Episode 32 - The Easiest Way to Get Started with Your Website Copy | Jacqueline Fisch

      

When you created your website, you knew you’d have a strong platform to engage your audience, showcase your offerings and attract new customers or clients. 

Like most of us, you focused on defining and highlighting your products or services. You figured out your pricing. You might even have thought about the visuals and carefully selected just the right colours and images to make your business stand out from the crowd. 

But what did you do when it came to adding the text (known as ‘copy’ in the business)?

Did you stare at a blank page as you wondered how on earth to fill the space? Scribbled down a few words but know deep down that you could do better? 

In this week’s episode, author, intuitive writing coach and leader of the Write Like A MOFO community, Jacq Fisch comes along to share her copywriting tips and tricks so you can apply them to your website today and get the results you deserve. 

She shares with us powerful information on how to ignite your customers’ curiosity, maximise the impact of your sales copy and get started, even if you usually hate writing. 

Listen in to find your writing voice, connect with people virtually, and grow your business with a creative and powerful sales copy.

Eleshia’s Essentials:

• When I decided to really work on my own business and concentrate on my own style, just knowing that I could talk more conversational really made a difference.

• You got into your business to actually enjoy the work, to serve, and to just be able to have that flexibility to do things your way.

• Do your own thing because it is not always the circumstances that you’re in. You have to make the decision of what you want to do with your life.

We also learned so many lessons from Jacqueline:

• The sales page is all your client's language,  not yours.

• Finding a writing ritual is really handy because it's like priming your brain.

• Having a day in between writing and editing is really helpful because it allows you to see new things.
• Your website copy is like your billboard, but you being out there talking to people, having conversations, connecting, and giving visibility that brings in clients.

Other resources mentioned

• Write Like A MOFO Community
• UNFUSSY LIFE: An Intuitive Approach to Navigating Change
• Cuckoo
• Pomodoro Tool

More about the Jacq Fisch:

Jacq Fisch is an author, intuitive writing coach, and leader of the Write Like a MOFO community. She helps writers make progress on their passion projects and creative business owners sound more human in their writing.

Before launching her writing and coaching business, Jacq spent 13 years working in corporate communications and management consulting for clients including Fortune 500 companies and the US government. As a freelance copywriter, she’s helped dozens of clients – tech startups, life and business coaches, creatives, and more – learn how to communicate more authentically and stand out in a busy online world.

After bouncing around with two passports between Toronto and a handful of states, she’s decided that home is where the people are. She finds home with her husband, two kids, a dog, a cat, no houseplants, and most of her sanity. If you show up for a visit, she’ll definitely get out the good wine.

Connect with Jacqueline:

• Website
• Instagram 

About the show:

Need simple strategies to help you grow your business and achieve more without working harder? Struggling to balance work, life, and all your other commitments and don’t want to burn out? You’re in the right place. 

The Eleshia Show is a holistic business and lifestyle strategy podcast to help you get clear on your business goals, stop procrastinating, boost your income, and do what lights you up. 

Women are taking notice! We have listeners across 37 countries and over 327 cities! We’re teaching female business owners across the world how to achieve more with less while looking after themselves. And we can do the same for you!

We’re having intimate conversations — the kinds that most female business owners are having privately. You don’t want to miss these.

Tune in to the podcast every Wednesday to discover exactly what expert CEOs did to get their businesses off the ground and achieve success so you can do the same! 

With your host, Eleshia Harris, business coach and growth strategist, you can redefine what success means, ditch the stress and confusion and learn how to run your business from a place of ease and excitement. 

If you want to talk business, wellbeing, lifestyle, mindset, goals, and scaling organic growth, don’t miss it!

Connect with Eleshia and the community today:

• Website
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn

Show Transcript:

Jacqueline Fisch: The sales page is all your client's language, not yours. So that's the other thing to detach from. You are not writing for your peers or your competitors, you are writing for the person on the other end who doesn't know yet, who has this problem, struggle, or is looking for something different. He doesn't know what to do. That is you connect with their words.

Eleshia Harris: Hey, I'm Eleshia Harris, and I am the host of The Eleshia Show where each week, we'll be having conversations about how to enhance your wellbeing. We'll be sharing strategies and stories and insights to build your business while still navigating life because sometimes we try to separate the two. And let's face it. If you are not well, you have no business. I am a holistic business growth strategist and a wellness coach who spent over 15 years in corporate before deciding to choose me first to build my brand, Eleshia Lifestyle. I'm here to teach you how to redefine what success means to you, ditch the stress and confusion, and learn how to run your business from a place of ease and excitement. Let's get into this week's episode.

