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The Copywriter Club Podcast
TCC Podcast #459: How to Sell Strategy with Kristen Vanderhoek
01:00:40
Clients need strategy. But they don't always know that's what they need. So how do you sell it to them? How do you ensure your work is strategic even if all your client wants is a few emails? My guest for the 459th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcas...
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- [00:00]
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- [00:29]
Rob
Done Is strategy a big part of your copywriting business? If it isn't now, it probably should be. This is the Copywriter Club podcast. Every client needs a strategy, but they don't always see it that way. They just want the emails or the website or the launch plan. But it's the strategy strategy that ensures that the deliverables go to the right person, include the right message and have the right call to action all at the right time. Clients want the deliverables and the benefits of the strategy, but they don't always connect the two. So it becomes your job as the copywriter or content strategist to connect the dots for them, to show them how strategy leads to better copy and content. On this episode of the podcast, my guest is Kristen Vanderhoek, a copywriter who focuses on brand strategy. We talked about how to approach strategic projects, Kristen shared exactly how she does it and we talked about how you sell strategy to clients who usually just want the deliverable. We also talked about Kristen's home framework, the step by step process she follows when working with clients to ensure that they get well thought out. Strategic copy and design and finally, one of Kristen's differentiators is her White Glove service. She takes steps to make working with her feel like a high end experience and make sure that her clients aren't left wondering what's going on or feeling like they overpaid because the presentation at the end of the project isn't just a file handoff. If you're a copywriter who is ready to level up the projects you work on and the way that you deliver your work to your clients, you're going to want to listen to this interview before we get to my interview with Kristen. This episode is brought to you by the Copywriter Underground. The Underground includes monthly coaching and expert workshops and accountability group to keep you moving towards your goals and more than 70 different workshops to help you gain the skills and strategies you need to build your business. Recently I asked a new member why she joined the Underground and she said that she did it for the copy Reviews. She wanted feedback on her work to help her improve her writing. And where many writing coaches charge as much as fifteen hundred dollars to look at a single sales page, you can get unlimited reviews in the underground for less than $90 a month. Honestly, this just might be the best value in the copywriting world. You can learn more by visiting TheCopyWriterClub.com TCU2 and now my interview with Kristin Vanderhoek. Kristen, welcome to the Copywriter Club podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here.
- [03:12]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Thanks for having me. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this.
- [03:15]
Rob
It has been a little while since we met in person, but let's just start from the beginning. How did you become a copywriter, content creator, all of the stuff that you're doing today?
- [03:28]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Well, I'm sure people say this all the time on the show. I think this is true for a lot of copywriters. I kind of fell into it. I feel like I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life, you know, pretty. I don't know, about five years ago, ten years ago, I. Yeah, it was a bit of a long road. I. I've always been one of those people who loves stories. I actually loved history. I. When I was graduating high school, I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. No idea. I figured, I'll go to school, I'll study history. I'm sure I'll change my major. Never did. So. Got to the end of his. Got to the end of university was like, okay, well, now I need to make a decision. I still have no idea. Thankfully, my university had a program here in Ottawa in Canada, where I live, and it's our capital city. And so that, you know, my, my profs were like, you should maybe go try this program. It might be an interesting thing. Maybe a way to. To get a job and figure out, you know, something interesting to do at least for. For a few months. So I did. And. And so it was. I ended up working on Parliament Hill here doing like, political staffer kind of stuff a little bit like, you know, working for Congress, I guess, for your American listeners. And it was really interesting. And so it kind of was one of those situations where one job turned into another. Turned into another. I'd never been particularly political, but it was fascinating. And there's a lot of communications in that role and certainly a lot of storytelling and a lot of, you know, figuring out how to position and how to talk about what you do and figure out a message and all of that. And I Kind of went from there. That's a. It's a pretty tough job, staff being a staffer. And so I ended up moving after a few years into kind of government relations advocacy work. So I was working for a not for profit association that advocated for one of the. One of the national industries here, the aerospace industry. And again, it was, you know, it wasn't the kind of thing there where you think, oh, I'm gonna. This is the direction I want to go. But these opportunities kind of came up and I followed them. And I think the, the through line of all of that was sort of, as I realized, like this communications role where you're figuring out how to. To tell a story and message and connect with people and how do you take what you want to say and align it with what your audience is looking for. And so, yeah, so I ended up doing all of. Almost 13, 14 years, something like that, like a long time. And, you know, and realized as I was going, you know, I really, I was intellectually, it was fascinating. It was so interesting. I just learned so much, especially as a young professional, you know, to be exposed to, to all of these people and organizations and brands and ideas. It was, it was really, really interesting. But I learned as well that I kind of realized that I really am quite independent, first of all. And I really love kind of small. I really love small businesses. And I had been working with large, you know, even if I was on small teams, they were always large institutions, large organizations, quite traditional and conservative in the way that they talk or communicate and structure their communications. And so on the side, this was 2012, 13, maybe, something like that, I started blogging. And this is really when, like, the online world was really starting to. To kind of take off. And so, and I found myself doing kind of director of communications role, day job over here and kind of experimenting in the blog space at night and finding that these things really kind of crossed over and that my expertise, my day job was feeding into what I was doing, you know, in. On, in the online space and then vice versa as well. And so I think I finally got to the point in 2019 where I thought, you know what, Like, I. I think I really want to make a go of this on my own as much as I, as much as I appreciate the. The work and everything that I learned, I just wanted to work with, with more creative, smaller, more independent brands, people who, you know, were just kind of building a thing because they really cared about it. And so, yeah, so I went out on my own in 2019 and it's been a bit of a ride since then, but, but yeah, I, that, that was kind of, I, I think from there, you know, even, even once the, once I got out on my own, it was still a bit of a ride to figure out like, okay, well, you know, how do you take corporate communications expertise and turn that into something that you know is a fit for smaller brands, smaller businesses, service providers is who I really work with now. And so that, I think that has really been the journey that I've been on the last six years has just been figuring out like how do you, yeah, how do you align those things and kind of take the best of one world and apply it to a very different one?
