This very month, back in 2011, I was plowing the seed of an idea, hiring five writers, and coding my own website.
I decided to launch the idea, and came up with a business name in five minutes: Express Writers.
As we move into our 6th business anniversary (and my 7th in the industry), I thought it would be awesome to get on video and sharing the story behind Express Writers – on camera!
So, for the first (ever) video story that I’m finally doing, I’m sharing the story of how I started out in freelance writing at 19 then stumbled into creating Express Writers out of $75, a hope and a dream.
That was what I started with – and nothing more.
We’ve been bootstrapped all the way, learned some hard lessons, went through some crazy times, and came out stronger from every hard-knocks lesson learned. Today, we’ve served over 5,000 clients, and have grown by leaps and bounds: 200-300% year after year. This year, we were able to break all previous year’s records for client satisfaction rates and monthly income.
But the story behind Express Writers’ creation isn’t complete without the real, raw, personal side of my life that I chose to change for the better (a personal, forced lifestyle that I chose to leave – and if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be here writing this blog today.)
Here it is.
The real, raw, true story of how Express Writers came to be.
What made us, what shaped us, and what we’re doing today in the industry.
Enjoy.
The Entrepreneurial Story: How Julia McCoy Founded Express Writers From $75, Grew a Company Mindset, and Life Lessons in Business (Video Transcript)
I run a writing agency, and 7 years ago I started with nothing but $75, a hope, and a dream.
Today, we have the best client satisfaction rates that we’ve ever had, and we just surpassed our biggest month in sales.
So, how have I been able to do it in such a competitive industry? Here’s my story.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Watch @JuliaEMcCoy’s #video story behind the creation of Express Writers. #entrepreneur” quote=”Watch @JuliaEMcCoy’s #video story behind the creation of Express Writers. #entrepreneur”]
Everything started in my business back when I was 19. I was in the middle of nursing school, and I was failing miserably. One day I woke up, and I asked myself: what do I love to do, and how can I make money doing it?
I knew what the answer was in my heart: it was writing. That went back all the way before I was 12. I was always writing, and by age 12 I had a 200-page medieval fiction on a floppy disk. Along with that, I had early entrepreneurial roots. I figured out how to make money using the internet at 13: I was earning cash doing surveys. And by 16 – I don’t know where this idea came from, it was just in my head one day – I decided to go around the neighborhood and ask people if they needed help using their computer. I posted ads in the grocery store, and within a few days, I had several clients and I was making $40/hour at 16.
So at 19, when I found myself in the middle of college trying to get a degree that I didn’t even want, I decided I would just try to figure out online writing and make a career out of it. And the next three months, I taught myself how to write, and I wrote hundreds of articles for very cheap clients: but that was how I honed my early writing skills. I also started learning a lot of SEO and content marketing back then.
Before I knew it, I had more work than what I could handle. My next logical thought was, why not start a business? And Express Writers was born.
I had one goal when I started my company back then: it was to find a group of writers who had passion in online writing, and who I could teach the elements of SEO and content marketing to, and we could learn and progress as a whole. I noticed a phenomenon back then: a lot of so-called writers didn’t know the standards of how to write for SEO, or the reader. So I started my business with that one goal, and clients began to trust me and to look to me for SEO and content marketing advice. And that’s when I started blogging regularly on my site, expresswriters.com.
But the story is not complete without sharing a personal story. I grew up in a religiously suppressed environment. My dad was the pastor of a church, and at 21, I found myself locked up in my room by my parents and given a letter for my birthday that said I was a disgrace to my family. We were not allowed to lead normal lives, and my business was looked down on. So when I got that letter, even though that environment was the only thing I knew, I knew that it wasn’t normal and I had to get out.
So six months later, my sister and I made the decision to leave in the middle of the night. And we did. It was very hard, but I had the opportunity to go follow what I loved to do, and go follow my dreams and chase my passions once I got out of that environment.
