The secret to creating your brand story (and standing out in a crowded niche) — an interview with Hillary Weiss
Do you ever feel like your niche is too crowded?
Online, it can feel like everyone is doing, selling, and saying the same things and you’re left wondering… how am I ever going to stand out?
You’re not alone. I’ve been there and felt the same way, too.
Over the years, I’ve learned that competition is a good thing. It means your niche is viable and that there’s demand for your products and services.
The secret to standing out in a crowded market is to learn how to talk about who you are, what you do, and how it’s different.
(I promise, you ARE different. Even if you’re not sure how yet!)
To learn more about how to create a brand story and messaging that sets you apart, I sat down with Hillary Weiss to chat about…
How to find your own voice — and avoid sounding like a “diet Marie Forleo” on your website
How to make your business stand out with personality-packed copywriting
How to develop your unique point of view — even if you don’t think you’re different
What most people get wrong about their ideal customers and brand story
Watch the interview above or read the transcript below!
After you’ve watched the video…
Comment below and let me know what your #1 takeaway from this interview was!
Connect with Hillary at hillaryweiss.com
Watch my free masterclass to learn how to create a stunning website that sells your services (so your brand can stand out even more!)
About Hillary Weiss
Hillary Weiss is a brand consultant, speaker, copywriter, and founder of Statement Piece Studio @ hillaryweiss.com. She’s also the co-host of the cult-favorite Youtube marketing talk show Hillary and Margo Yell at Websites (#HAMYAW), and has had her work featured on Business Insider, The Next Web, The Observer, and more. Since 2011, she’s helped thousands of brands all over the world get seen and heard (and make serious cash) through her 1-1 client work, writing, coaching, and videos.
Nowadays, she’s on a mission to help more small businesses define their “statement piece”, a.k.a. the bold point of view that makes them radically relevant to their perfect people.
Want to make waves in your industry? Download her free Statement Piece Framework to get started.
Interview transcript:
Hillary (00:01): Well, first of all, as Cami mentioned, I'm a copywriter and a ghost writer and brand voice development specialist and more recently consultant, copy coach, and teacher. However, what my focus on is right now is helping business owners and entrepreneurs, which are the same thing, technically, really find their angle with their work and find out what makes them most excited to do what they do and create what they create. So that's what I've been focusing on with my current rebrand that is in progress, the statement piece framework, but day to day, since 2011, I have been creating writing websites, eBooks scripts, sales pages, launch copy, keynote speeches, basically anything you can throw at me for online business owners in the creative, in the coaching space. And it's kind of working on my app and now working on marketing consultants and movers and shakers in the business development industry. So it's been a fabulous journey and I'm so excited to be talking to you.
Cami (00:59): One of the things that I love so much about you is this breadth of experience, you know, not everybody in the online world comes to things with the depth of knowledge that you do and the years that you've logged and the amount of copy that you've written, it's very, very impressive. I recently worked with Hillary on my own website copy. So we're both going through our rebrand at the moment. And one of the things I'm going to chat to you guys about today, and chat about with Hillary, is that process of rebranding and the process of writing web copy and why it's so important. So Hillary, do you want to chat to us about the different ways that you knew you needed to rebrand?
Hillary (01:44): Absolutely. I think you and I were just talking about this, what's so important in the online business world is that we have to kind of acknowledge that we're always evolving. You have to be willing to pay attention when we've grown too big for our bridges and when, where we're standing, there's just not enough space to become who we want to be. And I know in my case, I wanted to move a little less from exclusively done for you. Although I still love it. That's my bread and butter, but I've been cheating on it with coaching, but I also wanted to step into more of a teacher authority coach kind of space. So with my, with my rebrand, the statement piece studio, I really wanted to create an umbrella for all of those overall kind of ideas and give myself space to grow. And if I'm actually moving from Hillaryweiss.com, Which is my current website and that whole brand under my name, and also keep it, I think, but it actually feels much more expansive at this stage in my business to move into a umbrella of a name, something that can eventually become larger than myself and kind of grow beyond me.