- [08:16]
Rob
Yeah, it's an interesting problem and especially because you've got this experience, but then applying it to that smaller brand or smaller company, how did you find your initial customers and clients to work with? Because yeah, again, going from that enterprise level or even government type client, internal client to you know, mom and pops or startups or small businesses, that's a big leap.
- [08:41]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Hugely. Yeah, those first, those first connections were really actually all out of my personal network. You know, it was really, you know, you tell folks, this is what, this is what you're doing, this is what I'm doing. Like if you know of anyone. And I had a few people kind of pass on leads. One of those leads actually ended up being a marketing agency here in Ottawa, like a small one. And again, because, you know, when I left, I left six months before COVID broke out and then all hell broke loose. And so it was a bit of a scramble and so I found myself very grateful to be actually doing subcontracting work, like quite a lot of subcontracting work, which made life a lot easier from a business development kind of finding clients perspective. It also really taught me a lot, you know, as someone who is trying to figure out how to run a business and how to do all of these kind of business building skills is not. I don't have that kind of background in my family. I just, it was just something that I really had to learn. And so being able to be in an environment where I was doing a lot of subcontracting work really allowed me to learn from people who were doing the thing I wanted to do very directly.
- [09:48]
Rob
So who are the clients that you're working with today?
- [09:53]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Today is, you know, it's funny, I think when I started I, I really wanted to work with kind of creatives was, was how I thought of it and that was just because that was something that I personally really resonated with and felt motivated by. I actually have a quite artistic family. My father is an art teacher, and my brother is an architect, and my sister does fashion design and things like that. And so I. I loved. I loved, you know, I really wanted to help people like that build a business and do their thing on their own. And then I think the work that I ended up doing tended to be, you know, there were creatives in there, but it was also a lot of, you know, okay, well, here's like an events production company or here's, you know, here's a. Here's a construction firm or something like that. And what I ended up realizing was, you know, those projects were just as fun, and what I was doing was a lot more about service providers rather than creative professionals. And so, you know, I think for me, it was just a realization that actually it's the experts. It's the people who really, really know a thing and really care about a thing and just need help expressing that and building a brand around that, especially when it is just you. And you kind of want to take your idea and your expertise and make that a little bit louder or more clear or just take it to the next level.
- [11:14]
Rob
That makes sense. So at one point, you joined the accelerator to start figuring some of this stuff out. Like, talk not necessarily about the accelerator, but talk about that process that you went through to identify who you were working with and how you were going to set up services that would attract them. Because that's like, in the program that we did, we did it pretty quickly, you know, 12 weeks or so. But it's the kind of thing that actually, it almost takes a year or two to figure out.
- [11:41]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Oh, gosh, longer. It took me a lot longer than that. And I think. I mean, I think I made it difficult for myself because I really. I think I knew quite early on that I wanted to do brand strategy specifically rather than copywriting. And I think even in the last six years, I think, you know, strategy and. And discussions around brand strategy and in. In the online space and for smaller businesses, that's become a lot more common. It was a lot less so. I think in what, 2021. I think 22, when. When I joined the accelerator. And, you know, and so I was in the accelerator because I was like, well, I'm going to be a copywriter. This is. This is what I do. This is my background. And. And even at that point, realizing, like, actually the thing that I love and I think the thing that I'm Good. Like, where I can really add value is that initial kind of discovery, organizing your ideas, figuring out how to talk about what you do versus the. Versus the copywriting sales. You know, whether it's email, whether it's, you know, whatever that is. I. It was that really. It was around the discovery piece that I just. I really loved that. But I think that was a challenge at the time to figure out, well, how do I take this thing that I'm really interested in? But that is for most people are. In this industry. The way I was hearing about it, really kind of a very particular part of the process. And so I think there was a lot of work that I had to do to figure out, well, how do I position this? To how do I find the right clients? Because not everyone is the right client for this type of work. And that was. That was something that I really had to learn the hard way. And then. And then, yeah, how do you build a process around that? How do you sell that? How do you position that? And for me, I think a big part of piecing this puzzle together has been building relationships and collaborations where it's not just me doing my thing, but I'm working with. I've got a designer who I do a lot of projects with. We're not running an agency. We're not, like, we're separate people, but we just collaborate extensively. And I think figuring that out and figuring out a process with her about, like, okay, well, we'll do this first and then hand it off to her, and we really have a flow now that works. I think that was kind of the. That was the key to. To figuring that out, I think. But it took time. It took a lot of time.
- [13:58]
Rob
Yeah, there's a. There's always been this struggle selling things like research or strategy. And so, you know, as I'm making notes here, you know, I want to ask about how do you sell strategy? But that goes hand in hand with what you were just saying about finding the right cl. So how do you find those right clients? What are you doing so that the people who come to you need strategy work and not just blog posts or case studies or whatever the writing requires.
