How to be a Freelance Copywriter, Ghost Writer, and Content Marketer

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00:00:42.000 | You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs,

00:00:45.480 | where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers.

00:00:48.880 | I'm Tim Chen, and today we're talking about ghostwriting

00:00:51.960 | and how to help thought leaders tell their stories.

00:00:55.320 | Now, one of my favorite stories of all time

00:00:57.060 | is that of Cyrano de Bergerac.

00:00:59.440 | If you're not familiar,

00:01:00.640 | it was a play written by Edmund Rostand in 1897,

00:01:04.480 | and this story, there was a man named Cyrano.

00:01:08.120 | Now, he didn't consider himself to be a handsome man

00:01:10.640 | because he had this really large nose

00:01:12.640 | that he was deeply ashamed of.

00:01:15.000 | Unfortunately for him, he loved a woman named Roxanne,

00:01:18.720 | but his fixation on his looks prevented him

00:01:21.140 | from opening up his heart to her.

00:01:23.440 | Now, he had a friend named Christian,

00:01:25.360 | who was this handsome Brad Pitt of a man,

00:01:28.600 | who also was attracted to Roxanne,

00:01:31.240 | but he didn't have the, let's say,

00:01:33.360 | vocabulary to properly impress her.

00:01:37.040 | So he and Cyrano made an arrangement.

00:01:40.320 | Cyrano would finally get to write love letters to Roxanne,

00:01:43.880 | but Christian would take credit for the letters

00:01:46.080 | by delivering the messages to Roxanne.

00:01:48.800 | It's tragic, I know.

00:01:50.960 | Now, I won't spoil the ending, but you should check it out.

00:01:54.120 | The essence of ghostwriting is a little bit like that.

00:01:58.560 | You have an executive audience

00:02:00.000 | who wants to deliver a message,

00:02:02.040 | and a ghostwriter helps create the content

00:02:04.560 | that allows them to tell their story

00:02:06.860 | in a way that is impactful to their audience.

00:02:10.400 | So today, we're going to have a conversation

00:02:12.400 | with Troy Peterson, who is a freelance ghostwriter

00:02:14.920 | and content marketer.

00:02:16.880 | In this conversation, he's going to cover topics

00:02:18.840 | such as how to write and tell a compelling story,

00:02:22.620 | how the field is challenging but highly rewarding,

00:02:27.760 | and then he'll give us some tips

00:02:29.000 | on how to start or build a career as a content marketer.

00:02:32.880 | All right, let's get started.

00:02:34.440 | Hey guys, today we're talking about how to be a ghostwriter

00:02:37.920 | and how to help thought leaders get their message out.

00:02:40.840 | Joining us is Troy Peterson.

00:02:42.200 | Troy, how you doing?

00:02:43.360 | - I'm doing great, it's good to see you, Tim.

00:02:45.280 | - Good to see you, Troy.

00:02:46.320 | Hey, can you tell us a little bit

00:02:47.280 | about what you're doing these days?

00:02:49.000 | - Yeah, so basically I'm a ghostwriter,

00:02:51.480 | which is kind of a funny word,

00:02:52.720 | but my mission is to help thought leaders

00:02:57.080 | and innovators to tell stories through the written word.

00:03:01.560 | Obviously there are a lot of mediums.

00:03:02.720 | My focus is specifically writing.

00:03:04.920 | I help companies and leaders get their thought leadership

00:03:09.920 | in the form of lots of blog posts

00:03:13.440 | and sometimes articles that get placed

00:03:15.840 | on different industry or mass media websites.

00:03:18.680 | - There's one thing that you said to me once,

00:03:21.920 | which just made me chuckle,

00:03:22.880 | 'cause it totally aligns with my philosophy as well,

00:03:26.120 | and your version of this is every piece has a purpose.

00:03:30.360 | And for me as a web marketer,

00:03:31.680 | my take on that is every pixel has a purpose, right?

