Transcript

Nicole Smith
Welcome to Take Control with Nicole, as business owners we experience first hand the fine line between our personal and business lives. During our conversations, we will look at simple hints and tips to create time, reduce overwhelm, and help you to navigate through your journey to where you want to be. If you’re looking for smarter ways to work, and create space and time freedom in your day, then you’re in the right place. All right, let’s go.

Hello I’m Nicole Smith COO, Operations Specialise and Systems Designer from The Artisans Business Solutions and welcome to Take Control With Nicole. Today I am speaking with the fabulous Emma McMillan here all about sustainable content creation processes. Now this is something we were just talking off the line about that is really front and center for what we’re doing here at The Artisans in our new marketing strategy lens. So I’m so excited to have you on today, Emma. But I’ll just introduce you first, so everyone can connect him with who you are. So copy coach, educator and podcast host Emma believes everyone can write better. As a copy coach, she guides small business owners and others to connect authentically and consistently with their audiences. A former teacher of 12 years she runs a successful copywriting business since 2016.

Emma has a beautiful, unique skill set, and her deep understanding of how people learn and the realities of small business life. As the podcast host of Not Just About Copy, Emma shares inspiring conversations along with practical coaching episodes on how to write better, with more ease, purpose, joy and flow. That sounds fabulous. I’m pretty excited. Welcome. Hello.

Emma McMillan
Thank you, Nicole I’m so excited. I, you know, I’m so looking forward to this conversation and just digging into all of the, all of the sustainable systems and processes and all that sort of jazz with you.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, sustainability. It’s funny when you like Google that word because that it’s all about recycling and better for the environment. But when we put that human lens on it, and we’re thinking about, okay, sustainable ways of working, and how we can set and structure our businesses to support ourselves, as well as our team, if that’s what you’re growing your business. It’s such a beautiful experience when you see it come to life, and you actually feel how easy it actually can be. So I’m really excited as we’re going to put a lens on content creation and copy and words. You know, I love words. So first of all, tell us a little bit about you and your background and how you’ve arrived here today.

Emma McMillan
Yes, gosh, it’s been a long and winding path. I was secondary teacher actually for about 12 years. And I was in the performing arts classroom. So I was always teaching dance and drama and putting on those big school productions every year, project management specialist, and then in the English classroom as well. And I guess, you know, words have always had a bit of a part to play, my degree was in creative writing.

But at that point, you know, that time back in sort of the early 2000s, I just thought, well, what are my options, you know, with a degree in writing, I could go into journalism, or I could, you know, become a fiction writer, or, you know, those sorts of, they were the options at the time. Neither of those felt right to me. So hence I kind of went down the path of education, was always something I felt like I could do, my mum was a teacher, it was kind of in the in the blood, I think a little bit. And there’s lots of things I enjoyed about teaching. But in the end, it just became incredibly unsustainable. Work-life balance just wasn’t even something that existed. I poured my heart and soul into that career. And there were some beautiful, you know, moments along the way. But in the end, the administrative load became overwhelming.

And so I actually decided when I was on maternity leave with my son, who is now seven, that I was going to find something else to do. And I thought why not, you know, circle back to words, I kind of always danced between theatre dance writing is kind of like my three things. And I thought, I’m getting a little bit older, the body’s not moving quite like it was before. So what happens if I sit down, you know, at my desk and try the words thing. And by that time, I had heard of this thing called copywriting and I thought maybe that’s a thing that I could do. I did a bit of upskilling at the time, a couple of short courses just to make sure I kind of knew that I was on the right track.

And then I thought, I’m just going to try and build a business and see what happens. And I think that naivety I’m so grateful for it now because I don’t think I ever would have done it had I known what was going to be ahead of me. And I’m sure you can relate to that. But you know, I did it and I just kind of grew it year on year you know and as my son got older and he would you know, do a bit more daycare and then kinder. And then finally, after school a couple of years ago, I became full time in my business. And I built it up so that I had a lot of copywriting clients. But again, what that felt like was an incredibly big workload. And oftentimes, you know, work that felt a little bit for want of a better word transactional, and I’m a really relational kind of a person, right?

So I’ve realized, I think what’s missing in my business is like, I really needed that break from teaching. But now I kind of want that connection back, I want to have that immediacy, I want to have people in front of me that I can actually have those aha moments with. And so I thought, Okay, what better way to do that than try and help small business owners to understand how to write better copy for their own business, you know, and not just by using fill in the blank templates, which don’t always work for everyone. But actually, to sit with someone and get them to share like, you know, they’ve got all the knowledge of their brand, or they’re the holders of the information, get them to kind of share that and then help them to shape it and you know, develop their key messages and really kind of understand their business and build their confidence as well. And I have found that over the past couple of years to be so satisfying. I feel like all roads kind of led me here. But it’s really been a blend of both of the directions kind of smushed together to create this new pathway. Yeah.