- [14:23]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Yeah, yeah. It's. To be honest, I find there are clients who do come and say, I want this strategy piece. And typically it's clients who are fairly sophisticated in terms of being able to understand and articulate the problem that I have that I'm trying to solve. Is that my. The way that I'm showing up in the world, whether that's the message, whether it's the positioning, whether it's how I'm being perceived, is not in line either with who I am or with where I want to go or like. And they feel that there's a mismatch. And that's actually, in my experience, quite unusual. I think a lot of especially early stage younger businesses, people who are starting out, they tend to treat a lot of these strategic problems as tactics. And so if I have a problem, well, I need a new logo, I need a new website, I need my social media strategies wrong. And so they're, what they're doing is they're diagnosing incorrectly and they're looking for help in the wrong places. And so the strategy work that I think a lot of good copywriters, like we learned in the accelerator and designers and other kind of marketing professionals, I think experienced good professionals know, like, they, they can help their clients sort of diagnose, oh, this is a problem. And either I have the training to do the strategy work for you and we need to do that first as part of this process, or let me bring in someone who can do that specific thing. And so what I found in terms of selling strategy is, you know, yes, I could. For the client who understands this is the problem I need. Great. You can have a conversation and you'll be aligned. A lot of times it's actually about building relationships with some of those downstream service providers, you know, website copywriters, email copywriters, designers who then, you know, maybe they don't want to do that heavy lifting, maybe they don't feel equipped. And it's a bit of a different, It's a whole other kind of job. And so working with them to collaborate and kind of create a more solid process, and for me to have a process that I can kind of adjust to fit them, that has been really, really important. And it's made, once I kind of figure it out, like, oh, this is kind of, this is going to be the best way to build those relationships and then also to deliver a better value to the client and solve the problem they really want solved has typically been through those kinds of partnerships.
- [16:46]
Rob
That's interesting. And it's a really good way to find clients, right? Because I mean, there's so many different ways to go out there and to try to find them. But other service providers that you are partnering with or at least developing these relationships with, have these relationships with their potential clients and they need the service that you need. And so for copywriters who are thinking actually maybe instead of cold Pitching, or instead of posting on social media, this is the kind of prospecting that I'll do that's forming relationships with other service providers. What kind of tips do you have for someone like that to start building these relationships so that it actually starts to pay off? Because, I mean, you know, at surface level, it's great to know a bunch of people, but if those people aren't, you know, connecting in a way that brings you clients, then you might as well be doing something else to, to prospect. So, yeah, what would you advise someone in that situation?
- [17:38]
Kristen Vanderhoek
There's, well, there's two. I think there's two sides to this. There's figuring out, like, well, how are you going to do the partnership in terms of, like, structure that, offer that relationship and build that out with someone else? And then there's also the like, okay, well, once I know what I want that relationship to look like, how do I find those people? And so I think the first, the answer to the first is really, I think it's got to start with your customer if you know who you want to be helping and you understand what their problems are, you know, and I think, you know, as copywriters, understanding, okay, we're talking pretty early stage here, you know, problem aware, really not solution aware. They're probably like, what are they diagnosing their problem as? And if you've got folks who are coming to you saying, this is the thing that I've got a problem with, well, what are sort of the adjacent service providers? So, you know, strategy in the work that I do is one of them. It's more upstream kind of thing. But I think even if, you know, if you're a website copywriter, well, a brand designer is a great adjacency because a lot of people are doing a rebrand and website and that kind of thing at the same time. So I think, first of all, thinking about, like, well, what do I do? What problem am I solving? Who are sort of the adjacent specialties that I could collaborate with to build out a more premium offer, a more valuable offer. How could we, you know, work in tandem and essentially create a system that's going to be really appealing and that will allow us to share those referrals? That's kind of the first thing. And then I think the second thing is like, well, then, you know, go to where those folks are would be thing number one. So joining communities, you know, whatever your, your outreach method of choice is for some people that social podcasts, you know, whatever that looks like. And then I think also this Gets a little bit more advanced, the more expert I think you become. But also just thinking about building, positioning yourself as an authority and doing authority, building work, understanding this is a thing that I'm an expert in. Position yourself as that and then reaching out to those other folks and setting yourself up and telling people, I do partnerships, come work with me. I'd love to collaborate. I'd be really open to that. That's kind of how I would suggest people think about it.
- [19:43]
Rob
It's a good idea. What have you specifically done as far as building that authority piece so that you're out there? So people are like, oh, I see Kristen. And she is clearly an authority in strategy or, you know, the things that you're talking about.
- [19:57]
Kristen Vanderhoek
I think for me it has been, I think a lot of my marketing has really been a journey of, again, understanding how do I best communicate, where am I most comfortable with what do I enjoy doing? One thing I think I really felt like I had to do for a long time was social media. I really hate social media. Like, it really stresses me out. I just don't enjoy it. I cannot be consistent with it. It just, you know, I. It's such a great tool. It is just not the right tool at all, at all for me. And so for me, I think figuring out like, okay, well, I really enjoy one on one relationships and small rooms, conversations. And so getting into the accelerator was, was something like that where you can come in, especially if you are not, if you are a little bit different from everyone else in the room, then all of a sudden that is, you can have these conversations where you're talking with five designers or five, you know, copywriters or whatever the case may be, and you're sort of the, the adjacent one where people can share ideas without feeling like you're maybe going to step on their toes. And so I think those kinds of communities were really important. And then I think the other thing for me was also recognizing that I am a reader and a writer and there's a lot out there these days about, well, you need to do video and you need to do all those, you know, podcasts and all of those things and like, and you need to lean into that and go hard after that. And certainly you can. But for me, I think recognizing I like writing, I like reading, I want to work with people who like reading and writing and are willing to maybe take time to do that and just kind of leaning into that. And so it's been a little bit hit or the miss, hit or miss over the years. As things have gotten busy, it's not easy to kind of keep that up all the time. But I think, you know, especially writing, you know, like, once that's on your website, that stuff lasts and people find it. It's such a brilliant marketing tool and it's a really great reference to have when someone's got a question about something. Well, here's the, here's a link to that. Go, go check that out. And so for me, those two things have really been, I think the key to setting myself up as this is the person you need to talk to about brand strategy.
