PIVOT! with Jenn Robbins

Dusti  

Hello and welcome back to referral worthy. Today I am here with conversion copywriter, funnel strategist and human. Jenn Robbins. Thank you so much for being here with me today.

Jenn Robbins 

Thanks for having me Dusti.

Dusti  

So, I am so excited to have you on for lots of reasons. For anyone not familiar with Jenn, we go kind of far back at this point, God, I don’t even remember when we met. But I’ve had the wonderful experience of getting to meet Jenn in person and hang out with her in New York and experience her amazing sense of humor and fabulous sense of style in our great little pink room that we were in. And you have gone through some really interesting stuff in your career over the past year, especially the last year, but I would love to explore that. But first, could you tell us a little bit about career path because you ended up working in copywriting a little bit differently than I think a lot of other people have.

Jenn  

Yeah, my story’s a little a little convoluted and a little different than a lot of people’s. I actually will go way back when I was in college, I was getting an accounting degree, mostly because I wanted to be a doctor and did not like chemistry once I got into it. So I was like, What can I do accounting, but my parents have accounting degrees. And it was fairly easy to me. It just made sense. It was logical. And I also hated it once I got further in. And so I was like doing an internship and like looking up like apartments in New York, and how do I could like become a writer. But it was what 2008 and the recession hit. And so I graduated with a job in accounting, and went and worked at a tax accounting firm for two years. But kind of towards the end of it, I realized that life was miserable doing that was not for me. I was working 80 hour weeks in a cubicle, I did not see the sun, it was absolutely miserable. So I kind of got to the point of like, what can I do right now. And so I went to the accountant and asked, Hey, can I run your social media? Can I write a blog for you. And so I started doing it that way. And I start reading all of the books, this was like before, there were some blogs, but it was mostly like reading books of like, how to like how to leave your nine to five like how to make money as a freelance writer, I still have some of them on my shelf across me that I’m looking at right now. And that’s what I started doing. I started doing a little bit of that for them. And then in like, April of it was 2011 I quit my job after the tax deadline was like okay, and I made a really shitty WordPress website, call myself Jay bright creative and started trying to get jobs and I applied through jobs or Craigslist, and I got one of my first clients who still apply it to this day, which is wild because that was, what 13 years ago this this year. And so they’ve been with me ever since I did it for two years, I struggled. And a lot of that was related to business I was so afraid people would realize I was a fraud and didn’t know what I was doing. I refuse to make connections with people I didn’t want to like reveal who I was. And so it was really hard. I was like nannying and waiting tables and like trying to build this. And then I had to have my main clients go in house and I was left with nothing. And I went back to accounting for two years because I had to pay the bills.

Dusti  

Wow. I didn’t even know that that’s so interesting. So, I want to hop back for a second. So you actually started doing marketing within the firm itself that you were working with. 

Jenn  

Mm hmm. 

Dusti

Okay, so that’s so interesting. Like, how did you make that jump? Like, maybe they’ll let me like, let me do this.

Jenn  

I had started doing a personal blog before that I was very much into like I was at the time, I was very like evangelical Christian had like a church blog. That was like about my journey, which got interesting later. But at the time, I was like, well, I’m doing this for myself. And like it was just starting that like brands were starting to get on social media little bit more. I mean, that was back when it was like Facebook and Twitter like Instagram barely was, I don’t even know if it was around when I first started. It was because it started right before the Super Bowl that year. It doesn’t not matter. But it was that year that it started coming around. And so I just approached them because nobody was doing it for them at the time. They had like one marketing guy and marketing for accounting firms was like, mostly it was about trying to recruit was going to college campuses. It was like reaching out to people. And so I just reached out to them, went to the one of the partners was like, hey, like nobody’s doing this for you. Like do you want me to do this? Like Sure, whatever. And so I just created it like on WordPress for them and like, set up their Twitter account, and it was just very boring, but it was a start. And it was kind of nice to have that like hey, look, this is what I’ve done. And it gave me a little bit of proof that like I’ve done something for people.

Dusti  

That’s a portfolio piece if I ever heard one.

Jenn  

Yeah, for sure. And that led me to like my client that’s still my client to this day. I do marketing for them and they do professional education for accountants and finance professionals. And so it was like a great little transition. I’ve kept them for all these years because they’ve been wonderful that way. They’ve been with me when I had no experience in the beginning. And so it’s been nice to have them all along.

