If you’ve ever gotten to the end of your goal - achieved it - then just simply moved on to the next thing?

And you just keep going - on to the next thing - until you maybe feel depleted or burned out.

Marisa helps coaches & creative create an uncopyable message so you can magnetically attract clients to you. She helps clients click-in their copy & messaging to make it EASIER.

Marisa had just come off a $250K launch of a group program and was about to launch another smaller version of her program, but she realized she hadn’t given herself a chance to celebrate…

And she also needed the energy to fully pour into the people who had just come into her world - she needed to serve them! But she was tired & exhausted…she needed a break.

As entrepreneurs and creatives we often feel a strong pull to keep creating. To STOP and hold yourself against that pull is difficult for us!

At the same time Marisa is trying to figure out how to stop moving forward, she was diagnosed with a grapefruit-sized tumor on top of her ovary. Which she then had surgery on - 

IF she had kept pushing forward, she may never have stopped long enough to take care of this problem.

The stopping made her realize that she has some old stories about “I haven’t worked hard enough.”

She was wrestling with the old stories while knowing she needed to let go of that paradigm that the only way we’re valuable is by overworking.

Now, Marisa is focused on modeling for her audience & clients that overworking is NOT the way. There’s a different way. 

It’s hard to believe that things could be easy, and if they were easy, do we deserve it?

 If things could be easy, should we be ashamed?

Marisa started her business to break the generational paradigm of working herself to the bone. 

And then she had to learn how to honor what her body needs, what her brain needs. And that was really hard because she watched her family when she was growing up push push push - and that was what was valued.

She then had to create a team to take care of things so she doesn’t have to know everything or DO everything…

Are you making it harder on yourself because it’s the ‘honorable’ thing to do?

We must remind people that very successful business owners cannot sustain the hustle. Marisa believes in “concentrated hustle” - only during time of the year where there’s a big push for a program or event she’s promoting.

The actual things Marisa has made non-negotiable in her life & business:

• Carves in time for personal & physical health…actually schedule it
• Communicates with her team about boundaries…
• Take downtime away from the business…

 If we can be more intentional and specific in our businesses, it’s easier.

And we need to do the same in your copy - you can stop making it HARD. 

Being able to take time to learn the copy you need for your business is another way to create ease in your business.

Finding YOUR thing in YOUR way is HOW to make your business easier!

Let’s give ourselves permission to do the things in our life & business that make things EASIER.

There is NO SHAME in ease. It’s ok to have things come to us without pain or over-efforting.

The best place to start to learn how to make copy FUN is to connect with Marisa in The Copy Chat Community on Facebook.

The Copy Chat is a week-long summit devoted to improving your copy - all kinds of copy - 

Happens from 2/15 - 2/19, a free series where you can learn SO MUCH that will absolutely help you improve your community. 

TheCopyChat.com (register to get all the conversations).

Watch The Full Interview! 

Full Transcript: 

Jen: I wonder if you have ever gotten to the end of something that you really wanted to accomplish. Like you reached your goal. You crossed the line and you don't even pick your head up. You're just on to the next thing.

And if that sounds like you, I want to invite you into today's conversation because it sounds like me and it also sounds like my guest until she had a big epiphany last spring. So I'd like to welcome Marisa Corcoran. Marisa, thank you for being here,

Marisa is actually one of my favorite copywriters to follow and she is excellent in helping people understand how to magnetically attract the right, dream clients to them and she's an amazing copywriter. She helps for clients create an unmistakable, uncopiable message. And so I'm so honored to have her here today to talk about how we can create more ease in our lives and our businesses because it's really best for not only us but it's also best for our businesses and our clients. So, thanks, Marisa, for being here.

Marisa: Oh I'm really excited to be here, Jen. Thank you for having me. This is really fun it's fun to speak to another Syracuse person.

Jen: That's right. Marisa lives in Atlanta but her home is from Syracuse.

Marisa: Born and raised in the snow. Like where it would snow in April. And you couldn't go outside in April.

Jen: Or that time when it snows on Mother's Day and you're like, "I can't believe we live here."

Marisa: Oh, my gosh. I remember them saying there was like that Syracuse marathon and they moved it to April so that they would stop having blizzards during it. And then the first year that they did it, it was a blizzard on the day that they did in April and I was like that's the Syracuse thing.