- [22:11]
Rob
So let's talk a little bit more about strategy. I'm curious as to your thoughts on the differences between a project that's really strategy heavy versus copy heavy. There are differences in the kind of research that may be, is required and the kind of product that you're producing. So how, and I know a lot of your strategy projects also result in copy. Just because that's, that's, you know, the end result. The strategy has to show up in the world somehow. Design and copy is probably the most typical. But yeah, let's talk about where you start strategically and, and think about the research process for that.
- [22:49]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Yeah, to me, the strategy piece is very different from the copywriting piece, I think for me, you know, and maybe this just comes from the kind of more corporate communications work that I was doing before. I found myself in those situations writing a lot of the strategic planning documents for my organization, you know, in collaboration with other people, obviously, but I was kind of holding the pen on them. And so that experience really taught me to think about brand strategy in particular as this bridge between your business strategy and your business operations. And where are you, what are you trying to achieve from a business perspective and how does that connect with how you show up in the world? To me, I think strategy is about decision making. It's about figuring out, you know, from a business perspective, what are we doing, where are we going, and how does that connect to these marketing decisions that we're making? Copywriting is sort of, I think once you have made those high, high level decisions about what is the vision, what is the values, how are we positioned, how do we talk about ourselves, how are we building a personality for the brand that feels human and relatable. Once you've made those decisions, you need to have all of those things in place in order to then think about your copy, which is very specific decision making about. Well, now I'm doing a website, I'm running a sales campaign, I'm Writing an newsletter, whatever the case may be, you know, copywriting is much more focused. And so at that point, I think your research is much less high level about what is kind of universally true about the company. And it's much more focused on, well, who is the buyer of this product? What are we trying to achieve with this particular campaign? It's much more focused. And so, yeah, I think it's, it's the one feeds into the other, but they have different jobs. And I think you're just, you're weighing different things and you're making different decisions at both points in the process.
- [24:53]
Rob
Could we talk through a specific project or client that you've worked with? You don't necessarily need to name the client, but let's walk through the process and the kinds of decisions or the kinds of thinking that you're doing at each stage so that we can understand. Yeah, here's what the strategy piece looks like and how it translates into copy. And my guess is that almost all of us are kind of doing this maybe in certain ways, but we mix and match it along the way a little bit differently. So I'm really curious about your process.
- [25:23]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Yeah, I think that's really true. I think especially for copywriters, brand designers, in a different way perhaps, but I think copywriters especially because so many of the same ingredients are required to write good copy. And you know, we've been trained to do good research and to do good thinking and to build this really solid foundation. So yeah, I think a lot of that thinking is happening. But I think again, because you're sort of at these different levels, I think what I've tried to do in my process is just to really separate them out and say like, okay, over here we're sort of at the 50,000, 100,000 foot level. And you know, in copy, it's much more focused. So from a. For a client example, one of my very first clients actually was an events company here in Ottawa. And they, they were really well known in the community. They had like really good brand reputation, but they wanted to essentially pivot and reposition themselves. And a lot of the work that I end up doing, because I end up doing a lot of rebrands and positioning and we're essentially trying to kind of go from level A to level B or to C or whatever. There, there is a bit of a question of like, okay, well this isn't working, or this isn't enough, or this maybe doesn't feel true to, you know, just. It doesn't. The brand doesn't feel like who we are. This doesn't feel true. And so the strategy side was really around like, okay, well how do we dig into that process and actually figure out what that needs to look like? So my, this is, I call this the brand blueprint. It's basically you're writing a brand strategy. And the way that I kind of work through that is at the beginning of a project, I have the client book two meetings in a week. So usually it's kind of a Tuesday and a Thursday is what I aim for. Because I want there to be a day in the middle where they can kind of go away and think about some of the things that we've been talking about. And, and we kind of go deep into discovery. I don't, I have them, I have some clients do a questionnaire, but a lot of clients, I want them in the meeting partly because these are really difficult questions and it's hard to write down your answers to these questions on a piece of paper. It's much easier to talk through them. And then also it's a lot easier to ask follow up questions and kind of pull out the threads and things like that. And so, yeah, so we'll do kind of those two discovery meetings, very, very in depth. And then, and I get from them, I ask them to provide me with some, you know, any audience research. I don't do stakeholder interviews necessarily, but if they've got, you know, testimonials stuff that they can provide that I can use, that's great. They give me competitors and I essentially go away and I do competitive analysis, audience research, positioning stuff essentially. And then I write the first draft essentially using what I know and come back to them a few weeks later with what I think the, with what I think the strategy and the direction should be at that point. You know, if there are revisions, we can do those revisions. But that is essentially building, building that document. So a lot of it is my own research and listening and then kind of translating that into what does that look like. Once that was done for that client, they, they loved it. And that really captured for them that, that bridge between, well, this is where we are now. You know, I often talk about this is you're sort of living, we're trying to work here as if you've got one foot in the present and one foot in the future. And so whatever we're building from a strategy perspective needs to feel true to who you are now. It can't feel so big or so far away that it's just not reflective of where you are, but it also needs to push you a little bit, and it needs to be big enough that you can grow into it. And so that was. That's really the test, ultimately. And so inside of that document, we're figuring out vision, mission, values, differentiators, elevator pitch, audience profile, brand personality, and archetypes. Really, really important. A little bit about brand voice, creative direction. So linking the look and the feel to. To the strategy. And starting with. I'm not a designer myself, but kind of coming up with an original, like, the beginnings of where could this go from a design perspective? And then a mood board to try to kind of visually capture that vibe. So that's all that kind of initial strategy, process. They need to sign off on that as like, yes, this is who essentially who we want to be. This is how we want to present ourselves to the world. And then from there, my design partner and I worked in tandem, essentially. She did the. The brand identity, and I wrote the website copy. And those, you know, we can do those in roughly about the same amount of time. And then website development lasts.
