Teri Holland (00:02.464)
Welcome, Rachel. Great to have you here.
Rachel Allen (00:04.231)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you.
Teri Holland (00:08.942)
So I want to start with your story of how you got into doing, how you got into marketing and copywriting, because I think it's such a fascinating story. so that's where I think we should start today. Let's dive into that.
Rachel Allen (00:22.737)
I love telling the story too, because if I wasn't the person in it, I would think it's ridiculous. yeah, so I do marketing now, marketing strategist, fractional CMO, but I went to school for journalism and I didn't even have any concept or any plan of running my own business. I never thought about being in marketing. That was just completely out of my sphere.
Teri Holland (00:31.182)
Understandable, yeah.
Rachel Allen (00:48.208)
But went to school for journalism, graduated in 2008, and of course no one's hiring journalists. So the only job I could get was unpacking boxes at Old Navy on the 5 a.m. in their warehouse. And I was like, okay, this is, yeah, not what I wanna do with the rest of my life. So I did that for six months. And then in my 22-year-old brain, I was like, okay, what's the furthest place away from Tennessee? And the answer to that is Hong Kong.
Teri Holland (00:55.47)
Thanks
Teri Holland (01:02.722)
Wow, yeah.
Teri Holland (01:07.118)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (01:15.908)
So I bought a plane ticket and I left and I, but I didn't get a work visa beforehand because you know, 22. So I landed Hong Kong with like 200 bucks in cash. have to make rent the next month. And so I'm Googling like how to make money online, which is only slightly less ridiculous than, it is now. But I found this like job popped up for something called copywriting. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. It's probably a scam, but you know, I'll give it a try.
Teri Holland (01:17.794)
Okay.
Teri Holland (01:24.322)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (01:36.87)
Teri Holland (01:44.078)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel Allen (01:44.444)
So I gave it a try. actually paid me $3.25 and I was absolutely hooked.
Teri Holland (01:51.63)
Amazing. And then how did that turn into the career you have today? How did you go from that $3 and what was it, 17 cent job to everything that you have built? How did you get here?
Rachel Allen (02:07.74)
You know, I actually tried really hard to pretend it wasn't working for like the first two years. So I had this success and I got really like, I am sort of obsessed with gamifying it. So I got to where I could do these jobs very quickly. I took on a bunch of jobs. I was actually earning pretty good money doing it, but I was, it was so far away from my plan that I was like, well, this, mean, this isn't a success. This is just my little gap filling whatever. And so
Teri Holland (02:14.946)
Teri Holland (02:29.613)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (02:34.605)
three years in, I have like regular clients and by any accounts I have a business but I'm like, no, no, no. So I was living on this Greek island and like, you know, living the dream, the entrepreneur dream where I was working in the morning and sunbathing every afternoon and I was so anxious and unhappy all the time because this wasn't the plan. And so I like, sort of
Teri Holland (02:42.317)
Hahaha
Teri Holland (02:56.983)
Wow.
Right.
Rachel Allen (03:01.884)
white knuckled my way through a summer on the world's most beautiful island. And then I was like, well, this is untenable. I've got to make a decision here. And I decided that what I would do is I would do a master's degree as my last-ditch attempt at following the grown-up path of getting a job. And at the same time, I would also commit to doing this business. So I did a one-year master's degree and also started the business. And at the end of the year, the business was just more interesting.
Teri Holland (03:10.51)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (03:29.986)
Yeah, fair enough. And it's so interesting to me that you were already three years in, and now you're starting the business. Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (03:30.105)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (03:37.515)
Right, because up until then it was accident. it was just a fluke. I don't know why people keep coming back. Yeah.
Teri Holland (03:44.6)
Totally. And it's, yeah, it's so interesting to me. And I just love that distinction between, this was the plan. And then this thing happened, but that wasn't the plan. so what was like, like take us through that. What was going on in your head during that time when you didn't realize it was a business and you weren't thinking of it seriously? How are you feeling through that?
Rachel Allen (03:45.253)
Ahem.
Rachel Allen (04:07.141)
A lot of it was, would, when I was focusing on business work, I'm very competitive with myself and I love a challenge. And so every day was like, can I do this faster? Can I do it better? Can I earn more money? Like, how can I win this every day? And then as soon as I was outside of it, I'd be like, wow, that felt super amazing. Weird, huh? But also I don't have a job where someone pays me.
Teri Holland (04:24.162)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (04:30.168)
you
Rachel Allen (04:33.656)
Yeah, so was a lot of, sorry, go ahead.
Teri Holland (04:33.806)
Mm hmm. Yeah, except. Yeah. except that you were making money. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (04:38.552)
yeah, I know, I know, totally. But I had just been so indoctrinated with this idea of like, if you don't have a W-2 job, there's no way that you can be safe. There's no way that you can make money as a creative. know, disaster is around the corner at any moment. And I never had just really even considered like, well, maybe I could make a stable business for myself.