Hi, and welcome back to The Eleshia Show. As always, I'm excited to be here. I can't believe that I get to do this every week. So exciting. And today, I just want to give you some more behind-the-scenes information. I love when the universe just aligned you with the right kind of people. Jacqueline and I met back in March 2020, and she assisted with some of my copy for my website. And then we sat down and we did this podcast conversation for you days before I got the email to say that I was going to be on the Goal Digger Podcast with Jenna Kutcher. So I immediately contacted Jacq, to help me again with just refining my copy for my website. 

So it's funny how when you keep on asking, and again, when you start to really look into your whys and believe that it's about you, what turns up to help you on your journey. So Jacqueline, "Jacq" for short, is an author and an intuitive writing coach, and the leader of the Write Like A MOFO Community. And she helps writers make progress on their passion projects and creative business owners sound more human when they're writing. And I really, really resonate with that especially coming from corporate. 

Before launching her writing and coaching business, Jacq spent 13 years working as corporate communications and management consultant for clients including Fortune 500 companies and the US Government. As a freelance copywriter, she helps dozens of clients, tech- startups, life, and business coaches, creatives, and more learn how to communicate more authentic and stand out in a busy online world. Don't we all want some of that? 

After bouncing around with two passports between Toronto and a handful of states, she decided that home is where her people are. So you'll find her at home with her husband, two kids, and a dog and a cat and houseplants, and most of her sanity. When Jacq and I sat down and had this conversation, it just reaffirmed how alike we are. And I can't wait for you to hear some easy strategies that you can start with to start writing your copy. 

Before we get into this episode, I want to shout out all my listeners from Canada. Jacq's from Canada, and I've been really enjoying getting to know some other female business owners from Canada. So, thank you for listening. As always, let's get into this week's episode.

Hi Jacq. It is so good to have you here with me. We met last year and you helped me with my copy. And yes, it just opens my eyes to some of the things that I was not considering and how important it is just to have great copies. So before we even dive into our conversation, I just want to thank you for just opening my eyes to not having to be so corporate and so formal. And I would be used to writing that way because I was in project management, and I would write reports that had to be formal. So then when I decided to really work on my own business and concentrate on my own style, just knowing that I could talk more conversational and more like Eleshia really made a difference. Now, I love having people comment on my website and my newsletters, and so forth. How I write them, it's just a more captivating way and I love it. It's just more informal. So thank you for being a guest. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Amazing. Thank you for having me. And thank you for the kind words. It's such an honor to see you come from corporate language go through that transition of, how am I writing, to like you're doing the work. You're seeing the evidence right away and you feel so much better about your writing. Yay, it's amazing. 

Eleshia Harris: It makes it not hard work. And that's one of the things that I always stand by. You got into your business to actually enjoy the work and to serve and to just be able to have that flexibility to do things your way. And then we get caught up in all of the rigmarole of trying to either do it somebody else's way of thinking that we have to stick to all of the rules because that's what we've been told. So I like that I get to color outside the box. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes, more coloring outside the lines. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So today, we're going to have a conversation about copy. Jacq is going to share her thoughts and help us all to write better copy, and just get into some of the things that we should be considering when we're writing a copy. Because I know, again, you were in corporate for 13 years as well, so how did you change your way of writing and how did you decide that you wanted to be more of a creative business owner?

Jacqueline Fisch: Great question. I didn't initially think that that's what I wanted to do, or I'll take you through how I got there as quickly as I can. I was always a creative kid. Art class was my favorite, painting, drawing. When I was 10, I wanted to become a fashion designer. You see me on Zoom. You see what I wear. I'm not like Haute couture. But I wanted to be a rich and famous fashion designer, and live in Paris. I had books full of designs. And then it came time to go to college, someone must've said something to me like, oh, do you sew your own clothes? Do you sew? And I was like, no. And I was like, oh well then I'm not cut out for fashion school. I didn't even apply. I was like, not even a thing. I went to business school, business, and marketing. Got a job in corporate consulting. I did all kinds of things. I did everything. I was a Jill of all trades. Project management, auditing, report writing, communications, I was doing everything. So fast forward through a series of layoffs incorporate. Three layoffs in five years, twice from the same company. I always thought it was important to get a job, climb the corporate ladder, go up through the ranks and that's it. I never even thought that there was anything else. I was like, this is what you do. This is what a good person does. And after the first layoff, it kept me by surprise. My son was a year old and I was like, well, there were all other thoughts going through my head like, oh no health insurance in the states, how are we going to pay for things? How am I supposed to contribute to the household income? All those things came up. And then a few years later, I started discovering self-development work. And there, I discovered when I was reading stuff about starting your own business and doing things you enjoyed and getting paid. I'm like, people do this? What do you mean? So it was probably 2012, I started a plant-based food blog. 