- [30:11]
Rob
When you are putting together things like mood board and, you know, some of those strategic pieces of the brand identity, are you bringing the designer in at that point also, or is that on you to start to define that stuff? And then you bring in the designer?
- [30:24]
Kristen Vanderhoek
They do refinements, mostly on me. She and I have a really great relationship. I really rely on her, and I think she really relies on me. And so it's not uncommon, even if I'm working on. You know, last week I was working on a project that it was just me. We weren't doing design afterwards for that. And I still kind of messaged her in slack and was like, hey, like, can you jump in and take a look at this? Because it's just helpful to have a second pair of eyes. But I think she and I have developed a shorthand over the years, and we kind of understand the process and where things are going. But it is. It is on me, I think, to do that initial. That initial direction piece, because it is an extension of the strategy, and it is still essentially, for me, the way that I think about the design piece is really around, okay, if we've got all those that strategic, you know, stuff, we've got the vision and the messages and all of that stuff. The next piece is to figure out personality and to be thinking about, like, okay, well, who is this brand again, as a person? How does it talk? How does it sound? How does it look? How does it act? And part of that is the creative direction. And so brand archetypes I find are very helpful. You know, hero, magician, you know, whatever, whatever the case may be. And I think once I kind of have a sense of what the personality is from an archetype perspective and then what does the voice sound like, it becomes a bit easier and clearer to sort of say, okay, well, if we know all of this, then what's going to make sense for this brand is we want it to look and feel like, you know, maybe it's bold, maybe it's soft, maybe it's high contrast. But so sort of thinking through some of those visual ingredients and what could that look like? What direction does it need to move in? And so what I'm trying to do at that stage is essentially sort of say, like, okay, I want three kind of concepts and three sort of guiding ideas. Essentially. It could look like this in terms of photography and typography and all of those things. But there's. There's a direction, but not. It's not so prescriptive that a designer can't take, can't do their own magic and really kind of make it come alive from a design perspective.
- [32:37]
Rob
One of the challenges that I face when I'm doing this kind of research is, you know, I. I see the good ideas and I start getting these insights and I immediately want to go from 50,000ft down to the road and start writing. I'm like, oh, that would be a great headline. Or, you know, these are. These are such good copy points, and I want to, you know, jump into the writing the copy. So how do you hold back? How do you stay at 50,000ft in order to finish that work before you jump into actually writing what you have to produce?
- [33:08]
Kristen Vanderhoek
I think, you know, a lot of times for me, as I go, it's actually, it's not necessarily, oh, here's a. Sometimes it's, here's a headline, but it's almost more like, like a concept starts to come alive. You know, like there's like a commercial or something that I can see of, like, oh, you know, this. This brand looks like this or feels like this. So it's more kind of complete. But I think also I've learned over the years that I'm quite. I need a lot of structure. I really value systems and processes and steps, and I like kind of having an order of operations to do things in, which is, I think, why this kind of process and system has worked so well for me, because it really does. Your one thing is sort of building on the Other and building on the other and building on the other. And so I think it's exciting in the middle of that to, to kind of have a flash of oh, this is what the commercial could be. Or like, oh, this is a brilliant headline. I mean my designer, there are so many times where I'll just throw like a slack thing, I'll be like, look at this headline. And you know, this is amazing. But you do kind of have to sit on it, I think, and let it, let it percolate a little bit. I think there's real value in the strategic process to giving things space and letting them breathe. And you know, like, it might sound great, it might, and it might stand to the test of time, but also, you know, it might not. So I think that's the first thing is like recognizing, getting excited about the threads and following the threads as they, as they go, but then also following the process and letting the process kind of do its job and allowing things to breathe and take on a life of, of their own a little bit. I will also say though that I think, think it's really important for me and for the work that I do, especially for smaller brands who are a lot of time taking the strategy document and you know, it really needs to do a lot of jobs in their business. It is primarily an internal kind of decision making tool, but it's a marketing tool as well. And I really try to write as much of that document as I can to be market facing so that, you know, if they are going to do their own website copy, if they are going to be writing their own sales assets or whatever the case may be, that they've got some market facing stuff, including headlines and including, you know, some taglines and some ways of sort of framing things that, you know, that they can use and lift if they want. It's not a necessity, but I think it's something that clients really value and appreciate.
- [35:35]
Rob
It makes sense. Talk a little bit about working with a designer. You've obviously got a great relationship with your designer. I have had both great experiences and some very controversial, not controversial, but conflict based relationships with designers who, you know, for whatever reasons they didn't understand the strategy that I was following or you know, they have different ideas. So. And, and I do think it's a great idea for freelancers to work with designers that they trust and having two or three that you can turn to, you know, if you get hired to write a copy, a website or you know, another piece of copy that needs design, why not have a trusted partner that you can, you know, turn it over to, and, you know, they can also provide you with work. I think it's a great idea, but that's sometimes a really difficult relationship to make work because a lot of designers want design to come first. And clearly as copywriters, we think maybe copyright copy should come first. Obviously, strategy should come first. But, yeah, how do you make that work?
- [36:37]
Kristen Vanderhoek
I mean, I think the designer that I have or that I, that I work with, I think we're agreed on that. And I think you're right. I mean, I think working with someone who does not have the same values or perspective as you do in terms of the process and how things come together is, Is a recipe for. For conflict. I think the reason that our relationship works well is because she is. She really, really values strategy. She, like, she says all the time how much easier it makes her life and how much more she enjoys the design work because she's got clarity around what she's trying to do from a design perspective, but she does not want to do the strategy herself. And so I think for that has. That is what's made this relationship work is it's very, very symbiotic because we both recognize each other's strengths and we agree on the process that's required to build something really solid and rich and deep and meaningful and valuable for a client. But we also have really different strengths. And so, you know, I can kind of come in and do one job inside of the project and she can do another and bring her own way of thinking about things. But it's very. We understand the role that we each play and we kind of back off and we do that dance as needed in order to get things to the end of the line. It's hard. I mean, if you don't have that understanding, I just, I don't know how it would work. I just, I just don't. I don't know. I do think that part of, part of that collaboration building piece, when, when a copywriter, when someone who's listening to this is thinking like, oh, I want to do this, I think being really clear about, like, well, what does your process look like and how do you want to work with other people? And what is that? What are the shared values that we need to have? That's. You're going to need to know that before you start.
