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Ghostwriting: The Secret Weapon to Grow Your Business (with Derek Little) · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you were a business leader, wouldn't you like to have a secret weapon that can help grow your business?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a writer, wouldn't you like to be the secret weapon that helps a company grow?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my guest today is going to introduce us to the secret weapon and how you can use it to grow your business or serve other businesses.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello my friend.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kent Sanders from Inkwell Ghostwriting.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this episode of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a show that helps you grow your business, amplify your authority, and increase your impact through the power of writing.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thanks so much for joining me on this episode.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what is the secret weapon that I mentioned at the beginning?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the secret weapon is ghostwriting.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited to bring you an interview with Derek Little, who is a business-to-business copywriter and ghostwriter.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Derek specializes in writing about enterprise software and emerging technology such as blockchain.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Derek calls himself the results-driven copywriter because he believes writing should help fill the gaps in your sales process.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Derek is also the host of the Be2Be Marketing Trends Podcast and author of the book, The B2B Marketer's Journey.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And in this conversation, Derek is going to address copywriting for businesses from two standpoints.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: He'll talk about some of the ways that he helps companies succeed with ghostwriting through his company, Trailblazer Writing, but he'll also address it from the writer's angle.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Derek also shares how he became a writer and some important lessons he's learned along the way.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great conversation.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a ton, and I know you're going to benefit from it as well.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get right into the conversation with Derek Little.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Derek, thanks so much for joining me on the show today.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: We connected on LinkedIn, and I'm so glad that we did because you have a fascinating story and I can't wait to dive into it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me, Kent.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you uh bringing me on your show.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So let's kick things off by having you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started into ghostwriting.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I see ghostwriting as kind of an extension of my copywriting.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I started out as a copywriter and that kind of led to ghostwriting, and I kind of do both.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I consider myself a ghost a copywriter first, and then ghostwriting is like an extension of my services.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: But how I got into the copywriting, it's kind of uh what you might call a rags to riches story.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what's what's unique about it is it happened to me three times.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh basically I got into three careers, and each time uh I was kind of my career or my my business was displaced by technology.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I was kind of disrupted by technology.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I can empathize with all the people out there that are worried about losing their job to technology and all the modern technologies because that happened to me over and over.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I got started when I first got out of college.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: I went to college really young and like 17, and I studied, I specialize I studied advertising illustration, specializing in storyboards for uh TV commercials.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, interesting.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just at it for about a year or so.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: I worked for a small business, small agency, and then I started freelancing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I was working, I actually had a lot of success, although the industry was booming at the time, and uh I started making really good money.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was working with like Jay Walter Thompson, it's a big agency, Ogyan Mather.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh work and I I'd go in and work with a writer and an art director, like a creative team, and uh it was kind of exciting.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I was work so I was creating really high-quality commercial storytelling and messaging.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but unfortunately, I wasn't very good at marketing, and I didn't really know how to market myself.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh we ran into a recession.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, uh at that time I was making like 75 grand a year.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing really well at a really young age, and then the recession just put a huge damper on things.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of agencies, I guess advertising is the first thing to go in a recession, and uh I had to kind of uh reinvent myself.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know how to find more work, uh, I just was like a technician, and all this new technology was coming out at that time, like Apple and stuff like that.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Apple computers, desktop publishing, and uh I did a number of different part-time jobs.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I drove a cab for a while, I did stuff, and this is in Toronto, Canada.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I lived in downtown Toronto, and uh eventually I realized you know I need to start a new career.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I I went back to college and I studied mechanical engineering and uh computer science, and that got me into uh B2B sales.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was selling welding machines to manufacturing companies, so it was basically door-to-door sales, and I learned a lot about B2B marketing, but there wasn't a lot of future in that particular career, so I went around to recruitment agencies looking for a better job, and they offered me a job, uh, three of them actually.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I started working for one particular agency that specialized in IT.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where I learned all about IT, uh, all about hardware, software, everything to do with technology.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh after about a year, I decided to create my own agency because it's it wasn't that complicated.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: You just need a desk and a phone and a computer, and that's it.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're making a lot of calls.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I started my own agency focused on technology called Top Technology Talent.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And my slogan was see you at the top.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and what I did was like when I worked for the the agency, they had me cold call.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I would go into work and they gave me these 500 three by five inch cards and a phone book and a phone.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Okay, you gotta make 25 calls a day.