Hillary (02:46): So that's been something really extended for me because I've been in this business for seven years and I've seen a lot and done a lot. And what was interesting for me was I kind of reached a stage in my business when I launched my course last year, where I looked around and I thought like, what kind of business do I really want to have? Like, do I want to have a business where I work with clients that I created a program and I had a mastermind and then I've got six layers between me and my day to day kind of clients and customers and viewers and readers. And what I really decided was that I wanted to stay close. And so having this Statement Piece Studio gives me an opportunity to stay close to my audience by teaching at a higher level and sharing things that I want to do at a higher level without kind of losing that intimate, intimate touch.
Cami (03:34): It reminds me of that thing people say online that you have to touch someone 5 times before they buy from you. And I always thought that sounded creepy.
Hillary (03:35): I kind of looked around and to be totally honest I was looking at my clients like do I really want to have a business like this? Watching every six months and like, Hey, you know, I wrote this piece of post once that was like, I can't wait to become a successful entrepreneur. So I can spend $40,000 on Facebook ads, said no one ever. That's still awesome. You guys do what you gotta do, like hustle, that's your goal. That's amazing. But for me, I was realizing that I wanted to step more into an authority space and authority, and still kept kinda like direct contact with the people that I am interested in helping and supporting, which is why, like when you sign up for my framework and stuff, there's an invitation to replay and tell us what kind of business you are in. I try to answer every email and really just like stay connected because my, what the pattern is in the entrepreneurial space, as I mentioned, is that people tend to grow, grow, grow, grow, so they can be out here and their people can be here. So I'm just trying to figure out kinda what that looks like for me for now.
Cami (04:44): Right, like what it looks like to scale a high touch one-on-one service based business while still keeping that high touch.
Hillary (04:52): Exactly, And I think it was so interesting cause I was talking about, I'm still a big believer in funnels. I was actually talking to a colleague about this last week, cause I was like, I was talking about funnels and I was like, well, I don't know if that's cheating. I was like, well, it's just a great way to scale when you could still keep, you know, work hard on maintaining that kind of interpersonal communication through a funnel and make it, make people realize it's a human on the other end. And he was like, listen, the only way to scale, I was like, okay, like what other ways would you scale? Well, you could teach one person and then you can just grab the lead, teach people one. That's not typically like scaling too, because then you're still having to show up right now. I'm figuring out where the balance is when something is automated. It's like a DIY program in my little corner of the universe, I still want them to feel like I'm there and I'm present because that, you know, I don't want there to be huge separation between them and it's not my magic.
Cami (05:52): No, it's totally agree. One of the reasons that I reached out to you initially, it's because I always got that sense from emails and from the content that you put out there, that you were a plugged into what was going on in the online world, you're very plugged into the trends in the industry and have a distinct point of view on those trends and which I want to get into. I really do. It's one of the things you help people do so brilliantly is to develop a point of view to stand out, to step up, but also that personal touch, the fact that I felt like you were a human on the other end. And then when we worked together very, very much human on the other end, super human.
Cami (06:31): So credit to me showed up every step of our projects. We even yelled our projects. Don't tell anybody I told you this, but one of the things we did today before going live, because Hillary looked over some of the copy she'd written for me to make sure things were sitting right on my website, which is above and beyond the call of duty.
Hillary (06:49): It looks amazing. I can't wait for you guys to see this, by the way. It's like, out of control gorgeous.
Cami (06:55): So one of the reasons I wanted to rebrand is if I said, I felt like when I first moved to New York, I was working this really stressful job, not taking care of myself and not paying attention. And I woke up one morning and I was like, I can't button up my pants. I gained 20 pounds and I'm five foot three. So 20 pounds is a lot. And it happened overnight. I was like, there must have been markers along the way, but I don't know what they were. And suddenly this change has happened. And I felt that way about my brand, which I'm sure you can relate to you. I woke up one day and I put this doesn't fit anymore. Oh, that's not quite right. My offerings have changed. My audience has changed. Things have grown. I want to grow. And I really knew I needed to step up and fill a bigger space. And so I sat down and started to try to DIY my web copy. You guys, I'm a designer. I'm not a copywriter. And I just realized I was so close to all of my own story and my own offerings that I couldn't do it. And so I reached out to you for help.
