1730 – The Power of Words in Business with Kelsey Formost

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now it's kelsey foremost kelsey you are the founder of magic words copywriting you're found on the web at kelsey foremost.com for the spelling to our friend that's listening to our conversation just click around in your podcast app you're going to want to follow along and you want to see kelsey's face so you can kind of put a face with the voice here and you'll go to Just look around for Kelsey's website, click on that, pull it up. But Kelsey, it's so great to have you here. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and nerd out about words. Yeah, I love it. I love it. So maybe just start with just a quick overview of the work that you do and the impact that you have in the world today.

1:36Absolutely. So I'm a copywriter with years and years of experience working for everyone from small business solopreneurs to multimillion dollar companies in tech and entertainment. And what is so amazing to me, and I love, I call myself an evangelist for copy because copy is inescapable no matter how big or robust your business is. It doesn't matter if you're brand spanking new startup trying to get seed funding. It doesn't matter if you are already an established brand with a global presence. Copy is the way that people connect with your brand and eventually your business. But it is such an overlooked piece of the puzzle, of the greater overall puzzle.

2:26And the reason that copy is so interesting to me is it's part art, but it's part science. And the science, there's actually neuroscience behind why certain copywriting things work that I love talking about. Yeah. And Kelsey, before we get into kind of nuts and bolts and kind of your view of the world of copy right now, and obviously some great advice, you have a very interesting background. I do. And I actually am on your IMDb page. I'm hoping you'll reference that as well. You bet. Yes. Oh, I love that this came up. Okay. So before I really fully dialed into digital content was where I really started my career as is now, I was a successful actress and screenwriter for over 10 years.

3:14And boy, howdy, did that cut my teeth on understanding what makes content exciting, what makes content capture attention. And I think it's something that's so overlooked in the business world. Storytelling, we hear this all the time, right? Story brand, tell a story, da, da, da, da. But if you work in entertainment, in television or movies, you get immediately, oh, this script, it's going to go places or this is like, it's fine. So it really honed my ability to be able to say, this is interesting because someone will be able to see themselves in this, or this is going to make someone laugh. It's going to make someone feel something.

3:57But yes, I was a successful actress for 10 years. I was on Modern Family. I was on New Girl. I was in a movie with Zac Efron. I was on Days of Our Lives. And it always is such a fun fact to share with an audience. Okay. So I promised we're going to get to copywriting and so forth. But so what was the experience of working on a set for a show? Like, for example, Modern Family, you play Tess. Just give us a view for someone who's not in that world with a production at that level. And again, you've done other big stuff. I just, Modern Family, I just have such an emotional connection to that show.

4:31Oh, me too. And that's exactly the point, right? That show was so successful because it connected with so many different people on a deep emotional level. The actual behind the scenes of being on that set, I actually just published a viral personal essay about being on that set. It's on Shondaland.com if anybody wants to read it. It's called I Hid My Gray Hair for Hollywood and Now I'm Done. And like talk about being in a machine, like every person on that set. I mean, the caliber of talent is so high, but what was so amazing about that set in particular was the creative freedom. Everybody has this really structured job, right?

5:18They are so good at what they do. And because they're so good at what they do, there's a high level of trust in everybody who's on that set. If you're there, you're the best at what you do. So being on that set, having the camera roll and being in a scene, shooting a scene with Ty Burrell, and then the director goes, hey, Ty, do you want to improvise a couple of all lines for this? And he'd be like, yeah. And he'd say something that was funnier and funnier and funnier. And then the scene that ended up on screen was not even remotely close to what was on the page when we got there that morning.

5:52So what I love about that is so often we stifle our creativity because creativity is quite vulnerable, right? Imagine somebody being like, hey, can you just like off the cuff, say a couple of things. And by the way, be super funny because we're paying you millions of dollars. That's so much pressure, right? That's so vulnerable. So if you want amazing creativity that can get you millions of dollars and millions of eyeballs, trust people who are willing to be vulnerable. So if we take the parallel then, how's this for a segue, of thinking about vulnerability and risk, where does that fit in with copywriting?

6:37Oh my God. Pain points immediately. I always tell people the place that you need to be focusing probably 80 % of your attention is your ideal customer's pain points. That is as vulnerable as it gets. If you can communicate to someone that they are in good hands, that they can trust to you with something that is deeply difficult or deeply embarrassing or vulnerable, or, oh my God, if this problem could be solved, I would thank the heavens, right? If you can communicate that, that is the connective tissue. You have to be willing to be vulnerable, to empathize with people so that you can communicate your value to those people.

7:27While you're chatting, I am actually like typing notes to my CO right now. We've got to review our front page. Are we being empathic? Because I agree with you. And this is one thing I know about, you know, what marketing or the behavior of consumers and your consumers being your customers, right? Generally, if we think about like what they're searching for right now, most people don't search for solutions. They search for pain. They search for the pain that they're experiencing. So I identify their pain. And then I probably also talk about the consequences and the emotions around that pain. And they're like, oh my gosh, this guy gets me.