Eleshia Harris: Oh, wow. 

Jacqueline Fisch: So it started as a creative project, and it was a passionate project. I had switched our family plant-based overnight. Basically, when my son was about two, they wanted to take his tonsils out and do all these tubes in the ears and adenoids, all that stuff. And I was like, really, surgery is the only option? He was always just sick and congested. I consulted with the great natural path, which I still love to this day. And she's like, try removing dairy. I did it. He's better. He still has his tonsils. I did the same. I haven't had a sinus infection in 12 years, something like that. It all just went away. So that led me down the path of, well, we won't drink dairy, and maybe we shouldn't eat meat. I started eating meat again, and I'm right this moment, I'm back to plant-based again. So it just goes around. 

Eleshia Harris: It does, doesn't it? It does just go around in circles. Because I'm at that stage where I'm like, I don't think I need to eat as much meat as I am eating at the moment. And I did that when I was trying to conceive with Elessandra. So it does go round in circles. Definitely. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Our body knows. It has so much information. Only in recent years, I started to really listen. All those lessons had to happen. So I was writing about food, and I was enjoying it. I was creating recipes. I was featuring cookbooks. I moved around a little bit, and I was teaching cooking classes when we were living in Chicago. It was fun. I was loving it. It was bringing in a little bit of extra money, not enough for me to quit my full-time job. There, I took a formal communication role after a layoff. We moved from Chicago back to Toronto, where I'm originally from. And I worked for Blackberry, and Crisis Communications.

So when service would go down, I would talk to the tech people who understand all that stuff. Translate whatever went wrong into plain English for the rest of the world to consume, and I would do that by writing. So I had a crash course in taking really technical jargon and making it understandable. And I had to understand it, I kinda sort of. It's not easy to understand networking and whatever. So that was my first formal communications role, and I enjoyed it. I was doing a lot of writing. I was playing. I was doing internal communications. I got laid off from Blackberry, as you can probably assume. And then I went back to my old company, and it was there. I was still writing. Our main clients were the US government, so we would write proposals worth billions of dollars of work. And I remember, as I was practicing my writing skills and I had a website at this time for my food blog. I was always the go-to to review these proposals.

And at one point, one of my directors was like, so tell me your honest opinion. What do you think about this? And I was like, would you want to read this on the other end? He's like, no. Why don't we start with writing things that people want to read? And it made a difference. Instead of saying to whom it may concern, we are the best company to do this, in the unique position... Nobody talks like this. 

Eleshia Harris: No.

Jacqueline Fisch: And I had written so much of that corporate jargon before I had that aha moment. So eventually, I was laid off from there. Administration changes never got another job in consulting but this one was more of a more communications role. And I was doing change management consulting. So change management is, for example, you're rolling out a tech tool like Salesforce or a new intranet survey. It's all kinds of things. So my goal as a communicator was to make the change, suck less for the people and not suck as long. And get people to embrace it eventually because it is difficult for most people. 

Eleshia Harris: Exactly. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Especially when you're in your corporate job. 

Eleshia Harris: They don't like it. They hated me as a project manager. They don't like change. You're coming to do what? And you're a contractor and we've been here for over 20 years and you're trying to tell me what to do? No lady. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Oh yes, all that work prepared me so well for business owners and working with clients. Thankfully, all my clients are amazing. I've never had any of those nightmare experiences that some people talk about. So I'm doing communications. I took over internal communications for our whole department, and I had fun with it. I loved it. And that was also the time where I started eating meat again. And I'm like, well, the plant-based blog doesn't really feel aligned. And I was writing about other things. I was writing about minimalism, motherhood, things like that. And I was enjoying the writing that I was doing. And during a corporate performance review, I told my manager, I want to double down on communications. I want to do as much as I can. I just want to get better and do more. And he's like, you can't do that. You have to diversify, you have to learn the software, you have to do this. And I'm like, I don't want to. And I said, well, and if you want to do more communications work, you can sell that work to our clients. And I was like, wait, so I'm going to sell it for you. You're going to pay me a percentage of what you're making? How about I just go sell it myself? 