Dusti  

Oh, god, that’s so fucking cool. And I don’t love for you that you had to go back into accounting. But I do appreciate like your honesty around that because for so many of us the entrepreneurship cycle is cyclical, like it is not a it’s not all up hill. And it’s not all like peaks and incomes always going up. Like that’s just so unrealistic. And like, the narrative around that can feel so toxic.

Jenn  

It can and like, at the time, it was a little bit of like I failed. But also I was so disconnected from a community that it was like no one else really no one knew me to begin with. And so there was no one to really know that I fell within like family. But I went back into that job for two years. And essentially, they paid me to plan my wedding like I had gotten engaged right before I got it. And so I just like planned my wedding while I was there because I only I’m a very efficient employee. And so I would do my work in like two to three hours and then have to sit there it was at a bank until like, there’s no leaving. And so I did that. And I did it for about a year and a half. Both of my clients ended up coming back to me after they hired in house because they realized that it didn’t work out. So like I ended up getting both of those clients back and just building my business on the side. And so I did it for a while. And then I was like, Okay, well what do I want to do, I really don’t like this job, it’s fine. It was a fine job. Like I could have done it forever, but didn’t like it. It was at least nine to five and not nine to midnight, like the other job. But it got to the point where I was like starting to take on my clients, I was actually building a community that was like, when being boss started becoming a thing. It was very girl boss time, but it was a lot of fun. I feel like the girl boss time in the beginning was a really supportive place. I don’t know if it stayed that way. But it was very supportive in the beginning,

Dusti 

I would totally agree with that. Because like, I do feel like, especially early on, that was really the first time I’d seen women supporting women in a really outward obvious way. And that was very, very cool. And I remember being so excited and wanting to be a part of that and a part of like, like, I even remember like way early entrepreneur days for me, as soon as I figured something out. I was like, oh my god, I’m bringing everyone with me and, and early girl boss days, like That’s totally what it was like, it really did feel like a community like that.

Jenn  

Yeah, it was and like so being boss, was the podcast, listened to back then it’s become a whole thing now. But I was part of I became one of our community managers, I just volunteered to be like a moderator in that group and it started out with like, 300 people when when they closed it was like 25,000. And so that was just something that I did like for fun. But it was really nice, because I got to see stuff that people were talking and kind of got behind the scenes. And so that was an opportunity for me to actually like, Okay, put myself out there and start connecting. And that’s where I started building relationships and starting to grow my business. And so it got to the point where I was waking up at like six to work before I went to work. And then like working on my lunch hour and then working after work. And I was like, Okay, now I can try to like, make the jump that work for myself again. And the plan was like to do that and then start a family. And it found like it turned out that like I got pregnant like right, as soon as I quit my job, my laptop crashed my phone died. So like all of the savings that I had, like all of my plans, like went out the window. And I was like, Okay, well, you have to make it work or not. And that was July of 2015. And I have not gone back a the job since then. Which is wonderful. I’ve been working for myself ever since. But I didn’t hit six figures probably until 2018 or 2019. But like I think that’s the thing is a lot of people think you just immediately make the jump. And even though I was successful in paying my bills, like it took four more years to get there to like hit the magical like six figure mark.

Dusti  

Oh, yeah. And then you realize that you jumped a tax bracket.

Jenn  

That’s not even that much. 

Dusti

Right? Yeah. Like your your take home is like basically the same as it was, you know, 40k before.

