In the 7th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with freelance copywriter Jessica Mehring about her experience leaving Hewlett-Packard for the world of freelance. Jessica also shares her experience niching down her business and writing the book on white papers—as well as the effect that book had on her business. Be sure to listen to the end when Jessica talks about the difference between content and copy.

Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Jessica’s book on White Papers

Jessica’s Copyhackers Post

The Content Lab

Content Chemistry

ConvertKit

The Ry Schwartz Episode

Fascination Advantage

Fascinate by Sally Hogshead

Content Lab Twitter

Horizon Peak Twitter

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

BONUS: Jessica has created a free 4-part email course on how to build a copywriter portfolio that impresses prospective clients. Register here to get the first lesson right away.

Full Transcript:

RM: So what if you could hang out with really 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 Kira and I try to do every week on The Copywriter Club podcast.

KH: You're invited to join the club for episode seven as we chat with freelance copywriter Jessica Mehring about writing for technology companies, moving from a full-time position to freelance, building a course and the power of choosing a niche.

RM: Kira, Jessica, how's it going?

JM: Great! I'm so happy to be here with you guys.

KH: I'm happy too.

RM: Yeah, we're stoked. This is going to be, I think, a fun conversation.

JM: Absolutely.

KH: I feel like it could be a beast of a conversation. I know we only requested a certain amount of time from you but after doing some research, I feel like we could talk to you for a couple of hours.

JM: Research? Oooh! Okay. Let's start, what did you find out? What juicy details do you have about me?

KH: I think, you know what I learned is that you can do just about everything that even ... we'll get into that. Even though you specialize in white papers, reports, blog posts, long form content that sells, you can write a killer email and you can write a killer sales page, it makes me jealous to be honest.

RM: Yeah, woman of all trades.

JM: Thank you, thank you.

KH: I think a good place to start is to start with how you transitioned to the freelance world from your career at a top creative agency.

JM: Yeah. I actually had a couple of careers, if you call them careers, a couple of different roles before I went full-time with my main business, Horizon Peak Consulting. I did work for a top creative agency for years as a consultant who also did project management and copywriting and all that fun stuff. I also worked for a large computer corporation, again, as a communication specialist, copywriter, online merchandising specialist, all that fun stuff.

The last real full-time role that I had was at, the computer corporation was Hewlett-Packard actually. I've worked with Hewlett-Packard in various capacities for many, many years. I was a full-time employee for them at that time. I had a good team, it was good work, but I was just ready to get control over my time and get control over the projects that I worked on. I got tired of being told what to write. Really, that's what it boiled down to for me, in addition to wanting more control over my time and being able to take a vacation without clearing it with my boss first. The real big motivator for me was just being able to pick and choose the writing projects that I was doing.

I had been building my freelance portfolio and building Horizon Peak Consulting on the side of my full-time job for a few years. This is not like a big leap for me.