Nicole Smith
So you would have been my favorite teacher at school, just letting you know, I’m a theater person as well. And I sing and dance and all the creative elements. And I love when we discover how creativity and business beautifully aligns. And I know like what we do over here embodies creativity. Right, it’s from a lens of systems and operations and process. But you know, when you put that design element in it, and what is possible and thinking a little bit more out in the universe, you know, everything is possible, we just got to find a way for you.

And I loved what you shared there about the connection point of view, I love connection with people. And I find the joyous moments are in those Zoom Rooms, when you’re chatting about the things that feel a little bit hard that are blocking them from moving to that next level. And they have that moment and you see their eyes go from squint to, “Oh, I can see how it’s possible!” I’m like, Yeah, you can. Yeah. And it’s wonderful, isn’t it? You must experience that a lot with with your people and your humans as well.

Emma McMillan
I do. It’s, it’s so satisfying. And I just think, for a lot of people, all they really need is some nudges in the right direction, you know, I have people come to me, and they say, I actually enjoy writing. But I’ve got all this stuff. And I’m just not putting it out there. You know. So it’s not just people who come and they think oh, you know, I don’t have the skills, a lot of them do have a lot of the skills, but it’s something else that they’re missing. So why it’s sort of I take a more rounded approach to looking at copy coaching, that it’s not just about the copywriting, hence the name of my podcast, not just about copy, because it’s never just about the copy. It’s always about other things as well.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, yeah. And in those conversations, it’s wonderful, what you actually can explore, because I think in any support business, there is an element of like human coaching of, you know, supporting people to discover the power that they have. That’s just hidden just for the moment until you peek over that fence. And then you’re like, oh, yeah, this is the thing. It’s wonderful to experience and so great that you’re there to support your people to do that.

Because words, when you connect in with what they mean, for you, when you probably heard a lot of my words, you know, fabulous is the thing. And then my hands go, there’s movements that happen with that. And there’s a real connection, whenever I feel connected with something, my hands crossed over my heart. And it’s just a beautiful thing, once I really connected with how the words and the meanings and you know, how they aligned with my business and the people that I’m surrounded and supported with. That’s another set of words for me. It all just feels so easy to to write the thing or speak the thing or whatever it is.

Emma McMillan
Yeah, I love that. And that’s what I want it to feel like for everybody, you know, I mean, it was such a shock to me when I started my business, just how much writing there was to do. And I think, you know, and for me as a writer, I felt like that was a lot, right. And so, when I consider my clients who have all sorts of different things that they specialize in, but yet, you know, we’ve got our bio, we’ve got our newsletter, we’ve got our website, we’ve got our socials, we’ve got our, you know, our speaker packs, our proposals, our this/that. I mean, the list goes on and on. And we just don’t anticipate that there’s going to be that much writing and the thing is right that, you know, you could outsource your copy and I’m not, I’m definitely not saying don’t outsource because I believe truly, you know, in the value of good copywriting, I mean, I was working as a copywriter for many years. But if you were to outsource everything, not only would that cost you a lot of money, you know, it’s a very expensive thing to invest in. But the other thing is that it’s something I think that you can develop yourself.

And I think, too, if you are the face and the voice of your business, if you can actually stand behind the words that you have written with some guidance, then you’re just going to feel so much better about them than taking something that someone else has written for you, even if you’ve breathed them in beautifully, you know, it’s not your words, and there’s nuance to the way that we say things. And I just think that if we can take ownership of that, and then get some help and support and guidance along the way to shape it, I think we can really own those words.

Nicole Smith
It’s beautiful. And I think now, yes, so much. So many words, all through business everyday, we’re wording, you know, if it’s chatting in WhatsApp to your team, or your clients or writing a proposal, hopefully we can create templates that have captured all the words and we’re customizing them as we go. So not starting from scratch. That’s the whole sustainability point of view. But where to start as well. So like, you know, how do I write a sales page, and then you’ve got everybody on the internet telling you all the things that you must do must, you know, it gets really noisy really quickly. And so is that something that you support your people with, as well, give them a bit of guidance on some best practices and how they can really shape it to be their own experience? Not just sales pages, but I mean, like insert words here, you know what I mean?

Emma McMillan
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s the thing, I’m not anti templates, what I’m really interested in is actually creating, you know, things that work for you in your business. And as you say, like, being able to set up a proposal template that you can use in your business, that actually is going to work for you. And that means that you don’t have to go back to the start every time you, you know, put something like that together, being able to create, you know, a blog skeleton, so that every time you go to blog, you’ve actually got something to work with that actually suits your style of business, your style of writing, and so on. So it’s about going, Okay, what would help you to create content in a sustainable way? And how can we build those resources for you, rather than me saying, right, Nicole, take this and use it and you’d be like, but this doesn’t live with the way that I like to do things?