Teri Holland (04:49.678)
Teri Holland (04:55.822)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (05:02.636)
Yeah. And I think so many of us get caught up in that trap of thinking that way that if someone else isn't responsible for signing my paycheck, then it can't, it's not legitimate. It's not real. And the way I like to look at it is like, what is safer than being able to generate your own income? Because a job, as we all know, you could lose that tomorrow for any reason. But if you know how to make your own money, then that is security.
Rachel Allen (05:06.2)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (05:12.288)
Mm. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (05:25.345)
yeah.
Yeah. And I mean, you would have think that I would have clocked that with the whole like graduation and then like, you know, I did all the stuff and it didn't work out. But I was like, no, maybe if I try, like if I just pull the lever on that slot machine one more time, maybe that will work out for me. But yeah, I did have to come to realize that. And actually a good friend of mine has Heather Thorkelson wrote a book called No Plan B, talking about people like us.
Teri Holland (05:37.74)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (05:44.088)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (05:50.86)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (05:51.084)
And that's what she brings out that whole, she articulates that concept of safety. And like you said, it's like, what could be more safe than knowing that you can be dropped anywhere in the world and figure out a way to make yourself okay?
Teri Holland (06:01.23)
Yeah, absolutely. And so what was that moment for you when you realized, wait, I am doing this, this is real?
Rachel Allen (06:09.526)
Hmm. So during the year that I was doing my masters, sort of through a weird confluence of circumstances ended up on my very first sales call with a pretty big name entrepreneur in London. And I didn't know who she was because I don't even, you know, I wasn't an entrepreneur so I wasn't researching anything. But we get on the call and she's asking me like all this stuff and I have absolutely no idea what it is she actually wants because I don't know all the acronyms and it's Skype because it's a million years ago. So there's no video. So she's asking me all these things and I'm like, yeah, as I'm Googling like
Teri Holland (06:24.238)
Hahaha
Rachel Allen (06:38.52)
all these acronyms and I'm like, yeah, I can totally do that. Yeah, yeah. And I ended up signing her for a five-figure contract. And that was totally, I was just like, I, you know, I don't know what I'm doing. So I don't even know if I'm going to fail or not. wouldn't even know what failure looks like. So I just kind of went for it. And after working with her for a couple months, I was like, I'm actually really good at this. Like I'm, this isn't just me churning out nonsense for content mills. Like I'm helping a seven-figure business do what it does. I'm, getting people onto
Teri Holland (06:42.327)
Hahaha!
Amazing.
Teri Holland (07:01.005)
nice
Rachel Allen (07:08.185)
Penguin's rosters for publishing books. I'm getting airport bookshelves filled. So it was really, really cool to have that kind of confidence.
Teri Holland (07:14.583)
Amazing.
Yeah, absolutely. And what would you say to another entrepreneur who maybe hasn't realized yet that they're an entrepreneur? What would you say to them?
Rachel Allen (07:26.391)
I would say, gosh, so I would say a couple of things, but the first thing is like, you are so much more capable than you're giving yourself credit for. And if you go out and spend some time around who I very lovingly call the normals at their jobs and you see like how they work and what they do, you'll be like, I am doing so much more already.
Teri Holland (07:45.166)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. The normals. I love that. I'm going to take that. I'm going to steal that from you, the normals. That's great. So what is it about marketing that you're so excited about and that you love doing?
Rachel Allen (07:51.575)
Yeah. Yeah, please do. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (08:05.505)
I really like the challenge of it for one. think it's an interesting strategic challenge. But what I really love about it is it's actually an opportunity to create a really beautiful conversation between people, which I know can sound a little crazy because people think of marketing as like just sort of beating people with marketing copy until the dollars fall out. like that just, doesn't work long-term. So I like.
Teri Holland (08:19.779)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (08:26.25)
Hahaha
Yes.
Rachel Allen (08:29.868)
being creative with it, I like creating these long-term relationships with people in this very human-to-human conversation and kind of subverting the idea of this traditionally adversarial relationship between the marketer and the customer. I'm like, no, we're in this together. If you want to buy something, do it over here. If we're not a fit for you, that is so great. Please go on. And so I like being able to turn it on its head.
Teri Holland (08:52.642)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (08:56.908)
love that perspective of we're in this together. Yeah, and I think a lot of small business owners struggle with their marketing because they feel like they're the like the bad guy or they have to pressure people into buying from them. And so that concept of we're in this together, I think is very powerful.
Rachel Allen (08:58.742)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (09:06.389)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm
Rachel Allen (09:14.306)
Yeah, well, something I teach in workshops a lot is like, get a lot of people who come to me very anxious about sales and very anxious about marketing. And I tell them, you know, it's because we're taught to do it like you're selling a timeshare. It's like, let's like be friends, nurture campaigns, softy, softy, fun, fun, buy my thing. Like that feels terrible. Of course you don't want to do that. Yeah.
Teri Holland (09:24.46)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (09:29.006)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (09:35.026)
Hahaha!
Of course, yeah, yeah, agreed. And so what would you say is the opposite of doing that? Like, what is your approach? How do you work with your clients or when you're teaching people marketing strategies? Yeah, walk us through that. What does that look like?