Hillary (08:03): and it was awesome. And then magic happened. But we were also talking about this, this point, I think because you know, your instinct is to DIY initially when you've got a new idea. I think it is to a point necessary DIY when you're starting out as well, there's a time and a place to do stuff yourself to write your own web copy, to design your own site or try to, I never tried it was a disaster because I'm not a designer, but I think when you are ready for that next level and you're ready to, again, like we're going to incredibly high level with clients and the way you do and like continue to start to magnetizing those people worthy of your skillsets and your talents and kind of take your brand to a bigger scale and also in a way that you're not going to have to touch it.
Cami (08:51): Totally like one of the things that prompted me, one of the many things that prompted me to reach out to get professional copy was I felt like I was having to do quite a lot of selling on sales calls. My website was not doing as much selling for me as I wanted to. And so I was having to have pretty long sales conversations, whereas I much prefer to have, you know, have a perceptive client show up to a sales call. We have a casual chat, see if we're a good match and energetically. And then it's a yes or a no, but being in that energy, selling and pushing on a call, your website could be doing that for you. I really wanted to show.
Hillary (09:30): Yeah. And it's so I think that's so important and that's really what happens when you're ready to get to that next level. Right? You can't throw tens of thousands of dollars on a website on day one because you don't know who you are yet. tell people who charge a lot of money. Don't do it. You sound good, but it's about, uh, you know, taking that step to make that kind of investment. You have to know who you are, who you work with and the kind of work you want to do. Because when you do a rebrand and you hire help and you invest the cash, you're not going to want to touch that thing
Cami (10:05): this is a really good point. It's not about having all of the answers, but it's about having clarity around this foundational pieces who you are, what do you do? Do you do it for, how do they buy it from you? You don't have to know everything, but those things are really, really key.
Hillary (10:23): Absolutely. And I think your point about having to sell on sales calls, that really is like the ultimate purpose of a rebrand is to tell people who you are, what you do for who, how, and why, so that when they go on the call, it's basically where do I sign? Like, why, tell me more, a little more about you, just like, people want to get a vibe to be committed to working with you for several weeks, but they're already, you want them already ready to sign on the dotted line. You don't have to explain.
Cami (10:48): Which kind of sounds sometimes like the golden unicorn of online business, but it really, really isn't that's with you. I've been on working on this for a while. I got some of your book posts. I've been in contact with you through your online presence. And although we didn't know each other personally yet when I got on that call, you know, we had a good connection and I really enjoy chatting. And I just knew that you were gonna be the person to help me out. And it was a very easy, quick yes, for me, in a way that it might not have been, if I hadn't had those points of contact with you before hand.
Hillary (11:19): all five, five points. It's absolutely true. And I think this is also what I teach when it comes to people, writing blog posts and creative social posts, and being visible and showing up on social and as like, as a self promotional brand. And it's not, it's interesting because I find that people kind of get into the same mode, when they are ready to rebrand. Okay. Today I will be a personal brand. And so if they decide to like step forward and they schedule a bunch of posts on buffer and they're very robotic, I think things they need to talk about. And like, there's, there's not a lot of excitement behind it. They're just trying to build that authority. When in reality, how you should be showing up in the online space is as exactly who you are talking about, the things we talk about in real life. Like for example, on my talking about, sorry, things you talk about real life, as you're talking to clients about things that you're experiencing everyday in your business is worth talking about, like on my blog, you will probably not see like 10 ways to optimize their sales page to be perfect. It's not how I roll, but mostly because so many people so much smarter than me have already written that.
Cami (12:27): Exactly. I didn't come to you because I wanted DIY tips on my sales page. I came to you because I wanted you to write my sales page for me.
Hillary (12:34): Exactly, exactly. And I think you embodying the values of what you want to create for your clients is so important. I think that's also what you've done. Such a wonderful job with your rebrand as well is that you have created this beautiful high end rebrand. You have created this gorgeous website the copy is solid if I do say so myself, but there is a sense of trust between you and your audience when somebody who lands on that kind of page and sees that kind of high end work. So not only have you already signed them, but you're kind of building that bond that this is you coming through, that this is your work. This is what you love to do. And this is what you want to help clients make themselves. So that's something I try to embody kind of the things I shared and do. And even if it's a little unconventional,
Cami (13:14): so I want to go back to something that you touched on, which is showing up as yourself. So let's talk more about what that actually means. How do you actually do it? How do you develop a point of view that's different from the thousands of others out there on the internet? How do you stand out? Even if you sell the same stuff as everybody else?