I did that, and completely bootstrapped, without any outside funding, we grew 200% in the next few years. The first year was $50,000, and in the next few years we hit $300,000, and last year we just surpassed $650,000.
As an entrepreneur, you often hear that failure precedes success. And that’s not just a quote or a fun saying, that’s the truth. Early last year, I found out that two trusted managers in my staff were embezzling. I had to fire them, and rebuild the team, and that took 5 months of hard work.
I learned that with a supportive environment, ongoing accountability for your staff, and most importantly, the right people, there is no limits to what you can do as a business. That experience taught me what it means to create a great company culture, and serve our clients with the best customer service.
The CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, said:
“The secret to successful hiring is this: find the people that want to change the world.”
And for me, that was finding people that shared my goal, a gigantic goal, of creating the best copywriting agency on the planet, and giving our clients the best content that they’ve ever gotten.
But in the five months of rebuilding, it was the hardest thing to find the right people. One of my biggest lessons was that it’s not about the roles in your company, it’s about the environment and how your staff support each other.
So when we were rebuilding our company culture that year, and with a goal to give our clients the best customer service we possibly could, I decided to let our commissioned sales rep go. And it was scary, because she was getting us sales, but she was chasing the sale instead of the relationship with our customers.
So I replaced the commissioned sales rep with an expert to do the consulting and the selling at Express Writers. I was honored to find an industry content marketing expert to join the team. After she was working here for a week, I went to one of our clients, and I was very straight up. I asked: Could you rate the difference in experience between the commissioned sales rep and our expert? And he said that the difference was 100x better. I knew we were on the right track.
So last year, even though we went through a lot, and it took 5 months to find the right people, when we found them there’s no limit now to what we can do as a company, because we’re able to learn and progress together. Our team is large but small enough to be able to do that, which gives our clients the best service.
So we’re seeing the highest writer retention rates, we’re able to provide full time jobs for the writers we have, and we’re seeing the highest client satisfaction rates that we’ve ever had as well.
So, 3 lessons in business.
Everything changes when you find the right team. That’s #1. When you find the right people to work right next to you in the daily grind, work becomes delightful because you support each other. I’m so honored today to lead in my staff full-time a group of women that all share the same goal, to serve our clients best and to evolve and progress with the industry.
I encourage communication in my team. Even though we’re remote, we’re so close-knit. We have daily Skype threads that address the different topics we all talk about.
The second lesson in business is: in the trenches of failure, success is often born. Failure is really hard to go through, but I believe that it’s one of the greatest ways to learn the lessons that will teach you growth.
And the last lesson is, success is a progression. It’s not something you hit and plateau at, it’s a continual progression, something you work very hard at every day.
So this summer, a big goal of mine is to launch a course. I’m launching a content strategist certification course. I’m going to certify in content strategy, and I’m putting together everything I’ve learned in the last 7 years of finding the right keywords for your niche, what tools to use, how to use them to get your best content opportunities, how to find trending topics, how to put together an editorial calendar – which is what we get paid to do daily for our clients. So all of that is going into a course, and it will be out this summer. If you want to sign up to get notified, the link will be in the description of this video.
Thank you so much for watching! You can follow me at @JuliaEMcCoy on Facebook and Twitter, and @ExpWriters on Twitter.
Conclusion
What did you think?
Go easy on me in the comments. 😉
I’d love to hear your feedback – I’m an introvert, so, video isn’t easy for me. You just might inspire me to do it more!
And don’t forget…
Update: September of 2017, my course officially launched! Learn about my certification course here: contentstrategycourse.com <—- I’m so excited about this!
Are you curious about blogging for ROI in 2017? That’s what we covered in our latest round of #ContentWritingChat! And if you missed out, you’re in luck because we’ve created a recap for you and it’s filled with awesome tips. Keep reading to check it out!
Blogging for ROI in 2017: Where to Blog, SEO, and Writing Strategies with Julia McCoy
For this week’s chat, our very own CEO stepped in to guest host. Julia McCoy shared her expertise on blogging for ROI in 2017 and offered some amazing tips for writing, SEO, and where you should be blogging this year. We covered some of the key topics to help you succeed as a blogger this year, so make sure you read through them and start implementing this advice for yourself!
Q1: For those that aren’t convinced, why is blogging still so important for brands?
The reality is, many brands still aren’t convinced that blogging is worth their time. They don’t realize the value that it can provide to their audience and their brand overall. So, let’s convince them why they should be blogging! Here are just some reasons blogging is important for brands:
Julia knows that blogging is a must for brands! She even shared some pretty impressive data that backs it up. The graph above shows Express Writers outranking major competitors solely from blogging. She also shared some stats that are sure to convince you of the importance of starting your own blog this year.
A1: Blogging is a lead generation opportunity. It’s how you can build influence, which draws in an interested audience. #contentwritingchat
As Annaliese said, blogging is a lead generation opportunity. So many people will stumble upon your blog and want to do business with you because of the content you share. She also said blogging helps you build influence, which is key to drawing in your audience.
Jason knows that blogging is a powerful way to establish an authentic, authoritative voice. Your blog is your place to share your thoughts with your audience.
A1: Blogging is a great way to show your expertise to the industry. It also helps you connect with your audience. #contentwritingchat
Blogging is an opportunity to show off your expertise to your industry, but also to your audience. It’s a great way to connect with your audience and to start building a relationship with them.
A1: Blogging is important because it allows brands to expand their audience, share more information, and establish voice #ContentWritingChat
To put it simply, blogging is an opportunity to expand your audience, share quality information with readers, and can help you establish your voice as a brand.
A1. Social media is just rented properties while your blog is your real estate #contentwritingchat
Cheval’s advice is important to keep in mind. Social media is like rented property when you think about it. You don’t own the platform, nor can you count on it to always be around. If a social media platform shuts down, you’re going to lose your followers and everything you’ve worked so hard to build (unless you’ve successfully converted them to readers, subscribers, and customers). Your blog, however, is one place that you truly own and are in control of.
Q2: Where should you blog this year besides your own website? Discuss how to find the right platforms.
While blogging on your own website is great, blogging on other sites can provide major results. There are a lot of benefits to guest blogging, but it’s all about choosing the right places to post if you want to make it work for your brand. Keep these tips in mind:
Julia recommends creating a target persona for your audience so you know what they’re like. You can figure out their demographics and also what sites they’re reading on the web. That’s where you should be sharing your content! Check out the blog post she linked for more information on creating your own target persona.
A2: Guest blog on the websites YOUR audience is reading. Find out where they spend their time online and BE THERE. #ContentWritingChat
The key to choosing the sites to guest blog on is figuring out where your audience spends their time online. You want to post on the sites that your target audiences reads so they’ll discover you and head over to your website.
Jason also knows the importance of finding the popular blogs in your wheelhouse and guest posting there. It’s the best way for you to reach your target audience and hopefully make them a fan of your brand.
Varun recommends posting on forums that are specific to your industry, guest blogging on authority websites, and also using platforms like Quora, Reddit, and LinkedIn.
Another great option is to create content for Medium. Trying posting there a few times and see if you notice any results. Blogging for ROI is going to take some trial and error and you have to figure out what works for your brand.
Q3: What are a few SEO strategies all bloggers need to know if they want to get their content noticed?
It’s no secret that if you want to get your content noticed, SEO is very important. And we can’t talk blogging for ROI without mentioning some SEO tactics, can we? Of course not! So, in order to make sure your content gets noticed and attracts viewers, these are the optimization basics you need to know:
Julia knows how important it is to be able to conduct keyword research. She also said you need to know how to use H2s, H3s, alt tags, and how to write a meta description. It may sound overwhelming for beginners, but it’s all easy to figure out.
Sarah from ThinkSEM said you need to know your audience and what is going to resonate with them. Before you start thinking about SEO tactics, this is the first thing you need to consider.
A3: Use a keyword research tool to find out what keywords surrounding your topic are most relevant to your target.#contentwritingchat
Once you have the right keyword, you can plug that into your content. You’ll want to use your keyword in the title of your blog post, the URL, the meta description, and throughout the post itself. As Mallie said though, it’s important that you don’t go overboard. Keyword stuffing is a huge turn-off for your readers and Google doesn’t like it either. They should be incorporated in a way that feels natural.
Yoast is a great SEO plugin to use if your site is running on WordPress. It’s very simple to use and it makes optimization easy for beginners and those who are more experienced. We use it here at Express Writers and highly recommend it!
Jeff knows that Google Analytics is another great tool to use as part of your keyword strategy in order to optimize your content.
Q4: How can you figure out what content your audience most wants to see on your blog?
In order to attract people to your blog in the first place, you need to create the content they want to see. Once they know you’re a source of great information, they’re going to keep coming back for more. But how do you figure out what kind of content you need to create for your audience? Check out these tips:
Julia recommends figuring out what your audience’s biggest questions are and answering them. You can use tools like Answer the Public and others to figure out what they need help with.
Not sure what your audience wants? Ask them! It really is that simple. You can create a survey and share it for readers to leave their feedback and you’ll easily see what they’re interested in. You can also post on social media to get suggestions.
Jeff also agrees that asking your audience what they want is a pretty powerful strategy. Not only does it provide you with great feedback, but it gives your audience the chance to have their voice heard. They’ll appreciate that.
A4: See what they are talking about, liking, sharing, etc Listen > Talk #ContentWritingChat
Besides flat out asking them, you can also conduct a little research of your own. Figure out what they’re talking about, what they’re liking and sharing. Listening is key to understand your audience. Check out their conversations on social media and pay attention to the comments they leave and the emails they send.
It’s also worthwhile to see what your competitors are doing. Check out businesses that are similar to yours and find out what’s been working for them and what’s not. You obviously don’t want to copy their strategy, but it can give you plenty of ideas for what you can create.
A4: I send out a yearly survey and watch my analytics to see what they like.Those are measureable methods. #contentwritingchat
Sending out a yearly survey is a great way to question your audience about their interests. Getting into the habit of doing it every year ensures you’re always updated on what your audience is looking for. It’s also wise to check your analytics to see which posts are more popular since it gives you an idea of what to create more of.
A4. Watch your analytics + iterate on topics with the most views/long length on page. #contentwritingchat
Kristen also knows your analytics can be helpful when it comes to content creation. See which posts get the most traffic and which posts your readers spend the most time on to see what works best.
A4 – The content marketer who understands their audience the most wins. Every time. #contentwritingchat
And as James said, it all goes back to understanding your audience.
Q5: How important is it to include a call to action in your blog posts? Describe an effective CTA.
A call to action essentially tells your reader what the next step is. What do you want them to do after reading your blog post? Do you want them to leave your site without engaging with you, possibly to never return again? Definitely not! That’s where a call to action comes in. Check out these tips for crafting an effective CTA:
If you’re blogging for ROI, then it’s essential that you prompt your readers to take action. A clear CTA will tell them exactly what to do and will encourage them to follow through.
As Jeff pointed out, you also can’t assume your readers are just going to take the action you want them to take. You need to make it clear and empower them to follow through.
Your content should serve a purpose and it’s important to let your audience know what’s next. Sarah recommends that all CTAs should be visible, understandable, and well-placed and in order to be effective.
A5: Your CTA is crucial! It has to be well written, compelling, and concise or there was little point to your post #contentwritingchat
Without a CTA, there isn’t much of a purpose to your post, is there? Make sure it’s well-written, compelling, and concise in order to inspire action.
