At the beginning of 2022, CCA student and CCA student coach Stacy Corneau went full-time freelance for the first time. Her goal was to hit six figures by the ned of the year. Six months later, and she’d already surpassed her goal, hitting six figures in June.
Hitting a massive income goal in half the time is an incredible achievement and Stacy is digging into how she got there. In this episode, she shares how she has learned to strategically map out her business goals, gained confidence as a business owner, and her keys to always improving as a copywriter.
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A Sneak Peek at the Episode
[0:45] Nicki and Kate welcome today’s guest, Stacy Corneau. Not only is Stacy a successful CCA Student but she is also a Student Coach and member of the CCA Next Level mastermind.
[1:40] Stacy explains her personal journey to copywriting. She talks about how she first got a degree in public relations and was working in-house until she moved to part-time freelance copywriting in 2020.
[3:30] Interestingly enough, Stacy says that her writing was her weakest skill when she was working in public relations. So, she says that copywriting appealed to her because she could use it to improve the weakest skill in her arsenal.
[8:10] Nicki encourages Stacy to share her results in terms of income for the first half of this year. Stacy explains that in 2020 she worked about 4 days a week and made over 63,000 gross Canadian dollars, in 2021 she worked about 3 days a week and made over 71,000 gross Canadian dollars, and in the first half of this year working full-time, she has made over 113,000 gross Canadian dollars.
[12:40] Towards the end of 2021 Stacy put together a business plan for 2022 with her goals and steps that she needed to take to hit those goals. She explains that she lined up work for the beginning of 2022 months in advance to take the pressure off of her switch to full-time freelance.
[18:00] Nicki points out that Stacy brought up imposter syndrome even though she had such a successful start to 2022. No matter how successful you are, you will always need tools to overcome the discomfort of imposter syndrome throughout your career.
[21:40] Stacy uses a color coding index card system to map out her goals for each category in her life. She explains that visually mapping her goals from largest to smallest helps her set realistic plans for the year that gives her direction in her daily actions.
[30:40] Stacy illustrates that the CCA helped her feel in control of her copywriting career in a good way. It gave her the confidence to treat her copywriting business as a business and to strategically map things out to reach her goals.
[37:10] Stacy explains the importance of feeling comfortable turning down work that doesn’t fit her business plan. She talks about how she’s learned to detach her personal feelings from what’s best for her business so that she’s empowered to do what’s best for her copywriting business.
[40:47] Stacy shares her best pieces of advice for those building their copywriting careers: always keep practicing, and match any negative thoughts with at least one positive thought so that you spend more time thinking about positive outcomes than negative.
[45:00] Nicki and Kate thank Stacy for joining the podcast and sharing her successes and strategies.
“I’m pretty transparent when it comes to money … it puts in a bit of an illusion around freelancing that it’s either significantly harder than it has to be or that everyone makes $400,000 in two months … So, in my first year of freelancing in 2020 … on average worked about 4 days a week throughout the year and did about $63,000 gross Canadian. In 2021 … on average worked 3 days a week and did approximately $71,000. In 2022, now full-time freelancing, hours of the week have been a little bit all over the place. Most of the time they sit around 40 hours a week … in the first six months I’ve hit $113,000 in gross Canadian.” – Stacy
“I started pitching regularly … I put goals for myself of how many to send each week, how many follow-ups, so by about November 2021 I had work lined up for the first few months of 2022. That took a weight off my shoulders when January hit so it wasn’t, ‘I have to find work right now!'”
“I think it’s really easy for folks to look at what everyone else is doing, look at what everyone else is achieving, and say, ‘I’m going to do that too.’ But it might not be what you want or need in your life. So really looking more inward to say, ‘what are my priorities? What are my actual goals? OK, I have those on paper. Now let’s work backwards to what do I have to do to achieve those things?'”
“People in the group would be posting wins and sometimes I’d get imposter syndrome. ‘Wow they’re doing phenomenal.’ And, ‘I haven’t hit that yet,’ or what have you. No, no, no, come back to your piece of paper. What are your goals? That’s right ,not everyone’s goals, not everyone’s trajectory, is going to look the same. And that’s OK.”
“It’s just a business decision. It says nothing about me as a person, about my confidence, about my likability, about my worth—it has nothing to do with that.” – Stacy
“Strategy and self-accountability have been two of my big successes this year.” – Stacy
Mentioned on the Episode
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About the Build Your Business Podcast
Ready to turn your love of writing into a successful copywriting career?
Join professional copywriters Nicki Krawczyk and Kate Sitarz to get the tips, tools, and training to help you become a copywriter and build a thriving business of your own. Nicki and Kate have 20+ and 10+ years of experience, respectively, writing copy for multi-billion-dollar companies, solopreneurs, and every size business in between.
Whether you want to land an on-staff job, freelance full-time and work from wherever you want, or make extra money with a side hustle, the best place to start learning is right here.
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Last Updated on December 13, 2023
