call to action, like nothing. And that's just it, that's just what I sent. And I get more responses from those types of emails to my email list. And honestly, it'll be something like silly, like my husband had an eye surgery, and here's what I learned about diagnosing problems and yada yada, just like a story. They'll reply back to me and I do, I end up working with people based on connecting from these stories. So I'm a big believer. I'm super excited to hear what you have to say on the matter, because I think storytelling in our business is just so powerful. - Oh, it's so powerful. And it's that emotional connection. That's why people wanna respond. There's an emotional connection there when people have an emotional connection, they want to share from their side. It's building that relationship, building the bridge. I like to say storytelling is kinda like a bridge to who you're talking to. I also like to say like when you are, so when you're kinda doing your writing of your content, you're like your expertise, like your expertise is operations, right? And then when you layer in that piece of storytelling into it, I like to imagine it like it's going from, you're like content's going from 2D to 3D, because storytelling brings it to life. It brings your expertise to life. It's almost like you can see it. You can almost like smell it. And that's what I like to create with storytelling. It's like, it puts you into a moment. It's like when you watch a movie trailer, it just puts you in the moment. That's what storytelling does. It's just putting you in that moment. And it feels so much more tangible. You can just, you're like, you are there with it. And so that's why I love storytelling. And as a teacher, that is what I was most passionate about because I could be up there and teaching. I taught all the subjects for elementary school. You teach all the subjects, like how, okay, I have this content. How am I going to make it engaging enough for 25, seven-year-olds or eight-year-olds to connect with it, make it relevant to them, and then have them own their action around it. So there's the storytelling piece and then there's the copywriting piece. So the storytelling is really about compelling them and hooking them in and making it engaging, making it relevant to them. And then the copywriting piece is, okay, now how do you communicate it clearly in a way that leads to taking an action? So not just forcing an action, and that's the same thing in teaching. Like you could force the kids to do, you know, they have to be there, you're the teacher. You can make them, you know, have to do their math or whatever that is. Or you could make it engaging enough so that then they understand their inform and now they're ready to take some kind of action. So they're ready to make a decision and so they own the action. And that's the same thing I like to do in my copywriting is like talking about ethical, marketing, ethical, copywriting and not from the traditional, like manipulative marketing tactics, none of that. It's really just, it's like a teacher. You're like informing them, you're engaging them, you're compelling them, and then you say, okay, now what are you gonna go do with that? What do you wanna do? And if they're informed enough, they're gonna be like, well, I wanna take this action. I wanna work with you, you know? I see my problem clearly now. I see how it connects to me and relevant to me, and I wanna take that action with you. So that's how I like to see like weaving the storytelling and the copywriting together. So it is creating that emotional connection. It's also leading people to take some kind of action because you know, as a business owner, you know you can help the people you wanna help, how do you get them to move into that action? I'm curious to your thoughts 'cause I totally agree with everything that you're saying at least in what I've learned over the years. I feel like I am not a naturally incredible marketer, but as you grow a company, you have to learn some things that you're deficient in. And so marketing, storytelling, copywriting, making sure that I can create some compelling ways to do and work on some things that are, I mean like pretty unsexy, like operations in general. Like I wouldn't say it's like the sexiest topic of the entire world, but it does create some sexy results. So like really talking through the stories, the transformations, the results, but like thinking with the end in mind. I have a friend who says, tell the same story all the time and be it to death because sometimes someone needs to hear it in some different way. But what's your opinion on like telling the same stories like over and over and over and over again? Because one day someone's going to hear it a different way or hear or experience your enthusiasm. I would love to hear your take on it. - Oh, I, everyone loves it. If you tell a good story, everyone loves a good story and they will love hearing it over and over and over again. It doesn't matter. I do that with my own email committee. I'll, if there's a really good email, I will send it again like the next year, you know? And most people by that time may have forgotten, but if it's a really good story, they'll be like, oh yeah, so remember this one, you know? And they want to read it all over again. It's like reading a really good book or whatever that is for you, like watching a good, you've watched the same movie over and over. It's the same thing, like you, it's my love when we can tell the same story again and again. And I also like to say, you know, with your marketing content that you're writing about, you're basically talking about the same thing over and over again. And that's the great thing about storytelling is that stories can help someone see in a different way. It can shift their perspective. So you could be talking about the same thing again and again, but that story, the way you've told it with that story just made the difference for them. Like for example, one of my clients, she is a acne specialist and wellness coach and she's talking about microbiome of the et and the liver and all these things and how that affects the hormones in the body. And so she's talking about the different jobs of the liver and how important your liver is for every functioning of your body. And so before what she would do is she would just teach it. She's just teaching it. She's just talking about it. And then what we did was we connected it to Harry Potter and the Owl Post because there's messages going in and out of the Owl Post. There's just like all different owls coming in and out and all over the place. Feathers are flying everywhere. And so connecting that story and helping it be like an analogy to what she's talking about made all the difference for her email community. 