Nicole Smith
Yeah, it’s an evolution as well, like, I know, when I first started, you know, let’s do an email. Great. Okay, what do we want to put in the email? Okay, well, we’re gonna be doing a podcast every week. So I know that’s a block for there, then I want to have a message for me. So that’s a block for me, we also have a ClickUps tip, because you know, we love ClickUp over this Zoom Room. And you know, all of those things. So we’ve had that same structural template from the day. And it’s becoming easier and easier now that with my team, because they can plug and play from a library of content we’re starting to collect. So I do the custom message each time. And because I love that’s my part. I love doing that. And again, it’s my words, my view my lens on what’s happening right now.

But it’s all connecting back to our cornerstone content, which is the podcast. And actually, that’s probably a good segue I shared before we press play on the Zoom is on the Zoom Room, we are on a podcast, but we are recording in Zoom love about attacks that were making it easier and easier over here with our ways of creating and sharing content. Because we have been doing it beautifully, consistently, every day on Instagram. Once a week, we get the podcast out once a week, we do the newsletter, but it was starting to feel really heavy, and lots of things to do all the time. So what we’ve actually designed is our podcasts to be the cornerstone piece. And then things are going to start to filter off there based on the transcription. And so it’s the theme so that on the other side of of the audience, for all you fabulous people out there listening, you’ll start to see that theme approach and also connecting in with who we’re talking to as well. Is that sort of how you support your people as well like to help them to identify instead of doing 10 things, what if we focus here and pull the info out and structure in a way that’s really easy for you to hop the internet, you know, pop in a design in Canva or mock up a blog for your website, something like that?

Emma McMillan
No, absolutely. And I totally subscribe to the hero or the cornerstone content. And in fact, my process is very similar to yours as well. But for people who don’t have a podcast of their own, there’s other places you can start to so you can start with a piece of you know, blog content or an article or even a really high performing social post can form the basis of content repurposing, which is super helpful. So essentially, taking a step back, the first thing I would get somebody to to do is actually to look at what their content pillars are in their business. So actually framing up, you know, the themes that they’re going to be talking about. Because to start with that simplifies the whole process, right?

Because instead of sitting down and thinking, what am I going to create a piece of content about? It’s like, no, you’ve already got your four or five themes. And everything fits into those things or buckets, right? So like you, I kind of make a plan as to, I’m going to do an episode on this kind of theme. And then I’m going to do an episode on this theme, and so on. And then that forms my starting point, you know, for all of the content that goes out that week. But you know, for somebody else, as I said, like, let’s say you don’t even write a blog, that’s fine. If that’s not how you want to work in your business at the moment, you don’t have the time and space to think about that. That’s okay, you can still start with the social stuff, for example. So have a look at your content, have a look at what’s been performing well, and then have a look at your content pillars and think to yourself, Okay, if this is a post about, say, let’s just say sustainability, because we’re talking about that, right? Okay. So what you could do is you could then get that post on, you know, content sustainability and say to yourself, Okay, right, how else could I use this post? Well, first thing, I could turn it into a newsletter for my subscribers.

Secondly, I could turn it into, you know, even a short blog or article to sit on my website, right? Because ultimately, we want to get traffic going back to your website, that’s kind of the end goal with a lot of this stuff, you could even decide to pitch that topic as a podcast, you know, if I approach someone and say, I’d love to talk about this on your podcast, I think it’d be really relevant to your audience, right, you could write a guest post for somebody else on their site, you could develop a little lead magnet about that topic, right? And get a little checklist together, or a little content prompt or something like that, that would be useful to your audience and turn it into a lead magnet. I mean, there are just so many things that you could do based off of that one piece, so long as it fits into one of those pillars that you want to be talking about regularly in your business. Yeah. So as I said, I think it is easier to work with the bigger chunkier content pieces to start. But if you don’t have that at the moment, you don’t have to start there.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, it’s wonderful, isn’t it when you encourage that creativity of what is possible, because there are so many options, and I love you, you shared hitching to talk to somebody about this topic on their podcast, right? Because that automatically expands your audience as well into somebody else’s realm. Plus, you’re talking and consistently getting those messaging across, it’s really connected in with you, I know, when I talk about something that I’m passionate about, I could talk for days, it just keeps going and going and going and going. And if you imagine all those micro points in there, that’s its own little thread.

I know from Kathy Rast, I don’t know if you know, Kathy, but she’s my very, very good human friend. Is there any other friend? Anyway, she’s a weaver, she actually made me this beautiful scarf just behind me, I’ll show you later. So gorgeous, that she brings the yarn and the threads and it’s like flowing it through. And it’s, you know, finding that one thread of whatever it might be and pulling it out. What can we do with that? How can we expand that? And it’s really, the realms are endless, you know, but keeping in mind that there is this feel that we have to be everywhere, and do everything, and talk to everyone and be on all the platforms and do videos and reels and lives and podcasts and all the things that really it’s about what do you enjoy? And then what’s really easy for you as well, like I love talking clearly, as you can tell, so this is easy, speaking being a panel events, podcasts, really easy, but it may not be your medium, your choice of mediums. So yeah.

