#126: Student Spotlight Series: Anna Powers, Founder & CEO of the Clickworthy Copywriting Certification
“It was such an incredible experience. The way Laura teaches and mentors- if anybody listening has never really experienced that directly, Laura just has this calming presence. She could be talking about the most complicated thing and she makes it feel so relaxed and easy. She’s a fantastic teacher and able to present things in a way that just makes you feel like oh, of course, there's that option. Why didn't I think of that right there in front of me?”
- Anna Powers, Founder & CEO of the Clickworthy Copywriting Certification.
In this episode, Anna and I jump in to discuss the:
Confidence consulting gave her
Benefits of being a lifetime learner
Reason she decided to take my Fractional Freedom Incubator
Tune in to hear about Anna’s past life as a lawyer and how consulting is opening her up to a brand new chapter!
Learn more about Anna here: https://www.saraannapowers.com or on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/saraannapowers/.
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Listen to the Show:
Laura 00:02
Welcome to Next Level Leap, a podcast where we dive into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company and creating a legacy brand. As a top growth strategist, multi passionate entrepreneur, membership site owner, trainer, speaker, author and mom to three. I love exploring the journey of how we as founders can multiply our income impact and influence by landing on the other side of our next big leap. Let's get started!
Laura 00:43
Hello, everybody, welcome back to the Next Level Leap Podcast. I'm so excited to introduce you to Anna Powers. She has an extensive copywriting background and she's also the founder and CEO of the click worthy copywriting certification. So welcome, Anna.
Laura 00:59
Thank you, Laura. I am so excited to be here. I just have the chance to chat with you. I always enjoy catching up with you.
Laura 01:05
Yeah, we are such like-minded souls. You were one of our fractional freedom consulting students, and now you're in the abundant consultant mastermind. But share with us a little bit about your business background before you decided to round out your skill set with consulting.
Anna 01:22
Yes, so I started my professional career as a civil litigator. So I practiced law actually for eight and a half years. And I got about five years into my practice and thought, there must be a better way to use to use these skills. There were parts of the job that I loved, which was really like the analysis and the putting together the arguments. There are parts that I didn't love, like not much human contact, and me well enough to know I'm a real people person. I like interacting with people and brainstorming ideas. And it was just a lot of researching in an office by yourself. So five years into the into my law practice, I started a business. I've actually started in a completely different niche, but found copywriting about two years in and that just once I started writing, copy and studying the craft of conversion copywriting, I knew I was home, I have found that thing. So I did my first six figures in business, actually, while I was still practicing law full time, and that was all done for you copywriting. So I was not married at the time. I just spent every waking hour you know, working for incredible business owners putting together email campaigns and sales pages. And then in 2018, went full time in my business started offering some leverage programs around messaging. So I got really interested in what you were doing with consulting because we're now at the level with my copywriting. That for me to take a done for you project. You know, we're really looking at the high seven, eight figure entrepreneurs I might take a handful a year my I'm primarily training and certifying copywriters that can go out and build businesses like what I built, you know, when I was just thinking
there's got to be a better way than law. And so but I but I love the strategy of it. And I have a lot of experience, particularly in the online courses coaching info, product space.
Anna 03:23
I've written for some incredible people like Michael Hyatt and CO and, you know, big launches, and I really enjoy it. So when I found out that you are doing fractional freedom, I just thought, well, this is a no brainer, because what better way to leverage your skill set still be incredibly valuable to a company but not be in that not be the one who's doing all the doing once you get to a certain stage of you know, having grown your business to certain level is kind of, you know, gets dicey. You got to charge such high rates to be able to justify the value of your time when your business reaches a certain level. So I think consulting, you know, allows you to still use those skills and make it make sense for your business as well.
Laura 04:10
That makes so much sense. I love that you've shared this progress in this journey of getting really good at copywriting understanding the nuances of it certifying other people in your process and methodology. And then what I'm hearing you say is just feeling like you're ready for that bigger picture, like feeling like you want to work on all of the strategy. You don't necessarily want to be the doing pieces like we every company needs the doers, right like yes, that's what makes this strategy work. At what point do you think people just speaking to other done for you service providers, like copywriters? At what point do you think that they might? It might be a sign that they're outgrowing that stage of their business?
Anna 04:50
Yeah, well, I think one thing is when you're so constantly booked up, you're literally just turning people away. And frankly, that's actually a big reason why we started this certification is because we saw such a huge uptick in the demand for done for you copywriters in 2020 in the wake of hurry than I have in that year. And so I was just one person and I couldn't possibly take all these jobs. And so I was sending a lot of business away. And so I think when you're at that place where calendar is so full that, you know, if you're doing done for you, whether it's copy, or Facebook ads or anything service based, that it's like, you know, people want to work with you. But there's no more you to go around, I think looking at consulting is a great option. Because you know what I learned from you, when you're working as a consultant, you're working with people who have the doers in place. Yeah. So it's not like they're being deprived of the doers.
Laura 05:54
You're just setting the high level picture. And frankly, that's what I was doing with my biggest copywriting clients. Anyways, I was already doing all the strategy and you know, a lot of the oh, okay, we're mapping out this email sequence, well, let's add this upsell or, you know, let's
make sure that we think about this additional kind of reminder for this person who signed up for the thing, but didn't show up, you know, let's write a different message for them. So you're doing a lot of the strategy anyways. And I think when you're getting so booked out, that, you know, there's no more space consulting is, it's a great time to look at consulting.
Laura 06:31
Yeah, that's such great advice. And then also, what about sort of that internal journey? So that's more of like the customer facing? Right. But what is it? Like? At what point do you feel like, you've accomplished something like you've mastered it right, and you're ready to master something else? Is that is that part of it, too?
Anna 06:51
I definitely think that's a huge part of it. Because if you're going to get into something like consulting, you want to feel confident with whatever curveballs are thrown your way. And so I think you will start to know, internally, if you relish those challenges. And you think when you hear something, you know, a client comes to you with sort of a curveball question. You're like, oh, interesting, let's think about how we could work with that. And instead of being frightened by it, you're like, ooh, intrigued by it. Mm hmm. And it's probably I mean, you can speak to this better than I think, Laura, but I would imagine that there are particular personality types that are perhaps a little more geared toward consultant or maybe not personality types. But like, if you're someone who just enjoys a challenge, and enjoys digging in and kind of like unraveling all the pieces is probably going to be a better option for you than if you're someone who prefers to have you know, a A to Z checklist that you're just kind of like dot, dot, dot, dot, you know, checking it off. So I've always found, I mean, that's, that's one of the things I loved about law that I'm so happy I get to still do in this current iteration of my work is looking at all the different angles and putting together the best argument or the best message or the best plan.
Laura 08:14
That's so good, and you still get to do that, from a messaging standpoint, when you're consulting, and most of my clients that I've worked with, at some point had to redo their messaging for to support the strategy. And that's been really fascinating. As I'm starting to certify more and more consultants and seeing who is a great fit to continue on into the mastermind, what types of people it really is that lifelong learner personality, it really is that growth oriented person, it's really interesting, because, you know, for many of us, we might accomplish something, or we might master something, and it loses its interest. I know that I'm that way. The thing about consulting is that you never really fully master it. There's always a different perspective or angle, there's a new way of thinking there's a way to invert the problem. Or there's a strategy that you learned on one client that you could apply to future clients, you start using to build your toolbox. And it's really interesting, because in fractional freedom, I try to put like the base level toolbox in place. And then in the mastermind, that's
where I'm really bringing more challenges to the table of like, this is what I'm seeing with clients. These are trends I'm seeing, and I think probably anyone who's listening who's felt like the two of us, you know, we're not really super interested in entry level business conversations. While we could both probably be more than capable of having them, they're not as interesting. They're not as motivating. They're not as exciting to us as more advanced business problems. And that's what I have loved about being a consultant to be honest and just the intellectual stimulation. And because for so many of us, you know, who are listening. It's like when you're not having intellectually stimulating business conversations, I'm changing diapers, I am, you know, chasing a tennis ball, which is, you know, which is involves strategy. So I guess that's a theme in that area of my life. But we're managing sports schedules, we're doing all of these things. And it's just really nice to like, stretch yourself in your work. And I found that to be really rewarding.
Anna 10:30
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I was the before I went to law school, I did teach high school English for one year, and I was the total dork who walked into the classroom and saw all the books and was like, Yes, oh, these books, oh, my gosh, I'm so at home. And it's just, you know, I think you said it best when you said lifelong learner of, oh, let me grab a little of this, and a little of that, and see how this can kind of shape a perspective and offer a new viewpoint. And, and I will also say, you know, from a consulting standpoint, the opportunity to be involved with businesses and owners, who have built incredible, incredible businesses that are making huge impacts in the world. You know, and I've been able to do that with copywriting as well, you know, some of the people I've gotten to write for, I used to follow them, you know, before I have a business, I followed them. And so it's, it's really, I consider it just an honor to be able to speak some wisdom into those businesses, and to help them further their mission and the opportunity to get behind some of the missions that are really also close to your heart and impactful to causes that you care about or you know, they're just accomplishing things in the world and a market that you believe in so strongly.
Laura 11:56
Yeah, you know, it's so interesting that you say that, because I didn't expect to have the client base that is my fastest growing segment right now, which is nonprofit. And so I have traditionally, as part of my consulting, career served female founded seven and eight figure info product businesses. But in the last six months or so, a nonprofit component has started to grow exponentially. And my first project and this is through Notre Dame University and their lab for economic development is through how this work is coming to me. And my first client is getting is wrapping up right now as a project. And it is a nonprofit that helps underestimated aspiring black female entrepreneurs in Nashville get started in entrepreneurship. And it's a 12 week in person course, it's called the academy. If anybody's listening and you know, somebody who's a good fit, make sure you send them their way, when you go to their website,
you're going to see a webinar funnel, which is, you know, not typical in nonprofit. But I taught them what it was and show them how to build it. And we help them understand what good looks like, and they tripled their enrollment. And it was within like, a three month period. And it was so rewarding to think like gosh. You know, here, I'm a business consultant, when people ask me what I do. I'm like, business strategy, trained consultants, I do some consulting, consulting mastermind. But it was like kind of mind blowing, like, all of a sudden, I pictured all of these people sitting in a classroom learning about entrepreneurship, some of whom will go on to grow high impact businesses in the Nashville area, who may have considered themselves the type of person that couldn't be an entrepreneur, right. And this in this program is transforming that belief as well as skill building, and thinking like, wow, I just did that like over zoom, you know, like, it's, it's amazing. And it's so it's just, it's really exciting to see the impact that we can make as consultants, both in the for profit and nonprofit space.
Anna 13:56
I think it's so exciting to be able to back in a tangible way, businesses that you believe in and lend your skillset and your gifts to support their missions. And it's like, I believe in so many ways, you know, we're created for relationship. And that's what business is to, it's solving problems for people. So, you know, when we get to build those meaningful relationships, even as we're doing work, I think that's just, it's just such a gift. And I really think that's what work is intended to be, you know, whatever you're doing, like, it should feel like your work matters. And when you put your head, you know, cheesy as it sounds on the pillow at night, you know, that you think wow, like, I helped someone move forward today. And that's powerful.
Laura 14:41
It is. And I think being motivated by that relationship also is probably the characteristic of a really good consultant. I think sometimes we think about the consultants in a traditional sense, and I have people who come my way, sometimes that they see it, as you know, working in a big six firm you know, being in a whiteboard with a pantsuit on, they don't see it in the way that I do it. And in a lot of ways I fell into it and just had some amazing relationships of people who needed the help that I had to offer and, and really built it up from that place. And I think when we do it, the way we do it we approach and the way that we approach it, where we're emotionally invested, which of course, we have to make sure that we have really good scope and boundaries around the mistakes that people make with consulting. You weren't in that category. But some of the people in fractional freedom you saw, we're trying to figure out how to dial that back.
Anna 15:35
The only reason I probably wouldn't have fallen into that is that I learned so much from doing all the done for you coffee that I've definitely made the scope and boundary mistakes, but I try
to learn my lessons like, you know, not have to go through it three, three or more times to learn it, like let's keep it to one to two.
Laura 15:53
Yeah, and, you know, I think too, with scope and boundaries, sometimes we see so much opportunity, we get so excited, and we want to give them everything. And at the same time, we are really honest, they can't handle it. Like they can't handle all of the strategy and all of the ideas at the same time anyways, they don't have the capacity for it, they don't the team size for it, you know, many of the companies that we're working with are between maybe five and $20 million in revenue, maybe one at the lowest. So they're not going to have you know, a marketing team of 15 people that can implement all the things next week. Yeah. So, you know, part of what I teach is also like, space it out, you know, like space out the strategy, make sure they can do it, well hold their hand through it, then bring in something new, knowing that they may have one or two people in the marketing function at the most, right, yes, the companies we're working with. And we have to balance it out with the other priorities that are already on their plate. And then with nonprofit, there was even like another layer to that, that I never really understood, because I'm fairly new to nonprofit I used to I was calling them leads and things like that. And they were all like, participants, and I was like, like, I was like Sorry, sorry. For profit. This is my for profit language. I can transfer it anywhere you'd like. It'd be like money in there, like impact. I'm like, similar, like I've, you know, worked with people who are writing copy for dentists and you know, doctors, and it's like, those are patients.
Laura 17:21
Right? Yeah, they're not dollar signs. Yeah. Yeah. It's not about cart value. Yeah, but it kind of is. So we have to figure out how to translate it, right. But it's, it's just so interesting, because you I really have so much empathy for nonprofit leaders now. Because not only is their job to maximize enrollments or participants, but it's also to maximize donor dollars. And so they're wearing two different very important and conflicting marketing house with two different marketing messages. So for example, another nonprofit, as I was sharing with you, before we started recording that I'm getting involved with helps children of incarcerated adults, right. So the children's parents are in jail, and provides them with support services and free camps and things like that. Well, the message to donors is, you know, is stop the stop the cycle, right, like, stop, stop the incarceration cycle, you know, break multi-generational patterns, you know, provide them with a support system, so they don't end up a statistic, right? Very compelling marketing message for donors, the caretakers, like the single moms or the grandparents raising those kids, they're not thinking about that, right? They're just thinking about, like, how do I get through my week? Like, I'm not really worried about my eight year old going to jail, I'm more worried about like, what am I going to do with them all summer, because I work full time. Like, that's more their pain. So it's really interesting to see that, that challenge and help them navigate that. But there, you know, it's there. It's fascinating, you can probably hear the
excitement in my voice and your voice as well just love it about the different challenges and how to overcome them. So we can help companies that we serve make the greatest impact. But when you kind of look out, I mean, you have this great business right now, you've had tremendous success. You're known in the industry as somebody who has accomplished quite a bit with your certification program and celebrity clientele like when you look out how do you see consulting being added into the mix for your company?
Anna 19:25
Yeah, so we will continue to grow our certification- we've just wrapped our best ever launched and put nearly 70 people into the certification for this current round. We then have a follow on program. It's a longer program certification is 90 days, that is all focused on building the business of copywriting so that we can kind of like your training consultants. You know, I'm training copywriters who can go do the doing and really be able to get people results? So where I see consulting fitting into this mix is to allow me to continue doing some of that slightly done for you work, like keeping my hand in the current polls not just with our own promotions because obviously we're running pretty sizable promotions ourselves, but also keeping my hand in some other very successful businesses and making sure that I have my finger on the pulse of what is working in the market right now. Being able to provide that service to those businesses also can be, you know, potentially some great collaboration opportunities. Should those businesses need qualified copywriters? You know, we have a whole roster, that's a service that we provide for no additional charge to our certified writers is we have a directory page, and they get jobs booked someone messaged me recently, she got a five figure job just from someone looking at our directory page, and reading their bios, and you know, just clicking and you can connect with all of our writers directly, you don't have to go through me or our company, you know, other than like, looking at the page. So I could see there, you know, being potential for, if I'm consulting for, you know, someone who's like, oh, we would love to do this. And we need another writer for that we'll have a great pool of amazing writers who are hungry for opportunities. And I think just, you know, I love this whole world of strategy, and, you know, businesses, businesses that are looking to create a positive impact in the world, that's really important to me that whoever I'm involved with, is really doing something that I can feel great about getting behind. And so I just see it being, you know, a handful of high level clients that I work with personally, as I continue to build and serve in the groups that we have.
Laura 21:46
It's so awesome, I know that you'll attract the right people. Because I was hearing you speak. And I was like thinking, Gosh, I've never worked with a client where I don't like really believe in their mission. And I think when we put out that, that excitement about working with clients who have shared values that really does attract them, you know, look at that messaging works. Right. This is a page from your book. So thank you so much for being here, sharing your experience, if somebody was thinking about joining fractional freedom and potentially going
into the mastermind, what's Is there any advice or anything that you would want to share with them?
Anna 22:33
I would just share it, it was such an incredible experience. The way, Laura, that you teach and mentor, if anybody listening has never really experienced that directly, Laura just has this like calming presence of you could be talking about the most complicated thing that you make it feel so relaxed and easy. And you're a fantastic teacher, and that you're able to present things in a way that just makes them feel like oh, of course, there's that option. Why didn't I think of that it's right there in front of me. And it's, honestly, I take a ton of programs, you know, I love learning lifelong learner. And it's one of the most well laid out well thought out programs that I've taken in years. It's just very, it's very well designed. And that matters, you know, so it's one of the programs that, you know, I'm notorious for grabbing courses. And the way that I look at it is, hey, if I can get one nugget out, I'll make my money back. Like I'm not, you know, I can apply one little strategy, and we'll make the money back for about you to $3,000 program. But yours, I actually wanted to do every single lesson, I wanted to watch every video, look at every handout, because it's so well organized. And you're not giving a bunch of fluff and filler. It's all very pertinent. So I would say to anybody who's interested in consulting, like it is the program to take, and you will, I think, be delighted with the wealth of knowledge that you're going to gain because it's, it's not going to fit, it's going to feel like it's all a very natural progression. And then you're going to look back at the end and be like, Whoa, I learned so much from this. So yeah, I would say go all in, go for it.
Laura 24:20
Oh my gosh, that's so good to hear. And thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you so much for sharing that with the listeners. I think a lot of people will be listening to this podcast episode because they'll be curious and whether or not it's a good fit for them. And I think the way you just described it and helped the right person, know if it's the fit for them. It's just I'm really grateful. Thank you so much for saying that and sharing that.
Anna 24:39
And I want to share one more thing to just the caliber of people that you attracted into the program was it was a really high bar, you know, and a lot of times we think when we're going into a program like you know, I want to get I'm going to go because I'm going to I want this information. I like this teacher, but you know, we'll see who else shows up. And I just love the conversations in the Slack channel, and also on the calls, and you also provided wonderful support, you know, as far as like the touch points that we could have with you and with your team. And so I found that to be also a really valuable aspect of the program was just the caliber, because I think it is a certain caliber of person who knows that consulting is going to be right for them. So you're going to be connecting with other people who have beautiful networks
and very generous people who all want to see each other succeed and want to help each other on that path.
Laura 25:33
Thank you for sharing that. And I was surprised-pleasantly surprised. Yeah, but the same thing you know, that people who came into the program who applied for the program, so if you're listening and you're not sure to fit, go ahead and apply, we'll let you know. We'll be really honest with you. But the truth is consulting is probably not for everybody. And it certainly I wouldn't say certainly but it's likely not if you're new to business, or that you are new to any type of consulting and because it does take a certain caliber to attract and serve the type of clients that we're looking to help and if it's not the right time now maybe do some I think done for you is a great bridge you know start with done for you get in the weeds-have your lessons learned you know, get your hands dirty, right. I think most people in our program came from a done for you background I came from done for you branding, that's how I started out my consulting and then moved to direct response consulting and then and then build that confidence build that business acumen so that you can move into consulting so thank you for sharing that and thank you for just being you you're so awesome. It was so great to have you on all the calls smiling and nodding and enthusiastic and a contributing to the conversations and I completely agree with you there was a lot of people coming from behind the scenes of very high level businesses and a few front facing influencers as well like yourself is so exciting. So if people want to connect with you, they want to learn more about you they're interested in your click worthy copywriting certification what's the best way for them to reach out?
Anna 27:05
Yeah, well thank you so much for having me on the show so excited to get the opportunity to just you know have a conversation with you and also to share about you know what we do with copywriting and what you're doing with the consulting so the best place to find me My website is Sarah Anna powers there's no h on the Sarah so it looks kind of funny like saraannapowers.com And then I'm also an Instagram at Sarah Anna Powers, you can DM me, I'm super responsive, there's I really I am a people person. So I do like, you know, if you found value in this, like, I'd love to hear from you. And you know, if you have questions for me happy to answer them. And then if you're interested in copywriting as potentially a business or even if you're a business owner, and you just know you're not seeing the conversions, and you feel like it's probably your messaging that's holding you back, we have a great FREE guide. And you can find that at saraannapowers.com/guide. So super easy. It's a guide to the business of copywriting. And it'll really talk with you about what do you need to be considering in your copy and messaging. And in particular, there's a section that has seven specific strategies you can use to uplevel your conversions and your sales through your copy so that's probably would be really helpful for some of your business owners in the crowd.
Laura 28:27
That's so awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it Sarah Anna with no H and make sure to check her out make sure to say hello and make sure to tell other people about this podcast and about Anna when you when you get a listen. Thanks so much for being here.
Laura 28:46
Make sure to visit our website yournextlevelleap.com where you can subscribe to the show in Apple podcasts, Stitcher or RSS, so you never miss a show. And while you're at it, if you found value in what you heard today, we would love a rating on Apple podcast. Or if you simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too. Thank you so much for listening!
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.