Jenn  

Yeah. And then it was a couple more years later that I hired a CPA and I was like, Oh, I could be an LLC tax as an S corp and start doing payroll. And that’s a whole other level of things. And that also depends if you’re listening, that’s a state by state thing. Talk to your own CPA, do not go do that yourself. Yes, very much depends on the state. But yeah, I mean, I think my process of evolution has been very long. And like from there, it evolved. And I really wanted to like go forth and do more than just being a copywriter. That’s initially what I started doing right is doing copy. That’s how I got into because I wasn’t wanting to make money as a writer. That was my goal when I quit my job and 20 levels to make money as a writer and I did. I ended up writing blog posts through writing social media, and I managed social media for a while and I did not enjoy that at all. That was like very back in the day, we had to like log out and log back into Instagram, there was just a lot of a lot of juggling, and I just, that was not my thing. And so what I ended up getting into is doing more launch strategy, launch support, launch copy. So how I got into that, and actually it was another copywriter stage, Polaris who reached out to me when I was kind of getting started in that area and asked me to be a junior copywriter and I learned so much from being under her and I think that’s something that people overlook a lot is working under people that even if they even if they’re either younger than you, or have less experience than you if they’re working at that higher level. It’s a whole different game. So you’re able to go in and kind of see behind the scenes of what’s happening there. And that to me is probably worth more than a degree in Marketing, especially if I have gotten a degree in marketing in 2009, because nothing is the same for the most part from 2009 to like 2019, like everything changes, and now it changes so fast that like, I’m not saying don’t get a degree, but like that was very beneficial to me, like, behind the scenes for her. 

Dusti  

Like, you absolutely don’t need a marketing degree. I will, I will say that

Jenn  

My accounting degree has served me very well. Like I’m very happy that I got it. But I don’t know if I would get it again. But right. I do think working under somebody apprenticeship I think is very overlooked, and is something that people should look into a little bit more paid, obviously, I think is very important.

Dusti  

Yes. No unpaid internships here either. 

Jenn  

No, but that was helping me to kind of get into getting outside of cooperating. And that’s kind what we’re talking about is like I was very much what I wanted to do. And then it kind of got the point where I was tired of doing deliverables. And there was also in the like, if you want to grow, you have to scale your business, you have to do more than just being a freelancer, you have to build this other thing. And so that’s what I started doing. And I started being a funnel strategist, and I had a membership. And I had a program, I had a $25,000 launch my first program, and it was great, but that was also fall of 2020. And people had PPP loans, and people were trying to do things and a lot has changed since then. So over the past year, two years, really, because it was 2022 when we had fun factor, right? It was fall 2022. And that was like when I was like, I really think I want to just burn everything down and start over. But I went to fun factor. I was like, No, this is great. Like, I love these people I can like it was inspiring to like, go and try it again. And I did and it was okay. But I realized like that’s that’s not I think where I thrive, like I love teaching people. But you can’t make money at that level. Like when you’re somebody that has like 500 to 2,000 people in your audience, you just can’t make enough money, trying to sell programs trying to sell courses, like you have to have a large audience or you have to have a lot of money to be able to like spend on ads, there’s just a lot of a lot of work that happens behind the scenes and something like that. And if you’re working for yourself, it’s really hard to do that. And I’m the primary breadwinner in my household like I, if I don’t make the money that month, like nothing gets paid. And so to me, like I had to become more reliable. And so I burned everything down in 2023. Like I got to the end, like I applied for jobs. I had a job offer in hand. It was like mid December, is when I finally got the job offer. And I had to sit down say okay, like is this what I want to do? Because at the time I closed everything, I had some projects I was working on, I had my long term retainer, but that was it. Like, I still don’t know exactly how I was paying all my bills at that point. And so I looked at it, but the numbers didn’t make sense to me. And it was an hour commute, I had to go two days a week. And I just was like, This is not what I want to do. Like once I finally got it, because I’ve been telling people I want a job, I want people to tell me what to do. I don’t I’m tired of doing it all. And that’s when I got to the point, like having to do everything was just exhausting. 

Dusti 

It is. And that is probably I think, for me, that’s the biggest cost of entrepreneurship is really just the everything being on you all of the time. And that’s definitely why I like you know, even in like my big retainer, it’s like, I really am an integrated part of those teams, because then I don’t have to make all of the calls. I have someone who is a specialist in operations here I have somebody else who is going to at least guide some of the decisions like Go ahead pin marketing on me, I’m totally good owning that. But having more people to distribute that like decision load onto, it is very easy to just like write that off. But I think that’s part of what people are missing. And like, you know, feeling like lonely working at home by themselves even.