Hillary (13:32): Absolutely. Now I wish I had a secret formula to tell you, I wish it was a plus B equals C is not. But what it comes down to, I think is figuring out where you start to figure out your point of view perspective as a business owner comes down to that point of showing up, like, talking about things that are kind of lighting your fire that day. Like somebody pissed you off. It's something that gets you excited. Is there something you're sick of seeing if there's something you want to see more talk about that, you know, I, and it's often the kind of sillier stuff and the slightly more polarizing stuff that gets the most attention. So I think not being afraid to come out and be like, listen, I have something to talk about today, is still important. But again, it's about that ability to show up that ability to strike when the iron is hot, that ability to not necessarily feel like you have to schedule every last thing. If you want to show up as your brand, not having to talk about business all times also not necessary because we are a world where our universe of personal grants, even if you're not the face of your business, technically, please, people still want to know what sound they want to know who you are. They want to know what you're dealing with. Humans crave that connection to the digital age. I think we're not strategy. We're not robots and a good strategy. Clients come in and money comes out. Almost everyone. They would argue that it's not case.
Hillary (14:51): Exactly. That's where I'm trying to train people right now is learning to the process of showing up and creating content in the online space. It's in line with your brand, your values and kind of what you want to see in the world. I'm not making it a huge deal like [inaudible] so yeah, absolutely. Like I think there's feels like so much gravity when you decide to show up as a personal brand. But the reality is you are building your brand as you show up, you know, there's no like wake up one morning having a brand. Now you're constantly building that mythos so you're constantly building that voice, that respect with that point of view. But what you have to do is find a way to show up every day, even if you're just posting stupid names on your Facebook page.
Hillary (15:36): For me, the secret's been like picking one platform and just showing up everyday on there and having conversations like talking to people, making connections, offering help, where I can. And in my case, that's Facebook. I also, I also fiddle around on Twitter and Instagram. But it's been just, just keeping it really simple. I'm picking one platform show up every day, whether a blog post, whether it's a one liner Facebook post, whether it's a joke or a meme, all of it always ties into my brand values, which is always about positivity, you know, mutual support and teaching and honesty and transparency that knows that as a big as the three big pillars for me. So, and it's easy for me already, not because I woke up and I was like, these are my pillars. I looked at what I already had and what I was already talking about. And I was like, this is what makes me feel good to write. This is what makes sense to me to share. And it doesn't feel like a chore when I wake up like, Oh shit, I gotta like post on Facebook today. And if you create, if you make, keep it simple, keep it low pressure and know that it's about the process of building rather than the process of arriving that you should be striving for it to feel a lot better when you start to try and build that authority and that platform as well.
Cami (16:53): The idea of just keeping it simple and not scheduling everything. I think that there's, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there about like sexy automation, scheduling tools and work flows and how you can like streamline and optimize and whatever. But what I found in my business is that I tried to do it too early, to be perfectly honest. I spent hours and hours and hours is building out fancy funnels and fancy workflows for things that changed a month later offerings that changed a month later and it just sucked. It was hard. It took a lot of time. It took me away from the stuff I love to do, which is this one on one personal connection. And so I took a step back. I'm really happy. I'm thinking a lot about how we can keep things simple, keep things personal, you know, and how you put that human touch back into the online world. So you had, when we first started working together, you asked me some really, really smart questions to help me get clear on, how I wanted to show up, and what my point of view was because I think that that process feels a little mysterious, but you have some very, just down to earth questions. Yes. You got some clients. Do you mind sharing?
Hillary (18:00): Which ones did you like most? What's the word, the framework, or was that one about what drives me nuts? And that's interesting, like I've seen with these frameworks so generally, and this is something that I was actually testing on. In my little idea, generation framework and statement piece framework, there are three scenarios and in each scenario you can be anti or advocate. Advocate is I want all of this in my life all the time. So the three scenarios are, you know, conversations you've had with clients. So what drives you totally nuts when a client sits down and are like, I want my website to look exactly like that. That would probably, you know,
Cami (18:44): Oh, can I have copy That's exactly like Ash just with no swearing.,
Hillary (18:54): And I think that I could go off on a million tangents about trying to be a diet Ash Ambirge or vegan Marie Forleo. And I think the second scenario is in conversations with your business besties, and these are ways to kind of mine your point, your personal philosophy. The second scenario is in conversations with your business besties, what are you like? So tired of seeing as an industry, it's one more person tries to make me an affiliate for this fucking program. And no, no, this is not that serious, but, and then on the other hand, you know, what makes you so excited? What do you nerd out about with your colleagues and business friends on what makes you really stoked? Just like we were talking about earlier with the rebrand, like, we've been talking about this idea of going where the energy is, and I've been talking about that a fair bit and Carrie as well, and the rebrand as well. This is really a guiding principle we're creating.