Rachel Allen (09:51.52)
Yeah. So I always, I actually, people think that you have to think about your audience first, but I actually say you have to think about yourself first and get really clear on what it is you're actually selling, which sounds so obvious. Cause like, of course you know what you're selling, right? But when you say it, if I ask you, then a lot of times people are like, but it's like this thing. like, cause you know how important it is and you know what it does and you have this strong felt sense.
Teri Holland (10:01.016)
Rachel Allen (10:16.972)
But then when you try to articulate that, a lot of people fall into like the buzzwords or the cliches or whatever. And so the first thing is really to figure out like, who are you? What are you doing? And why does anybody care? And I mean like, why do they really care? Because people also tend to fall into this like, well, they want it because they want to become empowered or they want my thing because it's high quality. And I'm like, dude, nobody in the history of ever has woken up at four in the morning being like, man, if I could just become my most empowered self.
Teri Holland (10:18.104)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (10:31.842)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (10:46.089)
everything would be great, you know?
Teri Holland (10:48.878)
Totally. I see that so much in my world of personal development is like the empowerment or to fulfill your dreams and stuff. yeah, but you're right. People aren't waking up at four in the morning thinking about that or that's not the thing that they're looking for. Yeah. What do you think it is that most small business owners are struggling when it comes to their messaging? What's the biggest struggle?
Rachel Allen (10:52.192)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (10:58.57)
Yeah!
Rachel Allen (11:04.15)
Right.
Right. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (11:15.367)
I think it's something that Chip and Dan Heath call the gap of knowledge or the curse of knowledge. So, and I alluded to it a little bit, but it's this idea of when you know something, it's really hard to imagine that the other person doesn't know it as well as you do. And so you say things like unintentionally, assuming that they have all the knowledge and the felt sense that you do. And so it's really hard to get to the level of empathy where you can actually put yourself in
Teri Holland (11:21.752)
Mm.
Teri Holland (11:32.707)
Right.
Rachel Allen (11:44.873)
your listeners or your readers or your audience's shoes and be like, okay, wait, like, what would they care about? Not like what would I care about if I were in their circumstances, but what do they genuinely care about?
Teri Holland (11:59.278)
What are some ways that we can start to figure that out? How do we get there?
Rachel Allen (12:02.633)
So this is like, everybody hates this answer and I apologize in advance, but you got to talk to them. Like actually, like, I know everyone's like podcasts done. Thank you. Right, But if you can talk to, if you can get on a zoom call with five people, that's great. If you can get on one with 10 people, like you're done for at least five years. So.
Teri Holland (12:08.878)
Teri Holland (12:14.862)
And signing off.
Teri Holland (12:20.28)
Okay.
Teri Holland (12:25.016)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel Allen (12:28.663)
Yeah, people try it because everybody's like, well, I'll do a survey instead or I'll email them. like, ah, if you can have a conversation face to face where nobody's selling anybody anything, but you're just like, look, this is what I do. And I really want to help people like you. What do you actually need? Like, how do you talk about it? What do you say to your friends? And you can hear it from them face to face. You can get the energy from it. You can often find out what you think they want. They don't actually care about.
Teri Holland (12:28.706)
Wow.
Teri Holland (12:48.631)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (12:55.656)
And then you can save yourself a lot of time and energy and heartache by just saying like, okay, what do you actually need? How can I be of service to you? Whether that ever involves money or not.
Teri Holland (12:56.77)
Great.
Teri Holland (13:06.476)
I that. yeah, and I can see how that would be much more powerful than sending, like you said, a survey because a survey has already predetermined answers and they're just going to check the boxes that they think are the right answers, not necessarily what they actually want.
Rachel Allen (13:14.4)
Right.
Rachel Allen (13:20.424)
And also people lie on surveys. They get aspirational. They want to look a certain way to you because like, of course we all do, you know? But if you can speak to them face to face and like, wait it out for about 15 minutes when everybody's masks drops off and then you can be like, okay, but really, what do you want? Yeah.
Teri Holland (13:23.884)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (13:30.05)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (13:40.108)
Nice. That's such great advice. And how do we, you know, I've seen, obviously I've researched you, I've read up about you. And I've seen you, like I've heard you talk about data in our marketing and pay attention to data, but how do we use data in our marketing without losing the soul of the brand?
Rachel Allen (14:01.786)
I love that you asked me that because I love talking about this and no one ever asks me. pardon me. Yeah. So what I tell people is that marketing informs instinct and vice versa. So people tend to get a little afraid of their own marketing and they get afraid of their own instincts because they're like, well, I don't know. You know, the internet says I'm doing it wrong or
Teri Holland (14:06.67)
I'm glad I asked.
Rachel Allen (14:28.202)
What if I make the wrong decision or maybe I don't have enough information? And I'm like, okay, sure, maybe. But first of all, you're a human and you're talking to other humans. You understand how this works. You can tell a story. You do that all the time with your friends. So you have this very like, like you, if you start with this belief or knowledge of yourself of like, wait, I don't have to market to people. I can just talk to them. I can just have a conversation. I know how to do that. I do that all the time.