I changed my website to be about copywriting, done for you copywriting. I sent personal emails to ex-colleagues, people I had networked with in the past, friends, family. I told them what I was up to. I offered to work for free for a few people. And I offered five hours of free time. This was when I used to do it hourly. People took me up on it. Some of them ended up hiring me for the long-term, passing my name along, referrals, referrals. And then I grew my business on the side for about a year and a half before I could fully be comfortable taking the leap. And our household goal and this was my husband's challenge, he said, when you are bringing in 50% of your corporate income on your business on the side, it can easily be assumed that you'll replace that if you go full time. So when I buckled up, I did the minimum amount in the corporate job, which is still actually amazing for probably for you too as an overachiever. Our C-level work is still A-level and amazing for some people. 

Eleshia Harris: Exactly. 

Jacqueline Fisch: We have a tendency to be hard on ourselves. So it was about a year and a half of focus on growing this business until I could leave. And when I did three months in a row of hitting at least 50%, I'm like, it's time. Let's go. That was a little over four years ago.

Eleshia Harris: Yes. It's amazing because as you said, you knew that you needed to have that sense of comfortableness to do that. But you also knew that you needed to do that because some people still don't take that leap, Jacq, until it's too late or until they're pushed. And then they don't get to live their dreams and their desires, and so forth. It's ultimately too late. So that's amazing. And the fact that your husband was so supportive as well... 

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes, I'm glad that he wasn't like, oh yes, sure. Just go ahead. Just quit. You'll figure it out. He was like, no, prove it first. One, I want to do it. Two, I'm enjoying the work and proving that I can. That's a whole lot of proving. A whole other conversation for another day, but it's more of a challenge for myself. But it took three layoffs to show me that there is no such thing as job security, and I needed to create my own. And I work less, way fewer hours than I used to. I don't put on Spanx or anything of Spanx, but I don't wear corporate clothes anymore. I don't remember the last time that I was in heels. 

Eleshia Harris: I have a whole wardrobe that I was declaring the other day. And I was like, how did I wear these? And I used to wear, as you said, high heels to the office and back. How did I even do that? As a Pilates teacher, I stopped when I was training to be a Pilates teacher because I was like, this is the reason why my back hurts. I love turning up in whatever I want to turn up in, and not having that, as you said, that sense of I have to be so formal about the way I look, the way I articulate myself, the work that I put out there. I feel like I'm in that place now where I just get to be me, and I absolutely love that. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Because the opposite is exhausting. 

Eleshia Harris: So exhausting. 

Jacqueline Fisch: And for what? 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. And sometimes boring. 

Jacqueline Fisch: To impress people that you don't like. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. 

Jacqueline Fisch: We will have none of that. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. None of that. So yes, it's just I'm happy that I'm in this space, but also it feels like our journey was similar. Like I did all the things when I was going through the ranks. For me, I always knew that I loved wellbeing and it was more, my dad, that was like, you have to get a steady job and wellbeing is not going to make you the money, and all of that. So I listened to him to an extent, then I did my own thing. And yeah, it just proves that it's you, it's not always the circumstances that you're in. You have to make the decision of what you want to do with your life. Yes, and I'm happy that I was able to do that, most definitely. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes. 

Eleshia Harris: So should we talk a little bit about copy and the things, and all the things that you would suggest? And even just reading some of the things that we had discussed previously, I was like, oh, I need to do that. I need to do that. So I'm not going to say because you're going to talk us through a few things. But I was just like, I need to get better at doing that. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Okay. Do you have an idea in mind of where to start? I have an idea, but I want to make sure I stay on track with you. I hear from so many business owners and people who are just starting their business or even have been in business a few years and they're like, I can't find my writing voice. I'm overthinking. I'm so critical. It has to be perfect. Perfectionist. If you do one practice to help you become, I think, better in everything you do, especially as a business owner and a writer, morning pages. 

Eleshia Harris: Oh my, I just started morning pages. I started because I need external accountability. I know this about myself. I did a whole episode about that, and I know that I just need it. So I joined a book club. And one of the books that we talked about was The Artist's Way.  So I got it. I've not read everything in there, but what I did start with and what I really loved, as you said, is morning pages. I love it. 

Jacqueline Fisch: It is everything. So morning page is a term coined by Julia Cameron, and it talks about in the office in the artist's way. It is three 8x10 pages, stream of consciousness, no filter. Get it, the gunk out of your head writing. And I think the more we can take that approach to all our writing and clearly distinguish writing from editing as two very, very different and separate things, writing everything becomes easier. If you take that quick approach, no editing as you go, as you're writing your copy, as you're writing emails, as you're writing anything in business. So that one practice all the time. I noticed, if I take a pause from it, I need to come back to it. I just did it before we hopped on the call.