Hillary (19:48): And the final scenario is what are the conversations you have with yourself when you read a blog post or see something that you've seen a million times or that you're sick of, or really excited about? What is that thing? Like, when do you notice it, how does it make you feel and what do you want to do about it? So those have been kind of the ways that I'm helping clients stay around the big idea. Cause traditionally, I don't know if you've noticed this, but in marketing they're always, we're always like, okay, who's your audience? What's the problem you solve? What do they mean? That should be simple but it's not. You got people saying, they're like, Oh, I don't know who my audiences, cause they're just at square one. And this is actually something that I'm working on kind of reconciling in my own work where it's all, you know, people make their audience the CEO, when their audience should be their advisor, you know, because it's sort of like, sort of like, I think it's an instinct of an entrepreneur to be like, okay, I have an audience who needs what I have. Why don't I just ask them what they want? And it historically in my business, when I asked them the responses I've gotten have been like nothing or something that I've already made, but it's so much better to know who your audience is and what they need, but trust herself as an expert to create something that they don't know maybe yet and give it to them like,
Cami (21:01): right. Well, what's that Henry, I think it's Henry Ford. Who said that if he'd given you, but I've invented a faster horse instead of reinventing and building Ford Motors. Absolutely. It's true. You know, your audience, a huge part of your business and it's been a huge part of mine, but it's something that evolves over time. I think the idea of an audience plural can be very intimidating when you're starting out. But in reality, it's one person at a time, especially when you're working with clients, you don't need a hundred thousand clients a year. You need maybe 12 good ones. So who's your client right now. Who's your next client. That's your audience and it's allowed to change and evolve and it doesn't have to be so complicated.
Hillary (21:43): You're allowed to talk about what you want to talk about to start attaching the right audiences you starts coming in? And that's the other thing as well? I think people are like, okay, so I work, I write for, you know, 35 something, women with a French bulldog and she lives in Soho and she has a big vacation house in Rhode Island and she needs help with copy writing. What am I saying? And then you're going to get, you're going to freeze.
Cami (22:03): Well, cause you don't know that person off the top of your head? My very, very first few months in business, I was designing websites for actors and artists because it's a lot of my personal network here in New York. And it was a really great place to start, but I went through one of these ideal client exercises where they had me make up like a Franken audience number. And I remember I read it back the other day and it was like actor artist who is exactly like this one person I know, except for they make $300k a year and they have this much set on a website and blah, blah, blah. And I looked, I looked at this thing and I thought, this person doesn't exist, I don't know them and this wasn't a genuine connection. And so when I stepped back from that and really started focusing on one person at a time and real people in front of me, that's when the needle started to move.
Hillary (22:56): Absolutely. And just to, I think, kind of wrap this up too, and not graft, just tied up with this concept. I know You and I going back and forth on this and we're, we're a little bit, I'm a marketing heretic personally. But I think this, I think this idea, uh, I would like people to start thinking about marketing in a sense of, you know, what their expertise, where their energy is first and then who the audience will be to inform that like test the ideas for us, get proof of concept before leading with everything you think this invisible audience member who you haven't met yet. And don't know it happens. I think a lot will change when you focus on, okay, what am I excited to do with my work expertise? And then how do I start talking about that in a way that's going to attract people to my audience.
Hillary (23:42): If you would have the, to my worlds, you can have an idea of your audience is, but being so set on it, being this like made up person, I think there's a lot of disservice in a way to marketers and people, especially before newbies because it paralyzes them. So that's why I always start to try to start with like, what's your ideas? What are your point of view? What are you working on? What's exciting. Where is your energy going? What are you sick of? What do you want to see more of? Like that to me is so much more valuable than identifying a brand and starting with who do you serve? I don't know yet.