- [38:34]
Rob
I think I wholeheartedly agree. Let's talk a little bit about your framework. So you have created the brand home framework that you use in your business with your clients. Walk me through the different steps. I love this framework, by the way. I, obviously, I'm big on frameworks. We've talked about them for years on the podcast, and I think that every copywriter, content writer should have one, simply because it helps our clients understand how we go about the work that we do, and obviously produces trust because they see we follow a process. But walk me through your home framework.
- [39:14]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Sure. Well, I've got you and Kira to thank for this. Actually. It was. It was in the accelerator. There's the. There's a stage in the accelerator where, you know, you teach us exactly what you just said. You know, this is important. You need to have this. And so the homework was, go away and write this. And so this is the home framework is what I came up with. And it's really kind of stood the test of time over the years. So essentially, the idea is, you know, if we're thinking about all of these things that we've talked about, strategy is decision making. You need an order of operations. You need to know, you know, how do you. How do you string all of these disparate kind of ideas and concepts, a lot of times super fuzzy, airy, fairy stuff, into something that's really tangible and practical and kind of scalable, especially for maybe smaller businesses. And the way that I started to think about it was like, okay, well, I think building a brand is a little bit like building a house. And if you sort of take that. That image and think of it in. There's sort of four stages to it. And so, you know, first, we've. You're starting with your heart. And that would really be like, the foundation of the house. It's the studs, it's the framing. It is the absolute core. I mean, if. If. If the heart of your brand can't carry the load, everything else is going to crumble. And so here's really where we're talking about your why. It's your vision, it's your mission, it's your values. And I think a lot of times, especially copywriters, because we're 10, we are taught to really start with, well, where is the audience? And what does the audience want? I think sometimes we maybe forget or discount or don't know how to marry that with the heart of, like, okay, well, as a brand, my client, why. Why are you doing this? Like, what do you care about? Why? Why is this important to you? And so for me, that's really. Before anything else, you need to start there. From there, you've got. We're thinking about orientation. And so this is the O in home and orientation is really positioning. And so this is actually not really about the house at all, but it's about what's around the house. So, you know, if you are. If you are living in. If you're building a condo in the city versus a ranch in the country, you're going to make very different decisions about your house. If you're living in a forest versus a desert, very different decisions. And so, you know, the environment essentially dictates the priorities and the choices that you making. And so from a. From a strategy perspective, this is really. When we say in, you know, orientation, we're thinking about research, analysis, differentiators, positioning, statement, all of those sort of external factors. If the, if the heart and the why, your vision and your mission, your values, that's the internal piece, this is the external piece. And together the heart and the orientation, that's. That's like the. The foundation. That's what the brand is at its core. And it's how we make decisions from there. You get into. Once you know that you can think about, well, how do. Then we express it. How do we basically go from kind of concepts into actual tangible assets in terms of words and visuals and all of those things. So the next thing that we're doing is we're talking about the message. And so that's our m. It's about story. And so this is really where we're thinking from, from a home building perspective. At this point, you're putting in your windows, you're putting in your doors, your rear roof, your flooring. It's stuff that really impacts and directs how the house looks and feels. It's obviously, it's aesthetic, but it's also super, super functional and it's strategic and it's meant to last. You're not going to switch out your roof every five years, you know, or three months or whatever. It's. It. It needs to last. But it is also, it's not that foundational piece. It really is starting to add expression and personality to the home. And so this is really where we're thinking about the archetypes and the personality piece. We're talking about voice, point of view, key messages, elevator pitch, all of the stuff that is, you know, a copywriter's bread and butter in a lot of ways. And then the last thing are emblems. And so that's the E in. In home. And this is the visuals, finally. And this is where, you know, most people, I think, when they think about brand, at least clients, this is where they tend to start, it's my logo and it's fonts and it's all these things, you know, and. And it's. It's important. It's. And I think the reason I chose emblems in addition to, you know, I needed an E for home was, you know, I think it's more than just from a brand perspective. You're not just choosing things because they look pretty. You know, these are emblems in the sense of, if you think of like heraldry or a badge or a family crest, like, it's distinctive and it's symbolic, and it is a visual representation of who you are. It's really important to choose right because it's meaningful. And so, you know, this is from a. From our. From this analogy perspective, this is where we're talking about landscaping, paint, furniture, fixtures, finishes. It's really important, and people have a lot of opinions about it, but it needs to tie into everything else that you've built. And so for me, I think thinking about. Thinking about these kind of four phases and that the development of working through that is partially about order of operations and what to include. And, you know, as someone who has to write these documents and do all of these things, it's very important for me to make sure that it's balanced. You know, I think the house is only going to work and is only going to last if you've got components from all four of these groups. And I think for copywriters or for strategists who may be need a diagnostic tool, this can be a really good place to start. Like, if things aren't working well, are there any of the four buckets that maybe are a little bit misaligned? Are there. Are we missing. Is. Is the message a little bit weak? Have. Is the orientation stuff out of date? Have we paid enough attention to the values? And so looking at these groups and kind of saying, like, you know, do we maybe just need to put a bit of attention in one of these places? Can be a helpful way to start troubleshooting a problem. I think the last thing to me that really kind of, you know, turn helps me frame the. The. My role as a strategist in this is, I think when you think of the way that this house is built, when you are the homeowner, when you are the brand builder or the owner of the brand, you are starting from the heart. You're starting at the beginning, and you're building kind of out towards the emblems. Your audience starts the other way around. They start at emblems and they slowly Work their way in towards the heart. And so it's balanced not only in terms of keeping everything equal, but also making sure that, you know, things need to be balanced for you in terms of how you're building this out, but also for your. For your audience that they can kind of learn and discover and engage with something that feels meaningful and rich and deep. And the only way to do that is to sort of be addressing all four of these stages, you know, together and not be neglecting one.