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I would call the company, I get the name of the decision maker.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Usually it would go through to voice voicemail, I'd leave them a message and say, uh, you know, hello, I we're doing I'm I'm offering a cost per hire analysis.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we I would analyze their hiring practices, and then I'd write their name down in the card, I'd leave them this voicemail, and I put the card at the bottom of the pile.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I work my way through the pile, and by the end of the month, I'd be back to the first card.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you do that month after month after month, and then the leads start coming in, and this is B2B marketing.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is it means it's B2B, that's which is what I ideal, you know, marketing businesses to other businesses as opposed to consumer marketing.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's very slow and it's very you know, it takes a while to make a dent on people, and this is this is hasn't really changed.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that'll ever change in B2B.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but I in my own business, I developed a new approach.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So what I did was uh I was working with a uh I found a software company that created software for parsing resumes and like it's called an applicant tracking system.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I placed a couple candidates for them.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they gave me uh licenses for their software.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I I researched all the uh software companies in Toronto and added all their job postings into my database, and then I found a good candidate, and I would market that candidate directly to 10 targeted companies or so.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was really had a lot of success with that approach, and I was making like about$120,000 a year.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was going really good, and then more technology.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the two major newspapers in our country, Canada, got together the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, and they came out with this job site called Workopolis.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, there's a recession, and it just wiped out that whole industry.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And like I was right back to square one again.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I I went back to college again and I studied uh information technology this time and uh what's called enterprise resource planning.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh then I got a job uh for a small software company, kind of as their marketing and salesperson, selling what's called RFID technology.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I marketed it kind of an old school approach uh for about six months, and I said to the the the guys running the company, you know, look, we need a website, we need content, we need uh we need marketing materials because I'm I'm going around giving a PowerPoint presentation, cold calling.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: It just was and there are companies out there right now still doing this, like they just haven't you know got with it yet.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I said to them, either we create a website or I quit.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: So they said, fine, but you build it, you write the content.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of my first copywriting job.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So what's really interesting about this story is that at that time, like four months earlier, I had knocked on the door of uh the Toronto Transit Commission, which is also known as the TTC, it's the transit system in Toronto, and trying to introduce this software system.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, it was a system for tracking security guards.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I won't go into it, it's kind of complicated, but uh I had filled out their vendor agreement and I kept following up with them and no results.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Then we created the website and I had developed this PowerPoint, we put it on the website, I created case studies.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Three days later, I got a phone call from a senior manager in the security department at TTC.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Derek, we found your website, we read your case studies, we we looked at your PowerPoint, we just want you to come in and show us that it works, and we'll buy it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I set up a meeting with them, and literally it was like a week later, I was in, I gave a presentation to all these executives, and a week later they bought the system.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like a$10,000 sale.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy, I never forget what the guy said to me.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: He said, you know, it normally takes us six months to buy something because they're heavily funded by the government, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You've set a new record for us, you know, for us to buy something and give you the check within two weeks.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's just unheard of.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's never happened before.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that made me realize it's just, you know, I gotta get into this technology thing.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem that I had is I made a mistake.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was about the website.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was because of the website.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh I started creating a website company.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I should have realized it's really the copywriting and the writing that did the work.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was the website.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was a mistake.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh I tried launching a website company for a few years, and I realized this is four jobs in one like computer programming, web design, writing, project management.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I decided to focus on the writing.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how I got into the copywriting.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that that's quite a story, and I think it's fascinating because you just you went from one thing leading you to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, which I think is a great lesson for us, in that sometimes you just need to do the next thing and learn whatever skill that is that that opportunity has for you, because then that can lead you to something else.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's true.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that gives me a lot of uh that's actually really comforting because I think all of us work that way on some level.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we wonder.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we wonder, okay, what's the next big opportunity that I need, or what's the next direction that I need to go?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it's just taking the opportunity that's right in front of you that maybe isn't what you were thinking about, but that thing can lead to something that's greater or the next step for you or or whatever it is.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate you sharing that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a great story.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it was it was uh it was a real struggle, and it was realizing that this is the opportunity is really in the writing.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh because I I fumbled a little bit getting started, you know, where who can hire me?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like who's got the budget for this and how do I make a living at this?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it would be it became a full-time thing for me, so I was under a lot of pressure.