Q6: What are the secrets to making blog customers convert into real customers and clients?
Once you have people visiting your blog, you want them to take that next step with your brand. You want them to ultimately become customers and clients. How do you make that happen? We’ve got some great advice for you:
A6 Targeted reader topics, writing the most thorough answers to their biggest questions, SEO optimization, great CTAs #ContentWritingChat
Focus on solving the common problems your audience is facing. They’ll appreciate you for it and you’ll be able to establish yourself as an authority in the process.
Taking pen to paper is always so satisfying! Sometimes it’s just a lot nicer to do things the old school way as opposed to typing or punching out laters on our phone’s keyboard.
Q8: Which blogs do you read on a consistent basis? Tag them and let them know!
To wrap up our chat on blogging for ROI, we wanted to know which blogs our audience loves to read. Here’s what some of them had to say:
Don’t get so caught up in consuming content that you forget to embrace the world around you. As Shannon said, you need to pay attention and you’ll surely find some ideas for your content.
We look forward to seeing you at the next #ContentWritingChat! Mark your calendars weekly for Tuesday at 10 AM Central Time for great chats centered around content writing and marketing. Follow @ExpWriters to stay updated on our new topics and guests!
We launched our very first #contentwritingchat this week, Tuesday the 19th at 10 AM, and it was a raging success! Over 300 tweets were sent back and forth in the short hour. I was the host, and the topic was all about my favorite subject, What is a Copywriter? As the host, I answered the key questions put together by my social media team on this topic. We had some great participants join in and add superb thoughts to the conversation!
Our Very First #ContentWritingChat Makes it To #42 Hottest Talked About on Twitter
The most exciting part was when we were told by TMobile that we ranked #42 in the USA on Twitter. We had to take a screenshot of that one:
Content marketing is the best of both worlds for Olivia. She knows what it is all about and we know that the two often go hand in hand to get to content marketing.
Nearly everyone uses it, so it is important that social media content is unique. SEO is equally important because, let’s face it, who doesn’t use Google on a daily basis?
While we know there’s much more to SEO, long tail phrases are the newest way to get the content marketing results that you need for your business. They’re a great place to start.
Businesses need copywriters because most of them don’t have the skills for online writing. Copywriters provide professional service and great information that a business may not have been able to put out otherwise. You should also consider using a copywriter …
We are looking forward to seeing all of you next Tuesday at 10AM (Central) on the #ContentWritingChat! Our guest host will be none other than Elena from SEMrush, discussing content strategy tips for the online SEO writer. Join us on Twitter @ExpWriters!
This is an original short by Julia McCoy, CEO of Express Writers.
Everyone around me, everywhere I look, is having some sort of “Blowout Black Friday Clearance Deal NOW!” I flipped through (and instantly deleted) maybe 50 emails with some version of this title just today.
Now I’m not one to stop anyone from going to sales or having them. If that’s in your best interests, by all means—enjoy Black Friday.
Why We Didn’t Have A Blowout Black Friday Sale
How come we were one of the very few businesses who didn’t send out one of these emails or put out a quick promo code on social media?
For the new people perusing this. Express Writers is a copywriting agency. Our job is to write and create high quality content, web pages, ongoing blogs, sales pages, resumes, you-name-it—for businesses of all sizes and types.
My point is we don’t sell a product. We sell services. Human services.
And creative services, at that. No machine can replace a pen wielded by a real human with an active brain that has been endowed with the extra cells of writing creativity. We don’t sell a product we can mass-produce at once, sit in the closet, and ship out at a moment’s notice. Or what can be discounted for a quick sale at the end of the year.
Human services shouldn’t be discounted just because the commercial, product-oriented world has declared the Friday after Thanksgiving THE day for “blowout sales”.