Teri Holland (14:43.011)
Right.
Rachel Allen (14:56.714)
Then you can bring in the data to be like, okay, what specific questions do I want answers to? So that might be, for instance, what kind of headlines do people really respond to in my emails? That's an answer with an easy data question. You can look at the open rates. You can, if you really want to get fancy, do like some A &B testing and surveys and stuff like that. But that you can look and be like, okay, that one got 87%, that one got 60, cool. Then you can use that data to tweak it and inform it.
Teri Holland (14:57.901)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (15:25.621)
But it always has to be balanced with that qualitative thing. So when I'm doing metrics reviews for my clients, we always have almost an equal quantitative, so like numbers based and qualitative feelings based column, and they have to work together.
Teri Holland (15:38.984)
Okay. Okay. And how do you, and this might be a silly question, but how do you measure the feelings part of that? Because the numbers are easy. You can look at your open rates and your click rates and all of that, how do you measure feelings?
Rachel Allen (15:46.42)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (15:53.685)
So I start with your feelings, your internal feelings. Are you enjoying your marketing? Do you feel embarrassed when you see it? If you're on a sales call, do you feel excited to send somebody to your website or are you like, maybe check out my Instagram instead? Do you like the clients you're working with or do you go to work every day and like, okay, I guess I got to do this. So I start with that and then I look for sentiment markers among.
Teri Holland (15:58.21)
Okay.
Teri Holland (16:06.294)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (16:16.374)
right.
Rachel Allen (16:19.924)
clients. like, let's say you're having a bunch of conversations with them. And I would ask like, how do you think people are doing? You know, like, do people get on the call angry or stressed or relieved or like, what are you picking up on there? And then you can look if you really want to get this deep, you can look into like your comments and engagements and stuff and say like, okay, do people genuinely seem interested? Do they seem like they're just clicking the little LinkedIn AI thing so that they say something?
Teri Holland (16:28.844)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (16:48.774)
Are they upset? Like, what's going on there? So I really try to bring the human element back into it. And then we can say, then it gets really fun. Cause it's like, okay, we know that people are feeling this way. We see that they are doing these things. How do I make a story out
Teri Holland (16:56.266)
Okay.
Rachel Allen (17:06.578)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (17:06.702)
Great. So interesting. And where would you say that AI fits into all of this? Because I know so many people are using AI to help them with their copy and their marketing. I know I have. know many of us, when it first came available to us, we were probably overusing it. And I know through a lot of conversations, I've had with small business owners, pulled it back quite a bit as we're learning how to work with it. So how would you say AI is fitting into
Rachel Allen (17:18.397)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel Allen (17:23.603)
Ha
Teri Holland (17:35.574)
our messaging and our copy and how can we use it even more effectively than maybe we are now?
Rachel Allen (17:40.189)
So I think it is such a great marketing intern, and that is the approach that I take with it. So it can do, it's wonderful for research projects. It's fantastic for collating data. It is excellent for giving you a first draft. If you're the kind of person who it's really hard for you to like write into the void and you just need somebody to ask you questions, it's amazing for that. I think where people fall down, like you said, is they overuse it or they feel like the robot knows better than them. So I see a lot of people,
Teri Holland (17:47.415)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (18:02.286)
Nice.
Rachel Allen (18:08.978)
like sort of saying, give me a marketing strategy. And then they never think like, wait, does that even make sense? Do I like that? Is everybody else doing that? Is that weird? And so just giving it kind of the vibe check of like, wait, do I even like that? And if you do, fantastic, go for it, check it out. But I think that it's just really important to know what it can do and what it can't do and to really make the most of it for its skills.
Teri Holland (18:19.128)
Ha
Teri Holland (18:35.106)
Right. And it's, you know, I see the way a lot of people are using AI is like you said, is they think the computer knows more than what they do. And AI is really good at sounding really good. So I found like, I know that in the beginning, I was using it as that as that first draft, and then I would try to put myself into it. But it was really hard for me to do it that way. And so now what I do is I write myself.
Rachel Allen (18:42.823)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (18:48.391)
Yes.
Rachel Allen (18:53.53)
Mm-hmm
Rachel Allen (19:01.585)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (19:03.276)
And then I run it through AI to say, is this clear? Where am I losing the message here? And getting feedback from it instead of the other way around. Otherwise, I just found it was like, well, this already sounds good. I don't know how to change it and put me into that now.
Rachel Allen (19:05.542)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (19:15.997)
Right. Absolutely. I think it can be such a confidence killer because it's fast and it like it never has to think about it and it's never unsure, you know. So I love the way you're doing it though. I think it's a wonderful use of AI.
Teri Holland (19:22.264)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (19:27.51)
Right.
Teri Holland (19:31.48)
Thank you. I appreciate hearing that. It's good feedback. Where have you, you know, in working with your clients, where have you seen some really big results or maybe some case studies that you can share with us of how your work has helped them to grow?
Rachel Allen (19:33.041)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (19:40.806)
Mmm.