Jen: That's so true. 

Marisa: That and Wegman's is the most Syracuse thing. 

Jen: We'll move it to Mother's Day and then it'll snow on Mother's Day.

Marisa: Oh 100% Yeah, you never know. I always say, like, in Syracuse it's really like May it's like, "Okay I think we're in the clear." But still right, yeah.

Jen: Can you get us started by talking about your business and your expertise? And then we'll move into talking about the stuff I really want to talk about today.

Marisa: Yeah. I mean, I think you did a great job of saying it. So I help coaches and creatives uncover what to say and how to say it so that they can magnetically attract their dream clients. I think that a lot of times we are diving into a business mastermind or with a coach and diving into selling and lead generation and all these things without actually we're focused on the marketing. And we're not really focused on that foundation and that messaging. Which can make all those things a lot easier. That's what we really focus in or what I really focus on with my clients and then showing you then once you have that solid, which you said, like an uncopiable message and the core copy pieces that support it, then we show you how to amplify that and create your own stage and bring your audience and your people to you. So you don't have to rely on referrals. If you don't want to. You don't have to hope that someone sees your comment in a Facebook group. Or even go into paid ads. It's all kind of organic and creating your own stage. But it starts with that message and the copy.

Jen: I think a lot of people don't take the time to do that because it's not necessarily... well, a lot of people I think don't think, they're good at it. And it's not fun for them. So, I always feel so discourage when I see somebody who started with branding ."What are my logos? What are my colors? Here's my website, but they haven't gotten the messaging down."

And so sometimes I go to a beautiful website. But the copy is not relatable at all. Or doesn't even say anything it's like a bunch of hot air. And so I think that what you teach people is so foundational and important.

Marisa: Yeah, I think you can get away with a lot. And I am a firm believer you cannot get away with a muddied message. If somebody doesn't know...I always say you want people to follow up with you out of curiosity. Like, "Tell me more." Not out of confusion.

So we can tweak the design we can do all of that, but if the message isn't there, I find people struggle. And the minute that we get that clicked in, some of my clients won't even tweak anything on the website but tweak that message and they're like, "Oh, people are signing up for my lead magnet. They're booking a call with me."

And it's like, yeah, because they understand what you can help them do, which is again key.

Jen: So, when you're basically talking about is ease. Which is what I'm talking about all month long, how to create more ease in our business? And I want to bring you back to that email that I got from you May of 2020. You had just kind of finished a huge push in your business and you had promised your audience something else. But you pressed pause instead, can you tell us about that moment?

Marisa: Yes, oh, my gosh. Isn't it nice to be like, "Oh, 2020 like last year," I want to preface by saying that I recognize that to 2020 was a hard year. I mean, I think all of us experienced in some way personally, collectively the trauma of the year. So I always want to recognize that that for everybody for a lot of people it was the worst year of their lives. They lost loved ones. They themselves were sick. There was so much that was happening. So I always want to preface that.

And to say that I felt very blessed professionally because in April of 2020 we had come off of having about $250,000 dollars launch. Which was incredible considering what was going on in the world and in the country. And I felt really excited to welcome in these business owners that were just committed to creating this uncopiable message in an unprecedented...We used to say last year every time you hear the word unprecedented like drink, I was basically drunk all year. You know, like, you know, but it surely was this unprecedented time.

So we come off of this launch and I had promised that I was going to do like for the lack of a better were like almost a down-sell into a little bit more of a self-study. Like having, like a copy confidence society, like selfie kind of self-study program. And so I got done with the launch and I remember looking at an Asana like all the tasks and things that I had to do to now create this. And I remember just voxer-ing my own coach and just feeling not excited about it. And it was like I had just gone over the celebration that I just made $250,000 dollars, right? Like a quarter of a million dollars.

And I was just like, "Okay what's next?" And I remember being out for the...Literally, that's all I did last year and we still do is just take walks. Cause what else is there to do? My husband and I would put a corona in like a thing and walk around our neighborhood. And we were on one of these walks.

And I just said as I was vower-ing, my coach. I kind of verbally processed it where I was like, "Why am I doing this to myself?" Like, I haven't even given myself a chance to celebrate this and to let it sink in. And to really make sure that I am fully present for these people that have put their trust in me to come into this program, right?

And so I just decided I'm not going to do it I'm not going to go ahead and create something else. I didn't need to financially and even if I did, I definitely didn't need to like in my body. I was tired. I was exhausted. So even if I didn't have met the goal, it didn't matter. I was recognizing that like I needed to just, celebrate stuff more.  Celebrate my wins more and not feel this constant need to keep creating. And I actually took that time in the spring to really devote to myself, oddly enough.

I did like my annual physical that I was gonna skip because of Covid and I was just, you know, I always would find a way like, "Oh, work." And if anyone lives in Atlanta to get anywhere in Atlanta is like, 40 minutes. So it's like, "Oh, if I'm gonna go to the doctors, I could get on 75. I won't be able to get back." And I would put stuff off for myself. So I was like "You know what? I'm gonna go to this appointment. I'm going to do it."

And it was there that I found out I had a grapefruit-sized growth on my ovary and my doctor was like, "How have you been ignoring this pain in your body?" Like no wonder because I kind of mentioned to him, you know, I have a history of cysts and I'm feeling this a little bit here. And he was like, you know, while you're here, I don't want to make you have to come back because of COVID and everything..." 

Jen: And the 75. 

Marisa: Yeah, and I-75. I was like, "Thank you." He was like, "I would love to just let's do this ultrasound while you're here let's just see what's going on." And then the woman brings me back. I'll never forget she was wearing, like a Disney mask and so we were talking about how we both love Disney and she had this Southern accent and was like " I love bringing my grandkids to see Mickey Mouse." And she's doing the internal ultrasound and all of a sudden she just stops talking and she's like, "Oh, okay. So now tell me how long you've had this pain on your right side."

And I was like, "Uh, oh." I just knew. You just have that feeling.

Jen: The Disney lady stopped smiling.

Marisa: The lady was just like no more Mickey Mouse-like goofy talk. Splash Mountain talk. She was literally like "I'm just going to have you wait here and he's going to come in and talk to you." and I'm like, oh, and then he comes in he's like, "Well, no wonder you've been having this pain. You have a grapefruit. This is the size of a grapefruit sitting on our ovary." Which if you have ovaries they're walnut size. So I had a grapefruit on top of this walnut just like sitting there.

So I ended up needing to have surgery and I'm so grateful and I'm totally fine. I'm great. I'm amazing. But I'm totally grateful that I took that time to take care of myself, which I would have missed if I didn't if I was just like, "Oh, yeah. Let me just go create this other program."

Jen: Well your husband asked you a really interesting question, which is a question I don't think we ask ourselves enough. Which was "Why do you think..." Because you were like, "Oh, now we just got off of this. And I'm going to promise this. So now I'm going to make this new self-study thing." And he said, "Why do you think that you need to do that?" And your answer I thought was really an honest answer, which was "Because I told people that I would."

Marisa: 100%and I also think this is something that I've really had to unpack for myself. So I grew up watching people in my family struggle with money and also equate like, working yourself to the bone with making money. So I've often wrestled with that feeling of, like, well, I haven't worked hard enough. I'm not so exhausted and you know I've eaten today and I've taken time to drink water so that means, like, I haven't worked hard enough.

And I really had to wrestle with that in my body to recognize that being that and living that way is just not sustainable.  I could let go of that path. You kind of give yourself on the back, "Yeah you're like this super hard worker," and letting go of that paradigm. Or that feeling that had been, you know, that I had been taught and kind of passed down to me. And allowed me to just be honest with my community and say the best thing that I could do for you right now is not offer this.

Jen: Create something new to offer.

Marisa: And I want to model this for you as well. As a leader. I want to model this for you. That if you are feeling like this or you need to do this at any time you get to do that.

Jen: So the reason I really wanted to bring you on to talk about this is I know I'm carrying this pattern from my childhood where you watch people work hard. And they tell you that you work hard and that means you're going to be successful. And you internalize it. Even though I look around at all the people who are working really freaking hard and they weren't successful, they were scrapping all the time.

It wasn't like my dad or my grandmother even. She worked in a nursing home as a janitor and she worked really freaking hard, right? But she was always broke. And so I have had to learn this lesson for myself. I see it in my clients that it's very hard to believe that things could be easy for us and if they were easy, do we deserve that? And is that what you were struggling with too?

