Beyond The Spotlight: Marisa Corcoran

Good morning and welcome to another episode of Behind the Spotlight, the copy edition, because I have one of my friends, Marissa Coran. I always say names wrong.

Coran.

I know I said it wrong, and everyone says Naidic wrong also, and she'll fix me when I get back on. But when you talk copy, this is the name that genius. I don't know anyone else in the industry that has landing pages that convert at 60% except for this girl. Hey, Marissa.

Hi.

I butchered your last name just the same way people butcher my last name.

Oh my God, don't worry about it. People always like, oh, what's happening? It's like giving me all these filters. I'm trying to go back to the beginning. Um, no worries at all. People always say it like incorrectly. Oh, there we go. And I mean, no worries. It's Corcoran.

Okay, I kind of said it right.

Yeah, it's Marisa, it's Marisa, and then I, the last name is like Corcoran.

Corcoran, okay, I'll never get it wrong again because people always do that to me. But I was talking about how you are the landing page queen, and not only are you Harvard educated, I know you have an acting background, but you love Housewives, so that's why we're friends. I see.

There's nothing like— that's my, that's my ultimate is Housewives. That's like my— keeps me like grounded, you know? That's my— yeah, for sure. It's my face. Are you watching? As you have a particular like favorite franchise?

Um, well, Jersey, of course. New York, of course. Utah, Orange, and Beverly Hills. Those are like my, my people. Yeah. I actually met from Beverly Hills— oh, of course, now I can't remember anybody's name because I'm put on the spot.

Kyle? Erica Sutton?

The Southern blonde. Sutton. I was like, I'm going to say something else. I met her when I was doing— I was doing WPIX in New York. I was doing a cocktail segment. And she was on. And she was there with her assistant and the dog. I have photos of it. I'll post it again.

Oh my gosh.

She was very sweet.

OK. That's good to know. Yeah. That's good to know.

But she told me Kyle really doesn't drink because her body can't take it anymore. And that's why I don't drink either. But it was like, why are you telling me Kyle's business? I don't even know you.

And I love it. You know what, though? That feels very Southern to me.

Yes.

Because like, it's such a Southern thing. Like, you know, I'm a New Yorker originally. But I moved to the South. I moved to Atlanta 6 years ago. And it's like such a Southern thing. Which is like, I don't know this person in the coffee shop. And like, somebody's telling me like their whole history. But not that person telling me. Somebody else is telling me about them, which is like so— yeah. Yeah.

We don't do that up here, really. We just talk about ourselves up here. But I want to talk about you and coffee. And I also want to acknowledge you, like, you know, charity has always been a part of my life. And I love that you give back so much. Why don't we start off with the good stuff and tell us a little bit about Soul Fire Farm, The Headstrong Project, and SageUSA?

Yeah, so I, when I created the Copy Chat, which is our signature summit that helps you craft copy that attracts clients, makes money, and we say even creates a massive movement online. So in a typical summit format, it's usually, you know, it's free to listen in, but then they'll usually sell an all-access pass. And I have always wanted to kind of put my money where my beliefs were and like raise money for causes I believed in. So around season 3, I said, wait, why don't we take the all-access pass and donate what this would be to causes that we believe in? And it became more successful than I could have ever imagined. And here we are, we've done 8 seasons of the Copy Chat now, and we've raised over $120,000 for organizations like— yeah, thank you— like Soul Fire Farm, which gives land back to Black and brown growers. The Headstrong Project, which supports military vets with the mental health care that they need and deserve. SAGE USA, which is an organization that supports LGBTQ+ elders for the services and advocacy that they need as they age. And just this past season of the Copy Chat, we raised just under $13,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. So it's a really like just something that I love so much about our community. And then in the Copy Confidence Society, which is our signature program, we also take 5% of those total sales. And as a community, each round we choose a charity to donate to as well. So it's just how we say you get to help your coffee and a human at the same time by being part of our community.

Well, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for educating all of our audiences because I think that it's your, you know, I adore you. And I actually looked back at my calendar. We spoke for the first time last May.