I love this. So one that I was very proud of, this actually happened last year, I was brought on as the fractional CMO and launch manager for a new legal tech platform. And yeah, it was really cool. And we got halfway through and they realized they actually needed to found a law firm along with the legal tech platform. So we'd like doubled scope overnight, founded a law firm, launched them concurrently. And they became listed as a preferred provider for Andreas and Horowitz.
Teri Holland (19:55.299)
Cool.
Teri Holland (20:09.005)
Wow.
Rachel Allen (20:12.858)
members within the six months of launching. So that was pretty exciting. I like that a lot.
Teri Holland (20:16.128)
Amazing. Yeah, that's very exciting. Cool. What would you say are some common traps that you see small business owners falling into when it comes to their marketing?
Rachel Allen (20:23.698)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (20:28.176)
I think one we've already spoken about, which is just believing that, you know, you don't know what you're doing. This is too confusing. Just like let somebody else, whether that's AI or just like any marketer that you've hired, you know, let, just let somebody else handle it. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to drive that car. so not wanting to have involvement in your own public voice. I think another one is feeling like you have to, follow all the, whatever the trend of the year is, you know,
Teri Holland (20:45.314)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (20:57.37)
We saw this so much with like TikTok videos a couple of years ago where everyone was like, no, I have to do the viral dance to make people pay attention to my business. And I'm like, I'm not going to shimmy to talk about marketing. What are we, what are we doing here? Come on. And I think the, just the final one is being inconsistent in their own way. So people, people think consistency means, well, I have to post three times a week forever. And that never changes.
Teri Holland (20:57.474)
Right?
Teri Holland (21:04.247)
Yeah
Teri Holland (21:10.916)
Totally. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (21:25.839)
There's nothing wrong with having like a human rhythm to what you post, but it needs to be yours. It needs to feel like you.
Teri Holland (21:34.766)
Yeah, yeah, that's good. And so what how would you define consistency?
Rachel Allen (21:40.39)
I would say it is pattern of behavior that follows along with who you are and your values and your goals. And so that may be, I post three times a week and it never changes and I email once a month and it's always on the second Tuesday and whatever, if that works for you, if that's just how you are. I have other friends who they're much more artistic with their businesses and creative. And so they're like,
I'm gonna email you when I feel like emailing you and maybe I'm gonna email you every day for a month and then not for three months and that's just the conversation we have. So it's just figuring out whatever's like congruent with your personality and your goals.
Teri Holland (22:19.502)
Hey, I love hearing that because I think so often when we think of consistency, we think of like you said that it's posting those like three posts and doing the same thing over and over again. But it's really, I love how you're talking about your own rhythm, finding your own rhythm in it and being consistent in that. And I think that's so important for people to hear.
Rachel Allen (22:28.433)
Huh.
Rachel Allen (22:34.948)
Exactly.
Rachel Allen (22:39.09)
Well, because it really is a relationship, know, and like, I don't know about you, but I don't text my friends Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then, you know, on the second Tuesday, we'll have a coffee date. It's like, no, like, oh no, I knew I was weird.
Teri Holland (22:45.218)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (22:49.42)
You don't?
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (22:55.697)
But yeah, it's really a relationship. So as long as you're showing up for the relationship with people, they don't need you to broadcast at them. They just need you to talk to them.
Teri Holland (23:05.676)
Hmm, good point. And how do we, how do we get into that? Like, I think so many and I know I've, I've gone through that. But I love that distinction of broadcasting versus talking to them. And how do we get away from that sort of broadcasted messages and actually begin to talk to our audience?
Rachel Allen (23:24.753)
So I tell people to ask themselves this question before they start doing their marketing and before they publish anything, which is, do I actually want to say this or am I just saying this to fill some space? I was at a conference, gosh, like 10 years ago, and a woman named Sally Hogshead said, if something's not adding up value, it's taking up, or if something is not adding value, it's taking up space. And I'm like, I don't have any extra space for nonsense.
So it's like really think about like, do you wanna share this or do you just kinda feel like you have to? And if you just kinda feel like you have to, like, I don't know, do something else, do something that interests you, switch gears. That's the thing I'm thinking about all the time with marketing right now is like, how can I be weirder with it? How can I be more creative with it? What can I do that breaks the bounds of this traditional like medium that we're working with?
Teri Holland (23:53.742)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (24:10.06)
Yeah
Teri Holland (24:17.684)
I love that. I love that. And so how do we, how can we build more of a connection with our audience without say getting into oversharing? Because I see a lot of that too, where people almost become too vulnerable and too authentic online. Where's that? How do we navigate that? Where's the line for us?
Rachel Allen (24:25.379)
Yes.
Rachel Allen (24:30.477)
Yes.
Rachel Allen (24:35.575)
so I call the being too vulnerable, drunk, crying on the internet shoulder, which like it happens, you know, occasionally you're to have somebody in like a bathroom and be like, but I just miss them so much. And that's okay. You know, we've all been there, but you don't want to that all the time. It gets bad if you make a habit out of it. So the, the sort of filter question that I have people think about is who are you in the context of your working relationship to these people?