Marisa: That's it right there. Yeah, if it's easy.

So I remember when I first started my business I had a good friend of mine when we were actors because I came from the actor world, which is talk about you're working five jobs, you're at an audition, you're nannying someone else's kids, you're working at a restaurant. So one time I used to audition, work at a restaurant nanny kids and work for a chiropractor's office. That was my life.

And I had a really good friend of mine who she was like my side hustle sister. So, we're both actors. And we always tend to be in the same job. Like we worked in the same restaurant. I work for the same chiropractor's office. Everything.

So when I decided to start my business I'll never forget this one day, I just had this afternoon where I just took off like on a Thursday. My husband and I went Apple picking when we lived in New York City. We had our cars and we went upstate for the day and like or not upstate like fake upstate, not real upstate, like what we know. But what these New Yorkers call upstate.

Jen: Harlem.

Marisa: Yeah, and it's like, "What do you mean? We went to literally like two seconds away."

I remember her and I talking on the phone like, "Oh, yeah, we went up." And I could hear it in her voice almost like "You're off like you're not working?" And it wasn't like, she was like judging me, but I took it at that because I was like, I almost felt guilty. And I was like, "How dare I be off apple-picking on a Thursday." and I didn't even post any pictures of it.

Jen: So shameful.

Marisa: So shameful, right? And really, I have had to work. I think the hardest at that recognizing that I started this business so that I could break that generational kind of paradigm of working myself to the bone. And delegating, like having a team that I don't have to know everything or be everything for everyone and that my rest...

So I don't know if anybody's interested or if you know about human design.

Jen: Oh, I love, human design.

Marisa: So I got really into it. And I'm a manifesting generator 6-2 and I'm a sacral manifesting generator. So, when they...

Jen: Yes. So what does that mean?

Marisa:  You are too?

Jen: No, I'm saying. So what does that mean? People who don't know? What exactly does that mean?

Marisa: Manifesting generators and generators make up a huge part of the population and our kind of thing is to respond. So I work really well, like you asking me questions. Like, right now, I love interviews. Just like, it's in my makeup that I can just respond to questions kind of on the fly. And then being like a sacral manifesting generator means I kind of know in my body, if something is a yes or no. So sometimes it's like you're an emotional whatever you are, you might need some more time to think about things. As a sacral I know in my body if I can just trust it and I'm usually right about it. Like the Spidey sense, I get in my body.

Jen: That is super cool, okay?

Marisa: And then like 6-2 is like... usually there's a number on top and a number on the bottom. And the number on top usually will resonate with people like they'll go "Oh, that's so me."  So six a is like a very leadership position, like a trailblazer. Like that kind of thing as much as I think I could be, I think I'm right on this.

I remember hearing about that. And sometimes I'm a five sometimes in a six depending because my mom actually doesn't really know when I was born.

Jen: Okay.

Marisa: But whatever that one makes total sense to me, the reason I'm telling you this is because of the two, which is the number underneath. A lot of people don't automatically resonate with, but it's part of them. And the two is the hermit that I actually have a lot more... like I need a lot more downtime in alone time than I've ever given myself credit for. Yeah, I was like shameful I'm like the hermit really that's not me. Now I'm like, "I'm so the hermit." 

Jen:  You're very "I'm going to grind and I'm going to keep going until I have a grapefruit on top of all that inside my body"

Marisa: Literally, Jen! Literally. And it was like, "No I'm the hermit." I actually love it now, like, in the mornings now, so I told my team I don't like to talk to people until, like, 10-11 o'clock. Get up in the morning. I work out and then I go for a walk. I go for like, an hour walk. I get a tea. I really try to keep supporting this little coffee shop that's near us. Like all my money basically goes to them. So I go get my Earl Grey tea. I listen to some Voxer messages from my clients to just maybe get that out there and respond to them. And then I usually like I listen to music or listen to a podcast. And I just go on this walk before I even talk to anybody or do anything so making a conscious effort to put the hermit or that alone time into my life.

