Kevin Rogers and I have a funny relationship.
He’s my business partner, but he’s also my coach.
While he used to coach me exclusively on MY business…
Now he also coaches me on being his business partner, where I run HIS business like it was MY business…
We’re special like that, but somehow it works. (Mostly because Kevin is extremely patient with all my “quick start” madness).
I’ve been part of Kevin’s Supergroup mastermind for 3 years now, and each month we have a 1-on-1 call to catch up and dig into anything specific I’m working on.
It’s on these calls that Business Partner Kevin puts on his coaching hat and transforms into what we Supers lovingly refer to as “Papa Kev.”
We talk about how to scale my advertorial course, think through new offers I’m creating, and mostly just remind me to say “no” more often when shiny things come across my desk.
Except…
When I first went “all in” with Copy Chief, I fell into the classic freelancer trap where you push back all the stuff you want to do for your own business to make more room for ‘client work.’
So for 3 months in a row, I’ve cancelled or rescheduled these 1-on-1 calls because I felt like I had nothing to talk about. Like I wasn’t making progress. Like I wasn’t hustlin’ inside my own biz.
I spent most of my time and energy on all the exciting things we’re building at Copy Chief (Including the new-and-improved beefed-up version of our Accelerator mastermind program).
I’m pretty competitive – even with myself.
Subconsciously, I think I was ashamed of not having some awesome win to report, or some impressive challenge to over come in my own business.
So I’d either redirect the conversation to stuff we needed to work through at Copy Chief, or cancel the call completely.
But this week, Papa Kev wasn’t taking “no” for an answer. He finally put his coach foot down and made sure we had our call and focused on MY stuff.
We talked about my Advertorial course, and all the great results people are getting in their own business when they implement the training…
But also talked about how advertorials are only one of the things I’m focusing on right now.
Since stepping in as the “Integrator” to Kevin’s “Visionary” at Copy Chief, my skill set has evolved dramatically.
I’m taking bigger leaps in my own learning, making bigger decisions, taking bigger risks, and having bigger swings from “I’m on top of the world” to “What the fook am I doing”
Over the past year we’ve…
…Created The Freelancer’s Journey to help creatives build thriving careers…
…Launched and scaled our Escape Velocity coaching program for new freelancers…
…Built scalable evergreen programs with high-level front-end funnels…
… Grew our tiny, scrappy team to almost 25 talented specialists (and then streamlined again after we realized we wanted a more tight-knit team)…
…Created our Training Suite membership for anyone who just wants to get great training…
…Launched and grown our invite-only Accelerator mastermind program…
… Streamlined our operations so all of us are working LESS while producing even MORE value for our members (and most importantly, stopped passing around what we endearingly refer to as the “giant ball of overwhelm”)
…And torn down and rebuilt Copy Chief from the inside out – launching a streamlined new job board, community forum, training dashboard, and the entire back-end “machine” that makes it all work. (Stay tuned for a shiny new website to match!)…
And we did it all during a global pandemic which caused massive shifts in the marketing industry and forced us to pivot quickly and stay at the top of our game.
Not to mention all the stuff I’ve worked on outside of Copy Chief this past year.
Growing my Advertorial Course and copywriting templates, helping Henry Bingaman retire from an A-LIST “done for you” copywriting career, launched the Business of Writing podcast with Laura Gale, co-hosted the Titanides Literary Salons with Marcella Allison, and more.
I’m not tootin’ my own horn here. The point is… I’m learning SO MUCH about SO MUCH every single day!
Each of these things comes with their own unique opportunities and challenges…. and certainly a multitude of hard-knock lessons.
What I’m learning, experiencing, and teaching every single day has grown far beyond advertorial pre-sale pages.
My own personal challenges now revolve around things like…
Becoming a better leader and coach…
Learning how to motivate and manage a team…
Streamlining operations…
Finding and fixing holes in our funnels…
Increasing bottom-line profits…
Customer retention and reducing the dreaded “churn”…
Scaling our traffic…
Making more space for my “Visionary” to think so he can lead us to an exciting new future (next level baby!)…
And generally just reducing the amount of STUFF we do so we can double down on our biggest money makers.
So when I dumped all this on Kevin during our call the other day, and finally took a breath after saying, “I just feel like I should be writing about MORE than advertorials right now.”
I’m sure he couldn’t help but roll his coachy eyeballs and think, “Yah. Duh…”
Instead he told me, “Yes…THAT. I want to read what THAT Rachel is writing each week. I want to hear THOSE stories.”
And he’s right. I’ve been doing you guys a disservice by not sharing all the amazing lessons I’m learning, and taking you along the journey as I work through these unique and exciting new challenges.
So if you want to continue learning about advertorials – I’ll still share everything I learn out in the field as I continue to test and explore…
But from now on, I’d like to also take you along on this crazy journey I’m on as I help true visionaries bring their ideas to life.
I want to share all the ups and downs of running an 8-figure business, hiring a team, helping everyone stay sane, scaling our offers, learning how to give up control, streamlining systems and processes, empowering those around me to take ownership of their role, and helping everyone I support live in their ‘zone of genius’ so we can all rise together.
And you can get all the training and resources you need in my Advertorial 101 Course or in the many articles I have on my website.
But if you want to ride along on that journey with me, then subscribe to my email list so that you can be the first to hear my stories.