Teri Holland (24:41.07)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (24:49.334)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (25:02.688)
And if there's something that makes sense within the context of that relationship, go ahead and share it. If it doesn't really make sense though, if it doesn't add anything, then, you know, just take that for your personal life. So in my own case, I have a pretty public internet presence. on, I think I've been on 63 podcasts this year already. Like I, yeah, thanks. I post a lot, I'm everywhere. But people actually don't know all that much about my personal life. And that's by design, cause that's nobody's business.
Teri Holland (25:23.406)
Amazing.
Rachel Allen (25:32.067)
but they still feel like they know me because I'm very open and transparent about the elements of my life and work that play into our working relationship.
Teri Holland (25:43.222)
Okay, I love that. yeah, that feels good. That feels almost like permission that we can keep parts of our life private and for us. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (25:51.257)
Yeah.
yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I don't want to go around photographing my manicures or whatever for my business. Like I just do that because that's relaxing for me.
Teri Holland (26:01.582)
Totally, totally. It's like, and I totally get that. I know for myself, I don't share much of my husband online because he's very private and he's a police officer. So he wants to remain private. And so, but the odd time I do share a photo is maybe our anniversary or something. And people will say, I never knew what your husband looked like. You never show him. I'm like, well, I don't show him for a reason. But once a year he says, okay, you can share this one.
Rachel Allen (26:09.495)
Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. Right.
Rachel Allen (26:24.398)
Right.
Exactly. No, I'm the same way. My husband's also very private. And so if I share a picture, he's a mechanic. And so it'll be him like bent over a car with a tool in his face. So you can't actually see his face, but it's like, yeah, there he is. He's doing stuff. Right. Yeah.
Teri Holland (26:40.494)
There he is. He exists. He's real. He's a person. that's awesome. What would you say is the worst marketing advice you've ever heard?
Rachel Allen (26:51.577)
Ooh, gosh, there's so many, there's so much bad stuff. So Juan, anything that is, if you don't do this, you're going to go out of business in six months. know, anything, I think we're all, we all remember like, no dude, you got to jump on Periscope like right now. Come on. You know, nobody's still doing that stuff. So anything with that kind of urgency to it. But if I were to choose like a larger one, there's something that I call the big lie of marketing.
Teri Holland (26:57.303)
you
Teri Holland (27:05.189)
yeah.
Teri Holland (27:10.99)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (27:20.235)
And the big lie of marketing is that you as an individual person can and should have the same level of marketing as a company with a multinational marketing organization. And you just can't do that. That's not fair. Like there's no way I've worked in these large businesses and these large teams and they struggle to put out the amount of marketing that a lot of marketing courses are like, no, but if you just automated and batch it, you can totally put it out. And I'm like, you really can't, you just cannot. And that's an unfair expectation to put on yourself.
Teri Holland (27:32.153)
yeah.
Teri Holland (27:47.821)
No.
Teri Holland (27:51.48)
Yeah. that's so good. That's so good. I remember hearing that like back, back in the day of like 30 pieces of content today across like multiple platforms. And I, I don't think I ever even got close to that even just one time because we actually have to run the business too and see our clients and do the work. Yeah. mean, that's if you're just a content creator, that's all you do. That is your job is to create content. Maybe, but
Rachel Allen (28:00.674)
Awful.
Rachel Allen (28:05.517)
Yeah.
Right. Right.
Rachel Allen (28:17.614)
Sure.
Teri Holland (28:19.358)
know, if you're actually you're selling something else other than content, you have other things to do. yeah.
Rachel Allen (28:22.925)
Right? Yeah. I think, I mean, what's so destructive about that though, is that when you can't make those 30 pieces of content, then it's like, man, I didn't try hard enough. I didn't hustle hard enough. I didn't want it badly enough or I followed the system wrong or something. And that's what gets me really upset about these marketing promises where they're like, well, anybody can do it. And I'm like, no, they really can't. They really, really can't. And that's no fault of their own.
Teri Holland (28:34.988)
Yeah
Teri Holland (28:45.762)
No, can't. No, no. Especially for that solo entrepreneur who's really a team of one. Yeah, it's not realistic. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (28:51.519)
Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. A friend of mine, Mary Williams, I interviewed her recently for panel discussion on the wage gap in entrepreneurship. And she had this incredible quote where she said, I know so many women who are trying to build their businesses in 15-minute increments. And I was like,
Teri Holland (29:06.174)
cool.
Teri Holland (29:15.104)
Hmm... Mm-hmm.
Rachel Allen (29:15.242)
I absolutely know that. And like when you're doing that, when you have so many other pulls on your time and energy and resources, like you have so many better things to do than taking a picture of your latte every morning. You have better things to do than make content.
Teri Holland (29:23.352)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (29:27.886)
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. What are some of the trends that you're seeing in marketing right now? Maybe some of the good trends that maybe we should be considering.
Rachel Allen (29:35.949)
Mm.
