How to Write Sales Copy That Sells

The Game On Girlfriend Podcast, with Sarah Walton and Kris Jones

Speaker 1 (00:01):

You are listening to episode number 202 of the Game On Girlfriend podcast. Today I am bringing you Kris Jones. She is a StoryBrand guide and she's the founder of Red Door Designs. This is the episode for you. If you have been struggling with sales copy, you know what I'm talking about, like you stare at a sales page, whether you've decided to work on a template with Squarespace or WordPress or one of the magical template companies out there, and you're staring at the space going, I don't know what to put here, or you're staring at a blank Google Doc because your designer is waiting for copy. This episode is going to change how you write that copy and it's going to make it a lot more effective. Kris is a joy to talk to. I love her backstory. I hope you really listen in for that because she allowed herself to be led by a client. 

Speaker 1 (00:51):

We always love when this happens. It makes me very happy and she remembered it so well. She even knows the date. So listen for that. Sometimes life smacks us upside the head for that. I loved Kris's honesty about that and how she shared that, but I also want you to understand that when Kris works with her clients on their copy, they can see up to a 300 time return. That means if you were making 30 KA month, you were now making 300 KA month. People have been able to six times their pricing. You guys, it took me a second to say that because it's such a big deal, six times their pricing. What would that do to your business? What if it all comes down to copy? I believe it does. If you've hung around me for a while, you've heard me say, I think copy is one of the most important business assets we have. 

Speaker 1 (01:38):

I truly consider it an asset because it's replicating you out there in the world. It's having people have an experience of who you are while you are off doing something else, whether that's baking cookie with your kids or taking care of other clients or being on vacation when your copy is done well, and Kris gives us tons of tips in today's podcast episode of how to make it Done Well. When it's done well, you can go off and relax and know that the copy is working hard on your behalf. So I'm sure you're dying to hear all of her tips and tricks. Listen in, they're amazing, and if you've had questions about AI and how you should use it when it comes to creating content and copy, listen in because I asked her that question as well. So pop in those earphones and let's get to it. 

Speaker 2 (02:31):

You are listening to the Game On Girlfriend podcast where we remind you that this is not your practice life. This game is on, and we're here to help you play it. Personal and professional development expert Sarah Walton delivers a fresh new perspective on this thing called life through her thought provoking conversations behind the scenes, training, interviews, and inspirational episodes. Be ready to be inspired to laugh, cry, and even feel prepared to face some of life's toughest challenges. Here's your host, business mentor, author, speaker, and imperfect vegan. My mom, Sarah Walton, game on girlfriend. 

Speaker 1 (03:10):

Kris, welcome to the Game on Girlfriend podcast. Can we just jump into copywriting? I'm so excited to have you here. 

Speaker 3 (03:17):

Let's just dive in. I am so thrilled to be here. 

Speaker 1 (03:21):

Oh, this is going to be so much fun, but of course, before we jump in, can I just ask you, everybody's like, this is the question everybody wants to know is like, why is this what you do? What actually had you fall in love with supporting businesses with copywriting and teaching people how to do this? Well, 

Speaker 3 (03:39):

Wow. Oh, I could go on and on about how this all came to be, but I will tell you that fundamentally I've never been someone who's loved copy. 

Speaker 3 (03:52):

I always found it to be very challenging. I started out as a visual storyteller and even as a childhood, in hindsight, visual storytelling was my thing. Whether it was making fake trifold vacation brochures or whatever else I talked my friends into doing and eventually kind of turned that into my career, the visual storytelling piece through branding and website design, I kind of cut my teeth out at Nike and some other bigger companies that were incredible. I learned so much, but eventually I just have always had a heart for the solopreneur because that's who I relate to the most. I am wired as an entrepreneur, and I knew that my time in the corporate environment was not going to be my full career. I always knew I'd venture out on my own. Really? 

Speaker 1 (04:56):

That's so cool that you knew that. Not everybody knows that. 