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And also a big question for me though was because you know, I was in my 40s and I thought, like, okay, I don't want to get back into a corporate job.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And like if I'm gonna do this, I want to do something that I really want to do.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, like I don't want to do something so I can make a million dollars so that I don't have to do what I had to do to make a million dollars and do what I really want to do.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to do what I want to do.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: But so I thought, you know, what what am I really passionate about?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, it's always been the technology and what's new and what's innovative.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I decided to focus.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, the writing is as much about the technology, writing about technology as it is the writing.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us about your your company.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, would you call it a company or an agency, trailblazer writing?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: What's the proper terminology?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I would call it a company.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's mainly me.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I have a couple support staff.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't uh I've never really outsourced to writers or anything like that.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the one that's doing all the writing, so it's it's just a company.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what's unique about your company and how do you help other companies succeed with ghostwriting?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh I would say one well, several things.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um first of all, uh again, copywriting, ghostwriting, they're kind of the same thing.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've written about a lot of different topics as a copywriter.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, a lot, I'm I I call myself the cloud copywriting specialist right now.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I like that.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm kind of focused on cloud cloud can be just about anything now.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean I I've written about cybersecurity, blockchain, AI, facial recognition technology, data science.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and one company contacted me, just they just found my website, and uh they're one of the biggest companies in in the world, too.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're like a global organization.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was shocked that they want to hire me.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was a I won't name the company, but it was a big, big company, and uh they wanted to create a ghostwriting piece for one of their employees.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Turned out to be a vice president, and uh but it it wasn't uh they wanted to control the message.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: So they I I didn't interview the executive, I interviewed one of their senior marketing directors, and we talked about the problem that they were trying to solve, and uh you know what what the result that they wanted to get from the content, and uh I took a couple uh white papers that that they gave me and I repurposed them into this uh thought leadership article.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of got me into the ghostwriting and uh so that kind of got me into blockchain, and I started writing about uh blockchain and I kind of got interested in cryptocurrency for a while, and then I started interviewing all these blockchain CEOs.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I must have interviewed like a hundred blockchain CEOs.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the some of them Yeah, yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, I partnered with a uh an event company that specializes in blockchain, and I said, Hey, you know, you've got all these people coming to your event, why don't you let me interview them and I'll do a little you know write-up on them, and you this can help you promote your event.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they thought that was a great idea, and they were actually trying to convince them to do that, so that worked out great for them.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh some of them hired me to ghostwrite for them, and uh that got me into you know interviewing even more CEOs, and I got picked up a few like blockchain clients.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's so innovative though, blockchain.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of these companies are not really at the stage where they you know can create a content marketing strategy, it's more PR and uh promotional content.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I had I had the the one of the most interesting companies that I started working with was this blockchain company that has created this product that's now going into the pilot phase and being used by the US Department of Homeland Security.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's yeah.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So they they were thrilled that I mean they work with some great B2B companies and they were a B2B, it's a B2B product, it's not a business to consumer like buyer tokens kind of thing.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: It did they're serious business and serious clients.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: They were thrilled to land uh this government client and they wanted to write about it, and they came to me and they thought that I was gonna write a press release for them.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when they told me about what they were doing, I I said, you know, there's a real story here.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like this this could be really interesting, and they they they went with it.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: They said, okay, Derek, what do you think?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, well, you know, I mean, your your system is helping the uh the border border control protection prevent all prevent all this intellectual property, uh fake uh IP, intellectual property IP, from getting into the country, and most of it's coming from China, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you go around to these dollar stores, it's all from China.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the stuff in Walmart is made in China, but China, in China, there's all these manufacturing companies that are experts at manufacturing and reverse engineering products, and they're taking American products, iPhones, you name it, and they're making them and selling them kind of on the black market, and they're all coming in, and the US Department of Homeland Security has got to sort through all this stuff.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they thought blockchain would be a good solution.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, in helping these guys create an article, I said, you know, we should tell this uh you know bigger story of what's going on.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, Donald Trump had these uh, you know, uh tariffs on China.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: So this is hot in the news.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the issue of IP was really interesting when you drill down to it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I created this like a like a full article for them.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: They just thought it was a press release, and they thought, wow, you know, this is great.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we told the whole story of what's going on at the end, it kind of linked in their product and then what's unique about their product.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it turned into a great piece for them.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I have my own blockchain news site called blockchaintrailblazers.com, and I posted it there.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than ghostwriting it for them, they said, Derek, we just want you to write it as if you're the author, because you've got this news site for blockchain.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I posted it there, and I have tracking tools, and it got 1,100 uh visitors in the first week.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was great, and then it was posted on other sites too.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I actually did a podcast for this on my podcast site, and the point that I was trying to make is that you know, they thought I was just gonna create a press release.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they thought that would carry the day for them.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: We just got to push out more news.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: It turns out there's a lot of blockchain companies that have that are in with the U.S.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Department of Homeland Security with proofs of concepts.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's not as innovative as you would think.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds innovative to you, but in the world the blockchain, it's not really all that innovative.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So telling the whole story in an article, it it had a lot more impact.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that that wasn't really ghostwriting, that was more of a thought leadership article that positioned them.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that that's I think that kind of answers your question about how to get companies' results through the computer.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So let me so let me back up a bit.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: For for those who are listening who want to get into ghostwriting or freelance writing, or even copywriting, as you think about your journey over the years, what are are there one or two principles that anybody could put into practice as far as, hey, this is how you potentially get clients, this is how you get your name out there.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So for you, was it just a matter of connections or putting your own material out there?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like what are the I guess what are the transferable principles from your journey that we could apply to our journey as well in terms of getting clients or making more connections or growing your business?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's a powerful question.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would how I would answer that is that there's as a leader in your your writing business, it's almost like freeform thinking.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: You've got all these things coming at you, right?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's two things you need to focus on.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: One is the short-term strategy for getting work and making money so you can stay afloat, but the other thing is the long-term vision, right?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: That will make it easier and easier and easier for you to get work.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the long term vision is basically about building a brand, you know, uh, and creating your own marketing materials.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have any work, like I started focusing on writing case studies for businesses, so it's just a matter of sending out a lot of emails and reaching out to these marketing directors.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can say, hey, I I do case studies.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you need a case study?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And just you know, constantly sending out these kind of lead generation emails to introduce myself.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I was working on my website and and building uh trying to come up with ways to differentiate myself and stand out.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because on one hand, I was selling a commodity, copywriting, but on the other hand, I was trying to stand out and offer preferential services that are unique in some way, you know, and get across the point that I'm focused on uh technology.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let me let me ask you this then.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because this has been an area of struggle for me, because I have wondered what's the best way to be using my time as a writer.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So would you say that you could make a pretty strong case for writing things under your own name and your own brand that you then want to ghostwrite or copyright for other clients?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you write stuff under your own name, whether it's books, articles, case studies, whatever it might be.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that way you have something to show to prospective clients because you you can't show the stuff you've ghostwritten, at least not most of the time.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you're saying that is there value in writing your own books, articles, and other material that you can then put out there into the world and essentially show prospective clients that yes, you can write those types of materials for them.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely, definitely, yeah, definitely.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is this long-term process that I'm talking about.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: So as I love that as I started working with clients, I realized what problems they had, and uh I started creating ebooks to educate them on everything that I would have to explain to them.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, uh like when I that when I told you earlier that I was selling this software system that I eventually sold to the TTC, uh like for the first six months that I was at that, I was literally cold calling companies and going around and knocking on doors and then finding out what they felt about the product, and then slowly over time building this PowerPoint, and it was just a lot of work.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And once I had the PowerPoint, I could just put the PowerPoint on the website, put the case studies on the website, and they did all that work for me.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it took a while a while to build that, but it became a resource, and this is the power of especially business-to-business copywriting, or writing your own book, is that you've got these samples and they're like tools that save you all this, almost like hiring an employee, it saves you all this uh time and effort.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, for example, uh you know, one ebook that I've written, I talk about my point of view is that I don't just write copywriting or ghostwriting for a client.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm really doing is helping them fill or bridge the gaps in their sales process.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I love that.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, every every business has a sales process.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, whether you're you know, running up Main Street shouting at the top of your lungs, you've picked which street to run up, and you're promoting yourself, and then people come out out of the store and say, What are you shouting about?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you tell them, and then you gotta educate them, and then you gotta sell them your service.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you're basically uh you've got a sales process.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: You have to figure out a strategy, and then you have to promote yourself, and then you got to educate your customers and build value with them, like with a book or with an ebook, and then you have to persuade them by providing you know, explaining the features and benefits of what they actually get and breaking all that down on your website, and for example, with a case study.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: So then there's that persuasive part of it.