Jenn  

Yeah, and it was just so much I think decision fatigue, there was just so much I mean, everything is changing in the marketing as well. And it’s harder to get jobs as a copywriter as a strategist like it’s just harder to get a higher paying job because there’s fewer of them. And that’s a whole other chain that I could go down. But I’m really grateful that I had the chance to kind of burn it all down. Because when I came out in January, kind of the other side of it was like, okay, I think I did like one post on Facebook that was like, Hey, I’m taking copy projects, again, like I’m open for that. And it was less than a month that somebody reached out to me and offered me a really nice retainer working for this like seven figure coach. And so that’s been wonderful. And then you reached out for this other opportunity. And so now I have three ongoing retainers. And it feels so nice to be like told what to do. Like, I’m obviously still helping and making decisions. But like, my biggest thing right now is I write copy, I jump in where needed. And it’s been really great to just sit down and go back to deliverables and go back to the basics. That’s one thing that I looked at it like when was I the most happy and like less stressed out. And I think it was like, kind of this role and like I may change my mind and maybe I want to jump and do more like digital marketing. Maybe I want to do a fractional CMO at some point, but right now I’m really loving where I’m at and it’s okay for your career to evolve. And like let it do that over time and it’s okay to take a step backwards because sometimes you need that I have an eight year old and a three year old and I’m tired. I wanted to take a break and that’s what I’ve been able to do.

Dusti  

I feel that in my tired mama bones. And I’m sure lots of listeners will as well. But yeah, absolutely like I mean, in I think it was 2019. But I took an in house role for a while, like, I was still like freelancing a little bit. But having 18 months where I, most of my income was coming from one source that I didn’t have to think so hard about or like, you know, it’s, you know, having a client is different than having a job. It just is like, it’s a, it’s a different kind of relationship. And it requires different things of you and being able to just you know, not to say that I wasn’t working hard, but like to feel like I could coast a little bit there for a minute, while I had all this other life stuff going on, was so, so necessary. And and I don’t think there’s a problem with that at all, like bouncing back and forth, like, even like, I mean, I played with the idea a couple months ago, about going in house somewhere, potentially, because I kind of saw the writing on the wall with a client. And I was like, Ooh I feel like this is going to be a conversation at some point. What am I going to say when it comes up, and having to like work through that whole process. So like, that had to be just fascinating. Like, okay, I did the thing, I got what I wanted, I got the fucking job offer. I do not want to commute though. 

Jenn  

Well, that and like realizing, and it wasn’t a whole different industry, like I would have had to like, learn so much more. And it was not that interesting to me. Like, there are some things that I love learning about lots of things, but I’m not sure that was where I wanted to go. And also it can be great to have a job. But also when you lose that job, you lose all of your income. And so that’s like another thing. And I have a friend that she went in house a couple years ago, and she lost her job. And now she’s been struggling for like three or four months trying to find another one. And so I think for me, and for me alone, the right decision was to turn that job down. And to go back to the idea of having a few retainer clients. And so where I’m at now is I have like two long term one, one short term one, and then if one goes away, I still have these other two and I can go out and find more. And that feels right for me right now. And that may change. And I think that’s okay. But I guess what really stands out to me in relevance to this interview is the importance of making connections because I would not have these two retainers if I had not met you. And Hillary is who it was. And I met you all years ago, because I don’t remember exactly how we connected I vaguely remember, I think it was when you were in house at the CBD company, and asking you for a sample. And I kind of feel like that was the first time I connected with you. I think it was through Instagram.

Dusti  

That’s hilarious. Yeah, that sounds totally right. That’s part of why I like doing live events so much. And that’s definitely going to be like part of my business model, like in an ongoing capacity, because like, just the connections you make are so much stronger getting to really experience people because I mean, even with, like, masterminds and containers, where we’re seeing people online, it’s just like, I love it, but it’s also not quite the same. And I feel like the even though prior to us working together on this project, even though I hadn’t actually worked with you, like, I just knew I could trust you to do good work. And that made you so easy for me to refer because we knew each other on like, in that level at that level, and I need work for sage and stuff. And so like it, it made it such an easy pitch for me too like as somebody like I was helping source, you know, freelancers and things.