Speaker 3 (04:59):

Oh my gosh. I remember driving on the freeway one day heading out to my cubicle, and I was like, every day I make this drive, I'm dying a little bit inside. I just had this very clear thought one morning and it was just like the truth for me. For me, it was true. There's nothing wrong with cubicle life or working for a larger company, but for me it was really little by little killing my soul. And so I started shortly thereafter that working with solopreneurs and helping them grow their businesses, and I got into website design because it was just what I love to do, making things beautiful, and this was back in the day when just having a beautiful website was all you needed to really thrive as a business. Those were 

Speaker 1 (05:56):

Good. Those were fun those days. It was like, I have a website, I'm done. 

Speaker 3 (06:01):

Totally. Yeah, exactly. Even having a website meant that you were killing it as a business. 

Speaker 1 (06:07):

Seriously, the best. Yeah. 

Speaker 3 (06:09):

But as the years went on, I'll never forget the landscape online changed. Everyone had a website and the websites that I was creating weren't as effective as they had been. I never really put a lot of energy into the copy side of things. I was all about the visuals and making the website beautiful, and I had this client, her name was Elise, and she came to me. She had a new business idea and she was really excited about it, and I'm like, yes, let's build you a site and get this out into the world. And she actually had a background in publishing, and so she was no stranger to copywriting, so she was going to do the copy, and then I was going to take that copy and make it look beautiful and launch her business. So we set the due date and it was like April 10th, and then she was going to get me the copy the week prior. 

Speaker 1 (07:11):

By the way, I'm laughing. I love that you still remember the date. That was a very important moment in your life. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh, but I was like, no. Oh, this left an imprint on Kris. This one. Yeah, 

Speaker 3 (07:22):

It really did. It totally changed the trajectory of my business, and I'll tell you why. She called me on that morning of April 10th and she said, Kris, I don't have my website copy ready to give you. I'm a writer. I don't know why this is so hard. I've spent years and years writing professionally I should be able to do this. I'm completely stuck. I feel paralyzed. This is just like, I don't know what is going on, but I need your help. And I was like, gosh, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, you could hire a copywriter, maybe ask some old clients to give you feedback on what they loved about working with you. You could maybe ask a friend who's a writer. Anyway, she tried all that. She tried the copywriter, she tried all of that, and she came back to me again and just said, none of this feels like my voice. 

Speaker 3 (08:29):

And she was in this conundrum of, I can't write it myself, but it needs to feel like my voice. And when I try and outsource it, it doesn't feel right. You can't outsource your own voice. And so basically that situation sent me on a path of, I mean, the gift of Elise was that it sent me on the path of solving this problem. The hard truth was at that point, even my website wasn't doing the heavy lifting for me that it had been. I was really relying on referrals pretty much to keep my business afloat, which as we know, referrals are great, but it's not a way to sustainably run a business. You've got to have tools that are going to bring in your clients on autopilot and kind of working full-time as your sales employee. And so I went down this path. I flew across the country. 

Speaker 3 (09:34):

I dove deep on storytelling, and what I realized is that the visual storytelling that I had been doing was really powerful, but it was 20 times more powerful when it was paired with the written word and the written storytelling. And so I went to workshops, I read books. I just went all in. Like what happened with Elise will never ever happen again. Never. And so when I started applying the principles to my own website, things really started to change for my business really. I started getting booked out and I was getting on sales calls and people were already sold. They were like, I already want to work with you. How much I was started to be able to charge more for what I had been doing because the value was so much greater, the results I could promise were way beyond what had been happening previously. 

Speaker 1 (10:35):

Well, and it's so cool too because your website's actually doing what you say you're going to do for people. So it's literally, it's almost like a catalog. I could see why that just became so effective for you. Like, I'm going to help you write copy like this. And they're like, I want to get on the phone with you right now. You're like, that's what I'm going to do for you. I just think that's so great. What a great story that is. My gosh. 

Speaker 3 (11:01):

Well, the best part of this story was what happened after that, which was my clients started calling me and saying, you know what? I actually am charging six times more than I used to charge for the exact same service because we were communicating the value of it. And prior to that, that particular client had been on the verge of burnout. He was literally going to close the doors of his business. He was trying to find clients not charging enough. That really turned around for him. Other clients were revenue-wise, making 300% more than they ever had. They were getting bucked out. It was just everything started to shift for them, which was the best part of the whole thing. So yeah, that's when I just realized that the visual story paired with the written story is the superpower. And even today, even in 2023, most people don't have both. 