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I came to this conclusion by uh learning about this Harvard professor called uh Clayton Christensen, and he had this theory called the jobs to be done theory, and he tells this famous story about how he helped McDonald's figure out you know why most of their milkshakes were sold before 8 30 in the morning because he they they went in, they researched people buying these milkshakes and asked them what job are you getting that milkshake to do, and they found out that they weren't buying the milkshake as a dessert.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're in fact buying it because it was an easy way to consume their breakfast on a long drive to work, and it took a long time to drink the milkshake and it was cold, so it woke them up.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that what they were buying it for was something very specific and unique, not what you'd think, you know, you're selling a dessert.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a very kind of art specific job that they were hiring the milkshake.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it was their problem, it was the outcome that they wanted, not the product.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a mistake a lot of companies make as they focus on selling their product.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's really the outcome that you have to focus on.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I started thinking about copywriting.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, what you know, people would ask me, what do you do, Derek?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm a copywriter.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I would explain to them what I do, and they just kind of like, I don't get it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really know what that is.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: But when I started thinking, okay, what jobs can you actually hire the copywriting to do?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: I started thinking about how I worked in sales.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's the strategic jobs, there's the promotional jobs, and then there's the educational jobs, and then there's the persuasive jobs.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you can actually look at any any specific type of copyright or any format, and it slots into one of these four jobs.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of a and that's that's another way I can help them get results.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's fascinating because a lot of people who are writing, even freelance writers, I suppose, a lot of people think that what you do for the client ends with producing that product, whether it's a book or a case study or article or blog post or whatever it is that you're writing for them.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: But really, it's not about the product that you're giving to them, it's about what that product helps them achieve in their business.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, what you're saying, if I'm correct, is that we should, as writers, be thinking about what results does our writing help our clients get, not just giving them the writing.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's the outcome that your client gets.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you talk about that, you'll attract clients in droves, you know.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: But if you talk about your product, their eyes will glaze over and you know, they'll go, oh yeah, they're trying to sell me something.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're trying to sell me something.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, I think this is a key point because I confess I geek out a lot over stuff like fonts and book layouts, and you know, I I mean I love books.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so many people who get into writing get into it because we love writing.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it's hard to get out of that mode of thinking about the writing and thinking much more about it as a sales process where we're thinking about the client's needs and their pain points and their struggles, and then selling them on how our writing can help them get more of that result.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's difficult for a lot of us creative types to do, but I love the fact that we're emphasizing this because that's really the heart of success, isn't it, as a writer or as a ghostwriter?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, that's that's a good point.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that people come into uh the job or the occupation of being a writer from several different directions or several different backgrounds.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean who studied English and they're excellent communicators.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I've I I interviewed somebody who's got a master's degree in communication, and her communications are so good.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I listened to her.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: I interviewed her uh because I have a podcast too.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I when I interview someone, I often have to edit it, and it's you know, uh and some of the interviews I turned them into interview articles and I post them on my uh podcast site.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Her interview, I literally could just cut and paste what she said and put it right into an article.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: She was such a good communicator, but she didn't really have a background in sales.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then there are people who have a background in sales, and they have to work hard to develop the writing chops, and that's someone like me.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then there may be there's maybe someone who studies uh marketing and then gets into uh becoming a marketing director, and then some some marketing directors then start becoming freelance copywriters.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd say, yeah, you either have a marketing background or you have a writing background, but I I wouldn't knock someone with the writing skills because when I produce a piece of content, I go through all these steps.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I would say the biggest part of it is doing the research, and then there's the writing part of it, which is actually a small part of it.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like maybe 15% of all the work is writing it.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say writing, I mean taking the research and just structuring it and just kind of assembling it, basically.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then the writing part or the what I call the revising part, is reflecting on who the target audience is.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: I actually imagine uh someone from the the target audience, you know, a typical reader sitting in the chair across from me as I'm rewrite rereading and rewriting over and over and over what I wrote.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, what would they think of that?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: How would that how would they respond to that?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the revising is you're kind of empathizing with the audience and imagining and visioning how this is gonna come together.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I will I don't know if I'd really call that writing.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's more I call that more revising, you know.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some people call it copy editing, I really call it revising, and I think I do that myself.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I'm done that writing, and I I actually watch a lot of uh I've had a lot of training on writing and how to write a paragraph and how to write a sentence and how to create a lead, and and this is what you learn if you study English.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the writing really shines.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but the marketing strategy helps with who's your target target audience, and then you're keeping in mind your customers' goals.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do we want people to think, read, and do after they've read this, you know, and who's gonna be reading this.