It was last May.

It was, I know, it was, it feels like I've known you forever. I feel like it was, you know, I think longer than that.

Like we met on that, we remember we were on like a, do you know what I'm talking about? It was like we all came together and they had these little breakout rooms and you were in my breakout room.

Yeah, I think that was Jacqueline Malone. Exactly. Maybe it was her.

That's what it is. It's Jacqueline. Jacqueline brought us together. We were in a breakout room together. That was our meet cute. And now here we are.

I love it. And I've been following you and I learn from you all the time. I cannot wait for your— I love the name, the Leave Them Wanting More Masterclass that's coming up. I am all signed up. I can't wait to learn from you because I think copy is one of those things that you continually need to learn because we're continually growing as people. But I know that, you know, people always talk to me. They're like, you know, a good copywriter. And I think when I met you, I was like, can you just do my copy? And you're like, I teach people. So like, why do you think copy is so important and why do we actually need to learn how to do it?

That's such a great question. So I think the answer is two, two answers. The first answer is that you're using copy every single day. I say it's like water for your business. You're writing emails, you're doing a caption for a social post, you're coming up with a title for something. And even when you're not writing, even what we're doing right now, Beth, is copy. You're just speaking it. So at the core of it is that you have to know how to effectively communicate. You have to know what to say and how to say it. I always say your business has 3 basic needs. You have to sell in a way that feels good with integrity. If you don't have buyers, you don't have a business. You have to call, right? You have to call. And I'm like, please, there's way better hobbies than this. Dear God.

Like, please. This is a bad hobby. Dear God, please.

And then the second business basic need is you wanna call in the right people to sell to. We know this is lead generation or audience growth. And so to make those two things come alive, that's why copy is so important. And the Instagram agrees with me. You have to know what to say and how to say it in order for those things to happen. So that's the first is that you're always creating copy for your business. Like I always tell people, you became a business owner, congratulations, you're also a copywriter. So you have to know how to communicate that. The second part of this is if you go on to hire somebody for your copy, you have to make sure that you can recognize great copy in action. And something that's unique to the Copy Confidence Society in our program is that often messaging is left out of a copy conversation, or they want you to come in with that messaging like clear and specific because the best copy can't fix a muddied message. So you have to make sure that that's clear and specific first so that when you do hire a copywriter, it, it actually, you're gonna see the results from that. So this is why I encourage people to spend time on this skill so that you have all you need to, if you end up loving it and you're doing it yourself forever, or when you pass that on to somebody, you're going to have that clear foundation for them to really rock it for you.

Yeah. I really appreciate that. And I like what you said about the, like the muddled message, the muddy message. Yep. I did it. I actually did a story video yesterday cause I was doing, so I spent yesterday 40, 45 minutes I'm like, what was day yesterday? Tuesdays. I usually spend in Facebook looking for opportunities, looking for people that are looking for me, creating opportunities for relationships. And as I'm looking at people's profiles, I'm like, what do you do? Was the question that kept coming up. And that's your copy. It's like, I'm great. I'm so happy you have a design studio, but if I can't figure out what you design in the first 10 seconds, You know, it doesn't matter what your message is, but I think that— are you finding this? That's what the message was for me yesterday. Like, make it clear. Do you find that's one of the biggest problems out there, especially people who are starting in like 3 to 5 years into their business?