Speaker 3 (12:06):

They go all in on the written part and the design is kind of, eh, okay, maybe done from a template, nothing wrong with a template, or they pick a beautiful template and go down that road and kind of just follow the template's guidance around what copy should go where. Oh, the Squarespace is telling me to put a paragraph here, so I'm going to just plug one in. So all that to say, even now, most people are only doing half of that. And when you do both beautiful design, basically when you have a visual story that's bringing to life your written story, it's like the one two punch that will catapult you way above everybody else in your industry. 

Speaker 1 (12:56):

Yeah, I could totally see that. And I think, I know everybody hates testing always. People are like, what's up with your abundance academy, Sarah? I'm like, I teach a lot of data. And they're like, what? And it's because people don't want to go in and say, but the paragraph, just because Squarespace told me to put the paragraph here, that doesn't mean that's where the human eye actually goes. And it doesn't mean that's where that paragraph should be for the visual part of the story that needs the copy backing it. And it's really challenging for us. I think as business owners, we're doing 85 9000000.4 things, that's an exact number, and we're running around doing all this, and then someone comes in and says, yeah, but does the copy work better if it's on the left or the right? And you're like, I don't know. But as you're saying to the pricing and to the amount of people coming ready to purchase, it can make a profound difference 

Speaker 3 (13:44):

Night and day, night and day. And the thing about the builders, if you're going to save money and use a builder, I'm a huge proponent of it. Squarespace, they do have beautiful templates. They do encourage you to keep things really clean and simple as do a lot of other cloud-based builders out there, but just keep in your mind that they are in the business of brochure websites, which is really just a beautiful site that isn't necessarily effective. And so you've got to be the one in charge of making sure it's effective because they're not going to do that for you. 

Speaker 1 (14:24):

That's so true. It's so true. And we just want to get it done. I mean, can we just be honest completely just so long. It's like, 

Speaker 3 (14:31):

Yeah, let's just slap it up there. Let's put up the obligatory website. People got to find me somehow. And then we get it up and maybe in an evening or a couple of days, and then it's like, oh, phew, it's done. It's up. But then not a lot happens after that, which 

Speaker 1 (14:49):

Is a bummer. Look, I've done it. I know I've done it where I'll spend more time on the design of a page with a designer and then I'm like, yeah, I just used the copy from last time and I love copy, copy. I think I'm so happy you're here, Kris, because I think copy is one of the most important things we can have in a business. And I refer to our sales pages as business assets. I mean, here you and I are talking, right? And our sales pages are out there working for us. That's an asset. It's something that can replace itself in value, and it's so tempting to just throw it up there and be like, Jack, okay, what's next? Because we're managing so much, 

Speaker 3 (15:27):

So true, so true. Your sales page really act. You should really think of it as it can be your top sales employee. That's what I like to think of it as. Just working for you 24 7 for free for 

Speaker 1 (15:45):

Doesn't need to pee or eat. It's amazing. Amazing. That's very true. I mean, I guess, yeah, how else could we look at it? I guess that's right. It isn't it an actual employee of the business. I love that idea. Actually. The more we think about it, the more I like it. So in light of this and in what we as entrepreneurs, those of us who are super duper scrappy, running around doing all the things, what are the biggest mistakes we make when it comes to copywriting? 

Speaker 3 (16:13):

The biggest mistake we make is making ourselves the hero of our own story. And so I totally get this approach. We think this is my website. I need to talk about myself, people want to know about me, so I'm going to write, I'm going to kind of drum up, and this is what other people are doing online. You look at other people's websites, okay, they're talking about themselves. I'm going to talk about how I got into business and oh, this other person's talking about their Labradoodle and some other things. Maybe I'll layer in some fun facts about myself here and also add in the experience I have. I want people to know 

Speaker 1 (16:56):

I'm 

Speaker 3 (16:56):

Legit, that I know what I'm doing. But what we don't realize when we're doing that is that we're making ourselves the hero of our own story. And what I want to encourage your listeners to do is really invite your potential clients into a story with you. And the reality is there is only room for one hero in every story. And when you're the hero of your own story, you kick your potential client out of the story. You want to invite them in where they play the hero and you play the guide. So an example of this in movie language is like Karate Kid is the hero. Mr. Miyagi is the guide, or Luke Skywalker is the hero, and Yoda is the guide because the guide is actually the strongest character in the story, and the hero's the weakest because they have the problem, and we don't know if they're going to overcome it or not, but you are the guide because you know how to solve their problem. 