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the writing, you see what I mean?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: The right after I've done all of that and I've read it over like 20 or 30 times and rewritten and re-revised it and imagined the target audience and imagine the goals, and it's as good as I can.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like tuning a guitar.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really sitting down and writing, it's it's like tuning a guitar, and then I I have it proofread, and I actually hire a professional proofreader to go over it, and it it's pretty affordable to do that.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And these are also people who have studied English.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't I couldn't stay in business without those people.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I just couldn't, I I mean, I I can take a piece of content to about 90% finished, and then I need to bring in the experts to uh proofread it.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say, yeah, if you got an English background, learning more about the marketing and focusing more on the audience and the the business goals and this is actually uh I you know I put a lot I work with some really large companies, but I work with some really small companies.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I had an experience once working with a small business, and this is actually what motivated me to write a book, is they came to me and they didn't really know what result they wanted to get out of the copy.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't know what their goals were, they just thought we'd just push out blogs, hard writer, I'll write blogs, and I kind of went along with them because I needed to work.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I worked with them for a year, and this got more and more frustrating.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Working with them, I'm trying to get information out about from them, from their target audience, and what what is this article got to achieve?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like what res and just the frustration just built and built and built in me until I finally I this book came out of me and I wrote this book about it.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what was most frustrating was that I had worked with this small business owner for a year, and after a year of me asking him and pleading with him, who's well, you know, what um what's what are the goals and who am I writing?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: He came back to me and he said, He said, Derek, okay, we've been at it for a year, let's have a meeting.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he he said, I never forget what he said.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Derek, you know, I'm really disappointed with the results of your copywriting.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, I'm not surprised because what am I right?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Who am I writing to?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: What what do you want them to do after they read it?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you need a you need goals.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: So this ties in with this jobs to be done idea.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Are we trying to promote you know our our product and which product?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and uh most businesses jump into promotion.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: They think, okay, we've got to promote, promote.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll write blogs, we'll promote with the blog.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they're trying to do three things at once with the blog.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're trying to promote their business, they're trying to educate them, and they're trying to sell them.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't work like that.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's it doesn't work.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they often haven't done the strategic part of defining who's the audience and what are their problems and what outcomes do they want to get, and what are our goals for the content?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because when it comes right down to it, there's there's different types of goals.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's business goals, uh, which are uh, you know, you know, which audience do we want to reach?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do how do we want to get a certain number of new customers, or we want to introduce a new product?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, a small business says, well, my goal is to make sales.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, that's not really a very good goal.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you apply that SMART system for setting goals.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are SMART goals.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're more articulated, they're more specific.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's marketing goals, which are like uh metrics.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: How many people got to the website?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Do we get to the website?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: How many sales do we make?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: How many leads do we generate?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's copywriting goals where you need a creative brief.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Say, okay, what result do we want to get out of this specific piece of content?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Who's going to be reading it?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: What do we want them to think, feel, or do?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then you need to think about your whole marketing strategy.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: How does this piece of copywriting, it can't do the whole job.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like an orchestra.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you got the blogs, they come to your website, your website's kind of persuasive.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's a landing page that persuades them to download an ebook.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: They download the ebook, they get on your email list, and then you send them out a series of emails which offers them a webinar.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the webinar is you presenting a case study that's also on you see what I mean?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a set of dominoes.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: So a small business will think, okay, I want to make more sales.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Can you write some blogs for me?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: What's your best price?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I went through that with this client, and this is what my book is about.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is that just doesn't work.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: You have to really and I work with I coach small businesses on the strategic parts of their copywriting.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's basically what my book is.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: It lays out everything that I can advise them on.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Or they can just read the or buy the book for like seven bucks on Amazon.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, definitely.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll have a link to that in the show notes.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, as long as well as a link to your podcasts and website and all that good stuff.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well man, I've taken a bunch of notes, and Derek, you can't see me, but I literally have a pad of paper here beside my microphone, and I've taken about five pages worth of notes here as you've been talking.