00:03:35.000 | Everything's gotta be done intentionally.

00:03:36.640 | And you actually just mentioned,

00:03:38.520 | whether it's contributed articles, blogs, or eBooks,

00:03:41.800 | like everything has to serve a purpose.

00:03:43.360 | Can you help me understand what that means to you

00:03:45.000 | for each of those mediums?

00:03:46.480 | - Yeah, sure.

00:03:47.320 | No, I mean, so sometimes thought leadership

00:03:49.520 | is a little bit about ego, right?

00:03:50.760 | Let's be honest.

00:03:52.000 | You wanna get your ideas out there,

00:03:54.280 | you wanna sort of be in the conversation today,

00:03:59.280 | especially on social media.

00:04:00.520 | But in terms of a company investing in me and in my time,

00:04:05.520 | what makes a good story?

00:04:07.840 | What makes a good thought leadership piece

00:04:09.920 | that's written for a blog

00:04:12.160 | or for getting placed via PR on a website or media?

00:04:17.160 | It really comes down to three things.

00:04:19.480 | It has to be the intersection

00:04:20.760 | of a subject matters, personal passion.

00:04:24.440 | There has to be an audience for it

00:04:29.040 | that's interested in that topic.

00:04:31.560 | And importantly, I think people forget about this.

00:04:33.600 | There has to be a business opportunity associated with it.

00:04:36.400 | 'Cause otherwise, why are you gonna spend the money

00:04:38.480 | and the time to get that post out there?

00:04:41.360 | So I have spent a lot of hours in my career

00:04:46.360 | looking at analytics and Google Analytics primarily

00:04:50.680 | and looking at what different pieces of content

00:04:55.400 | drive an audience interest.

00:04:57.560 | And I think that is a super important element to what I do.

00:05:01.200 | And whether I'm looking at the analytics on a daily basis

00:05:04.560 | or my client stakeholder is looking at the analytics,

00:05:09.480 | we wanna understand the work that we're doing

00:05:12.080 | and what kind of an impact it's gonna make on the business.

00:05:15.800 | - I love where you went there

00:05:17.120 | 'cause like you, I'm a total data nerd, right?

00:05:19.640 | And the thing is, in the world of content creation,

00:05:23.000 | there's science to it and there's art.

00:05:25.200 | And sometimes the art comes in a form of opinions

00:05:27.960 | that may or may not be substantiated by data.

00:05:31.200 | And I'm kind of curious,

00:05:32.320 | as you're working with your clients

00:05:34.120 | or even just pitching a medium

00:05:36.360 | that's maybe most appropriate for a topic,

00:05:38.640 | like what data are you looking at

00:05:40.560 | and which ones kind of help you shape a recommendation

00:05:43.040 | on whether, hey, like based on whatever you're seeing

00:05:45.080 | in a trend, this should be an article

00:05:47.840 | versus, you know what, this is probably better suited

00:05:49.240 | for a blog or even ebook.

00:05:51.000 | - Yeah, I mean, I guess there's,

00:05:53.520 | part of what makes a good story is also what,

00:05:57.840 | it has to drive an action, right?

00:05:59.680 | So, and that ties into analytics or data.

00:06:03.160 | So that action, and again,

00:06:07.480 | I believe every article ought to have this, right?

00:06:10.560 | I try to ask this question every time I do an interview

00:06:12.680 | is like, what do you want your reader to do

00:06:15.200 | ultimately after they read this?

00:06:16.960 | So sometimes it's, you know, the data is simply,

00:06:20.440 | we want to drive exposure to our website, right?

00:06:23.600 | So we think about, you know, what's the,

00:06:27.920 | how does the topic going to drive interest

00:06:35.880 | and whether it's, you know, keywords

00:06:37.960 | that are gonna be searchable through SEO

00:06:41.400 | or thinking about, you know, catchy headlines

00:06:44.600 | and anecdotes that might drive people

00:06:47.800 | from an email newsletter to read it.