Emma McMillan
Absolutely. I think anything that brings, you know, a sense of ease and a sense of fun. And I think, yeah, follow your curiosity. And just because you’ve got your content pillars there, you know, I’ve got five pillars that I use. And they’re kind of the the framework that I use in my copy coaching. So confidence, copy skills, self expression, action, and I always forget the fifth one, connection. So they’re my they’re my buckets, right? But I might be thinking for this week, I’m going to do a podcast episode on connection and I want to talk about this topic, but then I might get to recording day and think you know what, where my energy is actually going is somewhere different. So I think it’s really important to actually check in and acknowledge where you’re at in the moment of creating that content. Because I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, Nicole, but whenever I’ve put something out that I’m not feeling, whether it be a podcast episode or a social post or something, it just doesn’t have quite the same resonance. So I think it’s really important for us to just be where am I at today? What is feeling good today? Where is my curiosity taking me today and to just honor that?

Nicole Smith
I love that. I love you. said energies as well, this week well, end of last week, I lost my voice, completely gone. That was like ASCII voice and my team are like, Oh, we’re gonna do the podcast recordings and get it all up and running and like, I’m really excited to have it all recorded and da da da, but up until this morning, I was not in the creative energy space to even press record on it on a podcast. And then this morning, pre our conversation I’ve recorded to like dun dun go on tick my team like roofing or Mikey Yeah, it’s happening. Because I’m feeling and I’ve got bounce in my staff, I’m passionate about talking about these things. And it’s really easy.

Emma McMillan
Yes, and you’re batching right to which is also super smart. And so for anyone who’s listening who is not across batching, and I’m sure that Nicole, you’ve talked about this many times in various different contexts, but when I think of it in terms of like, content batching, I will do things like write a series of two weeks worth of social posts in one go, or I will, you know, skeleton draft a couple of newsletters or a couple of podcast outlines, it’s like getting on a bit of a roll with something. And often when it comes to content creation, that you can’t necessarily wait for inspiration, right. And that’s, that’s a different thing to energy. So if I need to write something and get it out, then there’s no getting around that. So I need to find a way to get into that, whether that be by setting myself a 25 minute Pomodoro timer, or whether that be getting my you know, special journal and pen out and lighting a candle or whatever it is. But then once I actually, you know, get going, I just encourage myself to stay there as long as I can, because I’m going to, you know, reap the rewards of that later when I don’t have to sit down and do that again in a couple of days time. So batching, wherever possible, can just help to build in even more of that ease.

Nicole Smith
It’s such a beautiful experience. So we have been up to now, two weeks in advance from all our podcast production point of view. So the episodes may have been recorded previously. But Cass, our beautiful Podcast Producer, hi Cass there, how are you going, we’ll get everything done and recorded two weeks prior, that means our team can go into all the socials, get all the stuff ready, we can do the post, like all the things right, we’re now talking about getting them all ready, pre the month. And so that would be all four episodes, or five, depending on the month, all recorded, all edited, ready for the team to start doing your content waterfall that we spoke about off the line before. And that for me is so exciting, because the the most the most yucky feeling I have is having done the newsletter, and my team needed to get it into Kajabi to send it out. And it’s like Monday, and I wanted to get it done Friday, and I just couldn’t because other priorities and da da da. And it’s rushed, and it’s la la la. Whereas when it’s planned and easy. And now we’ve got the themes, so organized and said, it’s just going to be beautifully to just sit down for newsletters don’t have to worry about those until next month.

Emma McMillan
You know, that sounds amazing. And not only that, you know, it sounds as though that process is helping you build in time between the writing of it and you know, even the editing or reflecting on it, and so on, which is what kind of just helps to tie everything together. Because the worst thing we can do, and I mean, gosh, I’ve done it a gazillion times, but is to have to write something and send it straight away. Right, because it’s really important. And I had Amy Summers from Craft Coaching on my podcast to talk about this in one of the first episodes. But this idea that when we’re actually creating, we’re using a different part of our brain to when we are doing the analytical stuff like the editing or the you know, organizing of it. And so if we try and, you know, cram those and do them at the same time, it’s a real struggle for us. But if we can actually build in that time and space to allow that to happen, it just means everything we produce is going to just be that much better, because we’ve had some time to just sit with it, review it. And you know, just put the put the shine on.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, I’ve been there that the crunch time and it takes 10 times, well, maybe not 10 times longer, but so much longer. Because I in the past, I’m a recovering Self Editing human. So I would even talk and self edit as I would go because I’d be super conscious of not saying the wrong thing or not appearing to be the perfect person. That’s kind of wishy washy now. It’s, I’m here and I say things and when I don’t I’m like oh words, that’s a thing. And I just like let’s just keep flowing. That’s a skill that I’ve had to sort of work on, especially over the last three years in business but allowing the space with my OBM team, we’ve been really sort of reviewing my ways of working my own personal structures, right. And we tried one way where we my calendar was blocked, time blocked, and I looked at it and it made me feel like I had no space. And for me, that was the complete opposite impact of what we were looking to create.