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now the question is, is it going to be legible when I go back and write my show notes?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: That I don't know, but I'm going to give it a shot here.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been a blast.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to thank you for uh taking the time to share your journey and give us all kinds of really amazing tips.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: This has been fantastic.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the thing about your notes is that fortunately I've I've got all this, everything that I covered is in my ebooks, and I'm just launching a new uh resources section on my website, and people can come and download those ebooks for free.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a free first chapter of my book, too.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: So everything that I mentioned, it's all covered in my my ebooks.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: So awesome.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And how can people get those ebooks and how can they get in touch with you to learn more?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they can come to my copywriting website, which is trailblazerwriting.com, and there'll be a link in my menu I'm just gonna add called resources, and they can go there and download four different uh free resources that I'm gonna have for them.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they can also go to my blockchain website if they're interested in blockchain, and that's blockchain trailblazers.com.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of an extension of Trailblazer Writing.com.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I've created a a I've started a podcast where I interview marketing directors about their success stories and also some top B2B marketers, and there's some pretty impressive uh success stories on there, and uh that's MarketingResults.club.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of an extension of trailblazerwriting.com and my focus on getting results.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, man, thank you so much again for uh being on the show today.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, no problem.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was a fantastic conversation with Derek.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a ton, and I'm sure that you did as well.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: But let me boil this down to my three biggest takeaways.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, follow the next step.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're an analytical person, it's really easy to get confused by this 687 steps you need to take to reach your goal.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Especially nowadays with online business, there are so many different things you can do and lots of different tools and pathways that you can use to develop a business.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to get overwhelmed and paralyzed.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you just to take the next step.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: What's the one thing you can do in the next 24 hours to help you get closer to your goal?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is there somebody you need to talk to?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a book you need to read?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a business you need to set up?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a next step that would really help you to accomplish that goal?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Think about what that is, and most importantly, just take action on it.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you from my own experience that one of the biggest mistakes I've made the last two years is just getting overwhelmed and feeling paralyzed and not taking action on the next thing that I need to do.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm still an analytical person, and I think that that tendency to or that ability to analyze things and to um you know organize things, that in that that impulse really helps me with ghostwriting and content creation.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that impulse also sometimes holds me back from taking action.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: So figure out what the next thing is that you need to do and just do it.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, the opportunities are there.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to identify what they are and to seize those opportunities.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are tons of opportunities to make great money in writing these days, but a lot of people don't know where they are because they're not circulating around the right people.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important to get around the right kind of person who can introduce you to the right to the other kinds of people that you need to be around, and they can educate you on the opportunities that you need to have.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, your book should help people get something that they want.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a really key concept for all of us writers because the writing is not really about the writing.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: The book is not really about the book, and the article is not really about the article.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Those things exist to help achieve some other goal.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: For example, since I'm a ghostwriter, I focus on writing books for people, primarily business books.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just about the book, it's about what that book helps the other person achieve.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: So a book might help someone grow their business or get more clients or gain credibility or authority in their field.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about the book, it's what what it's about what that book or that content helps other people achieve.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're writing a book, figure out what that book helps your reader to achieve.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing magical about a book.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: The book is just a tool that helps someone achieve something that's important to them, whether it's something like losing weight, getting healthier, um, having a better marriage, starting a business, or simply getting entertained.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: So again, the book is not really about the book.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: The content is not really about the content.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those things, the purpose of those things is to help people achieve something that's important to them.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a really important distinction, especially if you're writing for hire, because we're not selling words.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: So my ghostwriting mentor, Nick Pavlitas, often says that.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're not just selling words, we're you're really selling an end result.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're selling something to the client that helps them to achieve a goal that's important to them.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that's a really important distinction.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really glad that Derek was here to help us to understand more of the dynamics of business and um and how ghostwriting and other types of writing can work within that process.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: So speaking of Derek, I want to give him a massive thanks for being a guest on this podcast.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure to check out his website, which is trailblazerwriting.com, where you will find all his links and his B2B Marketing Trends podcast.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, thank you so much for listening.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And also remember that you can find lots more resources for writers at KentStanders.net.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll see you in the next episode.