Speaker 3 (18:05):

You've been there, done that. You can show up with empathy and confidence and guide them to solve the problem that they have. Why are they hiring you? So the formula for every story ever told is a hero has a problem. That's your client, okay? Hero has a problem they don't know how to solve. They go searching around whether they're asking their friends or they're online asking Google, they're looking for a solution to their problem. So then meet. So the hero has a problem. The hero meets a guide that has a solution that allows them to experience success. That is in a nutshell, every movie you ever watch, every book you ever read, that's how it goes. Now, there's all kinds of creativity that can happen within there, but that is the structure of a compelling story. 

Speaker 1 (19:03):

My gosh, I'm literally racking my brain right now and I'm like, oh my God, Cinderella's fairy godmother. I'm going through all the things and I'm like a huge Marvel movie lover. So I'm going through, I'm like, holy. And there's that one. Oh my God. And there's another one. You totally, I think you just blew my mind. That is so cool. I've never heard it talked about quite like that. I mean, I know there's a formula to every story, but the idea of hero has problem, hero is stuck, hero gets guide. Guide offers success, happy ending mean, or whatever version of happy ending that is, right? Yeah, it's really interesting. So we as the business owner, this is so awesome, Kris, because I always say to people, what problem do you solve? That's my first question. Anybody comes to me with any business? I'm like, what problem do you solve? And sometimes people look at me like I'm crazy, and then they're like, oh, I help people do this, this, and this. And yes, that's right. But then positioning that as the guide through the problem that you client, customer, amazing human who landed on my website are the hero of this is so awesome, Kris, that's really helpful. 

Speaker 3 (20:08):

And what I love about that question that you ask is that what you're doing is helping them articulate the problems that their heroes are struggling with. And when we articulate their problem on our website, when we really can articulate that clearly, they automatically think we're the best ones to solve it. 

Speaker 1 (20:32):

Oh, that's fascinating. Okay. 

Speaker 3 (20:33):

Yeah. Doing that as establishes resonance, it develops trust. It helps them feel seen and heard when you're just literally naming the problems that they have. 

Speaker 1 (20:45):

I like that so much better than calling it a bunch of pain points. Boy, do I hate that word. I hate calling something a pain. Yeah. Literally it shackles up, right? I'm like, Ew. But that idea that instead, let's look at the problems you're up against and let's talk about how we're going to break through them. It's like a completely different conversation. Then I know you think you suck. Who wants to hear that? That's not fun. But rather you're feeling stuck in this area. Let's get you through this. This is so helpful, Kris. Oh my gosh. Well, okay, so let's say here I am human business owner, help me and I sit down and I am slogging through a sales page with all of the copy and all of the things and all of the pictures. It's got to be pretty. Now there's copy, and I just want to put my head into my desk and pretend I don't have a website at all. What does somebody do when they're in that situation, Kris? What is the best thing for someone to do? 

Speaker 3 (21:40):

Yeah. Well, the first thing I want to share is I want to let everybody off the hook because that struggle is real. It is so hard to write your own copy. And there are reasons behind why that is. It's not just because you're defective. There's nothing wrong with you. This is true for everybody. Every single business owner that I've ever met struggles with this, and I really, I've never met anyone who's like, no, I just sat down and I just wrote it and it only took me an hour, blah, blah, blah. Never heard that in 20 years of business, 

Speaker 1 (22:24):

I don't think anybody's ever done that, ever. 

Speaker 3 (22:26):

There's a thing called the bottle effect, and when you are too close to your own business, it is being inside the bottle and trying to read the label of that bottle that can only be read from the outside. 

Speaker 1 (22:39):

Oh, wow. 

Speaker 3 (22:40):

And that's where we are as business owners. We're so close to our own business and we're trying to write about it, but we're in the bottle. So we need outside perspective in order to be able to clearly articulate what we do in a compelling way. The other thing that goes on during this phase of trying to write your own copy is the curse of knowledge. And that just means you've been in your industry long enough, or if you're in this business, you've obviously invested time into learning about what you do. You're an expert whether you consider yourself an expert or not. And when we have the curse of knowledge, it just means that we've forgotten what it's like to not know what we know. 

Speaker 1 (23:29):

Preton it. Kris. I think that is so true. I've never heard the bottle theory before. I love that, but I think that is one of our biggest challenges. 

Speaker 3 (23:39):

So I just want to let everybody off the hook around that it's such a normal experience and it's real. And so I think the perspective is really, really critical. It's hard to kind of shoehorn a template into a templated solution into what you're doing because there's so many nuances of the work that you do. So I'm not like anti templates. I just think that they often don't save us time. I think really what's timeless and what's really effective are the components of story and learning how to do that. 

Speaker 1 (24:19):

Oh, that's really good. I think that's really helpful. So is if someone's going through the bottle moment, they're in that moment, what's one of the best things they can do right then to help sort of pop something for themselves? 

Speaker 3 (24:33):

The best way to just break through the paralysis of trying to write your own copy is to jot down the problems or the struggles that your customers are facing when you get on a call with them. In their words, how do they share with you that they're struggling or stuck? Depends on what you do. But if you're, let's just say you are, throw out a profession, a hairdresser. 

Speaker 3 (25:03):

Let's just say you're a hairdresser. So the problems that they might struggle with is that their hair feels out of alignment with who they are as the person on the inside, and you really want to show up congruently. That might be one thing. It might be that maybe one of their problems is they need to come in frequently and it's just too expensive. One of their problems might be that their hair color, they feel like it washes them out or something like that. It's not enhancing their visual appearance. So the thing here you want to do is hone in on what they're telling you they're struggling with. Are they struggling with styling? It looks great when they leave this salon, but how do they maintain that they can't? So there's all kinds of things, but I would say just brain dump those onto a document and then every story begins with a problem that the hero's having. And then start your copy that way. That's the best way to let people know that you care about their problem, you understand their problem. When we begin a story or anything, we write with a problem. Our brains cannot help but engage. We are wired for a story. So that is just a little secret tip to just get the juices flowing. So you start with the problem and you might say, are you struggling with the fact that your hair is kind of making you feel drab? 

Speaker 3 (26:46):

And then you want to position your service as the solution to that problem. So at such and such salon, we specialize in blondes who want to become blonde, 

Speaker 1 (27:00):

Drab 

Speaker 3 (27:01):

Or whatever. We specialize, we work with women to create alignment between who you are on the inside with how you show up externally to the world. And then we want to always incorporate the message around what's in it for them. As humans, we're just scanning the world. What's in it for me? What's in it for me? How can I benefit from this? So we want to spoonfeed them that. So after you've kind of positioned your solution, however you solve that problem, and then you want to say so that you can feel your most beautiful self so that you can show up with total confidence and have more fun, whatever it might be. But you always want to be weaving in those three things, the problem that they're struggling with, articulating that really clearly positioning your service as the solution to their problem, and then weaving in the benefits of what happens for them in their life when that problem is solved. 

Speaker 1 (28:05):

Yeah, yeah. So good. So good. Putting them in the moment of success. I love that. Okay, so there's one, there's like the elephant in the room at the moment. As you and I are talking, I feel like I'm living in the matrix because I keep seeing Morpheus say, oh, that was the day we celebrated the birth of ai. And I'm like, are we doing that? So when it comes to copy, he said total fear in her eyes when it comes to copy. I would love to know Kris, and listen, this is the wild west right now. I at this point expect no people to have any answers to anything right now. I don't think we know. Even though my son who's 16 thinks he knows everything about ai, I want to know what do you think is happening right now with people being able to say, hi, write me a sales page, Mr. AI thing, and it does. What are we going to do with that? 