Now I support a lot of creatives in in our world, we attract beautiful, creative humans. And I bring organization to the world, which is fun. And I realized seeing that was like, whoa, hang on a second. So I said, Chloe, we need to keep my calendar free, unless it’s appointments with clients. And I’m working from ClickUp. And from just that initial switch of ways of working, I feel so much freedom, so much space to be able to connect in with what I’m doing, and actually do it in a beautiful way. Hey there, just interrupting this episode to share with you a guide that you are going to want to explore. Are you a ClickUp user at the moment? Or have you been sitting on the fence and hearing me talk about it each and every week? And just wondering, what is the next step to tech? Well, I’ve created a guide that’s going to support you on your journey to really design your ClickUp spaces, be able to create those and then connect them into the way that your business operates each and every day, my community have told me that this guide has been a game changer in the way that they really look at their ClickUp workspaces, and operate each and every day. And you can access it as well. So pop on over to my website, the artisans.com.au backslash freebies, and access the action takers guide to ClickUp, how fabulous that you know, you’re ready to evolve your ClickUp journey, you’re ready to move from where you are right now, to where you have always known you want to be. Reach out, let me know I love to hear all about your journey and ClickUp. So I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Nicole Smith
So it’s being aware of those internal, like our personal ways of doing things as well, some people work really well under pressure, don’t they were other people like the elongated or the really organized plan? And

Emma McMillan
I do and I just like I’m always so keen to get a handle on what somebody what’s going to be right for somebody, because, you know, I really think we need to take our shoulds, and we need to throw them in the bin. And we can get so easily swept up in, you know what other people are doing and our will such and such as sending a newsletter every week. Well, that’s what I should be doing. Well, okay, but why? And I would always ask my clients, what’s the purpose of that? Why would you be doing that? How does that fit with your goals for your business? Because the last thing I want to do is to add all these things in, what I’m trying to get people to understand is, you know, what are the processes that you already have that are working? What do you enjoy doing? I mean, for me, I started my podcast because I realized that I did not enjoy the process of sitting down each week to write a blog article. And I just could not sustain that. Whereas I can sustain a podcast, one because every second episode is a conversation and I get a lot of energy from conversations, connection is a value in my business. And it’s so important to me to do that. And then every alternate episode is an opportunity for me to provide genuine value to people in like a really actionable tip. And I get so much great feedback from people that that’s kind of what keeps me going. But the blogs, I couldn’t sustain that. But for some people, I mean, I know a couple of my peers who write blogs every week, they’re prolific. They’re amazing, you know, but it’s like, what works for you, and how does it fit with your business strategy and goals?

Nicole Smith
Yes, beautiful. And that’s something um, you know, for those who are doing a podcast and you’re sharing the content and the transcription on your website, it’s similar to a blog, isn’t it? Because the words are there and from an SEO point of view, we had Remy Audette from Sunday Best Digital. Yeah, a few weeks ago. So if your SEOing and you’re like, What are you talking about? pop back Have a listen. We should probably put them in the show notes somewhere. But yeah, like those words and having that is like a blog. Right? So it’s like two in one, winner winner chicken dinner. It’s great. Absolutely. Yeah, such a dork. Welcome, see, there we go. You get the phone call journey. But yeah, all of those things are really important to just be connected and honest with you. Where are you right now in your business? What capacity and what is the priorities for you? And what do you like actually doing because if you don’t enjoy writing blogs, don’t do it because friends told you to do it. So lots of Joe’s and Fred’s happening today. They’re all sitting over here on my right hand side. So yeah, yeah,

Emma McMillan
I mean, for a long time in my business I held on to like all of the social content, right. And I still do a lot of it because I do feel like you know, I’m a words person. And so I actually do enjoy that part of it. But it’s not sustainable for me to do all of that all the time. And so there will be occasions where I say to my VA, Listen, can you please write something on this, but here’s this, this, this and this for reference, because I’ve already got things on that topic that I’ve created, and so on. And so the more resources that you can build up for yourself, then the easier it does get if you get to that point where you think I’d like to delegate that or I can delegate that. But me again, all my energy and thought really goes into selecting that podcast topic that I think it’s going to be really valuable to people. And then everything else, as you say, waterfalls from that and other people can be brought in to support me at other points, but I’ve done like the, you know, the CEO thinking around what’s the strategy there?

Nicole Smith
Yeah, a tool that we, um that Kathy Rast built and created for for, together we did it is the tone of voice document and being able to pull those things through that, because I do have a unique way of speaking. And language that I that is known now for me like headbands is one thing, but fabulous is another word that people associate 100% with me. And so being bringing those words in through the written is really important. I was having a conversation, actually, again, with my team around our communication that goes out that I want that everyone who receives anything from us to feel that they’re supported, that they’ve got the information they need, that there’s always a way to come back in and connecting with us if they need support at any time, and make it really easy. And that’s something that I hadn’t necessarily communicated before, because I was doing a lot of the doing. So it was me. And when you’re bringing in a team or delegating those sort of responsibilities, being able to provide them with easy resources, references to your way of speaking the way that you look at a topic and things like that can really help that delegation process.