00:06:50.040 | But, you know, the other data points

00:06:54.000 | that are sort of more impactful is

00:06:56.960 | how many business discussions did we get

00:07:00.000 | actually started with this?

00:07:01.800 | Because when you think about thought leadership,

00:07:03.040 | the goal is ultimately to engage in a conversation, usually.

00:07:06.120 | So, you know, how many, if we, you know,

00:07:11.280 | if it's a blog post and we cross posted on, you know,

00:07:14.920 | from LinkedIn or X/Twitter or Instagram,

00:07:19.720 | like did we actually get people engaging with that,

00:07:23.000 | engaging in a conversation, you know,

00:07:24.880 | even better from a, you know, sort of B2B point of view,

00:07:28.560 | did it actually get somebody to reach out to our sales team

00:07:32.200 | or through our contact form?

00:07:33.880 | And, you know, and then ultimately like the creme de la creme

00:07:39.840 | is did this article that we write start a conversation

00:07:43.920 | that ultimately led to some kind of a sale, right?

00:07:46.720 | That would be, that doesn't happen very often.

00:07:49.720 | A lot of times that's the accumulation of, you know,

00:07:52.440 | the thought leadership work that I do

00:07:54.520 | that ultimately will lead to a sale at different points

00:07:57.960 | in the journey, the lead journey.

00:08:02.480 | But those are the data points that we're looking for.

00:08:06.480 | - Yeah, you know, I would even add to that

00:08:08.400 | because, you know, like as the web piece of it,

00:08:10.040 | working with someone like you,

00:08:11.600 | the data that's important for me,

00:08:12.960 | and you called that out earlier,

00:08:14.080 | is having a strong point of view, first of all,

00:08:15.760 | on who your target audience is,

00:08:17.760 | and then you measure engagement, right?

00:08:19.000 | And I think if not done thoughtfully,

00:08:22.720 | there is no such thing as a one size fits all, right?

00:08:25.440 | So you can't just assume a template that you create

00:08:28.240 | would just work for everyone.

00:08:29.480 | And I think you point out a good example

00:08:31.960 | of like a thought leadership piece.

00:08:33.200 | There's a very specific audience,

00:08:35.080 | executive audience you're going for.

00:08:37.680 | And you can only go down to a very technical audience.

00:08:40.400 | Like maybe there is a product announcement

00:08:43.200 | that's a very popular one, right?

00:08:44.280 | You write one for technical audience,

00:08:45.840 | but that one is so specific,

00:08:47.520 | like the engagement might be very dependent

00:08:49.920 | on like just the demand of your product,

00:08:51.560 | as opposed to maybe writing a periodic piece,

00:08:54.440 | which is playing on a current trend, right?

00:08:56.840 | And to your point,

00:08:58.160 | all of these have different audiences,

00:08:59.640 | they have a different objective.

00:09:00.840 | So you have to be very purposeful

00:09:03.880 | around like what CTAs you wanna put in there, right?

00:09:05.800 | And like I've done a few studies in the past

00:09:08.640 | where like you work so hard creating an analyst,

00:09:13.160 | like let's say a first party analyst report, right?

00:09:16.160 | Based on cool trends.

00:09:17.240 | And it's easy to regurgitate key learnings

00:09:20.520 | and key findings from the report.

00:09:22.840 | But what it doesn't do is put an opinion

00:09:24.880 | on why it's important for the user.

00:09:26.560 | And like in both cases,

00:09:28.080 | I've seen the one where if there is a thoughtful perspective

00:09:32.160 | on an industry trend of what your report supports,

00:09:35.840 | that marriage usually results in higher engagement

00:09:38.920 | on clicks and gathering names for a report,

00:09:41.600 | as opposed to just pure spitting out the data.

00:09:44.560 | - Right.

00:09:45.400 | - And written for different audiences is very powerful,

00:09:47.560 | right?

00:09:48.400 | And so you're totally right.

