We were lucky to catch up with Alicia Castro recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alicia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

Scaling up required me to do the opposite of what I thought – doing less instead of doing more. When I first started my copywriting business, I offered all types of copy – social media, website, speaker one-sheeters, Facebook Ads, emails, sales pages, blogs, you name it.

I thought exposing myself to every single type of opportunity would accelerate my growth, and while it certainly did for the first 18 months, I soon realized I wasn’t serving my clients if I hated doing certain kinds of copy.

I invested in a business membership that suggested leading with a single flagship offer. It felt insane and crazy – what will i do when my clients need something else? What if they say no? But I forged ahead and let any previous and new clients know I’d no longer be offering any other copy beyond what lit me up – email and sales page.

I know focus exclusively on these two types of copy and I do it in a consolidated, fixed timeline (7 business days).

By actually slowing down and doing less, I’m happier, my clients get better results and quicker than they ever have, and my business has grown significantly.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’m Alicia Castro, founder of glorious copy co., and word-wielding warrior® for the slightly woo, intuitive and creative female 6-figure membership founders and course creators who need paradigm-shifting, personality-infused email and sales page copy that tugs on their clients’ hearts and purse strings for them.

I’ve crafted thousands of pieces of sales-generating and award-winning copy for fortune 500 companies, solopreneurs and small business owners, borrowing from my obsession of psychology and neurolinguistics blended with an award winning background in SEO.

You’ve got a team (or are expanding your current one). You’ve got multiple six figures in revenue. And you’ve got big goals.

But when it comes to taking those big ideas out of your head and putting them on paper so you can knock those launches out of the park – you’re no word-wizard.

Sure, you’ve refined your message, know your target audience and are confident in your offer, but copywriting is not what gets you up on Monday mornings.

You need mesmerizing copy that tugs on the heart AND wallet strings of your audience while making your new membership or course more irresistible than a Krispy Kreme donut while you’re on a diet.

That’s why glorious copy co. crafts copy that does exactly that in just 7 days, so you can market and sell your offer like a bawse – no blank pages, 4am mornings, or overwhelm required.

You go change the world and let me write the words that help you do just that. Deal? Let’s make money moves.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

It’s okay to tell clients no.

Never wanting to lose business or seem inexperienced, I had a habit of not saying no to clients who weren’t the right fit – ones who had not yet validated their offer or were launching for the first time. The issue with delegating copywriting for this sort of thing is you don’t have any data to base your copywriting decisions on – any actual “voice of customer” research, or words from existing or potential clients who have talked about their pain points and desires and how the offer bridges the gap between the two of them. When you don’t have this – you’re making a bit of an educated guess on what words will truly resonate with them.

In these instances, the clients’ launches didn’t do as well. Launches don’t do well for a number of reasons that go way beyond copy, but I thought all hinged on the messaging. While that’s true to a certain extent, so much more is at play: how often and where you’re talking about the offer, how far ahead did you build up anticipation, the size of your audience, how many ideal clients for that offer (not just your business) are aware of it, etc.

When I discovered that telling clients they weren’t ready to delegate copywriting without first validating the offer wasn’t as hard – because I could tell them it might not yield them the results they desired – it was scary.

But it worked. Clients appreciated the hard truth, which illuminated areas they needed to work on more. After all – if you don’t know what your magic is, how can I pull it out of your head and put it into words that you feel truly represent you AND your client?

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

My longest-standing client is a trademark lawyer. Legal feels stuffy and confusing and overwhelming for most entrepreneurs, but if you’re a bit too comical, it can come off as reputation-degrading. (Does my lawyer really know what they’re doing if they’re joking all the time?)

That being said, I thought it’d be interesting to create an email campaign that mimicked the grandiose nature of Super Bowl commercials and how a client would feel like they were a king or queen in the olden days once they received their trademark certificate, and how their kingdom would be no more if they didn’t maintain it properly.

It was a call to action for her trademark maintenance services as well as a reminder that getting the registration is only one part of the process.

I wasn’t sure if it’d feel corny or not – but that was also part of my client’s allure. She was your neighborhood friendly attorney and made legal fun and easy-to-understand, so I took the risk and wrote it. My client loved it.

Needless to say – it was an absolute smash. So many folks responded back saying it had been the most memorable email they’d read – tweeting it out to others – and with inquiry calls coming in at a higher rate.

Contact Info:

• Website: wordwieldingwarrior.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gloriouscopyco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gloriouscopyco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciancastro