14: 6 surprising tools to grow your business & write million-dollar copy
Are you looking for the perfect tools for your business?
If you’ve ever been pregnant, you know that there are some baby gear items that need to be purchased. Back when I was pregnant with my first kid, there was one essential item that I told my husband he must purchase before the baby arrived, and that is my Miss Silva Espresso Machine.
This espresso machine has brought my husband and I so much joy and it is now one of my most important business tools today. It fuels me to create the million-dollar copy I provide to my clients.
In this episode of ill communication, I’m sharing my favorite copywriting, business, and life tools that helped me grow a very successful business and write copy that has made over $2 million for my clients in the last year alone.
I know that there’s probably a tool or two that will help you save time, stay organized, save your sanity, and grow your business with a little more ease.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Why my espresso machine is a must-have
Google Docs and its best features
Why I write copy in tables
How One-tab helps me in my business
Why Gifs are a must-have
My desk
My favorite microphone
So there you have it! Six tools that I use to grow my business. Make sure to check out the links below to the tools I mentioned so you can start using them to grow your business as well.
I’m curious! What are your favorite tools to use in your business? Come find the show on LinkedIn or Instagram and share your favorite tools in the comments.
Resources Mentioned
Link to my tutorial on google doc hacks and using GIFs
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Hey Hey my friend.
If you’ve ever been pregnant or expected a baby, or you know someone who has, you know there is LOT of baby gear that needs to be purchased.
And back in 2007, when I was pregnant with my first kid, there was an essential item on my baby prep checklist.
In fact, I told my husband he MUST purchase this item before the baby arrived.
Only it wasn’t something for the baby.
It was something for me.
The item I so desperately wanted… was an espresso machine, which honestly I think is an essential in any home with a newborn, but especially if you’re a coffee snob like me.
Several years later, this kind of gift-giving was popularized as a “push present” by ANOTHER more famous mom who’se initials are KK --- Kim Kardashian.
It may be the one and only time I was ahead of the curve on something trendy.
That espresso machine brought me and my husband so much joy and saved our sanity through those early parenting years - and likely saved us lots of money buying fancy store-bought coffee in the long-run too.
And it’s one of the most important tools I use in my business today.
My Miss Silvia Espresso MAchine (that’s the actual model name, which I absolutely love) fuels me to write the million dollar copy I provide to my clients.
Hello. And welcome to episode 14 of ill communication.
Today, I’m sharing my favourite copywriting, business and life tools that help me grow a very successful business and help me write copy that’s made over $2Million dollars for my clients in the last year alone.
I know there’s probably a tool or 2 that’ll help you save time, stay organized, and grow your business with a little more ease.
So, we’ve covered the first tool - my Miss Silvia Rancilio espresso machine. Every morning, I have 2-3 espresso machiatos to wake up my brilliance and kickstart my copywriting.
Tool #2 is Google Docs.
I’m obsessed with it. It’s how I write all my copy.
I used to be a Word lover and I thought it would be hard to get into using something else. But honestly, I cannot run my business without Google Docs.
I love that Google Docs can be shared with anyone - and it allows me to share draft versions of copy with my clients. They can review, add comments and I can continue working in the same document. There’s none of the renaming and saving different versions you run into with Word.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I sit down to write, I often find staring at a blank page super overwhelming.
It’s like the expansive blankness plays a trick with my brain and makes me forget all of my words or what I want to write.
So here are 2 hacks I use to get unstuck.
1 hack is super weird: I write my copy in tables.
When I’m writing emails, I open a google doc and insert a table - usually with 2 columns and multiple rows. 1 row is the sender name. 1 row is the subject line. 1 row is the preview text. 1 row is the body copy. Just seeing those sections gives sooth to my brain - so it’s like. Okay. We’re writing the body copy. Now we’re writing the subject line.
If I’m writing web copy, I’ll insert a table with maybe 3 - 4 columns and rows to indicate the different sections on a website. One column might have a image in it, and then I’ll write the copy in an adjacent column.
It seems so silly, but this simple frame within the document gives me an anchor that tricks my brain into writing. I just focus on a section at a time.
The 2nd hack I use is the TEMPLATE library in Google Docs. If you have a common format or type of copy or document you write consistently, you can save it into your template library.
Whenever you’re creating a new version, you just open from the template library, and VOILA, the format or the templated copy is already there for you.
You just update the copy as needed.
When I took on a massive website rewrite project for the Edmonton International Airport, I was responsible for writing - from scratch - over 200 webpages. There were subbrands within the website - like the passenger-facing site, the corporate site, and the rental site. Each brand had a different layout or look. By saving each brand’s table layouts into google doc templates, I saved soooo much time setting up the docs and keeping things consistent across the 3 different brands.
Other features I use consistently in Google Docs:
The Word count feature. Facebook and Instagram ads must be under 2200 characters. So when I’m writing long-form ad copy for clients, I’m always checking word count.
Word count also comes in handy if you’re filling out a form or a grant application where word count is limited.
To count the words, highlight the copy you want to count with your mouse and press CNTRL-SHIFT-C all at the same time. A little window will pop up telling you how many words, characters and pages there are in the document.
The other feature I love is being able to toggle between UPPERCASE and lowercase copy. I copy/paste a lot of copy between docs or from websites to docs, and sometimes the copy is written all in CAPS or in Title Case, where the first letter of every word is capitalized. I’m not a fan of the ALL CAPS and Find Title Case annoying. But rather than re-writing the whole headline or sentence, or editing individual letters, I use my mouse to highlight the sentence I need to change, and then under HELP in the Google Doc navigation I type lowercase - which makes the whole sentence lowercase! YOu can also find this by navigating to Format>TEXT> Capitalization and choosing uppercase, lowercase or title case.
It’s such a funny little feature that brings me so much joy. I’m such a nerd.
There are a few other reasons why I love using Google Docs, but I think those are my top and most-used features and hacks for writing.
In the show notes, I’ll link to a resource to show you how I sent up my tables, templates and how to use some of these features.
Another tool I cannot live without when I’m writing copy is One-Tab.
It’s a Google Chrome extension that helps you when you have “a million tabs open” in your browser.
Maybe you have to stop what you’re working on and take a call or go to a meeting - or maybe it’s the end of the day, but you have all these tabs open for different things you’re researching.
One-Tab helps you save all those open tabs into a list of hyperlinks so the next time you turn on your computer or open your browser, you can go back to open all the tabs at once, or just pick and choose. You can also share with other people your list of links, which might come in handy on a collaboration project, or if you’re looking at different hotels for a vacation you’re planning.
One-Tab is a gamechanger for me and keeps me from losing time to search and find webpages or files.
The next tool I”m going to share is probably going to age me.
Apparently, it’s a tool that Gen Z and younger call cringey.
But as a Gen Xer - and as someone who writes for a lot clients who serve Gen X audiences, I love it.
And, there’s data to show that using this free tool INCREASES your email engagement by 75% and your return on investment by 105%.
The tool is the glorious GIF. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format - and they’re the little animated videos you can add to texts, social posts and embed into your emails.
You can source GIFs that reference popular culture, like Ross’s famous PIVOT scene from friends or anything from Schitt’s creek.
You can even make your own GIFs - but I’m not qualified to teach you how to do that.
GIFs help humanize and lighten up an email.
The tiny video catches our eye and begs us to read on and engage with the email.
My favorite source for GIFs is GIPHY.com, and I’ll link to it in the shownotes, along with a tutorial on how to insert a GIF into a document.
I encourage you to experiment with using GIFs in your emails - just know that you might go down the GIPHY rabbit hole searching for the perfect GIF. And, If your audience is Gen Z or younger, then you might want to pass, because apparently it’s cringe. As with all things in marketing, start with knowing your audience.
2 other essential tools I want to share that have been instrumental in building my business - are my desk and my microphone!
When I started my freelance copywriting business, I knew there’d be a lot of typing. So one of the first things I purchased for my business was a standing desk converter, by Mount-It.
My standing desk converter holds my keyboard and mouse on one level and my laptop and extra monitor on the top level. I press a lever and can move from sit to stand in a second.
I prefer to stand for client meetings, and it prevents me from spending the whole day sitting while I research and write copy.
10/10 highly recommend. An amazon affiliate link is in the shownotes so you can check it out.
And my last favourite tool is this mic I’m using to speak with you right now.
It’s the Rode NT-USB Mini Condenser Microphone. I’ll drop the link to it in the shownotes.
I bought it about 2 years ago so I’d have better audio quality than using my built-in mic on my laptop, or farting around with airpods or earbuds all the time.
This mic is small and petite - it doesn’t take up a bunch of space on my desk. IT’s easy to use - just plug it into your computer with the USB cord. There’s a built-in pop filter, so it’s great for recording audio.
It’s powerful enough that I don’t need to have it right up to my face during zoom meetings - but it still improves the audio quality.
When I’ve guested on other podcasts, the hosts often say, “wow you sound really good”
And I wasn’t sure if it would be “good enough” when I started this podcast, but so far, so good. I guess you can tell me if you think the sound quality sucks or not.
Regardless, for around $100 this mic has served me so well on meetings and to grow my audience through podcasting.
So there you have it. 6 tools that help me write million dollar copy and save my sanity as a business owner.
I’ll whip up and share a little video and google doc tutorial to show you how I use GIFs, tables, and some of the features in Google Doc. Plus I’ll drop links to the other tools I mentioned in this episode. Check the shownotes for all of that.
But I’m curious!
What are YOUR favorite tools in your business. Come find the episode post on LinkedIn or Instagram and your FAVE tools in the comments.
Thanks for joining me today. Catch you next episode.
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