We had just moved two weeks ago. But I haven't done it in about two weeks and I was like, I have 15 minutes before I get on the call with you today. I am going to sit on my couch, and I didn't get through the three pages. I did two and a half, it's fine. It's fine. 

Eleshia Harris: Exactly. Some days I only do a page, but it just sets me up.

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes. 

Eleshia Harris: Now I'm thinking, I didn't do it today. So I'm going to do it afterward. It just sets me up and now, I understand why my day started the way it started. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes. Even if it happens later in the day, that's fine too. Mine doesn't happen when I first wake up because I have kids to get out the door. It's usually once they're gone, I sit down with my coffee, and before I start working. It's a place to put all those doubts and even a place to do some future state writing. Like imagine your website is up and it's beautiful and clients are rolling in. Let's start planting those seeds in our lines. So that's it, that's a very important practice. 

When it comes to website writing, most people make this mistake and they start with their homepage because that's the first page that you land on as a user. Don't start there. It just creates all kinds of stress, which causes people to just close their Google doc and never visit it again. If you were to only put up one page of your website at a time, let it be a page that makes you money. And because without that, you don't have a business. If you just had a website with just your About page, that's great. How can I work with this amazing person? Start with your sales page. There's a couple of reasons for that. The sales page is all your client's language, not yours. So that's the other thing to detach from. You are not writing for your peers or your competitors, you are writing for the person on the other end who doesn't know yet, who has this problem, struggle, or is looking for something different. He doesn't know what to do. That is you connect with their words. 

So before you even begin the sales page writing, and this is something a practice to do ongoing, open up a document, keep a notebook, write down everything that potential clients say to you before they hire you. So this is like, they don't know your language or jargon yet. And a note on jargon, it's only jargon if they don't use those words too. If not, it's just industry language and that's totally cool. So to get that language, if you're new to the business and/ or you're changing niches, look in Facebook groups, look where people are having these conversations, look at books that they're reading, and read Amazon reviews. There's so much gold. There's gold in the three and four-star reviews especially, because that's where they're like, this book was pretty good, but it was missing something. There's so much great language in there. Gather all that, and then use that to inform what you're going to write. And then having your sales page, connecting with them where they are now.

And to help bring a visual to that, imagine you're sitting down with someone. You're having a coffee or tea and you're like, hey friend, tell me what's going on. Everything they say to you, all you're doing is reflecting it back to them using their words which means you're shutting up and you're listening. And then that's what's going into your copy. So when you approach your copy, starting with a sales page, approach it like morning page writing. Stream of consciousness just barfs it all out. And especially if writing feels challenging for you, I also want to say there is always some resistance when you show up to the page. I still feel it every time, almost every time. Ninety-nine percent of the time I open up a doc and I'm like, I don't want to do this. I want to go for a walk. I want to go do something else. It's those first few seconds of getting going, so we can get into some habits to get going. A habit I have, I light a candle. I light a candle, I might have a certain sense of lip balm. Are we the same? 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. So light my candle and then I put my lip gloss on. Today, I was trying to distract myself from the sunshine outside. And I was like, no, you need to get back to your desk because you need to press the button on your sales page. That is the truth. But I had to do all of these things. It was like a little ritual. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Finding a writing ritual is really handy because it's like priming your brain. You're letting your brain know, hey, we're going to write now. We're going to do this thing. And I even have different things where I write certain things in different locations. I don't write my book stuff at my desk. I write it on the couch or outside. So there's a couple of things you can do. If the words are not coming, just take your computer and go to the other room. I've tried that. Set a timer to try like a 25-minute Pomodoro timer. 

Eleshia Harris: We are the same, Jacq. We are the same. 

Jacqueline Fisch: I love it. 

Eleshia Harris: Have you heard of Cuckoo?

Jacqueline Fisch: No. 

Eleshia Harris: So I love Cuckoo. 

Jacqueline Fisch: How do you spell it? 

Eleshia Harris: Yes, and that's what I like to use because then you can add people in as well if you're working with other people. So I did that this morning. I was doing some palms with a friend in New York who was up early, and that's what we did.

Jacqueline Fisch: Amazing. I'm going to look into that. That could be a really fun addition to the writing community. It's so cool. So I also use a tool. I don't use the Pomodoro that often. Usually, if it's something that I don't want to do, it’s really, really resisting. Set a timer for 25 minutes, write as fast as you can. Put it away, go do something else. And then come back to it and edit it. You have to separate that writing from the editing. And by coming back, it could be, take a walk, go make a coffee, come back, or have lunch, or the next day. Sometimes having a day in between writing and editing is really helpful because you'll see new things. We can go into so many things with writing and editing, with the moon and female cycle. It could be a whole nother episode. 