Emma McMillan
Oh, 100%. And even for people who don’t have a full tone of voice guide, which tone of voice better is brilliant if you can get one for your business. But a little activity I like to do with my clients is just to help them develop a word bank, which is essentially just you know, a list of words that you love to use, and a list of words that you avoid using at all costs, you know, and it’s really easy to start to develop that just by looking through so your website, your socials, and there are words that keep cropping up, you’ll find them and just to, you know, build them into a little bit of a word bank, it sounds daggy, but it’s super practical and useful. And then, you know, my VA knows, for instance, like, I don’t like, you know, boss, babe, and things like that, you know? Yep. You know, so what you like, and what you don’t like is just as important and even for yourself, then you’ve just kind of got that list there. And you can just set sense check any of your own content to be like, am I really on brand here, because we can get a little off track, even ourselves, you know, when we’re writing for our own business.

Nicole Smith
And influenced, not intentionally but if you’ve got a really good colleague that you’re talking to alot, or there’s someone that you follow on the socials, that speaks a certain way and you resonating with that you naturally. I’m a language absorber.

Emma McMillan
I was gonna say when I came back from London,

Nicole Smith
Accent. My girlfriends or anyone who would talk they are they call me out like this was back in the day, I think we had Zoom back then it was probably MSN or something. We’d be on a voice chat. And they’d be like, I am not speaking to you until you drop the accent. And I didn’t even know I was doing it. Right?

Emma McMillan
Yeah, we pick up these things by osmosis we do. So we have to just be a little bit aware of that.

Nicole Smith
Especially theater people. It’s just naturally, you know, your this is your role. And this is how you talk. So you just naturally start to have, and I’m married to an English man as well. So

Emma McMillan
Oh well there you go. Yeah, our children. No, but we’re great mimics that way.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And how fabulous when you connect him with the one that really just like you like to be so? Ah, so good. I don’t know if we’ve had we sort of covered what people struggle with most with copy or have we, because we’ve kind of skimmed around the edge of all sorts of things. But this is something that you really have noticed through working with all your people that kind of really jumps out.

Emma McMillan
Yeah, look, I mean, there’s a couple of things that I see quite a lot in terms of, I’m not gonna call them mistakes, but I’m gonna say things that I see that I think people can actually use some really easy flips to change the way that they do a couple of things. So one of those is that we naturally tend to use a lot of really self focused language rather than audience focus language. So I’m talking about you know, we might use a lot of ‘I’ language rather than ‘You” language. So I had to even look at this in in my podcast descriptions and taking it from you know, in this episode, I’ll talk to you all about da da da, to actually thinking and this is the question that I always ask what’s in it for me A thinking about that audience perspective. And so it’s like in this episode, you’ll learn how to write. So when you start to look at your own copy that you’ve got in all sorts of different places that particularly on websites, and emails I find this really common is that you could swap out a lot of those I show you or I give you, or I do this, to what the benefit will be for the audience, right, so just swapping that language.

Another thing that I see people struggle with is using call to action effectively, and either they tend to be non-existent, because people don’t quite know how to use them without feeling really salesy, or you know, on websites, they can be everywhere. So it’s kind of a bit of one or the other. And I just really want people to understand that a call to action is not necessarily always a buy now, right? It’s just basically helping to guide your prospect as to what is the next step. So for instance, on a website, on a service page, the next step might be to book a call, or the next step might be to fill in the form. If it’s a social media post, the next step might be tell me when this has happened to you, or like, it could be for engagement purposes, right? So it’s not always at that point is that of course, we eventually leading them down, you know, down the funnel, like let’s not, you know, be too mysterious about it. But essentially, there are lots of different ways that you can encourage action. Or if you liked this podcast episode, why not listen to this one? Or if you, you know, it talks about doing an.

Nicole Smith
I actually did that? Didn’t I actually, just then before, I’m like, Hey, we spoke about this, go back here and blinking.

Emma McMillan
But that’s Yeah, the other thing is right, getting calls to action is actually acting out of service to your clients, helping them understand what is valuable, and what is the next step that they should take. So I think if we can just stop thinking about it in terms of like, a call to action is a hard sell. Well, no, it’s not always it’s only if that’s the moment where you’re asking for the sale. But other than that, it’s just a helpful action.

Nicole Smith
When we shape the experience to make it easier for our people. Like, I know, I love that that experience when someone guides me on where I’m going.

Emma McMillan
Again, it’s about that ease, right?

