The one and only Joanna Wiebe, who invented the title, conversion copywriter, joins Rob and Kira for the 14th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. They talk about Joanna's ambition to be a dermatologist (she's never talked about this publicly before), dropping out of law school on the first day, being a creative writer (and how that was a mistake), what she would do if she had to build her business from scratch today, where Joanna finds inspiration and a bunch of other copy-related questions.  Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Sponsor: AirStory

Copyhackers

Intuit

The copywriter mastermind

Fresh Skin Care Products

Neil Patel

Rob's Newsletter (which Joanna says is “really good”)

Brain Clark

Copyblogger

Tim Grahl

Jen Havice

Deep Dyve

Joanna’s post on time management

Todd Herman

Dan Kennedy’s Ultimate Sales Letter

Breakthrough Advertising

Joel Klettke

Sam Woods

Dan Martell

AirStory

Laura Weaver

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

Full Transcript:

Rob: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at airstory.co/club.

Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 14 as we chat with the original conversion copywriter, Joanna Wiebe, about how copywriters can build a platform to get noticed, how she built her list, and what she would do differently if she had to start over today, how writers can command bigger paychecks, and what she’s learned working one-on-one with writers in her mastermind group.

Kira: Hey Rob. Hey Joanna. How’s it going?

Rob: Hey Joanna.

Joanna: Hey guys. Nice intro. I love it. Your voices are both very radio friendly. It’s amazing.

Rob: Maybe we need a radio show instead of a podcast.

Joanna: NPR will pick this up, so don’t worry.

Kira: That’s the goal.

Rob: Joanna, we are really thrilled that you’re willing to chat with us. Maybe we could start with you just telling us a little bit about your story. I noticed on your, on the Copy Hackers site in your bio you mentioned that if you weren’t a writer you’d be a dermatologist, which kind of makes me laugh because I cannot even think of myself doing that sort of thing. But tell us a little bit about just your history and your story and how you became a writer.

Joanna: It’s so long. I fell like it’s, like I have to get much better at editing myself when I speak, so apologies. Or that’s a terrible way to set it up actually. This is going to be a very exciting story. Are you ready?

Rob: There you go. We’re ready.

Joanna: I fell into copywriting. I had been a law student and I graduated.

Kira: Oh wow.

Joanna: Yeah.

Kira: Didn’t know that.

Joanna: No, for two whole days. I love the idea, like I love the LSAT. I finished my English degree. I went lived in Japan. Of course in Japan I was like isolated in the middle of Hokkaido which is the northernmost island and I was in the very middle of it. It’s snowing constantly for like nine months of the year. I was very isolated and I got some LSAT books and I just started practicing the LSAT. I went through thousand LSAT practice books and I really loved it. I loved the game side of it so I was like, “Well, maybe I’ll just like go and see if I can like, what if I just like become a lawyer. Okay, I could do that.”

I took the LSAT and I got into law school. It was actually the night before, the night before my first day of law school my dad died, the night before. You’re like, “Oh crap.