'Cause so many people responded. One, I love Harry Potter. I'm a Harry Potter fan, you know, all that stuff. But then also too, like I've heard this so many times. I've heard people talk about detoxing. I've heard people talk about the liver, you know, but I've never thought of it this way and this has made the difference. Like I appreciate my liver so much more now and I see why it's important for me to think of it this way. So that's where the storytelling piece also comes in when you're talking about your content and you feel like you're just kind of talking about the same thing all the time, just quite in a different lens, but in a different story. A lot of times, you know, it's really also understanding who you're talking to. And that's the same thing in teaching too. It's like, you've got to understand, are you talking to a second grader, a fifth grader? What age are they? What are their interests? What are they into? How do they speak? What's their lingo? They have all kinds of lingo that now I'm like really out of touch with. But just understanding their language too and weaving that into your language. And same thing with copywriting is weaving in the way your community and audience talks and the way they talk about things 'cause that will help them understand in a different, in a way that resonates with them and is relevant to them. - Yeah, I love that you added that in because honestly it's so important to understand your audience. I always, I got this advice a few years ago, but they always say whenever they write, just pretend like you're writing to one person, one specific person. And it's actually so helpful. And that's something that I always think about whenever I'm writing anything. I'm like, who am I writing this to? And I often pick similar people, right? I'm like, oh, this is the person. Or it might be a past client or a current client of mine. Like, okay, what would they have needed to hear at this stage to be able to really feel confident, right, like trusting somebody and partnering on a project like this? So that's so, so valuable for folks to hear. I have, I don't know, somewhat of a personal question. Listeners are gonna be like, Ali, you always ask about stuff that you're working on because I really do. Like, I really think that this is an incredible opportunity to bring moms and of course, experts like together to be able to talk about some of this stuff. But one of the, like I said, biggest bottlenecks in operations agency right now is our copywriting because it's honestly something I'm very good at doing. And I actually feel like because I'm very good at doing it, it's held me back. It's held back me being able to, honestly, I have literally never even hired a copywriter in my business ever. I've always just written all the copy. And so I sometimes I don't even know where to begin with trying to get some support here. So I know that you have your services that you currently offer for "Done for You" copy. I know that you also have your community. So like, what do you do or how do you support people who are like, I don't even know where to start or like, I'm not great at this or I am great at this, but I now need to let their rains go a little bit for somebody else because I'm getting to the point now where we've got so many marketing initiatives going on and so much copy that's needed from me to support those initiatives that I actually can't write at all. And I'm really struggling with maintaining that same level of quality that I would write. So I just get like perfectionism. I just, I don't know what the heck that even is, but do you have any words of wisdom or thoughts on like outsourcing copy both for people who are good at it and who are not maybe so good at it? - Yeah, I feel like outsourcing, if you feel like you're like really good at something, it's really hard to like go out because you're good at it. And that is something that I feel like as moms too, we have to keep in mind because that's something that I have had to really, I've been like challenged with as a mom. So my has, as I said, my husband is like the full time caretaker for the kids when I'm working. And so I know there's so many things that I'm really good at. But I have to let it go because I know like, I know he can, he can do just good at the job. It looks different. That's okay because he's got his own style. When it comes to copywriting and outsourcing the copywriting, you definitely, one is the piece of like letting go. And it might just be like, it could be, there's like a little, just like a little piece of it. Kind of like, okay, so I do, don't forget email sequence. Like, okay, like just do the one email sequence. And that's it, see how it goes, see how it feels. And the second thing is with copywriting, you know, really being able to speak from someone else's voice, brand voice. And using their brand values is also really important. And that's where I know you want to talk a little bit about AI. But that's something that's really important to me as a copywriter is that I am using the brand voice. The brand voice of my clients. And I get, I mean, I've gotten many clients. I can think of like three on the top of my head right now who have said to me, I didn't think anyone could write like me, or sound like me, or even like talk about my expertise like me. But you can do that. Like, there's just like, I don't understand, but you almost sound more like me than I sound like me. And so, and that's a great recommendation. That's really a piece of like, it's just to understand, like I study, I ask them for all of their content that they've written. If they haven't written a lot and they sometimes they're superpowers speaking, I get all that content from like their YouTube or reels or whatever it is. And I'm really studying their language and studying how they communicate. I study their body language and their tone to be able to then