- [46:12]
Rob
I really like this framework for a couple of reasons. One, the comparison to actually building a house, I think is really useful. Nobody starts building a house by choosing the paint colors and, you know, hanging the wall hangings. Right? So. But like you said, this is where a lot of us start with our brands. You know, we think, well, you know, I like the color blue or the color red, or I want, you know, to have this, you know, look and feel. And the flip side, I've worked with a bunch of clients in the tech and SaaS world, you know, engineers, founders who don't value that stuff at all. And they feel like, well, I've got the framework built, you know, the product works. That's what all that needs to matter. And it's really easy to come down too hard on one side or the other. And the way you. You lay it out, it's like, look, it, it's. It. It takes it all. And in order to get it all, there is an order to the. The way we piece this together.
- [47:11]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Yeah, it's, it is interesting, isn't it? I think for some clients, it. It. The. The design piece really tends to be the polarizing part in, in a lot of cases, right. Either they're starting with the visuals and they're not really valuing or understanding what's behind that, or, you know, for folks who maybe don't value that quite as much, it feels like fluff and it feels unnecessary. And you really kind of have to explain, like, well, why. Why is this something that we need to be valuing and investing in? And it's. I think, yeah, it is a helpful, I think, analogy to. To be thinking of, in terms of. And. And I think even for understanding your clients, like to get a sense from your client of, well, is this a client that really wants to focus on the emblems? Is it a client who really wants to focus on the other places it can help you, as the strategist and as a service provider, adapt to what they need and kind of guide them through the process while still making sure that you are building something that is really going to serve them well and be comprehensive.
- [48:14]
Rob
One other thing that I think this is true about your business, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but your deliverables, the way that you put this together, is a bit premium. You know, you try to really stand out. And I think that this is actually significant. And it's something that more copywriters, more designers, content writers should be doing. Will you just talk about how you take basic deliverables and make them premium and make them feel better or basically so the clients value them more?
- [48:46]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Yeah, yeah. I think, I think this is where, for me, visuals really have been very important. I think a premium, it's, it's the way that something is presented creates an instinctive feeling. You know, it is, it is that feeling of like, again, when you think about a house and you walk in, you get an immediate sense of this is what this homeowner is like. Oh, this is what this house is like. I can get a sense of the person is because of the house. And I think it creates an emotional reaction that is very intuitive. And so I think thinking about the way that things are presented and being really intentional about trying to make sure that it looks good and that it will appeal and tell a story to the client, I think is very important. I think also, though, you know, I, I, I really, really strongly believe in, you know, the importance of a cohesive brand. You know, I think just treating, just thinking about your words or just thinking about your images or, you know, all of these things, siloing them off, I think that's where things really kind of start breaking down. Even those relationships that we were talking about before, right. Like with, with other, you know, marketers or whoever we're working with. And I think the more that we can do as practitioners to show our clients and guide them towards this is what a cohesive brand feels like. This is what it feels like when the words and the visuals and the thought behind it all kind of come together. And so for me, one of the ways that I do that, even with the blueprint, you know, which is before design, before we're making any of those decisions, is I use imagery all the way through the presentation. And so, you know, there will be one slide where it's like the values, but there's. And it's just stock photos. And it's just meant to give kind of a vibe in a sense. But it's important, I think, because it does create this intuitive kind of unspoken sense of this is where we're going, this is how it will feel. And I find clients get really excited about that. And so, you know, it is, yes, it looks good, and, yes, it, you know, it makes. Makes. If you've got a premium offering, I think it will make you look really professional in the eyes of the client. But it has a really important role to play, I think, as well, in terms of actually moving them through the process and helping them to move from all of these conceptual ideas into, oh, I can see what this will actually look like in terms of the words and the visuals, and I can see how they work together. And I'm feeling really excited and emotional about it.
- [51:27]
Rob
Yeah. And I think. Think one of the outcomes of that is that when clients feel that way, you can actually charge more money for the work that you're doing.
- [51:35]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. And I think again, you know, I mean, it's true, certainly in the strategy work that I do, because part of. Part of this process really is thinking about both words and visuals. But I think, you know, even if you're just doing copyright, just doing copywriting, if you're doing something that is further down, sort of downstream of that, you know, and maybe you're thinking more about, like, well, maybe I'll collaborate with a designer or maybe, you know, I mean, I don't know. Even if. Even if you're not doing any collaborating, but you're doing the word stuff, I think taking a look at what the client has in terms of the brand look and feel and thinking about, well, how do I integrate this in? I think shows a. Like, a level of professionalism and thought and intention and strategy that you're thinking about this stuff and you're working that into their. To their branding. But then I think also, you know, from a value perspective, it's. I mean, these are. These are long processes that take a long time. Like, this is not cheap work. It's just not. And so building relationships where you can. I think, especially for me, having relationships with copywriters and designers where we're getting to an end result that is very tactile, and that is really necessary in terms of actually moving their brand forward and getting them results, that feels very premium because we're kind of going from nothing all the way to the finished product. There's a ton of trust because, you know, me and my designer, we know them inside out. They have, you know, kind of told us their deepest, darkest secrets, and they really trust us to understand what they need and translate that into something. Something unique. And I think especially. Especially in the Age of AI, especially in the age of I just need things quick and I just think need things. Now that's a very different approach. It takes the right client who wants that, but for the right client, it is life changing.