It's the biggest problem. Like, I would bet my, like, you know, my student loan on it. And I'm so glad that you echoed that back because I know your zone of genius is media, right? If you're pitching to the media or you want people to like be like, oh yeah, we want to do an article about this person or feature this person. We have to be able for that, like you said, for to know what do you do. And I believe that this is the number one thing that holds people back. So I always tell people 90% of the time you don't have a copy problem, you have a messaging problem. And when we can get clear on the messaging, the copy will start to fall into place. So this is why I tell people, if you've, you know, you've purchased the swipe copy in the past or caption templates from someone or the plug and plays, and it hasn't worked for you, you might think that like, oh, you're not great at what you do, or the person that sold it to you isn't great at what they do, and both are false. You're great, they're great. The issue is that your message isn't clear and specific. And when you are clear and specific, I always say that it unlocks the 3 Rs— that people will remember you, they will rave about you, and they'll refer you. An example I always use is that one of our people that came into our community, they were a nutritionist. So of course they could help people in a variety of of ways with nutrition. But when they walked themselves through the messaging system that we have inside of the Copy Confidence Society, they really started to understand this like, okay, you wanna be a specialist in a sea of generalists because this is helping with SEO when people are searching, this is helping if you wanna pitch to the media, this is helping for your ideal clients simply to follow up out of curiosity, like, oh my gosh, tell me more. So when they walked themselves through the system, what they realized was what it came down to was supporting people to uncover what to eat and when to eat it to break through to their migraine-free life. And even more so starting to focus on hormonal headaches. So you feel the difference there? As soon as you're saying, like, I'm a nutritionist that could help you do all these different things, it's like, boom, they became the specialist in a sea of generalists. And it's actually wild because not even in their own business, which I talk about in the Live More Money Masterclass, they surpassed doubled their income from like last, when they were in the program, like the year before, within the first 3 months of the year that they were inside of the program, because it's so clear what they're about. And then people in the community were referring them all over the place because it was like, all of a sudden you're sitting in a room with somebody and somebody's like, yeah, I've been having these headaches, blah, blah, blah. You're like, oh my gosh, I know the person, right? And that's what we want to ignite. Could you sit in a room with somebody, when somebody's saying something like, oh my gosh, I know the person who can help you. And when people unlock that, this is how you stand out in a saturated market. This is how, then I actually believe this and it's not like a kumbaya thing, I really mean it, like some like, you know, woo thing is like when you are specific in who you are, there can be no room for competition. There's only collaboration. And that's gonna move your business forward a heck of a lot faster. So if I can get people over the messaging hump, I'm telling you right now, the rest is easy. Never easy 'cause running a business again is like, whose idea was this? But it can be, it can be simple. I have all the, I have the, all the rubric, the framework, the step-by-step to help you plug and play into the copy. I have you covered there, but we gotta make sure that that messaging is clear, which is why I have it part of the Copy Confidence Society where most copy programs don't include it.

No, no. And I think it's so important 'cause I think also people get stuck on the like, well, I have to fix my messaging. I have to fix my messaging. And especially when they come to me for media, if you're not clear on what you do, then I can't be clear on how to help you. And you can't be clear to be in the media because like you said, it's too muddled. But when, and when I started, stop talking about like get publicity, get visibility, and I started talking about leveraging and traffic, that's when my business changed. Because first, I mean, people make, it was because people don't want media, they don't want visibility, right? They want people to know who they are. They want more traffic for their business. And I was getting referrals 'cause people would say, in a group like you said, be like, well, I've tried PR and that doesn't work for me, and people would be like, well, then you need to talk to Beth because she knows how to make PR work for you. But when I changed it from be in the media, get the logos, that wasn't speaking to anybody, but increase your traffic to book out your clients and leverage the media, that's what made the difference. But I still feel people get lost in like those, the terminology, like they think messaging is this other thing or marketing is this other thing. They don't quite understand it's actually just talking about what that deep, dark passion is that you have for the industry you've chosen for your business.

100%. And another thing that you said, Beth, that I love so much is, and I don't think this was the case for you, but it's a slightly, like, it's a good example of what I mean, is that like, I call it the curse of the coach, is like a lot of times coaches do this, like you know what people need, like you know that the answer is like, oh, getting media, getting the, like, that's gonna be the thing that brings the traffic. And once people are on the inside, they understand that. But we have to remember that when we're doing our messaging, that has to speak to our prospects when they're looking to buy. So they don't know that yet. So when people talk about like, I help you like, you know, live your best life or step into your power, it's like, yeah, you know that that's the answer maybe. I mean, but they, no one's, no one's searching for that. So you have to speak to your prospects at the place where they are when they're making purchasing decisions. Well, this is the other thing that I find for people is that they want to use all these big fancy— which was not your case at all, but I don't know who's here. We're staying in an Airbnb and I'm like, who's ringing my doorbell? I have no clue. Eric, my husband, well, I don't know what's happening, but I want to tell you, somebody put in the comments fitness addiction.

