In this episode of Burning the Boats, Oscar shares an insightful interview with special guest, Jamie Doerschuck, founder of The Doer Co., a professional direct response copywriter and marketing strategist. Jamie is a 2x awarded Top Business Writer on Medium.com, where she writes weekly posts about business and marketing. Through her blog and livestreaming classes, she’s taught over 2,800 entrepreneurs her marketing techniques!

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Resources:

Jamie Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/thedoerco/
Jamie Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/thedoerco/
Jamie LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiedoer/
Jamie Blog- https://medium.com/@the_doerco
The Doer Co.- http://www.the-doerco.com/
Reddit- https://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/
Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/

Show Value Bombs:

• Jamie and Oscar underscore the value of problem solving for successful entrepreneurs.
• Jamie shares the pillars to successful copywriting.
• Jamie emphasizes the importance of not becoming comfortable with your identity because it will continue to change and the same identity may not continue to serve you well.

Show Notes:

Today on The OMG! Show: Burning the Boats with special guest, Jamie Doerschuck.

1:32 – Oscar asks Jamie about her background.

• Jamie was a musician through high school and was going to college for music to major in performance for the bass clarinet.
• She applied to five schools all around the world and selected a music conservatory in Switzerland.
• She faced learning adult life skills–in German.
• With a Swiss education Visa, you’re not allowed to work for first six months and next six months you’re only allowed to work 10 hours, so she had to figure out a way to work with non-Swiss people and get money that didn’t come to her Swiss bank account while facing the challenge of the time change.
• She ran across the internet forum and was interested in being paid for results, Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/).
  She started with whiteboard videos.
• Meanwhile, she is practicing her music hours a day and discusses the challenges and her struggle with depression.

14:01 Oscar asks Jamie about whether she questioned being in another country to study with the challenges.

• She shares that she homeschooled and had various musical professors and the challenge of the music profession being that the colleagues you meet are your competition, so your success is their failure.

16:25 Oscar likens her musical experience to the movie, Whiplash, where the main character sacrifices his friendships for his career.

• Jamie says it sounds absolutely right and also shares here repetitive injuries from playing so much.
• Jamie shares how challenging it is to get a spot in a professional orchestra in comparison to the NFL.
• She realized her idea of a career was not viable and moved back to the states after a year in Switzerland and was continuing her freelancing.
• Jamie decided to start a subscription box company to get marketing (and wordpress and copywriting) experience where they sourced local company’s products for their boxes.
• Jamie shares how she funded the subscription box company and broke even.

25:50 Oscar laughs about the belief that email is dead and emphasizes the importance of list building. He asks Jamie about her take on marketing.

• Jamie shares that she is heavy into sales and “marketing.”
• Jamie shares her perspective that marketing is all the systems finding strangers to sell to and following up on the back end.

28:46 Oscar asks Jamie if she was always a go-getter or if it was acquired with her subscription business.

• Jamie attributes it to her performance background and that she has always been outgoing and was never afraid to talk to adults.
• Jamie shares a story about being on cruises as a kid and being an adventurous eater.

30:03 – Oscar asks Jamie if the inherent confidence she had led her to build by harassing people.

• Jamie jokes that she was the local Billy Maize.
• She expounds that she was then led to change her major at the local university program and had to take some economics courses, became Marketing Officer for school’s Entrepreneur Club and started getting attention from local news.
• She took her subscription box to a local college competition but did not win.
• Jamie shares the challenges of doing a monthly subscription box out of your home on your own.

32:02 – Oscar recognizes Jamie was in the middle of trying to become an entrepreneur, trying to make sales, managing to break even and wearing different hats and asks her to talk about her breaking point.

• Jamie tells how an investor was interested in her business while, at the same time, the local Chamber of Commerce offered wanted to buy her business and offered a great deal.
• She openly shares how the subscription box had become her identity and it was a struggle to give that up.
• Jamie shares why she decided not to sell her business, closed it and began offering copywriting services.

37:28 – Oscar underlines Jamie’s multiple “burning the point moments” beginning with choosing her college and commends her sticking to what her business was intended for and asked if people thought she was crazy when she didn’t sell the business.

• Jamie says that people were surprised and it ended up coming full circle back to Reddit for Hire because she discovered copywriting was her favorite.
• Jamie shares the other marketing skills she provided for subscribers including social media, graphics and scripts.

40:05 – Oscar asks Jamie if she switched to copywriting if she started a consulting business around copywriting or if it was more of a sales pitch.

• Jamie started her consultancy in 2008 when she graduated from college.
• She rewinds to why she got into entrepreneurship in college and shares her philosophy on it.
• She hones in on the reason she became successful in the major of Economics.

44:49 – Oscar recognizes the recurring theme in Jamie’s life as problem solving. He asks her what motivates her to solve the problem.

• Jamie feels depression, emotional discomfort and anxiety instilled that resilience along with genetics.

47:19 – Oscar asks Jamie about her current company, The Doer Co.

• Jamie shares that The Doer Co. has been part of her journey which has accelerated especially in the last two years more than the other years combined.
• She feels her success as a marketer is that she believes in constantly learning and reading.
  Jamie documents all the books she has read on goodreads.com.
• Oscar and Jamie share their perspective on the importance of reading.
• Jamie shares the trauma of a near drowning experience as a child, how it affected her childhood.

54:04 – Oscar asks Jamie if the near drowning experience gave her the perspective that she’d been through worse.

• Jamie agrees and said she became accustomed to living in an emergency situation.

54:04 – Oscar asks Jamie what the pillars are to be a good copywriter.

• Jamie feels the most important thing to know is that it’s not about you.
• Improve your conversions immediately by removing first person language like “I, me, we, ours” and change it to “you, your.”
• She shares that changing one word can get a 28% increase in revenue.
• Read your copy out loud and anywhere you trip or stumble on a sentence, you need to change it.
• Read it through until you can read it without making a mistake.
• Remember most people read at a 5th grade level so use “penny words” rather than SAT words.
• Explain and specify in a way people will comprehend.
• Oscar relates with the example of P90-X’s term “muscle confusion” making it become the #1 at home workout.

1:02:51 – Oscar asks Jamie if most entrepreneurs are too close to grasp the copy they are writing.

• Jamie agrees and understands not everyone can hire a professional.
• She recognizes that the expert is excited and forgets what they didn’t know.
• She shares the best way to avoid the problem is to do the above steps and then find a friend that doesn’t know what you are doing, have them read it, and ask their questions so you understand where you are not connecting with people.

1:04:59 – Oscar echoes the takeaway from Jamie’s story– our identity doesn’t need to trap us, we must continue to learn, be afraid to make mistakes but break through your shell.

• Jamie emphasizes your identity will change through your entire life.
• Don’t let your ego talk to you and remember it was a step towards the next best thing for you.
• Something that served you well in the past, may not continue to serve you.

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