A while back, I sent out a poll to my readers asking what type of content you wanted to see from me.
I had options like “advanced copywriting tactics” and “secrets to writing 7-figure sales pages”
Which, I thought, people would eat up.
But you know what the most selected topic was — by a huge margin?
A Day In The Life of A Copywriter.
Apparently, you guys and gals wanted to see behind the scenes of my life as a copywriter and business owner.
So that’s what you’re getting today. A brief rundown of what a sample day looks like for me. And I’ve included simple tips you can steal throughout.
Warning: I’m not a glamorous person. But I hope you like it!
Sample Day
8:07 am — I wake up to my cat scratching me in the face, telling me it’s time for her breakfast. She’s feisty, but I love her.
8:08 am — I give her food and start my daily pot of coffee. While the coffee brews, I pour a large glass of cold water and head to the shower where I’m about to shock my body awake. I get an ice cold shower for 3 minutes every morning. My teeth are chattering and my body is shaking by the end. But I highly recommend it as a way to kick yourself into gear first thing. This combined with 3 rounds of Wim Hof Breathing leaves me alert and ready for the day. It also builds a little discipline where I force myself to do something uncomfortable each day, first thing…and truthfully, it makes my hot coffee taste even better.
8:17 am — I’m out of the show and the coffee is done. I pour a cup and walk into my home office. Now, I could get started right away but I find that I feel more calm and focused when I start my day with a guided-mediation exercise. Full disclosure: I’m not someone who can sit still for 30 minutes in silence. So I’ve developed my own meditation routine that takes just 7 minutes. All I do is one visual anchoring exercise. For this, I imagine a white light coming down from the sky into the top of my head, running through my whole body and then back up and back down again. This helps me get into the headspace I need to meditate effectively. Then, I think of 3 things I’m grateful for and send positive energy to the people in my life (I actually look at the names of all of my students and clients as I do this and try to send them specific things they need.) And, finally, I think of 3 results that I want to make a reality. And I don’t just imagine a goal. I see them as done in my mind. I celebrate and, by the end, I’m so excited for the day.
8:31 am — My day is officially starting now. I check my email and see a couple orders for my online programs came in over night. If you’re a copywriter, I highly recommend you build funnels for your clients and yourself. Also, a small payment from one of our clients cleared ahead of time. Yes! That project is a wrap. Note: Today, our clients almost always pay on time because of strategies I’ve learned. But if you’re running into clients who pay late, make sure to follow these tips to get paid ASAP.
8:34 am — I check in on the Facebook ads for one of our clients. It’s CRUSHING, beating a previous variation by over 300%. I wish I could take credit for it, but my business partner wrote the ad and designed the graphic. So it’s her win, but I’m thrilled about it. It’s already helping us 5x their sales this month with 14 days to go. When we were coming up with the idea for the ad, we used (1) data we’d gathered on the audience and (2) took a wild swing. Generally, when you’re split-testing, you don’t want to try changing just a few words. That’ll only give you a minimal change in performance. The biggest wins come from a radical shift in the positioning or copy. This was exactly that — a big swing that paid off.
8:42 am — I edit and load up an email for this newsletter about “3 signs you will be successful (REAL life examples).” I’m pretty excited to send it out because I’m highlighting some students. Push send! Hopefully people like it.
9:02 am — One of our clients referred us to a new prospect (this happens a lot actually because we tell them to do this. Make sure you ask for referrals, always.). It’s a really exciting business and they want to talk Monday. I send over the link to book a call and can’t wait to chat.
9:16 am — My business partner (and GF) joins me in the office and we run through a quick game plan for the day. There’s little guesswork to this. We rely on an old-school whiteboard that keeps track of all the tasks we have, for each client, and it even breaks down by day. Every Friday we plan the following week. So all we have to do to get started on any given day is look at the board. Here’s what’s on the docket for today:
- Finish up a sales page for an online course we’re helping launch
- Make edits to one of our writers (to get emails sent over to our client by Friday)
- Send a proposal to a prospect we met with yesterday
- And start a new email funnel for a client’s webinar campaign
First up, the sales page.