Jen: This human design is a great it's just one of those other ways to know yourself better. So if you haven't heard of human design before it's just another way to know what you need. And that there's no judgment around it it's just this is how your makeup is. And you have no need to judge it. Except when you've been born into a family and you've literally recorded it all in your brain and you're watching these messages for your whole life that, "Oh, those rich people are assholes" or "Rich people are greedy" or "People who don't work hard, we don't respect that."

And I've even had people say to me because I used to be a teacher and teaching. You know, you work hard as a teacher. You get in early and you don't leave when the last bell rings at 3:06pm because only the loser teachers leave at 3:06pm. And you stay till six o'clock right?

And you create new lesson plans. You don't buy your lesson plans online. You create your lesson plans because there's something not noble or honorable, if you're making it easy on yourself. Those are all the messages that came to me anyway. So to use a business to leave teaching and then leave my first business because there was no ease in it. It was so grindy to start my coaching business and feel fun and feel even I'm still not really, that great at it, but I'm better than I was.

But like, somebody can say to me "Oh, it must be nice to..." And then fill in the blank with whatever it is. Go apple-picking on a Thursday and that'll just gut me. It'll just gut me like, "Oh my god,  I'm such a loser. I'm such an asshole" All these people are still grinding away and working so hard.

So I think it's so important that we have these conversations reminding people that very successful business owners aren't grinding away in hustling to success. Or if they are, they can only do it for so long.

Marisa: Yeah, I like to think of, like, concentrated hustle. Like I have time for the year when I know, right, if Copy Chat is happening or if we are in a launch phase, I know and I'm prepared for that. But now I make sure that there's ample time after that. That is like this past summer.

So, okay, add my surgery. I ended up having my surgery in July and we did Copy Chat in August and when Copy Chat ended that Friday, the next day, that Saturday, my husband and I woke up and we went to is our favorite place, which is Kiowa Island, South Carolina. It's like epic. It's like out of the Nicholas Sparks movie or something. It's stunning it's unbelievable. And we went there for two weeks, and it was like the best feeling.

And again, something that I want to model for my own clients in my community about the need to have those periods of rest. Yeah.

Jen: So you said that you carve in time for your personal physical health. You said that you tell your team this is what I want in terms of communication. This is what I want in terms of time. You've carved out time for the concentrated hustle. Are there any other tools that you've adopted that might be helpful for my audience to start adopting?

Marisa: Yeah, I think it's really important, like you said, which is to carve it out. I think a lot of times like, "Okay I'll work out more," but it's like an afterthought. So it used to be an afterthought for me. All these things have to happen and then I'll get it in there. So you know what I mean?

Actually, as you do your week or how you schedule things like it's just a non-negotiable. Like I'm going to get up I'm going to work. I'm going to go for my walk. Like those are my non-negotiables. So I think it's actually important to actually schedule it and carve it out.

Jen: Well, I love this conversation because really what this leads us to is intentionality and specificity. And if we can just tweak this a little bit that's what you have to do with your copy. If you want your business to be easier, like, yes we're going to carve in time to take care of ourselves, but we also really need to work on things like attracting clients to us more easily.

And I know that copy is one of the things that does that, and I know that the more specific you are with your copy and you carve out the time to write good copy. So everything here is all about whether we're talking about copy whether we're talking about general marketing or generally working on our business. Taking care of ourselves is a foundation but we also have to take care of things like the stuff that we don't like to do. And for many people that is copy. And I know that that's your expertise and for you and me copies fun and easy. But for most people like, this is another part of their business that they just make too hard.

Marisa: Yeah 100% I think it's like, the number one skill that will benefit everybody if they take time to learn it. And it's going to be different for everybody. So also like copy is it's like what we're doing right now. So a lot of my people will come to me and say "Marisa,  I don't like writing so I guess, I'm not good at copy." And it's like, "Oh that's not true."

Because if you're doing Facebook Live, maybe you love video. Maybe you'll have audio so even if you were to start a podcast or you were to do weekly lives or Instagram Stories or you are a writer. No matter what copy's like everywhere in your business. It's like water. You're going to be using it all the time.

So finding your thing is really, I think key, though. A lot of people don't give themselves a chance to do that. "Like, "Well, I suck in email. So I guess I'm not good at copy, right?"

Jen: And then they make their lives and their businesses so much harder and frankly if people have been paying attention to us talking today our conversation there's such good copy nuggets in here.