Jenn  

Yeah, and I mean, same, I’m always referring like graphic designers and other people like website designers, all kinds of things. And so it is helpful if I’ve met you in person, it just reinforces a little bit. And actually the first big thing like I think that did a shift in my business to working with higher level clients going to an in person event. It was I think it was Todd Herman’s events? In like 2017, or 2018? But it was incredible, because I got to be around people and meet people. It was the first like conference I’ve been to. And I don’t even really remember what was taught. But I remember all the people that I met, and so all of the conferences, events I’ve been to, like, what you actually learn is, is negligible. For the most part, a lot of times it’s like, it’s fine, but it’s the connections that you make is what really matters. And like getting those in person relationships after like talking online for years, like that just makes a huge difference. And I hate that to some extent because I love all my online friendships and I can’t meet everybody in real life but it does make a big difference to go ahead and like meet in person, even if it’s just like grabbing because there was somebody whenever I was in Denver that for the failure ball and I just like grab coffee with somebody and it made a big difference, just getting a chance to meet and connect with them and Lindsey Padilla I met her in San Diego like we just happen to like meet up because I was in town and she ended up hiring me for more projects after that. And so you never know where your next project or your next job is coming from and like don’t connect just for that reason. Because sometimes it takes years. Like I think you and I had connected for years before we actually worked together in any kind of financial capacity. Because that wasn’t the goal of the relationship and so I think a lot of times, sometimes people go into it with the wrong mindset of like, I need to go connect with people so I can get jobs. And it can be easy to do that when you’re in a place of desperation. But like, try to come from a place of like just connecting, and usually the jobs will come. Sometimes it gives that like in person version of like, the cold DM, you don’t want to be that person,

Dusti  

Please don’t be that person. Good God. So, I have like to two pieces here that I want to touch on, for sure. I have a question that I asked everybody. And that is, what is it to you that makes somebody really referral worthy?

Jenn  

Knowing that they follow through, I think that’s the biggest thing. Because I’ve had people that was referred to me that didn’t. So making sure that they actually do what they say that they have the experience that they say that their portfolio isn’t just made up is a big thing, because that’s happened before. 

Dusti  

Oh, my God. 

Jenn  

And I think that goes through, like on the client side, too, because I’ve been referred to clients that were nightmares. And I think on both sides of it, you need to make sure that they actually kind of do what they say and follow through on what they’re purporting to be.

Dusti  

Yeah, absolutely. And my last question is, so a couple years ago, you and I actually took a class together, where we learned how to make gifs. And yours have had millions of views at this point. You probably I know this is a podcast, but you probably would recognize Jenn’s face. If you’ve been on Instagram for very long. Have you gotten any work because of your gifs?

Jenn  

I don’t know if I would say someone’s reached out to hire me just because of them. But there’s been several people that like have said, Oh, you’re the person like that was in the gifs or I had like people from like, high school, elementary school say, hey, is this you? And so sometimes it can like reinvigorate conversations. I actually had a, it was a marketing firm, I think in Chicago, reach out and they were going to license it for like a Lay’s commercial. They ended up going with a different one. That was a couple years ago, and they reached out about a different one. So like I’ve had, it’s been interesting to see like opportunities. I think I checked the other day, it was like over 250 million views. And that’s just on giffy not on tenor. I can’t even get into my tenor anymore to see like what it is. But yeah, I mean, that was like May of 2020 Or maybe it was April whatever it was, it was recent because it just popped up in like my memories. And I was like outside and watching my then what 3 or 4 year old play. Because it was COVID and there wasn’t anything to do and so I just made gifs and they Yeah, they kind of went I don’t know if it was just because of the timing or what but a lot of them went a little a little viral.

Dusti  

That was incredible. Like I had the most fun watching that happen and like just like over time just in like people who like we didn’t have as mutual’s sharing gifs of your face as reactions to things. I was like hehe I know her.

Jenn  

Yeah, there was a lot of that. Yeah, it was fun. And one of my favorite things is my cat was in several of them. And then she passed away in January. So like she lives on in eternity in gifs, and that makes me happy.

Dusti  

That’s amazing. Oh my goodness. Okay, Jen, if people want to connect with you, where can they find you?

Jenn  

You can find me at Jennrobbins.com. It is currently still my like resume version of the site that I set up in December when I was job hunting, but I’m going to be working on that and updating it. And I’m @thejennrobbins all the places. So Instagram, Facebook, all the places.

Dusti  

Incredible. All right. Well, thank you so much so much for being so easy for me to refer out and for joining me today. Thank you so much.