Nicole Smith
You’ve liked this comment, check this out, or you’d like, ooh, what about this, and if it’s priority, if it’s right in my focus right now, then I’ll click the buttons, and I’ll absorb the information. If it’s not, I’ll close the window down. Right. So it’s all choice on who’s over this side. But we’re really making it easy to give our people that opportunity to press the buttons and discover a little bit more. It’s interesting that you said about like the hard sale thing, because right at the start of, you know, still going through it, but I’ve never, I’ve never seen myself as a salesperson, right? You’re invited to come and work with us. And I love it when you do because I get just as much joy as you get out of working with the systems that we create together. But it’s if you’re not ready, and we’re not aligned on there’s never going to be any push. You know, and it’s been beautiful experience today that people just come in at the right moment in time, and we do the things and we float in and out as needed. And that’s a great experience.

But we’re being a bit more strategic with it now with our marketing, Leanne from Audacious Empires, not sure if you know Leanne, and she’s a fabulous human, just this mind of awe, this mind of just awe beautiful, I can’t even tell you, it’s just, she’s gone through and pulled apart all of our services and all of our client avatars, and the diagrams are just gorgeous and connected them all together, you can see how excited I’m getting. It’s like, there’s a diagram on a on a whiteboard. It’s amazing. But from that action, it made it so clear how we can connect the content through to the right people. On the other end of the podcast, hi, there out there, nice to see you. Or the social posts, you know, again, making it easier for people on the other side.

Emma McMillan
Yeah, and delivering content for people, you know, at different stages of the journey as well, knowing that some people are new into, you know, the ecosystem that you have at The Artisans and some other people are, you know, just sort of maybe comparing your services to other services. And then some people are just like, Okay, I’m ready, Nicole, what do I do? You know, so you’re wanting to make sure that you’re speaking to all those people at different times as well. So that sounds very exciting, what you’ve got going on with Leanne.

Nicole Smith
Very exciting, and I’m actually flowing it into exactly what we’re talking here about copy and content is we’re still finessing the messaging, because people and rightly so I’m known as ClickUp Queen, and so people associate me with only ClickUp. Whereas what we actually do is clever systems design and ClickUp is one tool that we do so poured along with many others. And so that’s been a learning over the last sort of six months of, oh, okay, I’m known as this. But I actually do this, how do we shape that experience for people. And it all comes down to copy and messaging and what we’re sharing out there. And so that’s sort of a big focus and shift on getting it clearer and easier for people to actually find us.

Emma McMillan
Absolutely. And one of the best ways actually, and I think this is probably a really good kind of point to finish on is that the best way you can kind of deeply understand your key messages is really by speaking to your audience, right? Because you might think that people come to you for something. But if you speak to your audience, they are the ones who are going to tell you a kind of what was going on for them when they sought out your services. So you can kind of get an idea of like, what the pain points and the challenges they’re going through are, what the experience was like of working with you. And that’s how you start to get a sense of how you do things differently to other people. And you can really start to articulate your USP and then what the outcomes were. And that’s when you can speak to like, well, this is the benefits. And it’s so interesting to get those insights straight from people who’ve worked with you because they say things that you just can’t necessarily articulate or even that, you know, you don’t get because you don’t have that objectivity. Right?

Nicole Smith
Yeah. You’re gonna love what’s coming soon in my world, then I’m Kathy Rast is supporting us to develop our case study process. And it’s going to be glorious and using, although I won’t share it, maybe I’ll do a whole episode on it. But really, I’ll share it afterwards. So you don’t have to ask me if you want to listen and find out. But I’m really, really excited about how easy it’s going to be from our side, but also our client side. Because we don’t want to add any more additional things. As you know, we’re working to create ease. So how can we capture that information through each stage of the process, and at the end arrive at this beautiful case study that we can share with people to then messaging, connecting back and making it clearer and easier. So much going on over this side. We are like, strategizing it up. We’re enhancing our experience making it sustainable and easy. And I’m just loving it loving life. So yeah.

Emma McMillan
Sounds amazing. I mean, you look so calm and excited about it. It’s brilliant. But that’s what that’s what it should feel like, right?

Nicole Smith
It’s right. That’s right. Yeah. So I’d love to know, is there anything special coming up in your world, I know that you shared your wrapping up with your current programs, you’ve got another one starting soon.

Emma McMillan
Do I have another one kicking off in July, which I’m very excited about, it may have a new name by the time it launches in July. But it will be still an eight week container, a bit of a mix of you know, looking at those five pillars I spoke about earlier in terms of different aspects of getting better at copy. But also, you know, it’s a great opportunity to get feedback on copy and to you know, be working alongside other like minded small business owners and building community co writing sessions. It’s the best, I’m a bit biased, obviously, I also do one to one coaching with small business owners or their team, which is, you know, a process that goes for three to six months, and deliver custom workshops for organizations and teams as well who are just looking for support in a particular area, like content repurposing, or that sort of thing. So yeah, I have a podcast, not just about copy, which I mentioned earlier, and yeah, that’s kind of how can I support people.