Well, what I'm really excited about is actually a swing back towards analog non-scalable work. So yeah, it's actually sort of a reaction to AI, particularly anything that's more high ticket, anything expensive, you have to do personal outreach and you have to make it to where it's not scalable. So I'll see clients. I have one client who sends her clients flowers on their birthday every year.
Teri Holland (29:46.419)
Rachel Allen (30:03.957)
It's so lovely. Another client picks out a book for her clients, like an individual recommendation, and then mails it to them from Amazon each month. I'm seeing a lot of in-person, like, get-it-in-the-mail newsletters. You know, physical magazines. I just actually created one with another business person where we created a 150 page, like, put it on your coffee table magazine. So, yeah, it's like a swing away from anything that feels like someone's going through a system or a process.
Teri Holland (30:04.295)
nice.
Teri Holland (30:14.263)
I love that.
Teri Holland (30:27.021)
Cool.
Rachel Allen (30:33.621)
And back to like, hey, can we just chat? And I don't know, maybe we'll work together or something. Yeah.
Teri Holland (30:34.626)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (30:39.64)
Very cool. It reminds me of a conversation I had on the show, guess, almost a year ago with a brand identity designer. we had this exact, we were talking about this exact thing and especially how the younger generations really value something that you can put in their hands. They're tired of screens. They've grown up on the screens, they're done with them and they want something physical. And so she was talking about the same thing. It was like the return of the magazine.
Rachel Allen (30:59.094)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (31:08.128)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (31:09.288)
And yeah, so that's exciting.
Rachel Allen (31:11.276)
I love it. I'm a very analog person in general, which is ridiculous given how much I work on the internet, but it makes me really happy to see that happening.
Teri Holland (31:19.778)
Yeah, me too. And I think it opens a door for us to be more creative in how we reach out to people and to think differently. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (31:26.269)
yeah. mean, some of the most amazing work I'm seeing right now is coming from entrepreneurs who are doing just crazy things with like the traditional medium. So a friend of mine did an email campaign where it was, it was working up to a launch for one of her art collections and the email campaign was like part murder mystery, part scavenger hunt. I mean, the open rates on that thing were of course sky high because people were like, dude, give me that email. Like I have to have that.
Teri Holland (31:46.811)
cool.
Teri Holland (31:53.773)
Yeah.
Rachel Allen (31:54.048)
And it was so fascinating. So I'm loving all this stuff that people are like, I don't know, how do we stretch the bounds of a LinkedIn post? What can I do with this?
Teri Holland (32:03.746)
Yeah, that's so cool. And now you have me thinking about how could I do that in my business? And I love that. Yeah. What's a marketing tactic that people can be changing right now to make a lasting impact in their business?
Rachel Allen (32:05.942)
Yeah. Right?
Rachel Allen (32:14.688)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel Allen (32:18.38)
So the first thing I always say is update your bio. And people tend to do it once and then leave it for like a thousand years because it's kind of an existential thing to put one together. But it tends to get really outdated and people also tend to try to show their personality in their bio by saying like identity markers about themselves. So we've seen all the bios of like, mom of three loves coffee, you know, stuff, but that doesn't really tell me anything about you.
Teri Holland (32:27.96)
Okay.
Rachel Allen (32:48.414)
So I encourage people to update their bio using that standard we talked about before of like, who are you in your working relationship with these people and what can you tell them that makes it really easy for them to say yes to having a conversation with you.
Teri Holland (32:50.754)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (33:04.03)
Can you give us an example of how that could sound?
Rachel Allen (33:04.647)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So for instance, mean, my tagline on my website says, data-driven human, no, sorry, human-centered data-driven marketing for good people doing hard work that matters. And so that is what I do. If I were to translate that into LinkedIn speak, it would be something boring like marketing strategist and fractional CMO for values-led businesses. Nobody cares about that.
Teri Holland (33:17.016)
tour.
Teri Holland (33:29.71)
Mm-hmm, boring.
Rachel Allen (33:30.453)
But when I say it in the tone, like how I actually talk about this stuff, when I bring in those values of like, yeah, I work with good people doing hard work that matters. Like people instantly know, yeah, that's me. Or they're like, it's a little weird, I don't know, you know? And then they know it'll walk away.
Teri Holland (33:46.03)
Yeah. Interesting. Cool. Okay. Now I have some rapid fire questions for you if you're game. Okay. All right. What's a marketing buzzword you wish would disappear?
Rachel Allen (33:52.651)
Let's do it.
Rachel Allen (33:58.869)
Synergy, utilization, gosh, there's so many of them, all of them. Any marketing vocabulary, if you've heard it before, I don't want it. Yeah.
Teri Holland (34:02.541)
God.
Teri Holland (34:06.454)
Hahaha
Get rid of it. Got it. What's your favorite writing fuel? Coffee, tea, or something else?
Rachel Allen (34:15.339)
Coffee and silence. I am a write in silence, close the door, don't talk to me for five hours writer.
Teri Holland (34:21.964)
Wow, good, good. What's the strangest or the most surprising niche you've ever written copy for?