Speaker 3 (29:00):

Well, I think no matter what, you can't outsource your own voice. You really can't. And there are nuances about what you do that make you unique. That's why people hire you instead of your competitor. So I think AI is an incredibly powerful tool, and I do think you can use it to explore ideas for sure. Here are the problems that my customers struggle with. Can you think of 10 more problems? And then AI can generate even more that maybe you didn't even think of. So it can help you that way. I don't think it's really dialed into just plug and play a sales page, but I think if you know what to ask it, it can help kind of round out or add to some of the initial ideas that you have. I think of ai, kind of like a really great, a professional race horse. Basically, it's been groomed, but you don't want to run wild. You don't want it to run wild to win the race. It needs a jockey. And so when we know how to ride our own copy, when we know the power of a story and how to be the jockey for AI and tell it exactly what you want it to do, I think that can really be a great way to use it. 

Speaker 1 (30:32):

Very cool. That can change the game. I could absolutely see that, that that's what changes it. So let's use it maybe for speed. I think it was Gary V. I heard say that the other day. He's like, all of our social media was written in an hour for the month, but we went through it and we cleaned it up and that kind of a thing. But I love that you called it a race horse, but it sounds like that's really how brilliant people are using it is to get maybe some of the ideas out to get the backbone out there, but then to assume that it's done at that point would probably be folly. 

Speaker 3 (31:05):

Yeah. Yeah. I think that AI is really great for generating content, but it's not as strategic thinker. It's different than copy. Copy versus content. Content is like you're generating, you want to generate lots of it. It would be great for a blog post. You still need to go in and edit it, but it can generate content very quickly, but it doesn't necessarily create copy for you. 

Speaker 1 (31:37):

Like heartfelt storytelling, touching, moving, getting people to pick up the phone copy, 

Speaker 3 (31:44):

Right? I mean, what you really want is your website to be representative of you. So when people get on the phone with you, there's a seamless relationship. They get on the phone with you and they feel like they've already met you because the way that your website is written feels like you and nobody else talks. Your voice is like nobody else is in the world and you really, the most effective websites knowhow show up in the way where it's like your voice on the page versus an AI generated thing. 

Speaker 1 (32:22):

Yeah, it's just never going to quite be the same, is it? It could get close, but it's still not that same. And I think sales copy specifically I feel really has to touch people. It really has to move them. They have to feel very seen. That's why I love you talking about the hero piece, and I don't know that a computer can do that. Thank you, Morpheus. Alright, so listen, I believe for everybody listening today, Kris, you have a special gift for our listeners today. 

Speaker 3 (32:50):

Yes, I do. If you're interested in learning more about storytelling, I have a freebie called write compelling copy in five minutes flat, and it'll delve a little bit deeper into the components of story that I talked about today that's completely free. And then I also have my main offer, which is StoryBrand website copy that sells in two and a half hours flat. 

Speaker 1 (33:18):

What 

Speaker 3 (33:19):

That is a done for you, you do not have to write the copy. I pull out the gold from inside your brain and then I write your copy for you and then we hop on a 90 minute collaboration call and can go through the copy together, but allows you to kind of check that off your list and everything, all those things. All the things can be found at my website, which is red door designs.com. That's red, R-E-D-D-O-O-R designs, D-E-S-I-G-N s.com. 

Speaker 1 (33:53):

Love it. Love it. You guys, we are going to link to that underneath this video if you're watching it on YouTube. And for those of you listening, tap onto your show notes and you will find the links there. Kris, thank you so much for spending time with us today. This has just been such a joy, one of my all time favorite copy conversations. Copy, copy, copy. Love it. Love it. Kris, thank you again. 

Speaker 3 (34:14):

Thank you for having me. 

Speaker 4 (34:15):

Thank you so much for listening in today. I really hope you enjoyed the episode, and I have just a quick favor. If you enjoyed this podcast, can you give us a review and a quick rating that would mean so much and we never know who's watching, who might really need to hear something from this podcast? In addition, if you're a selfie person, go ahead and snap a quick pick of you listening to this podcast. Give us a little love by using hashtag Game on Girlfriend. I promise I look. I will find you, I'll comment, I'll share, and I'll get to know you too. If you'd like to know a little bit more about who I am and what I do, head on over to sarah walton.com. Again, sarah walton.com and check it out. Until next time, remember, this is not your practice life. The game is on.