4 Reasons Writing Doesn’t Ever Deserve a Coupon Code
1. It’s humanly created. Did I say yet that writing is a service written specifically to order, EVERY time it’s ordered? That is, if you want high quality. There’s services like Constant Content where writers bucket articles with random keywords, and you can come and buy those. I don’t recommend this, because in 2015/2016, to stand out in a huge sea of content marketing, you need to be unique; have your own voice; research and put a lot of work in; and have your own expertise angle to become a thought leader (a factor of winning content online).
2. It always takes time. Writers are working on the clock. If they give you a discount, chances are they have to rush through that piece and not spend as much time so they can make a decent hourly rate. And that’s why we don’t ever allow bartering. We know how much time is required by not just the writer, but our management; content specialists; and editorial staff on every single content piece (we never skip the quality process on anything). So, we charge to make the process worth our time, each time.
3. It’s too valuable. Would you ask your heart surgeon for a discount? Would you ask your chiropractor? Replace that with any service you value. Writing isn’t necessarily heart surgery, but it’s a talent to be valued. This ties into our human creation process mentioned. It also has huge ROI if you pick the right creative writer. Just don’t think of asking a good copywriter for a discount on their talents. The value is too high.
4. Writing is an art. A fading art, a God-given talent that not everyone can boast of. I meet a lot of people who say they can write or edit, but once they’re given our SEO and content tests, cannot. To truly create high quality content for the web is actually getting harder to do, because it’s hard to find a good copywriter who is dedicated and given to their trade.
So, don’t do a quick sale if you’re among those offering a human deliverable. Something that requires brain cells to come up with and deliver to specific order details, not in mass amounts that will sit on shelves for unlimited dates.
Here’s to the rebels of Black Friday.
Those who don’t conform and discount themselves to match the commercialization of America.
If you’re humanly creating what you’re selling for a living, don’t cheapen yourself for 24 hours just to match a short-lived fad.
I leave you with this quote by Eric Thomas:
To get high quality, non-cheap quality writing services 365 days of the year, visit our Content Shop.
At Express Writers, we absolutely love adapting and growing.
What we don’t like to do is stay still.
Photo credit mayawidiani.tumblr.com
So, for the past few months, we’ve been working on a lot of things behind the scenes. Here’s a recap for you on just what we’ve been up to!
I Fly Like Paper, Get High Like Planes
Our calligraphy pen point has been our foundational visual logo for years now, and we were brainstorming together on how to take it to the next level, staring at different pen points and unique illustrative representations.
I looked at my team member, COO Josh, and instantly had a thought: a paper plane shape.
Then, we decided to take things up a notch and put the paper plane in motion – pointing directly to our name, flying, and “aloft.”
We knew we loved it as soon as the idea came to mind. The final designed product was done by our own COO Josh McCoy.
Our paper plane represents the modern standards we’re continually adapting to, and a standard of onwards/upwards that we have been upholding for four years now.
Just to put into reality how and why we work hard to symbolize the onward and upward standard in the industry of content writing. We are continually honing our services, and working towards the best content agency on the planet. The paper plane fits our mission statement in a big way.
Express Writers Announcement From Julia McCoy, CEO
Posted to our @ExpWriters Instagram account, here’s an announcement about all these changes at Express Writers from Julia:
A video posted by Express Writers (@expwriters) on
I’m working on:
Books
Besides our logo rebrand, which has officially launched as of today, I’ve been working on two books: a complete guide on how to be an online content writer & a beginner’s guide to blogging.
Both will be out before Christmas, so stay tuned – look for an announcement from us with published Kindle book links.
I’ve already created our first episodes and scheduled in some super cool guests. I can’t wait to share all my content marketing knowledge and that of my guests’ with you. Here’s to growing together in content marketing!
Download your Free copy of The Entrepreneurial Story: How I Founded Express Writers From $75, Grew a Successful Company Mindset, and My Greatest Lessons in Business (Video)
Our calligraphy pen point has been our foundational visual logo for years now, and we were brainstorming together on how to take it to the next level, staring at different pen points and unique illustrative representations.