- [53:33]
Rob
So I'm changing the topic dramatically here, but I was cruising through your website, you know, preparing for this interview. You collect cookbooks?
- [53:42]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Yeah.
- [53:43]
Rob
Why? Why cookbooks? What, yeah, what's the thought process there? And I don't know, maybe there's a copywriting lesson out of that as well. I don't know.
- [53:52]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Oh, you know, maybe. I mean, I really enjoy, I just really enjoy cooking and I really, you know, maybe it's again, like my structured, like, organized little brain. But I really like, I really value a reference library. You know, I mean, there's, there's value certainly to, you know, well, I want to make tomato soup. I'm just going to Google tomato soup recipe and find it. But I think often, you know, at least for me, like, I like having a variety of resources around something that I'm interested in so that I don't. For me, cookbooks are not necessarily about, like, I'm going to do this thing and follow these directions, but it's about inspiration and it's about, you know, I know that I want chicken, but do I want Mexican? Do I want Italian, Do I want to do pasta with it or maybe go Indian? And so I think having that inspiration in a curated way that I like, I trust these resources. I know they're high quality. You know, to me, that I think is really is really valuable in terms of then making it my own. And so, yeah, maybe that is kind of equivalent to the branding process as well in terms of, you know, I think looking around and drawing inspiration, even from an educational perspective, I think when I think about how I've grown and learned and kind of built my stable of, of expertise, that's essentially kind of what it's been. If you're collecting a course or, you know, you sign up to an email list or you, you know, you take in all of these inputs. But for me, you know, it's not really about just, well, I'm just going to blindly copy this thing. It's about, well, how do I integrate it into the rest of my library to create something that feels like me and that I enjoy, that has my own kind of flair. Um, yeah, I don't know, I think cookbooks just tickle that, that, that urge, I guess. For me.
- [55:45]
Rob
Yeah, I get it for sure. Uh, is there anything that you wish you had done Differently as you built your business.
- [55:50]
Kristen Vanderhoek
I think in a lot of ways I really like to do things right. Um, I do, I am slow. I am not a fast anything. I, I remember being in accelerator and you know, and, and elsewhere and watching copywriters talk about how they could do stuff and I was just like, I just can't write that fast. I just, that fast. Like I'm not, I just can't do that. I really like structure and order and I think, I think the thing that I did wrong or not wrong, but I think the thing that I think if I could go back and tell myself, you know, do this differently is like, okay, just a, take a chill pill, it'll be fine. But I think also like I, I, I tried to over engineer a lot when I was starting out. I really felt like I needed to have all of these big answers to these big strategic questions that I help my clients with all the time. Not realizing that when you're starting out, it takes you three years to just figure that out and you're going to change your mind five times and you're going to rewrite your sales page that many times and probably your service offering. And I think I was so hard on myself. Like I took that as a mark of failure every time I needed to adjust instead of kind of recognizing that this is part of the process and it's good and it's fine and you're honing in on the thing that you, that you really want to do. And so I think if I could go back and do it differently, I'm not sure I could necessarily go faster but I think I would try to just be a little bit more open handed about and okay with like let the, let the mess be a mess. Like you'll figure it out. It's fine. Like try, try things. You don't need to have it absolutely perfect every step before you move to the next thing. And you don't need to over engineer things because you're just going to waste your time that early on.
- [57:40]
Rob
That's great advice, Kristin. If somebody wants to connect with you, check out your website, do all of that stuff. Where should they go?
- [57:48]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Cursoraninc.com is the best place to go. There's an email list there, there are a few blog posts including something about the home framework if people want to learn a bit more about that. And there is also, if you're listening to this and you're interested in collaborating, I did recently put a collaborations page on my website as well. So if there are copywriters who want to even just think about this stuff, please reach out. It's there. I love talking about this stuff. So yeah, would love to connect with people there.
- [58:17]
Rob
Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.
- [58:21]
Kristen Vanderhoek
Thanks Rob. Love this conversation.
- [58:30]
Rob
Thanks to Kristen for talking about her business and how she went from legislative aid to strategic copywriter. If you want to connect with Kristen, you can find her@cursorandink.com Kristen obviously has a great designer that she works with. If you're able to connect with someone like that, hold on to that relationship. It's great to have a designer who understands how to make your copy better with their design skills. I've worked with designers who treated sales pages like packaging, hid the messages that I was writing, didn't seem to care if people could read anything at all. They just wanted things to look nice. But more than that, partners like this can bring clients into your business and help provide work for your portfolio that future clients are going to be attracted to. It really is the kind of relationship that you should foster. Kristen mentioned diagnostic tools a couple of times as we were talking. I should mention that there's a fantastic training in the Copywriter Underground about diagnosing your prospect's marketing and copy problems using a scorecard that practically guarantees your client will say yes to working with you on the discovery call. You'll find that@thecopywriterclub.com TCU2 that's also where you can get that weekly copy critique, monthly coaching, weekly accountability, and dozens of other business and copy trainings to help you grow as a copywriter. It's all@thecopywriterclub.com TCU2 that's the end of this episode of the Copywriter Club Podcast. If you like what you heard, please share it with someone that you know. If you don't know another writer or freelancer that you can share it with. And as I've said before, I find that really hard to believe. Everybody knows somebody. Visit Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever it is that you listen to your favorite podcast and leave a review. If you haven't left a review before, please. Today is the day. Now is the time. I promise. When you share the Copywriter Club Podcast, your friends will thank you. Don't forget to check out the copywriter underground@thecopywriterclub.com TCU2 I'll see you next week.
- [60:40]
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