10:10 am — Remember that ad I said was crushing? Well the client was excited about it too! Only, they don’t know how to login to the FB admin and see it 🤦. Generally, we don’t let clients take up time on our calendar at a moment’s notice. But when you have exciting news, I’ve found it’s best to capture that momentum. So we get them logged in and give them a quick walkthrough of the account. Client is over the moon. We hang up.
10:30 am — Back to the sales page edits. We’re getting close to finishing up. Even though I’ve done this thousands of times at this point, I pull out my checklist for a converting sales page and start making sure everything is there. I highly recommend referring to checklists whenever you can. It makes sure the important work always gets done, every time, no matter what.
11:31 am — We finish up the sales page and send it over to the client. Note: when we send our work over, we don’t ask for edits. We say, “give it a quick approval” and then we future pace the heck out of them on the next steps. “We’ll get this loaded up and designed.” This gives the client the impression that the train is moving; they just need to wave it on. I see a lot of newer writers thinking they need to send it to the client for edits. Do not do this. YOU ARE THE EXPERT. Ask for approval, not edits, and future pace instead.
11:42 am — I got a notification that a prospect from a huge health and supplement ecommerce call book called with us on Monday. I’ve been a customer of this brand for years so it was kind of a surreal moment for me to hear from them. He found us just because of the work we’d done for another client. It just goes to show you that the best marketing is word of mouth. Now, it’s time to workshop those emails.
1:06 pm — Dang. The emails needed a little more work than we would have hoped. We ended up spending 90 minutes making edits and we’re still not done. This happens, especially when we test new writers on projects. But we see a ton of potential in their work and know they’re going to keep improving over time. Btw, if you’re interested in writing for us, shoot me a message :). Anyway, we’re a little frustrated to not finish today, but still have all of tomorrow to knock them out. Push pause on that and let it cool. As a rule, never make edits when you’re starting to get exhausted. Switch task.
1:12 pm — We start the proposal for the other client.
1:27 pm — Because we have templates for this, we just make a copy in Google docs and change a couple variables around. This makes creating proposals easy. 15 minutes and the draft of the project plan is DONE! Now, we could send it over right now. But my business partner and I have a policy that we always let things “cool” and edit them again before sending things over to clients. It’s a small tactic that can really help create strong copy (yes, your proposals should be persuasive, too). Plus, we’ve been working all morning and our brains are a little fried. So it’s time for our daily “get out of the house hour.” When you work from home and set your own hours, it’s easy to work all day. But we always try to take at least 1 hour in the middle of the day to go on a bike ride, hike or walk the greenbelt. Some of our best ideas come from getting out and unplugging.
1:52 pm — We put on workout clothes and head down to the greenbelt near our apartment. It’s a rare hot day in Boise so we decide to walk next to the river instead of up the foothills. We go for about 4 miles before heading back because we’re starving.
3:12 pm — We don’t normally eat this late. But today got a bit away from us. So we make a light lunch and hang out for about 20 minutes. When we eat, we have a “no work talk” policy. It’s a good way to separate business from life, especially since we live and work together.
3:41 pm — We send over the proposal to the client. It’s an $8K project, and I think we’re going to crush it for this client. At this point, we’re pretty much done for the day. And this is by design. We try to structure our business so that we can spend 60% of the week on client stuff and the other 40% on our passion projects. For my business partner, that means finishing her next book (yes, she’s an Amazon best-selling author and the next one is really, really good). And for me, that means helping my students. I start following up with some of my coaching students and replying to readers from yesterday’s email.
5:58 pm — I have the idea for this very email for tomorrow (today for you) and I start cataloguing my day up to this point.
6:31 pm — I stop writing for the day, walk into the kitchen and pour a huge glass of sparkling wine for my GF. We cheers to a successful day! We always try to pick one specific thing to celebrate for the other person and give each other a deep, meaningful compliment.
Glamorous? No. But that’s how most days go for me. Some ups. Some downs. But having fun and building the business I want the whole way.
I’m curious what you thought of this. Did my typical day look like what you thought it would?
Rob “Sunup to Sundown” Allen