Addiction planner. She just signed up. They just signed up. I'm excited.

They're joining us inside of the Copy Confidence Society.

Yeah, I'm so excited.

So excited about it.

Yeah. I don't know if you had seen that or not because I— it's so nice for that person to just post it so that they can see, other people can see, like it's something that we all need to be a part of.

Yeah, I couldn't see it, but now when I scroll back, I can see people. And Vinnie was saying yes. Oh, I think that maybe when we were talking about the messaging stuff. So yeah, that's really nice. Yeah.

You know, Vinnie's the best. He's still here.

Hi, Ben.

I really wanted to ask you this question because this is something else that bothers me a lot when I start—

Sorry, Beth. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. This has never happened before. But they can't come in right now.

This is real life, guys. This is what it is to, like, run a business.

We're staying at an Airbnb. And I was like, they can come after 2:30. That's when my calls are done. And what time is it? 11 AM. OK, go on. My husband's got it covered. Thank God for him.

Go on. Thank God for the cute hubbies, right? One of the other things that I noticed on the platforms was the I help statement or what I do state. And that can, you know, elevator speech makes me crazy. And it's something that I tell my, I always tell my people, like, I don't want to hear elevator speech on the podcast. I want to hear the, like, what I do statement. I know that, like, how do you know if you have the right one? That's really the question.

You know, if you have the right what I do state. Yes. So, okay, this is a non-sexy answer, but this is the answer. We have to put it out there to find out. We have to put it out there to find out, are people, I always say following up out of curiosity, like, oh my gosh, Beth, I need this, or I know somebody who needs this, or are they like that one eyebrow raise of confusion, right? So for each person, it's a different, you know, we gotta like see what might be missing or be tweaking from there. But at the base of it is that your message should really have 3 components. You need it to be clear, you need it to be specific. Again, this is the Instagrammers with me. And you have to have some like measurability. There has to be something that people can sink their teeth into. So when we use the nutritionist as an example, it's like, helping people discover what to eat and when to eat it, which is like that specificity to breakthrough to their migraine-free life, which is clear. And there's a sense of measurability there because we know that the breakthrough to those decrease in headaches is that measurability. So there's a little bit of that within there. We use a system inside of the society. We do it with a little help from the Ghostbusters. 'Cause I always say the Ghostbusters have the most specific messaging, right? You know who you're gonna call, when you're gonna call them, there's even a song about it. And the Ghostbusters had that little laser backpack that they fight the ghosts with, it's called a proton pack. And that's what we use in the society called the proton pack messaging playbook, and there's 4 Ps. And so that's person, product, purpose, and perspective. Now in a perfect world, another P, all 4 of those Ps would be all dialed in. But if one of your Ps, like in the example of our nutritionist, that kind of the P of product around like the hormonal headaches is so specific, we don't need to make the P of person. So we don't have to say like, I help moms break through to that. We don't need the P of person to be so specific. So there's a nuance to it. And for some people, all 4 Ps need to be specific. For some people, if we hit 2 Ps, were great. So it's kind of just like really walking yourself through to see who that is, like what this message really needs to be for you, and giving yourself like a little bit of an incubation period to find out.

That's really interesting. I feel like people miss, you know, I always see people missing a piece of that. And my, you know, what I always thought of it, it was like you need to add more of yourself, like more of your personality, because I think people have a hard way of doing that, to become like— I had this call with this woman. Her name's Tracy Goodwin. She listens to what you say and can tell you what other people hear. She's going to come on next week. She's amazing. And one of the things that the feedback I got was that people probably X themselves out because I talk from a ruler place, and I'm not always so vulnerable. And she's like, you bring a lot of your personality. And my Jersey personality is kind of big and bold and not very vulnerable. And because I'm always honest with— well, that's just my personality. It's like I just tell everything, too much stuff. But I've been adding more stories and like telling the other side in the last 2 weeks. My numbers have gone up. My engagement has gone up. But I haven't figured out how to add that to my copy. So can you give us a— couple hints on how to actually add your personality to your copy so you're not sounding like ChatGPT?