Eleshia Harris: I think that's going to have to be another episode.

Jacqueline Fisch: We'll save that. 

Eleshia Harris: I love that we're in tune because I did a whole six weeks on the female cycle and the stuff that you should be doing in each phase. And it's really important. It's so important because we, as my co-host said, Mairi, she was like, we are not small men. We have to go with our cycles. There are times of the month where you don't want to show up, you don't want to be on TikTok, you don't want to be on Instagram. You want to pull the covers over your head and rest and review and reflect. And that's okay. Yes, we will definitely have another conversation. It's definitely happening.

Jacqueline Fisch: So that's just a side note to know. And also to keep in mind, not to judge a past writing session you had where you're like, I wrote this blog post the other day and it was so easy. How come two weeks later, it's so hard? 

Eleshia Harris: Exactly. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Because you're not the same. You're different. 

Eleshia Harris: Exactly. This is so good, and I love that it's so aligned with everything, all of the conversations that I'm trying to have. And I love that because I did not know that was coming before our conversation, so yay. That is golden.

Jacqueline Fisch: Love it. So that's sales page writing. And then from there, the next page I usually suggest doing is your About page. And your About page is also about your clients. And it is your story as it relates to them. A lot of people struggle with writing their About page for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's, I don't want to share too much information, I don't know what to say, do I have to say all this, or I'm embarrassed by this, or something like that. So depending on what is coming up, usually when it starts with an About page, I suggest a few writing prompts. Like why do you love this industry? Did you have a low point or aha moment that brought you here today, or a series of them? And the About page can be probably a good exercise to journal on it first before you start to write because there are so many things that come up. And then decide which stories you'll keep in. So also know that every piece of writing you do is not wasted if it doesn't make the cut for the About page. Save that for a blog post or a social post. 

You have those stories, even if it doesn't fit in there, that is fine. The most important thing I say to people when they worry about sharing on their About page is to keep in mind that people are reading it as a metaphor for their lives. They're not looking at the business owner and judging and thinking like, oh wow, they did this. They're looking for similarities. They're looking for connection points. They're looking for, oh, you spent 10 years in corporate too. We have some similarities. Oh, you were an engineer, like all these things. Those points make them relatable. And that's what people are going to remember. And you're really building in your About page, the know-like-trust factor. 

Eleshia Harris: Do you know how many people have come back to me after our work together and said, I really resonate with your About page, and thank you so much for being really honest. And my dad died of cancer or my mum died, or as you said, I worked incorporate. Oh, you're interested in this as well? Over the last year where we haven't really been spending too much time networking with people, my About page has helped me, as you said, really connect. Really connect with people virtually and start new relationships. Even though some of them haven't become clients, they've become friends just by being a little bit more open. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Exactly. When you're working on your About page, same process. Get it as quickly as possible, then go back and edit. I also just suggest having two extra documents open, or actually one extra thing. A notebook for journaling because stuff can come up. You're like, oh, I didn't deal with this yet. Got to revisit that. And another document for all those stories that come up that were like, hmm, doesn't fit. I'm going to put this here. Those could be content ideas. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. I love that. 

Jacqueline Fisch: And so Sales page and About page, third page, Home page. So when you have your Homepage, you can put together a Home page in 15 minutes with everything you have from your Sales page and the About page, because all you're doing, you're going to take the best client language from your Sales page. This is literally what I do. I take the best, I copy, I paste and I tweak it and rewrite it a little bit. And then I take the About page, a keynote about me and think of the Home page also as your foyer. Someone walks into your house and you're like, tell me where to go. Can I go to the kitchen? Can I go to the living room? Do you want to sit outside? Where are we going? Just tell me where to go. Keep it so simple and let people know where you want them to go. And there are other ways you can do that with pop-ups and things. But that's a whole other, a whole other thing. 

Eleshia Harris: That's a workshop, Jacq. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes, yes, yes. 

Eleshia Harris: No, I love that. That's so much information in such a short period of time. But it's going to save you so much time because, as you said, you've already done the work. And now, you come back to your page and you're like, okay, it's done. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes. And a note, I'm done because I see people tweaking and tweaking and tweaking for years. Aim to be 80% happy with it and know that your website copy is a living, breathing thing that will change. I am changing my copy all the time. Also, your website copy directly is not what brings in business. It's a piece of it. It's like your billboard, but you are out there talking to people, having conversations, connecting visibility that brings in clients. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes, and that's a really good point because we can hide behind the website. We were like, okay. I've written my copy, I've done my website. Why isn't anybody finding me? 