recreate that for them. And so for those who feel like they love writing, they're really good at writing. They love seeing that like, it's such a relief to them that, oh my gosh, I can outsource this and someone can write it like me. And then for those who feel like they're a little more shaky with the writing, they don't feel as confident with it. They get inspired because then they say, you somehow sound more like me in writing than I can sound like myself in writing. And so I've had a client who has the done the done for you email sequences, but has been so inspired. She's now doing the copy coaching with me. And I'm now teaching and coaching her on how to do that for her own, to write her own email newsletters on top of the email sequences we're doing. So, I forgot where that question, did I answer the question? Yeah, yeah, you did. I think it is super hard for folks who are good at stuff to be like, okay, I'm gonna let the rains go of this. And I think that you're right. It does come down to just being willing to allow somebody else to step into the space and be able to take a whack at it. Let's talk about AI. I really do want to highlight this because I know, especially I think like 2024, we're all in like an AI hangover, right? Like 20, 23, everybody talked about was AI. I think AI, and especially because I came up in the digital agency world too. So like I've worked with tons of companies who have done SEO and done keywords and they've used a version of AI for years and years. So this isn't new technology, but it is more available now to a lot of folks who want to jam a bunch of content out in a short period of time. So where do you find that sweet spot? Either for you, Joanne or for your clients, where we can leverage AI and its capabilities to generate quickly and high amounts, but also keep that integrity or voice, right? That we need that obviously connects with our people, right? Connects with our list, connects with our community. - Yeah, I personally don't use AI for any of my writings that I do. Some of my copy coaching clients use AI to help them brainstorm ideas to even write an email for them so they can see the structure, but then go and like really tweak it. And it might be a good starting place for them just to gain a little bit of confidence there and get those ideas out. So I think AI is great for like ideating, outlining, if you want your marketing content for three months, the ideas, like it can give you some great ideas, but I really like to, for myself, there's something about the process for me that I really love. And so I like to do that on my own. Where was I going to go somewhere? Oh, so I am speaking with someone I met through a networking connection who has been using AI and has been trying to use AI to write emails to a large email list. And it's, he's like, it's not, it's not working. It's not like no one, not even like to imagine why. - You don't want the free stuff. And I was like, yeah, it's because there's no, there's one because we're living in this world of AI. - It's, I feel like people can tell, people can tell, at least I can definitely know when it's like, oh, like Chad GPT wrote that. It's, it feels flat to me. There's something missing. There's something missing in the copy. - And there's anything missing in the copy. I think it's a word salad. You get like, I get, I see what you're saying now, Joanne. I do want to validate that 'cause I agree with you. It falls flat and it doesn't think there's any depth, but also for some how there's no depth, but then there's also a thousand more words than you could ever have mentioned. - That's true. There is also the other side of just like, what is just like way too much? And it's all just mixed together in there, which is what it's doing. That's what Chad GPT does. It's basically taking everything from all its internet sources and putting it all into one thing. - Yeah, so he said that it's not, the emails aren't connecting. It's like a list of 9,000. And so I said, yeah, we got a need to one. Like, we just put a face to this brand, first of all, 'cause we're talking to moms, okay? Moms need to know, like, can I trust you? Like, do you have children, you know? Like, I need to know it's been in the weeds with me because it is not easy. And so I'm like, that's one thing. And the other is like really being able to use that storytelling and the copywriting to really resonate and speak to them, you know? And Chad GPT, you can train it to a point, but you could spend all that time training it to that point or you can actually like get to know who you're talking to and write it yourself or have a copywriter write it who understands who you're talking to. And not just, it's not just like pulling all this information randomly and putting it all together. - John, you loved our Chad. I think it's so important to be able to connect with your audience, do so in a consistent way, tell them stories that connect with their particular situation. I love all of the little nuggets that you gave throughout our conversation today because I think as moms are listening to this, they're wondering like, how do I grow my business? How do I connect more with my people? I mean, marketing was not something that I was good at when I first started. I had no idea where to find customers. I had no idea where to talk to them. I had no idea how to give value in advance and connect with people in that way. And it was really hard for me in the beginning and so I had to do a lot of searching and reinventing the wheel and taking lots of courses and hiring help. And so I'm sure for any mom who feels stuck right now has gotten lots and lots of wisdom out of this. Where if folks are listening and they wanna get in touch with you, learn more about what you're doing or follow along with some of the tips and tricks you have for copywriters, where can they do that? - Definitely come and join my email community, Flourish. And it is a free community to join. And that's where I really give copywriting tips, storytelling tips, and stories of all flavors. Like you get to see it in action and it's really fun. So if you wanna join my email community, you can sign up for my free email storytelling guide. And I can give you the, I might have given you the link for it already. So I have a free email storytelling guide that is really a great reference