The way that you describe something or a phrase that you use or just like us playing off of each other they're such good copy in here. So another way to make your business easier is maybe you would enjoy having an interview with somebody or doing a conversation rather than writing a whole piece on your own. I think we need to start looking for giving ourselves permission to do the things in our lives and our businesses that feel easier for us.

Marisa: Yeah, 100%. I had one of my ladies that was in the society last time. And she just really felt compelled like her ideas were really trailblazing and she wanted to have that stage for herself. And so right away, we were like you need to have your own podcast that's your thing. You need to go and do that. And she created it while she was in the program, which is beautiful to see that kind of copy. And the things that come alive for her verbally and like an audio setting.

Another one of our ladies was like blogs she wanted to be. She loved to write. She loves that alone time to be able to do it and really wanted to understand how she could crack through and write better blogs and get them more eyeballs on them.

Jen: Ultimately I'm so glad that you're here because I don't think enough. People are talking about ease and it's okay to have things come to us abundantly with ease. You don't have to be Woo, Woo, you don't have to be spiritual. You don't have to be hippie to believe that you deserve ease, but it is a pattern we need to first acknowledge, and then work on.

So thank you for letting me have this conversation with you. But in terms of how we can have more ease around developing our marketing developing our audience connections. I know that copy is a foundation. So can you talk a little bit at this point about how people can connect with you. In terms of The Copy Chat and also The Copy Confident Society I'd love to learn more about that.

Marisa: Yeah, so the best place I really feel like we've made coffee so freakin fun inside of the Copy Chat Community and I think that that is the best place.

So our next Copy Chat is coming up February 15th through the 19th and it is absolutely free to listen into the series. And as of the beginning of February, you have the opportunity to sign up so that you'll be ready for when we start. And it's a whole week devoted to from thinking about, how do you collect and write better testimonials, how do you create a lead magnet and have a really great call to action. We're talking about, like Pre-launch copy. We're also going to be talking about human design as well this season, which is really fun. And then we also have some other things about leading in times of trauma which is also copy in the sense of like, how are you communicating with your clients during like a year like we had last year.

So we have some outside the copy box interviews as well, this year, but really fun. And so the best place for that is to go to https://thecopychat.com/ at the beginning of February. But if you want to definitely make sure that you don't miss it.\ I would say, just join the copy chat Facebook group now. We're a really fun crew. I go live in there every week there's a whole community, like devoted to copy in your business in there. So if you come into the copy chat, Facebook group that's the best way so you'll be notified right away when you can sign up for this season to listen in.

Jen: I am part of the copycat Facebook group and it's a really valuable group. And I love this stuff. So it's not like it's fun for me to listen to, but the conversation you're not going to feel lost in there you're not going to feel overwhelmed. It's just a really lovely community. So I definitely encourage people to get into Marisa's orbit because she's generous and she's, really knowledgeable. And she's very real there's no bull fit when you're talking to Marisa or you're listening you're not actually talking to her you're listening to her it feels like you're talking.

Marisa: Yeah, I try to break it down in like, the easiest way I remember. I was like this as an actor too. Like everybody would sit around and like everybody was so dramatic and using all the big words and I was like, "Does anybody here watch Real Housewives?" And I try to bring the same thing to the copy like this world. Like just bring it down and let our own personalities, like, really shine and come out.

Jen: Yeah, thank you for all of your generousness today and talking about your own experience and just having this conversation. I really encourage people to get into Marisa's world. Because The Copy Chat it's a five day... It's five days, right? Just the conversations that are being had. The first time I listen to it, I learned so much and then I just get to listen to it. You run it twice a year, right?

Marisa: I run it twice a year and it's free to listen into and then we also had The Copy Chat kit, which people you can purchase that and it gives you lifetime access to the interviews. I do a really fun bonus class and there's like this awesome email workbook that has emails from my clients. And every penny, all of the money that we make from it goes to charity and so in 2020 we raised over $30,000 for charity and I'm hoping between the two seasons this year. We can do the same.

Jen: Congratulations, thank you again for showing up and for just being here so fully, I appreciate it. I really like... my heart is so full. Thank you.

Marisa: Thanks Jen for having me. This is really fun.

Jen:  It's Super fun. Thanks, everyone for checking in. I will see you again next week. Bye.