8:03He knows. And I think it's really powerful too, is when you have a story, obviously kind of a perfect world, right? And I'll let you kind of share on this is if your own internal story matches or demonstrates that empathy with that pain point. Yes. Yes. That's so true. because so often we create the businesses that we wish we had at a point when we had that same problem. I'll just use myself as an example. When I was starting as a freelance copywriter, I felt so overwhelmed. I felt completely like, who am I to do this? There's so much technology. It's so intimidating. Can I even make this work?

8:41I know I'm good at the actual job, but building the business is so hard. So I went through my own pain points And now I use that exact experience to connect with people and show them, A, it's possible. B, it's not as hard as you think it is. And C, like, we're all going to be okay. We're all going to be okay. And I really think that that is the crux of why people invest money in people, places, and things. Is we just want to feel like we're secure, we're taken care of, and we're fulfilling the purpose that we want to fulfill. I would feel remiss if I didn't ask you about a couple of things. First off, one of the points of contention that I know that was needed to be addressed was the use of AI.

9:29You're in this world every day, and I know that a lot of business leaders have a lot of questions about it. We've been using ChatGPT, and it's amazing, but I'm going to not tell anymore. I'm so glad you asked about AI because I actually did a huge deep dive, very recently on, okay, this isn't going away. I don't want it to go away actually. And my initial reaction was ick, like ick, ick, ick. I don't want a robot representing me to my customers. ChatGPT, I think it's four that is the paid most up-to-date version. I just used it this morning. And here is my take at this moment on AI. You have to know what good copy sounds like no matter what.

10:19Hire a human being, professional copywriter, who can tell you from their personal experience whether or not something is likely to convert. You cannot take AI's word for it that it's going to convert. You just can't. However, what AI is good for is idea generation, identifying those pain points, potentially identifying markets that you may not expect to connect with initially, like out of the box sort of things, building an ideal customer avatar. Our chat GPT is good for that. When it comes to the actual words though, that you are going to put in your marketing, the actual words that you are going to put on your website, at the very least, have a professional human copywriter edit it.

11:14Because if you just slap words that chat GPT wrote up on your website, it absolutely is not going to be as effective. That's true. So share just a bit about who you work with today and what that generally looks like. Yes. So currently I have different services, but I do one-to-one copywriting work, again, for everybody from solopreneurs to celebrity coaches to multimillion-dollar tech companies. I've done it all. And then I also have one-to-many programs. So I have a signature course, Copy Class, where I teach entrepreneurs how to think like a copywriter, which is great for people who hate writing.

11:58I also have a membership called BYOB, which stands for build your own business. It's meant for small businesses who are really looking for accountability and support for what do they even need to be doing. And we tackle one needle moving aspect of building a business every month. So that's kind of an overview of what I'm currently doing. So do you typically work long-term? Do you do shorter term engagements? And also what might be some examples of where you are creating copy or co-creating copy? Where does that end up? Yeah, I would say that it's pretty 50-50 people's websites, company websites, and email marketing.

12:41So email marketing, I'm sure everybody here knows, like, don't sleep on it. It's so effective. It's so great. Social media is shiny. Email marketing is your stable sugar daddy. Email's where it's at. I've seen the proof in that pudding. So I spend a lot of my time really diving in with businesses on, okay, let's build your brand voice. Let's translate that to a website. Let's make it conversion copy on your homepage, your about page. What are your call to actions? Are you building a funnel of awareness, all of that. So you see work on the page, on a webpage. And then also I'm in the inboxes of does the brand voice on the website match the brand voice that you're speaking with in an email?

13:29Are you being cold and saying we when it should be I? How often are you communicating? Are you being consistent? Is your newsletter actually news or are you just trying to sell stuff to people? There are so many ways that you can optimize email to make your readers feel really excited when they see your name in their inbox, when they see the company name in their inbox. And that's really what I do. The strategy behind it and then the nitty gritty writing if that's needed. Your website is kelseyforemost.com. Our friend that's been listening to our conversation maybe there a year later and they searched you and this podcast came up.

14:07Now they've heard a wonderful conversation together. And now they're like, okay, I want more Kelsey in my life. what would you recommend their next steps be? Definitely download my free resources if copywriting is something that you think you may need. Otherwise, follow me on Instagram. That's really where I show up the most. It's where I am, I think, the most entertaining. I do a lot of short form video. I love doing, I mean, I was an actress and a screenwriter, right? So of course I'm gonna love making entertaining video content for people. So come hang out with me on Instagram at Kelsey.Writes, W-R-I-T-E-S.

14:48All right, Kelsey Foremost. Again, your website, KelseyForemost.com. To our friend that's been listening, just click in the show notes. We've got that direct link right there. Kelsey, it's been a joy having you. Wonderful conversation. And thank you for the impact that you have in the world. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me.

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