00:09:49.240 | As a matter of fact,

00:09:50.240 | a CTA on a thought leadership piece

00:09:52.720 | might be come check out our EBC, right?

00:09:56.200 | And that's a very different than come get a demo

00:09:58.080 | or download this white paper.

00:09:59.160 | - Right, yeah.

00:10:00.000 | - So I like that.

00:10:01.840 | I've always been wondering,

00:10:04.000 | you know, like,

00:10:04.840 | so like between like contributed articles or blogs,

00:10:07.600 | you know, they're similar in nature

00:10:09.680 | in that you're writing basically an editorial story.

00:10:12.240 | E-books to me is a very, very different beast.

00:10:15.280 | 'Cause you have to go deep and broad

00:10:17.800 | and it's gotta be a highly valuable piece for someone

00:10:20.920 | 'cause hopefully it answers jobs

00:10:22.680 | or helps them understand how to do their job better.

00:10:24.760 | Right?

00:10:25.600 | - Yeah.

00:10:26.440 | - Can you give us some examples,

00:10:27.680 | like just topically,

00:10:29.200 | and obviously I don't have to, you know,

00:10:32.120 | say the customer name or whatever it is,

00:10:33.400 | but like some examples of e-books

00:10:35.360 | that are really, really like impactful for you.

00:10:37.880 | 'Cause again, anyone looking to create an e-book today

00:10:40.280 | might want some guidance on what to,

00:10:41.920 | how you have to approach it.

00:10:43.600 | - Right, right.

00:10:45.080 | Yeah, I'm trying to think of back to some good examples,

00:10:47.840 | but yeah, you know,

00:10:49.720 | back to your point about different audiences.

00:10:51.640 | So one of my clients is an app development firm.

00:10:54.840 | Actually they were my last full employer

00:10:58.000 | before I decided to break off and go independent.

00:11:00.160 | But we, early on in my work with them,

00:11:04.000 | we, you know, we decided we wanted for existing prospects.

00:11:09.000 | So if you think about the funnel,

00:11:10.440 | this is not a piece to drive awareness.

00:11:14.880 | It was a piece to send,

00:11:18.160 | the sales team could send to existing prospects

00:11:21.200 | to better understand what they do.

00:11:23.080 | But basically the idea was to, you know,

00:11:27.320 | step-by-step go through

00:11:28.560 | what the typical app development process looks like.

00:11:31.600 | And it's not a perfect piece of content

00:11:35.320 | because every case is really different.

00:11:38.160 | But we, you know, we talk through and explain in detail

00:11:41.080 | the different pieces and, you know, the feedback,

00:11:44.200 | you know, the ROI on that was, you know,

00:11:46.320 | basically feedback from the sales team that it,

00:11:48.560 | it really helped them further their discussions

00:11:51.400 | and sort of give them a nice leave behind

00:11:54.840 | to explain their, you know, the process.

00:11:58.640 | But then also it was a great opportunity

00:12:00.840 | to reach back to sort of old leads or cold leads

00:12:04.520 | and sort of re-engage with them with a piece of content.

00:12:09.800 | Another example, we did an e-book

00:12:14.800 | about enterprise applications, same client,

00:12:24.000 | enterprise mobile applications,

00:12:26.760 | and the opportunity for basically to create apps

00:12:30.400 | for your workforce that would allow them

00:12:32.320 | to do their jobs better.

00:12:34.160 | So this was, this one we used more at the top of the funnel.

00:12:36.840 | We used it to drive awareness.

00:12:38.800 | And it was really, it was actually,

00:12:41.640 | we did a study leading up to it,

00:12:46.640 | some research about, you know,

00:12:48.480 | look, we commissioned a quantitative study

00:12:53.160 | to ask workers, you know, how they felt

00:12:56.760 | about their existing tools that they use to do their job.