Rachel Allen (34:28.552)
Ooh, I mean, I've written copy for everybody from astrologers to accountants, but I have worked with some sex workers and that was really cool. The surprising part of it was one of them sent me to his website and it was just a picture of his butt, like cheeks spread. And I was like, that is the most intimate I have ever been with a client. Yeah. Yeah.
Teri Holland (34:37.815)
interesting.
Teri Holland (34:46.604)
Wow.
Wow. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. It's interesting. I just have to like a little side note. It's interesting you say that because I've had a couple clients who are sex workers and some of most fascinating work and like, and they, they market like their marketing. Yes. Yeah. I learned from them of like how much they're marketing themselves and how they're putting themselves out there. And I'm just like, this is actually fascinating. Yeah. It was really cool. I really enjoyed it.
Rachel Allen (34:54.121)
Yeah, yeah.
Rachel Allen (34:58.14)
Mm-hmm. yeah, yeah.
Rachel Allen (35:04.924)
Amazing.
Rachel Allen (35:12.043)
yeah, it's one of my favorite niches to work with.
Teri Holland (35:18.796)
What's a book you think that every entrepreneur should read? Marketing or not?
Rachel Allen (35:23.554)
so it's not specifically a marketing book, but it does help with that. It's called Indirect Work by Carol Sanford. And it's a teeny little book, just yay, yay pamphlet sized. But it's talking about how we tend to think of strategy as being an A to B thing. So it's like, if you're taking the metaphor of a pool table, I hit the pool cue, the ball hits the ball, things happen. And she's like, yeah, but what if you move the table? What if you're able to move the whole table? So, and she walks you through how to do that with your work. Yeah.
Teri Holland (35:30.167)
Okay.
Teri Holland (35:46.892)
Cool.
Teri Holland (35:52.088)
Very cool. I'm definitely going to check that one out. And what's the biggest client red flag that makes you turn down a project?
Rachel Allen (35:59.349)
Hmm. Um, if they come in and do not have any tolerance for risk. So they come in and they're like, well, I, you have to guarantee me it's going to make me X amount of money by Y date. And I'm like, I, don't own the world, man. I can't do that, but I can tell you, here's what I do to make this happen. I can show you, here's how I've made it happen before. But if you have to have certainty, you should not be an entrepreneur.
Teri Holland (36:25.132)
Yeah, yeah, good call. Yeah, and it's interesting because I remember one of my first business coaches said to me, if a marketer ever promises you any kind of results, run, because they can't, they can't guarantee anything. Yeah, good. Now I have a question for you from the previous guest who passed on a question for you without knowing anything about you or who you were.
Rachel Allen (36:35.115)
yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Right.
Rachel Allen (36:46.634)
oooo
Rachel Allen (36:50.42)
Ha ha.
Teri Holland (36:51.764)
And this was from Courtney Seard and she asks, what excites you the most about the next 18 months? And what is the first action you're going to take to accomplish it?
Rachel Allen (37:00.394)
Ooh, that's such a good question. I'm at a point in my business and with several other large projects where things are sun setting and I have a really open canvas in front of me. So what I'm doing about that, because I've done this entrepreneur thing for so long that like I kind of know how to win the level of the game I'm at. So what I'm doing is taking the entirety of December to just think.
Teri Holland (37:13.986)
Nice.
Rachel Allen (37:25.403)
and think about like what I wanna do differently, what I actually want, how this fits into my life, what this could look like in terms of scheduling, what's the weirdest thing I could do with it. So doing a lot of thinking time. Yeah.
Teri Holland (37:35.118)
Cool. that's exciting. I love that. Yeah. And where would you want listeners to connect with you next?
Rachel Allen (37:43.853)
You can find me at boltfromthebluecopywriting.com. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or you can email me like it is the ancient times at hello at boltfromthebluecopywriting.com and I will email you back.
Teri Holland (37:55.47)
Perfect, will put those links in the shout outs. And also curious, where did your business name come from?
Rachel Allen (37:57.033)
Thank you.
Rachel Allen (38:00.647)
I had a terrible business name before this that it was based on a pun that no one understood. So it was the revolution, but with a W because like writing.
Teri Holland (38:10.989)
yeah, no, no, they didn't get it. Yeah.
Rachel Allen (38:11.892)
Terrible, awful, awful, bad business, bad branding. So I was going through a branding process and I was like, what is it? What is really amazing marketing feel like? And it is like a bolt from the blue where you're like, I could never think about it the same way again. So that's where it came from. Yeah.
Teri Holland (38:16.579)
Gotcha.
Teri Holland (38:28.526)
I love that. Yeah, that's a great name. Okay, great. And any final words you'd like to leave the audience with?
Rachel Allen (38:38.511)
you know, no, think the only thing I've just been saying to everybody as long as I can remember on the internet is that human is the only move left. So, you know what you're doing. You know better than the robots. Just trust yourself. It's just a conversation.
Teri Holland (38:53.742)
great advice. Thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. yeah, and all your links will be in the show notes.
Rachel Allen (39:01.629)
Thank you so much, this has been great.
Teri Holland (39:04.44)
Thank you.
