Life and Writing

Abbey Woodcock

Your Guide to Voice: Stand out from the noise in 5 steps

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The live event that made me $500K

I entered his contest on a whim.

I’d been following Derek Halpern for a while and trying to build my copywriting business.

He was offering a free ticket to a small live event in NYC.

Ramit Sethi and James Altucher were speaking, but I was new to this world so I had no idea who they were. I just wanted to be around people who were doing what I wanted to do.

Well, thanks to my horrid video editing and a funny impersonation of Derek, I won. Derek flew me down to the city, put me up in the Ace Hotel, and I went to the first of many internet marketing events in my career.

At lunch, I sat with Will Hamilton of Fuzzy Yellow Balls. We talked mostly about my 4-year-old son taking tennis lessons and my dream of going to Wimbledon. I didn’t realize that his tennis instruction site would appear again and again in case studies for some of my clients (Ramit Sethi, Ryan Levesque, and Jeff Walker have all featured Will at one point).

Then, later at the bar, I was getting a drink and started up a conversation with a guy sitting beside me.

“What’s your story?” I asked.

“I’m Ramit’s brother.”

Now I supposed that impressed most of the people at the event, but not really knowing who Ramit was, I asked, “Is that on your business card or do you have other qualities?”

Maneesh at the time was writing about travel hacking so we chatted about that.

Later, after a few too many adult beverages, I finally found Derek to thank him for the event. He was standing with Ramit.

I opened the conversation with “Wow! You’re shorter than I realized!”…

(Being nearly 6-ft tall naturally plus my “big girl shoes” meant I was quite a bit taller than Derek).

Ramit, Maneesh, and Derek laughed and we went from there.

After the event, I followed up with Will, Derek, and Ramit.

The result?

Within two months, I was a copywriter for Ramit… and within a year, I was IWT’s lead writer.

This morning, I tried to calculate what that small interaction has meant for me just monetarily and found it impossible to do so.

There’s the years of salary, travel, and other perks from Ramit’s team (although I’m not full-time with IWT anymore, I still work with them on a contract basis for special projects).

Plus there’s every client I’ve landed since because they’d seen or heard about my work with Ramit — and the referrals that resulted from those clients… and on and on.

And just last week, Ramit sent me a direct referral (not the first, nor the last of those I’m sure).

All-and-all, calling Derek Halpern short and making fun of Maneesh’s intro has added up to at least half a million dollars in revenue for my business.

Now, this whole story may sound a lot like luck…

…And that sure played a part, but there are a lot of things at play here.

I know because I’ve now replicated that success dozens of times. Live events are now the number-one way I find clients (and how I found my fiance ;-)).

And this week, we’re going to dig into exactly how you can use live events to propel your career, too.

So keep tuned to your email for a Live Event Mini-Class. Over the next 5 days, we’ll cover

  • How to get in the room with the right people (it starts with choosing the right events)
  • What to say when you’re standing in front of someone really important or successful (and how not knowing who Ramit was turned out to be an advantage that I used later when I knew exactly who I was talking to)
  • How to convert a live event connection to a paying client
  • What to do if you’re an introvert and hate schmoozing with people
  • The little-known secret about the best time to talk to people at an event (most people do the completely wrong thing)
  • Why business cards are the biggest waste of money (and what to do instead)
  • How to recover if you botch the interaction (shyness or awkward moments can actually be very endearing)

And, I’ll share with you the one can’t-miss event I’m attending this year (you’d be crazy to miss this if you’re a copywriter looking for clients)

If you don’t get my emails yet, just enter your info below to get in on the Live Event Mini-class.

About Abbey

Abbey Woodcock has been a direct response copywriter since 7th grade when she wrote a 30-page sales letter asking her crush to the dance with dismal results. Since then, she's converted better... writing sales pages and emails you've probably read from some of the biggest names online. Now she helps other copywriters build and grow amazing businesses.

Comments

  1. Daniel DiPiazza says

    August 7, 2017 at 9:50 pm

    YES! I love this. Can’t wait to read more!!!

    Reply
    • Jesse Gernigin says

      August 13, 2017 at 7:29 pm

      Right man! Stories like this are gold. You catch her appearence on The Copywriting Club podcast?

      Reply
  2. macintosh says

    February 5, 2018 at 4:38 am

    Good info. Lucky me I discovered your blog by accident (stumbleupon).
    I have bookmarked it for later!

    Reply
  3. Hillary Weeks says

    June 6, 2018 at 11:43 pm

    Hi Abbey. I randomly found myself on your blog after clicking through on another site. I’ve been involved with Copy Chief for a couple of months now and really enjoy reading your expert feedback in the forums and seeing you on the Chief Chats. I promise this was complete coincidence!

    I was wondering if there is any way to access your Live Event Mini-class? Are you going to be sending it out again? The shy introvert in me is screaming out for something like that.

    Thanks so much!

    Reply
  4. Mani Andino says

    August 21, 2018 at 9:23 am

    Awesome Abby, can’t wait to read the short course and hilarious openers, too funny.
    Warm Regards,
    Mani A.

    Reply
  5. Holly Hester-Reilly says

    August 21, 2018 at 2:13 pm

    Hi Abbey,

    Looking forward to the mini class contents. I wanted to share that as an entrepreneur who is not a copy expert, I felt confused by pieces of this article. Who is Ramit and what is IWT? I will Google it now, but thought you might like to know you have some readers who are still as clueless as you were when you first went to this event. 😉

    Thanks,
    Holly

    Reply
    • Abbey says

      August 21, 2018 at 11:05 pm

      Thanks for the feedback Holly. Ramit Sethi is the man behind IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com and GrowthLab.com and my first copy mentor 🙂

      Reply

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Recent Musings

  • Why people hire marketing consultants
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  • Copy school drop-out (or that time I quit Parris)
  • Working for a dying print newspaper made me a better digital marketer
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What people say

I’ve made it one of my missions to find that next generation of superstars…and one of the copywriters I am placing a big bet on is Abbey

After working with some of the best copywriters who have ever lived throughout my career, I came to the realization that it was not a “given” that there would be a next generation of copywriters who understood direct response like their predecessors. I’ve made it one of my missions to find that next generation of… Read more “I’ve made it one of my missions to find that next generation of superstars…and one of the copywriters I am placing a big bet on is Abbey”

Brian Kurtz
Former Executive VP of Boardroom
Read more about Abbey

Huge, ‘beyond expectation’ wins for some of the most famous names in our industry

Abbey Woodcock is one of my favorite copywriters – both to work with and recommend – for 3 reasons:

  1. She has a deep understanding of direct response marketing AND how it fits into modern mediums like social and email.
  2. She has a deep understanding of human psychology and how to speak to different markets… Read more “Huge, ‘beyond expectation’ wins for some of the most famous names in our industry”
Kevin Rogers
Copy Chief
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“The systems she created to hire, train, and evaluate writers are now a daily part of operations.”

Abbey was a key member of my team during a time of explosive growth. I needed to grow my content team and leaned heavily on Abbey to conceptualize, build, implement, test and improve our backend processes. The systems she created to hire, train, and evaluate writers are now a daily part of operations. Writing great… Read more ““The systems she created to hire, train, and evaluate writers are now a daily part of operations.””

Ramit Sethi
I Will Teach You To Be Rich
Read more about Abbey