Yeah, totally. Okay, so we actually— there's a system we use in the Society for this because I think that people— so we have to remember people make purchasing decisions based on two things. One is what you're selling, something that I want or I need. That's your messaging. We just talked about that. And then number two, are you the person that I want to do it with? Do I get a sense of your voice, your vibe, your personality? And this is actually a very client-focused thing to do. Like you're saying, it helps people make this decision where they feel that connection to you. But a lot of times what happens is people are leaving like who they are in their personal life. Like they don't know how to bring that into their business. So I created a system, it's called the Copy Stars, and there's 5 to choose from. You can be a combo, you can be a triplet. The whole idea is to like really start to make sure that you have this barometer where you're sounding like yourself. So what I am pretty sure, Beth, is that you're like me, you're the hooker with a heart of gold. Copy Star, where we're like direct, we're sassy, we're like, let's get to it, right? And so we often have to borrow from the Relentless Cheerleader, who's like the ultimate kind of coach for people. Not that we aren't, but they're, they're like the Ted Lasso, and they're very great at bringing that like vulnerability to the table. So the Copy Stars can like borrow from each other, and I show people how to do that. Like if you're the Nerdtastic Leader and you're great at breaking things down step by step, but maybe you're not so great at like bringing some more of the humor or that storytelling to it, then you're gonna need to borrow from the hooker with a heart of gold, right? So I have this whole system that supports people, and a couple of things in there that I always have people get started with is to think about like if we were gonna do a photo shoot right now, Beth, you would likely ask me, okay, Marie, so go into your closet as the photographer and let me know like what colors you gravitate towards, you know? Right. In the same way we can do this for our words. It's called your word closet. So it's looking at not in your business life, but thinking about people in your personal life that you text, that you email. I always say, if you have kids, what do they repeat back to you? That's like in your word closet. And in fact, one of my best friends, Ashley, so I always joke with one of my best, my best friend Ashley. I always say, Ash always says, whenever you ask her something, she's like, oh, it's my pleasure. Like, oh, it was my pleasure. And I said it to her one day, she was like, I don't, this is like a couple years ago. She's like, I don't say that. I go, yes you do. And just two nights ago she texts me and goes, oh my God, she has a son now, Griffin. She's like, I asked Griffin to put his books away and he goes, sure mom, it's my pleasure. And I was like, I told you, like this is your word closet, right? So asking your kids, like your word closet, and you make that list of words and phrases so that then when you're using something like AI or ChatGPT or even writing something, you can sub out those words for things that you say. So instead of saying like awesome, I use the word epic a lot. That's in my word closet. Or instead of saying I'm excited, I say jazzed a lot. So now just making those slight changes in something like an email or your copy is gonna make it sound more like you. And then you can do the same thing with what we call your accessories closet. So in the Society, I have you make a list of like all sorts of favorite things and you don't have to know where you'll use them just yet. But the idea here is once you have that list, you can take some clichéd statements and replace them with stuff that you would say. So instead of saying like flying by the seat of my pants, I might say I'm flying by the seat of my, well, I'm not wearing them today, but like my Spanx Moto leggings. Right, right. Or instead of saying like, hold my beer, Beth, let me show you all the wins of the Copy Confidence Society. I can say, hold my Earl Grey tea with half and half, Beth. Because here's the wins from the Copy Confidence Society. So you can have your word closet and your accessories closet to make things sound more like you. So even at the beginning of my welcome sequence, when people join my email list, it doesn't say like, hi Beth, I'm so glad you're here. It says, holy white chocolate covered Oreos at Christmas, 'cause that's my favorite, Beth. I'm jazzed you're here. You know? So it's just these small little things that you can do with your word closet and your accessories closet. And then what we help you do in the society is then take that and like really hone into your copy star or your combo so that you know where your strengths are and then where you might have to borrow from one or two of the other stars depending on what your copy is, is needing, right?