Nicole Smith
That’s amazing. We’re gonna put all those details in the show notes anyway, as well. So pop over and have a look down there. And if this sounds like something that you’ve been sitting on the fence about, knowing that you’re loving copy, but need that little bit of support, pop on over and connect with me, because it sounds glorious. What have you and I love, I love you use the word container, because I use that I use we have containers of conversations, you know, and I’m going to talk about Kathy Rast as well, because we’ve got a personal friendship container. And then we have a business. She’s supporting my business and doing some beautiful SOP design work at the moment. And then we’ve got the container where I’m the client, and she’s coming to support me and when you have those containers beautifully created for a purpose or an intention. What a great and fabulous experience. I love, love the container was so good. love a bit of Tupperware hey, thank you so much. We have three questions that we ask all our fabulous guests. So are you ready?

Emma McMillan
I’m ready. I’m ready.

Nicole Smith
Okay, what is your go to app that creates ease in your day?

Emma McMillan
Ah, look, I have three but I’m going to pick one. And it’s Chat GPT at the moment, and I’m loving it for idea generation.

Nicole Smith
I’ve dabbled. I haven’t really done I do have to be honest, when it first came out. I think I popped in a couple of things and like, ideas for blogs. And it was wonderful.

Emma McMillan
Yeah, I mean it, you know, it’s it’s an episode in and of itself, but and there are limitations with that in terms of something to just give you an idea springboard like have a play. It’s, it’s fabulous. So encourage all the listeners to do that.

Nicole Smith
That’s something that you just sometimes need, right? That just little spark of inspired or just take you off on the journey. So for, sure. Awesome. Are you an online paper or hybrid to do list lover?

Emma McMillan
I’m a hybrid. So I have my Trello boards that I love, that every day, I sit down with a beautifully crafted notepad that I was gifted from a gorgeous client last year, which has got my kind of priorities for the day, and so on. And it helps me keep on track with exactly what I need to do on that day. So I don’t get sidelined by all the exciting things that are on my CEO board of my Trello.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. The bright shiny syndrome, I was talking about in a previous episode in the lead lines of tech, but it’s so easy, isn’t it? It’s like, oh, there’s this new thing? I want it no, no. Yeah, that’s your reward. That’s your reward after you’ve done the things tick, tick, tick. Yeah, you celebrate. Now, what would you do if you created more space in your world?

Emma McMillan
That’s a great question. And I actually feel like I’ve done that a little bit. This year, I went into the year with the intention of joy, because last year, for me was a bit of a slog, I think I was just, you know, really forgot that I had a life beyond my business, which sometimes we can do. And I decided that I wanted to have more joy this year. So I have made space for joining a choir, which I’m loving, I have made space to rehearse and performing the dance piece. So for me, it’s just changed my whole, you know, feeling about work, and just has made me feel a lot more excited about stuff. So I feel like I’ve done that a little bit. And if I had more space, I would just do more of that.

Nicole Smith
I love I did see you pop on the socials about your dance piece that was at the Melton, the Art Center, the Art Center. Yeah, I miss being on the stage. So my last performance I was in was with Oz Mad Musical Theatre Company. And we did The Music Man. And it was so glorious, like the music and the costumes, we made all these beautiful hats. And it was just such a gorgeous thing to be involved in as a as a community coming together and creating a piece of art like that. So that must have been so wonderful to be a part of that.

Emma McMillan
It was, it was super special. And again, just for that sort of community connection. And just, yes, something really creative. And just for me that wasn’t for the business. Yes, just yeah.

Nicole Smith
I’ve got ‘join choir’ on my pinboard it’s on a Monday night, and now my son started soccer. And it’s like, so anyway, that’s a that’s a thing that might happen in the future. But oh, that’s so amazing. Thank you so much. I love this conversation. It’s been so fabulous. having you on the podcast today and sharing all your beautiful wisdom. Where can we find you? How can we connect with you?

Emma McMillan
Well, firstly, thank you, Nicole, so much for having me. I’ve absolutely loved this conversation. My website is Emmamcmillancopy.com. And that’s probably the best place to find all the things. My podcast is not just about copy, and I’m over on Instagram, EmmaMcmillan copy LinkedIn, and EmmaMcmillan copywriter. And yeah, come and say hi, and connect. I’d love to love to meet you.

Nicole Smith
Amazing. As always, we’re gonna pop all those links to make it really easy in the shownotes for you. So pop on over there, click the link, go and say hi to Emma and connect. And I don’t know, talk about singing or dancing or copy or whatever it might be, but connect just to that human thing where we just chat. We just chat things right. That’s yeah, you’re just people on the other end, of a message.

Emma McMillan
That’s all I could have said it better myself. I love it.

Nicole Smith
Amazing. Well, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. Thanks Nicole. Thank you everyone out there for joining us today and have the most fabulous rest of your week creating clever systems for your business by now.

Well, there we go. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a pleasure having you on board. Have we connected on social jazz? If not, please come on over. Say hi, I’m on all the platforms at the artisan solutions. So I’d really look forward to seeing you over there. And if you enjoy today’s episode, don’t forget to tag me and I’d love it if you could leave a review. And of course, share this with others so others can come and join us next time. All right, then everyone have a fabulous rest of the week and until next time, see you then.