00:12:59.720 | And we found basically, you know,

00:13:01.120 | not surprisingly a lot of dissatisfaction

00:13:05.000 | around sort of the off the shelf tools

00:13:08.160 | that companies provide them.

00:13:10.120 | So basically the e-book was an overview

00:13:13.800 | of the research findings,

00:13:15.200 | but put in the context of, you know,

00:13:16.760 | there's an opportunity with the maturation

00:13:19.120 | of mobile applications and mobile OSs,

00:13:23.800 | specifically iOS and Android,

00:13:26.000 | to, for companies to fairly inexpensively

00:13:28.080 | create custom apps to support their workforce.

00:13:32.480 | And we promoted it through a lot of newsletters

00:13:37.120 | that specifically targeted HR and IT teams,

00:13:42.120 | and drove quite a few new leads into this.

00:13:48.800 | The system and built a newsletter list with that.

00:13:52.960 | So that, those were just two examples of e-books

00:13:56.600 | that sued very different purposes,

00:13:59.040 | but I thought, you know,

00:14:00.840 | both were very effective at what they did.

00:14:03.000 | - That's really, really cool.

00:14:05.480 | And I find myself envious of people like you,

00:14:09.680 | because the skillset that's required

00:14:13.640 | or the broad set of skillsets to dive deep

00:14:17.400 | into any given topic quickly,

00:14:20.800 | and to become an expert quickly,

00:14:23.200 | to be able to write something sensibly credible,

00:14:27.120 | is not something that I find easy to pivot, you know?

00:14:30.040 | And I would never cut it in your world, Troy,

00:14:32.200 | like I couldn't do it.

00:14:33.600 | - Well, it's so man-made, I mean, it's not easy.

00:14:38.160 | It's not easy for me either.

00:14:39.920 | In fact, that difficulty defines really

00:14:44.160 | how I prefer to work.

00:14:46.680 | It shapes how I prefer to work,

00:14:47.960 | which is, and it's a bit of a challenge,

00:14:50.680 | because I'm a freelancer.

00:14:52.200 | I don't have the overhead of a company,

00:14:55.520 | you know, the security that comes

00:14:56.640 | with working for a company,

00:14:57.840 | and I don't have HR benefits and all that stuff.

00:15:00.120 | That's a whole different topic,

00:15:01.480 | but, you know, to do what I do well,

00:15:04.600 | I feel like I can only work on, you know,

00:15:07.400 | sort of two to four clients at a time.

00:15:10.320 | So, you know, I mentioned, you know,

00:15:12.960 | this app development firm that,

00:15:15.560 | happy to share the name, by the way,

00:15:16.640 | it's ArcTouch, they're really good at what they do,

00:15:19.040 | and they work with big brands

00:15:20.520 | and lots of big media companies

00:15:25.000 | to build their mobile products, basically.

00:15:27.840 | But I've been working with them since 2014,

00:15:31.680 | whether it's, you know, full-time

00:15:33.080 | or when I left in 2020.

00:15:36.800 | And then, you know, even the other clients

00:15:39.840 | that I've had the most success with,

00:15:41.400 | I work with over a long period of time,

00:15:44.160 | and I get to know, you know,

00:15:45.640 | their business really closely

00:15:48.720 | and can dive, you know, deep over time.

00:15:51.960 | But it is, you know, it is daunting,

00:15:55.240 | especially if you're gonna go deep on an e-book,

00:15:57.520 | if you're just starting to work with somebody,

00:15:59.240 | because you're, you know,

00:16:00.440 | it's gonna be fraught with a little bit more peril

00:16:05.600 | if you try to do an e-book on day one

00:16:08.640 | of working with a client.

00:16:10.240 | So my preferred working situation

00:16:11.880 | is no more than two to four clients

00:16:14.320 | and sticking with them for a long period of time.

00:16:18.320 | - Well, that's a good tip.

00:16:20.280 | I think you're right.

00:16:22.040 | Quantity versus quality, right?