I've in the comments in my brain, I was like, when can I do Marissa's program? Like, how do I get, not only is it, I know that you really help people and you make, but it sounds like so much fun.

You know, it is so much fun. I tell people like, we have so much fun. And I tell people like, you're always gonna be using messaging. You're always gonna be using copy for your business. Like it's never going out of style. So especially, right, I tell people, if you're, it's why we have a lot of my colleagues that partner with us for the society, because in their business coaching program or the strategy that they're helping their people with, they know that they need copy, but that's not their zone of genius. So this is why we have people like shout out to society, 'cause it's like, we're gonna give you everything you need from lead magnets, welcome sequences, websites, sales pages, launch emails, landing pages, to have all of that framework and stuff to go back to as your business, as you need it. You know? And a lot of people will say to me, oh Marisa, you know, oh, you give people like lifetime access to it, they get it. And I'm like, yes, because they're always gonna need it. If someone's brand new right now, they might not need a sales page, but they're definitely gonna need like the website and the other things. So take it. And we have people that come back like 3 years and they're like, oh my God, I used the sales page module and it helped me do X, Y, and Z. So it really is my goal to like help people do better with their copy. And we do have a ton of fun. Like we have like the Ghostbusters Guide to Messaging and the Copy Stars and all that fun stuff.

Yeah. Well, it just makes me think of how often I rewrite my client's pitches because they're so boring and not that they are boring. It's like they don't know how to infuse that into, right, into their pitches. Like when I, when I'm doing a cocktail pitch, I'm the clean— I'm right, well, since I don't drink anymore, I'm the zero-proof cocktail guru. And you know, like I've created this persona for myself that I think a lot of people have a hard time doing. Um, and I know that now— not I knew, but now I know even more that that's what you're doing as well. So I, I'm excited, I'm excited. We have some, some comments. I like that using AI on subbing the words, that's great. Word closet. I know that people really resonate with you and I cannot wait for your, I wanna make sure I have it right, the Leave 'Em Wanting More masterclass coming up. Just, you wanna talk, I know we have to go in a minute, but if you could talk a little bit more about that and all the information will be in the caption for people to go sign up with Marissa.

Yeah, so we do the masterclass. We actually, I always say it's like Broadway. You choose, like, I offer the same class 3 different times. So we actually did one yesterday and then we have one tomorrow night and one on Saturday. I always say it's the same class. Broadway, you know, pick the day and time that works for you. And it's not prerecorded, it's live with me. And we're really going over this framework a little bit, what we've talked about today, Beth, but a little bit more in depth. This 3-part framework, I always say, to whip up irresistible copy with creativity and chutzpah. So we really go in on the copy stars, helping you see which one you might be. We talk about the Proton Pack messaging playbook when it comes to messaging. We dive a bit into consistency. And I give you what's called the 6 post prompts that you can use for your social media. You can use for your emails. And I stay on, like I was on, oh my gosh, like an extra 40 minutes answering questions for people yesterday. And I will give you an opportunity to join the Copy Confidence Society because I believe so strongly in this system. But I know no matter what you decide, you'll walk away feeling like a more confident creator for your business. So we have a class tomorrow and a class tomorrow night, class on Saturday morning. And I know you'll have it in the caption and it's marissacorkran.com/masterclass.

Well, whoever is interested, I will be there Saturday morning. I'm making my hubby listen to it as well. So we can come do it together. Marisa, you know I adore you. And this has been so much fun. It's like I just get to hang out with you a little bit. We're going to have to schedule another time that we do a Real Housewives deep dive.

Oh, I would love to.

We can have that conversation too. But I really want to— I just want to acknowledge you, say I appreciate you coming on today and sharing your genius with my people. And I adore you, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thank you so much for having me, Beth.

Of course.

I appreciate it. Talk to you soon.

Bye. Bye, everybody.