guide for when you're writing. I've had people who have used it and said like, "I love having it at my fingertips, I can look at it." So it comes with 25 story prompts, specifically for women entrepreneurs and coaches in like wellness while being a mindset. And then it also has like seven hooks and examples of hooks to hook the reader in from the very beginning of your email. And then it has 15 plus segues you can use, the segway from the story to whatever email marketing content you're talking about. And that's almost like a plug and play, like just make it easy on yourself. Just pick one, that's it. Okay, that kind of fits and just throw it in and keep going. I'm really big on, doesn't need to be perfect. Just get it out there. You're gonna be continually learning along the way and you're gonna be gathering information as you write. So it's okay, it's not gonna be perfect. When it comes to writing, you can always improve it. It doesn't matter how much you can revise it. It can always be improved. So just put it out there and gather information from it. What did people respond? What did people click on anything? So that email storytelling guide is really great. Reference guide for when you wanna write using stories and then also once you sign up for that, you'll join my email community. And then you can see it in action, what it looks like. And then I'm also going to be active on LinkedIn. I'm moving from Instagram to LinkedIn for really posting more on and being active in the DM. So you can find me Joanne Homestead on LinkedIn. I'm the only Joanne Homestead on LinkedIn. Or you can look up Joanne Homestead, copywriter. And it'll pop up there too. So yeah, we'll link it in the show notes for you Joanne. That way folks can connect with you because I know I'm sure that you're gonna drop a lot of incredible knowledge on LinkedIn and some amazing examples. I will put both of those in the show notes that way. Everybody can come in and connect with you and grab the guide because that sounds amazing too. Any words of wisdom and the last thoughts you wanna leave moms listening with who are kind of in the thick of it, growing businesses and raising families at home? - Oh gosh, okay, one, I feel like thinking, what could I say? Like it's possible, and it's not like, I'm so excited to be able to do this for my family, but it was really a journey to get to this place. Like when I first had started, it felt like a lot of hand twos and shoes like me. Like, I have to provide financially for my family. I have to, I have to breastfeed the baby. I have to take care of the kids while also running this business and it was coming from a place of putting a lot of expectations on myself and a lot of pressure, which is what I was doing as a teacher too. And I mean, I was burning out every year but also the system in itself is not a great system to be working in. I'm gonna go there. But I brought all that trauma into my own business and realized that there's something in me that I can change to help. And now it's not like I have to. It really is like a get to, I get to. I get to financially support my family. How awesome is that? Doing something that I absolutely love. My husband gets jealous all the time. He's always peering me in here in the office and he's like, I'm like, you're having so much fun. I'm like, I am, I love, I love what I do. And so it's just like, it was really a mindset shift for me and so for any moms that are just feeling like so much expectations and so much pressure for themselves. Like, thing, if you can work with that, I worked with the coach to help me really, really like dig into it and be like, oh my gosh, now I can really come from a place that, I get to choose. I get to choose to create my life here. So I get to do this for my family. I get to be with my babies at home while working. Yeah, it's wild sometimes. There's a lot of screaming sometimes but there's also those really precious moments that I would just not give up. Totally agree, I really appreciate that perspective. And I think a lot of, a lot of moms listening are going to feel, I hope, really inspired by that because some of, I don't know, the challenges or the ways that you feel stuck or the ways that there's a lot of shoulds or have tos right on your business or on your family, right? Like you should be cooking dinner every night for your family that was something that sat with me for a really long time. And then once I released that and Steve, my husband was able to come in and do dinner every night, like we eat better meals because he's a way better husband. And also, it's just like a weight off of my brain, right? I was able to like free up that mental space for other things that really brought me joy instead of weighing me down. So I love that you brought up the shuds and the have tos 'cause I think there's a lot of that in motherhood and in business ownership, right? Like you should be on LinkedIn. You should be on Pinterest. You should be wherever. And you're like, wait a second, hang on. If I should be on all these platforms, how does anybody eat, sleep, walk the dog, be the babies? Like we can't do any of that stuff, right? So thank you so much for your transparency and your grace on the show today. I'm gonna link all of those fun goodies in the show notes. And thank you so, so much for prioritizing time to come on. - Yeah, thank you, Alison. - Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Growing Pains. I know that you have so many things vying for your attention right now. So I am so grateful that you just spent the last hour or so with me. So I hear all the time from mompreneurs, Ali, Ali, what systems do I need to have in place in order to thrive in business and in parenthood? If you go over to allisoncafry.com/checklist, you can grab my kid group business checklist and it will get you started in the right direction around making sure that you build a business that doesn't steal all of the time away from your family. If you loved today's episode, I would be so, so, so honored if you would leave a review on the podcast, it helps us reach even more incredible mompreneurs just like you and give them the resources they need to be wildly successful in business and wildly present at home with their families. Thanks so much again and I'll see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