Cami (24:11): Well, this is like the best segue ever because I want to segue into talking about web copy and talking about, you know, how, if you are rebranding your website, thinking about writing about copy, starting to think about these things, what's your point of view, but you find that you're just, you're regurgitating things that you love and you know, you're doing it, but you can't help yourself. What's the cure?
Hillary (24:38): What do you mean?
Cami (24:39): So if you find yourself writing an about page, for example, about how heart centered you are, that sounds very familiar to all us. How do you avoid the diet syndrome where you end up sounding unintentionally and often very sincerely, but you sound unintentionally like a light version of somebody you admire on the internet.
Hillary (25:09): Absolutely. The process of writing is a lot like being, being in high school, but you try and a lot of different hats and a lot of different identities before you planned on who you really are. So that's part of the process. But I think when you, when you find yourself in that space of trying to be the heart centered entrepreneur and help people live their best life, just take a look [inaudible]. For me, the cure for that, And I do this a lot with my students is to think in more specific terms. So I have clients who are like, I help people meditate to live their best life and release old stories. I'm like, okay, the key phrase here guys is what does that mean? Really? So for me, you know when I was writing my sales page for the course, the workshops, I was looking at all these different copy courses pages. And I was like, okay, everyone's saying write copy that converts. I should have that on my page. Everyone aying I should do that. And then I sat there. I was like, Oh wait, fuck. Now. Cause now this is about, it's not who I am. This is not what people are coming to me for. So I was like, okay, write copy that converts. Like, what does that mean to me? What does that mean? Really? What does that mean to the type of people I want to work with? Like what is the most important to them? And this is again, using your audience as an advisor.
Cami (26:36): Well, yeah, I didn't ask you for web copy that converts. I asked you for copy that sounded like me. That would help me spend a half an hour on sales calls instead of an hour.
Hillary (26:51): Yeah, absolutely. And I think the workshops at the course does not necessarily copy that converts because there are a million ways to learn that what I'm teaching and continuing to teach is creative confidence, not just in your branding, in how you show up in the online space in helping you identify who you are so that you can then create what you're interested in, where the energy is. So you can then create offerings and services and that's going to make you an instant yes. For the people that you really want to work with and attract. So that sort of sense.
Cami (27:23): I love this idea. We've been talking about it a lot, this idea that you can use your online presence, use your copy, use your website, to attract people rather than like pushing stuff on them all the time. You can just magnitize your clients and your audience just by being who you naturally are.
Hillary (27:42): Better yet, You can also repel the people that you don't want.
Cami (27:48): Why would I want to repel the clients? How do I repel clients?
Hillary (27:53): So this is actually something of my own, my dear friends and a wonderful marketing expert Jen Kim talks about is that all of the best brands attract and repel. So in my case, if you are coming to my website, looking for ten secrets to make your sales page convert better, you're not going to find that. You, there are a million other really copywriting websites that you can find, but there are other filters that I kind of plug into my work. So for example, I speak pretty colloquially. My grammar is not perfect. It's kind of atrocious and this stage in my, in my career. I write about things I care about. I swear the way I'm dressed, the way my hair is done, the way I show up online, the jokes I make, the humor I use.
Hillary (28:37): If somebody doesn't jive with that, I don't necessarily want to be attracting entrepreneurs who may have a lot of money, but are very conservative. And don't want to experiment. Don't want to try anything else just want really precise, like in the box, looks like everyone else in their industry. So people will take them seriously. I'm concerned. You know, I think you can look professional, but also differentiate yourself. Like I want to make you look professional and unforgettable because that unforgettable piece is what's going to attract clients to you and/or repel clients. You just want to be, I want to be kind of people who can't necessarily afford me. I want to be, but they can work in more ways. I want to be repelling people who don't value copywriting. I wore originality in the outlet space. I want to repel people who think they can go and click funnels and plug in a formula and make a billion dollars. I'm not interested in those people. I'm interested in a very small, well, not very small, but a relatively small group of people who first of all, are interested in marketing heresy and are interested in defining their own point of view to find their own niche and sort of place in their industry and who aren't afraid to show up as they are.