Jacqueline Fisch: Now that you have all that great stuff on your website, something I love to do maybe once or twice a year, take your About page for example, and break it up into a series of social posts. I did that a few months ago and people were like, their engagement was super high and people were like, I didn't know this story. This is amazing. So don't assume that everybody reads every word of your website either. Just because it's there, doesn't mean everyone reads it. Share it in other places and repurpose it like crazy. 

Eleshia Harris: I love that. I love that. I think that because I'm just about to do a whole load of content planning, that's where I'm starting. I love that tip. Thank you. 

Jacqueline Fisch: You're welcome. 

Eleshia Harris: So you also published your first book. 

Jacqueline Fisch: I did. 

Eleshia Harris: This year. So, how did you get to that process? 

Jacqueline Fisch: I wrote a mini-book in 2015 and it was an exercise. It was 50 pages long. It was just a goal to write something quickly and get it out there. I wrote it in three months. And it's not great, probably going to revise that someday. But the point was to get it done and out there so that I could put it right to do it. So the book took a little over three years. Much longer than I thought. I initially thought it was going to be a self-development book. I had a lot of blog content that I took and repurposed and reworked, and I thought it was going to be teaching people how to live an unfussier, simpler life. Some stuff was more laid back, so it was all advice. I wrote it in 30 days for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month every November. It's a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. So it's roughly 1700 words a day. I did it, and it was also fast writing. So this was nowhere near, this was a stream of consciousness, like bar it on the page, kind of writing. And then I let it sit for a year because I didn't know what to do with it. It wasn't grabbing me. I was like, I don't know what to do with this. I have this thing. I don't know what it is. 

Eleshia Harris: Was that because you’ve just done it? You were like, I'm done. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Partially. I didn't know where it was going. I needed a bigger theme to tie it together. And I was also tired, and I continued running my business. I did it. And having a family in November in the US, we have some holidays like Thanksgiving, getting ready for Christmas. There's just a lot going on in November. So I revisited the book the following November. I spent the next NaNoWriMo editing it. And just playing with it, just being in there, doing things. Then I hired an editor, and she really helped me see the threads that tied it together. And in her comments were a lot of things like, this is great advice. Tell me why you believe this. In the few places where I had stories, she looked and said, this is a great story. More like this. Do you have more stories like this? And I was sitting, I wasn't actively forcing. It's like, I know something's in there. I don't know what. And then I was at a business event in January 2019 in San Diego, and there was an intuitive business consultant there giving a talk.

And I later had a conversation with her. I booked a session with her and I'm telling her about my book. And she said I don't think your book is self-development. She's like, you might not like this. I see your book as like a big golden book, which I totally forgot until I had and I didn't communicate that to the cover designer and you've seen the cover. And then she's like, I think your book’s a memoir. I'm like, what? No one wants to be a memoir for me, I'm not important or famous. So all the inner critic bells are going off like, you don't need to write a memoir. And then when I went back over my editor's comments, I'm like, she's right, it's a memoir. 

Eleshia Harris: Wow. So the two women that were giving you advice were definitely on point.

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes. So ended up being part memoir, part self-development. But the memoir frames the story for how self-development comes together. So lots of work, lots of edits, lots of revisions. I originally wanted to publish it in September 2020 because that was when I turned 40 and I was like, I want to do this when I turn 40. It didn't happen because 12/2020 so it happened in April 2021, and it's fine. But the timing is perfect. 

Eleshia Harris: It is, it is. And I will link in the details of the book in the show notes. It's on my list. I am one of those people who read five different books at a time, and I've got four different audios at the moment as well. So yes, it is definitely on the list. But yes, I'll link in all the information. So, Jacq, tell us about your community. 

Jacqueline Fisch: So the community is called, Write Like a MOFO because that's what we do. This community, it's 2019. So we are three years old this year. And I originally started it as a group coaching community because I love taking people's rough drafts or almost their copy and helping them take it the rest of the way. It is so fun and easy for me, it is like I could just do it all day long. And it started initially with these things that I called writing marathons. And they were two or three hours long. We would all jump on a call. We would declare what we were working on. We would do an abbreviated morning page warm-up, like a five minutes stream of consciousness. And then we would write together. And then when people had questions, we would just screen-share, talk about it and do things like that.

