“PIVOT!” -Ross

It is absolutely crazy to think of last year (2018) at this time and how much has changed since then. I never would have been able to envision where I am now a year ago.

I didn’t even know copywriting was a thing people could do for a job!

It goes to show that we can set as many specific goals as we want but we have to always be ready to pivot. You never know when better opportunities will pop into the picture.

Last year at this time I was working at a marketing agency and I really liked it! It was the first time in my life that I had a “real” job and was making a steady income. I liked the people that I worked with and I liked the work that I was doing.

Last winter I still didn’t know copywriting was a thing. I had an English degree from a good school and not once during my time there did anyone mention writing content for websites or social media as a career opportunity.

It was always, “So you want to be a teacher?” But I didn’t want to be a teacher; I wanted to write and edit books, magazines, and online articles without living in New York City.

Was that too much to ask?

The idea of copywriting came to me accidentally. I didn’t like coming up with the graphics to post on companies’ social media pages or scheduling their posts; I just wanted to write the content. I slowly discovered that there was a market for people who would write social media content and blogs.

Hallelujah!

I started working on my business plan around April and began connecting with people who could use a writing service.

I left my safe job and officially started Vision and Voice on May 1st. I had the intention for Vision and Voice to be somewhat of a digital marketing agency. I would do all the writing and social media management and would hire freelancers to take care of all the other digital marketing services I wasn’t skilled at.

As it turns out, this just made me a glorified middleman and I subconsciously would try not to get jobs that involved anything other than writing.

It was great to finally have some freedom again now that I was working for myself. I missed seeing the middle of the day and being able to create my own schedule. My husband, Joel, and I were able to take an impromptu trip to Arizona for a weekend in June and I didn’t have to ask off of work to go. It was fabulous and I vowed to myself that I would never work for anyone else ever again.

I definitely had my doubts in the beginning.

I struggled with feelings of being a quitter and a failure. I had taken a huge pay cut and lost good health insurance just to be back at the bottom. I was finally making money and had a routine in my life and I gave it up. I felt like I should have become more established in my business before leaving my stable job.

But I also felt more motivated than ever and that I was finally doing something I was good at and enjoyed at the same time. I made the decision that failing was not an option this time.

I decided to cut back and dial deeper into my niche in the fall. I set a launch date of October 1st and started to get to work on planning what the new brand would be.

Joel and I also decided during this time that we didn’t want to sign the lease on our townhouse for another year and that we wanted to move instead. Our lease was up at the end of August and we had only decided we wanted to move just a few weeks prior. We would both get emails daily from property management with the document to sign the lease but we would ignore them as we scrambled for a new place to live.

We finally found the place that we would start to call home and began to move in 10 days before the lease was up.

During these months I was under a lot of stress from not knowing if I was ready to live in a van down by the river, beginning to switch my business over to strictly copywriting and dropping all digital work, moving out of the townhouse and into a new place and leaving enough time to clean the townhouse in hopes of getting our security deposit back. I was paranoid that we wouldn’t get the deposit back and felt that property management would be very picky.

On top of all of this, my eating habits changed and caused me to have a flare-up of rheumatoid arthritis. I felt it coming on when we were still in the moving process but was able to suppress it until we were out of the townhouse and all of our things were at the new place.

Once we were mostly moved in, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. My knees swelled up so much that I couldn’t walk. Some days it was also in my ankles and when it moved to my wrists I wasn’t able to work because the pain from typing was unbearable.

It was the worst flare-up of my life and I couldn’t think of anything but the pain. I moved my launch back to November 7th to give myself more time to recover and to relieve some of the stress.

On November 7th I officially launched as a copywriter.

Vision and Voice was wiped out and I changed my DBA to say Grace Ventura instead. I am not a woo-woo type of person but I feel so aligned with what I am doing now.

My only regret is not starting years ago!

One of my sisters-in-law took professional photos of me and another sister-in-law created a professional website for me. I don’t think I had any new clients in October but since the launch, I have had a steady amount of traffic and calls.

I cannot even begin to imagine what this time next year will be like. I have already experienced so many ups and downs and changes within my brand! It’s my birthday this week and I feel like this year will be my best year ever, in life and business.

I read a lot of business books and listen to a lot of business podcasts and audiobooks and I feel like the hours I have spent absorbing everything I have read or heard can finally be put to use. I am incredibly excited for 2020 and the challenges that will come my way!

Want to connect? You can do that here!

My Transition Year as a Copywriter