Cami (29:46): Yes. I absolutely love that. And I had such a great question that has leaked out of my brain just now. What was I going to ask you? So from my perspective, design and copy are so mixed. You know, you can have all the great web design and the most useful fonts and graphics and images. But if the content isn't there, it falls flat on its face. It's a little bit like your web design is how you get some of these attention initially, but what you say to them afterwards really matters, and if it's jibberish or if it's bland or if it's generic, or if they've heard it before off they trot. Conversely, you can have the best copy in the world, but if it's in, you know, a big long Google doc. It's not that interesting. You're not going to get people's attention. So these two things for me have a ton of synergy and you can't have one without the other. So for you, why [inaudible], but for you, why should somebody invest in professional copy?
Hillary (31:04): Oh God, the reasons are long and many, but we discussed at the beginning of this conversation, like if you're just starting out, like I would encourage the DIY, just learn how a sausage is made. How do you find your unique selling prop? How do you figure out what your point of view is? How do you figure out, how do you like write a sales page or how to have a sales conversation? All of that is important, but for me, what I do as a copywriter and what I think all the best copywriters do is they don't just create copy that converts because that's our whole job. That's like the bare minimum. It's nothing really new or anyway. But so I think people, the right time to hire a copywriter is again, when you have this clear vision, but it's not your realm of genius, I think just like with the design, like I throw lots of money and tens of thousands of dollars at designers because it's not my zone of genius, I know I'd much rather hand my vision to somebody who knows how to bring it to life and try to bring it to life myself and have it be kind of like sad jalopy of the concept that I was envisioning, talk a great copywriter will help you differentiate yourself in the space, articulate your value clearly. And most importantly really makes you really be your voice on the page so that people can experience you directly, whether they across sort of time-space and screens of all sizes. And I think that has been the biggest point for me and what we were always discussing, but we were always so focused is like, how, what are you bringing to the table? What is it about your work and your promise and the way you do things in your realm of expertise and your depth of knowledge, how does, how do you bring that to your clients? How does that change the game for them? And I think that being, helping, working with you to help you articulate that has been such a joy. It is the best part of my job guys doing this stuff.
Cami (33:00): I mean, it is so great. One of the big struggles I was having was I was just so close to everything. So if you, if you'd asked me those questions before we worked together, I would have sat there and been like, I'm not that special. I have no idea because we're so in it all day, every day, it was really difficult to see your own gifts as other people see them. And this is partly why I love having clients because they will tell you what those gifts are and we'll realize it over time and be able to draw that out. But it's one of the things that I love most about working with you was that we had a lot of conversations. So the process was that we would have zoom conversations or phone calls. Hillary would record them, transcribe them and then pull out key words and phrases. So I wasn't having to come up with anything. I was just really naturally showing up and we were chatting like friends and through that process, you have to draw those things out. And also as an outsider spot, the things that I'd been missing and really piece things together in like a super authentic way, but that just elevates everything
Hillary (34:05): Well, thank you. And that's, I think also what you do so well as a designer, it's like somebody comes to you with a desire and a vision and you, the best professionals make a create things that are better than your wildest vision, you know, better than your wildest dreams. Like being able to take this, these abstract concepts, but take these abstract concepts of these ideas and these colors and fonts and this vibe that you want to kind of embody and give it a home. And that is huge. And again, that is why people need to pay top dollar for design. That's why they pay top dollar for copy. Because when somebody is able to plug into who you are, what you do, who you serve and what makes you different and create like a digital sanctuary, digital home, a digital, there's no way you want to, you want people that you can trust to take care of that and make that for you when you're ready to level up and serve at a higher level and also create a website. You're not going to even have to go back and change in a year. You just, you have to make the investment.
Cami (35:08): Yeah, absolutely. So I think this is a really, really great place to wrap up. I'll ask you one last question. Where can we find you on the internet Hillary?
Hillary (35:16): Oh, you ask. No, you can find me my website at www.hillaryweiss.com. The URL may be changing soon. The rebrand is in progress. You can grab my framework at www.hillaryweiss.com/statementpieceframework.
Cami (35:36): The framework's good. I downloaded it after we worked together, and I've used it to develop ideas for social posts, blog posts. It'll walk you through some of the things we talked about today, if you're interested in learning more. So I highly recommend.
Hillary (35:48): And then you can find me on Facebook, at my name, and you can find me on Twitter at HCWeiss and on Instagram at HCWeiss. So come say, hi guys. I'd love to hang out.
Cami (35:58): Yes, indeed. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for watching.
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