So initially started as a group coaching. And then probably about a year after I had had that first draft of my book and I wasn't working on it, I was like, I'm a writer who's not writing. I'm writing for everybody else but myself. And it turned out that I was not the only one, lots of other copywriters, ghostwriters and coaches and all kinds of service-based business owners enjoy writing, or they know it connects with their audience and they're not doing it. They're serving clients, doing all the business things, but not writing. So I created a portion of the community that's dedicated to co-writing only where we have co-writing time. We get on for two hours. It's quiet writing time. We declare what we're working on. There might be some active comments going on in the chat. You can keep your camera on or off, and there's some kind of magic that happens in there when you're accountable. I'm there to write. I have a date on the calendar, I'm showing up. And there, we also do things like workshops once a month to go deeper in topics and Q&A. All my copywriting templates are in there too. And then it's my most fun place to hang out. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. And as you said, it's the magic that happens when you're doing something as part of a community. I've just done my first program, my first group program and that was the feedback that I got was, we could work together. And they absolutely loved that part. The program, because they just said it was magic. It was priceless, but they felt accountable and they got their shit done basically. 

Jacqueline Fisch: At first, some people before they join we're like, wait, I'm joining a membership for you to watch me write? That's dumb. And then they came, they're like, wow, this is amazing. You just have to try it, which is all kinds of challenges to communicate in sales copy, which I am still refining because it's really challenging to communicate the internal invisible results that you don't see.

Eleshia Harris: Exactly. Exactly. And it's the way I try to explain it is, as you said, you just need external accountability to get some stuff done. I know that that's what I'm like. And there's so many people who were the same. And we can do all of the distractions. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Procrastinating. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. So we can do all of the distracting and the procrastinating and all of that. And then we get to the end of the day and we're like, we've done nothing. But at least if you have those block times that you know that's what you're going to do, then whatever comes out of that is golden.

Jacqueline Fisch: And I saved those times for book writing and book editing. I knew it was on the calendar. There is four hours total a week. I'm like, that's what I'm working on in my book. I'm not working on anything else during that time. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes. 

Jacqueline Fisch: That is it. 

Eleshia Harris: And isn't that amazing that your community keeps you accountable and you keep the community accountable as well? You get all of the things done. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Yes, because done is better than nothing. 

Eleshia Harris: Exactly. Exactly. And I think also, it doesn't have to be perfect at all. 

Jacqueline Fisch: There's no such thing as perfect anyway. 

Eleshia Harris: I was just about to say that. What is perfect? 

Jacqueline Fisch: That is impossible. 

Eleshia Harris: Yes, and who wants to be perfect? 

Jacqueline Fisch: No. Chasing an illusion of something that's not real. No, no time for that. 

Eleshia Harris: No, I'm the same. So you Jacq, where can people find you? Where do you hang out?

Jacqueline Fisch: I'm mostly hanging out on Instagram. It's my most fun place to be. I'm @jacq_fisch there. And on my website, jacquelinefisch.com. 

Eleshia Harris: So, thank you so much for being a guest. I know this is not going to be the first or the last. We have so many things in common that just by having this conversation, I'd be like, oh my goodness. We need to dive into a little bit more about some of the things that we discussed today. And I can definitely feel some kind of collaboration coming on because I'm like, wow. This lady thinks like I do. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Just thinking that I'm like, we got to collaborate on something. This is how it happens. 

Eleshia Harris: This is how the magic happens, definitely. So again, thank you so much. And thank you for all of your amazing support last year when I was redoing my website. I really appreciate it. And as Jacq said, go find her on Instagram. Or find her on her website. She's amazing. 

Jacqueline Fisch: Thank you.

Eleshia Harris: Anyway, I will be back with you next week for another episode, but until then, have a great week, and goodbye.

How good was that conversation and how many easy strategies did you pick up? Who would have thought it was the best thing to start with your sales page. Come on. I just loved how our conversation flowed. I loved how aligned we were. I loved how we talked the same language and how we both discussed how your cycle comes into play. 

So again, if you haven't listened to some of the other episodes with regards to how you can work with your female cycle, I would really recommend that you go back and you listen to the six weeks episodes that Mairi Taylor and I did on How to Harness your Female Cycle to learn to live inflow. And also, download the checklist that I've put together for you. I will put all of the information in the show notes as well as all of Jacq's information as well. And yes, let me know how you get on with what's on your sales pages. I know Jacq and I will both be interested in hearing how everything's going. Okay, I cannot wait to have you here again with me next week. Take care for now. Bye-bye.

I really hope you enjoyed this episode of The Eleshia Show. If you loved this episode as much as I did, head over and rate and subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. New episodes drop every week on a Wednesday. I can't wait to hang out with you again soon. And lastly, remember to invest in yourself first because you are important and amazing. Take care. Until next time. Bye-bye.