00:16:26.080 | And giving yourself the time to really dive deep

00:16:29.200 | is really important.

00:16:30.320 | You know, back to the actual discipline

00:16:34.960 | of ghostwriting itself,

00:16:36.720 | to me is fascinating, right?

00:16:38.920 | 'Cause I think about people who ghostwrite for presidents

00:16:43.080 | or for CEOs, right?

00:16:46.200 | And there's a art of having to understand

00:16:50.000 | their tone and personality

00:16:53.600 | to write something that genuinely looks like

00:16:55.960 | it came from their behalf.

00:16:57.560 | And it's a little different than obviously ghostwriting

00:16:59.400 | for like a blog or e-book, for example.

00:17:01.960 | Can you tell us a little more about the,

00:17:03.800 | just ghostwriting itself as a function

00:17:06.320 | and what it means to you,

00:17:07.840 | the different applications or how to do it well?

00:17:10.760 | - Yeah, it's a complex question,

00:17:13.200 | but I'll try to break it down.

00:17:15.840 | The most important thing is to understand the context

00:17:20.840 | of somebody's work.

00:17:25.480 | And I think, you know, I've thought a lot about this a lot.

00:17:28.480 | I think one of the reasons I'm able to do what I do

00:17:33.400 | is honestly my career path

00:17:36.000 | in working in a lot of different roles.

00:17:39.120 | And specifically, you know, there's a lot,

00:17:42.120 | I started as a journalist.

00:17:43.360 | There's a lot of people who do what I do,

00:17:46.000 | started as journalists.

00:17:47.960 | But I think the sort of secret sauce layer for me

00:17:53.960 | being able to be, to do this for as long as I have

00:17:57.240 | is that I've worked in business in different roles.

00:18:01.760 | And, you know, you and I worked together at Logitech.

00:18:03.640 | Logitech is a great example.

00:18:05.040 | I started in doing sort of block and tackle public relations,

00:18:10.040 | media relations on their PR team.

00:18:14.080 | And then I, for a year or two,

00:18:18.040 | I worked as their full-time, the full-time PR writer.

00:18:21.960 | And I wrote a lot of press releases

00:18:25.080 | and I wrote some reviewers guides.

00:18:28.760 | So basically, you know, when we had new products,

00:18:30.320 | we'd write a guide and send out a unit to a list of media

00:18:35.320 | and sort of give them tips on the best way to try it out.

00:18:39.040 | But, you know, I wanted to learn,

00:18:42.920 | at that point I was super intrigued with,

00:18:45.000 | started to get super intrigued

00:18:45.960 | with the sort of product development.

00:18:47.080 | I loved Logitech's products, still do.

00:18:49.080 | And I had an opportunity to shift over

00:18:51.760 | to the gaming group and become actually,

00:18:54.320 | I was a global product manager there for a couple of years

00:18:58.120 | and also did some game developer relations.

00:19:00.880 | So I did some business development

00:19:02.400 | and I learned about operations

00:19:05.440 | and I learned about product development

00:19:07.160 | and I learned about supply chain

00:19:09.320 | and how to build materials in a spreadsheet

00:19:13.720 | and understand the, you know, sort of ROI.

00:19:18.240 | So tons of great learnings in that.

00:19:21.200 | And then, you know, after Logitech,

00:19:24.560 | I did a lot of different sort of digital marketing

00:19:27.000 | 'cause digital became the thing.

00:19:28.800 | So I've had this broad experience in business.

00:19:33.800 | So I think I have this built-in context.

00:19:37.360 | Everything's a little different, right?

00:19:39.160 | But I have this sort of built-in context

00:19:40.920 | that allows me to understand

00:19:44.480 | when I'm talking with somebody,

00:19:47.200 | a new thought leader that I haven't talked to before,

00:19:49.880 | to usually at least on the surface level,

00:19:52.360 | understand their business context and their work context.

00:19:56.160 | And, you know, and then it's just a matter of like,

00:19:59.680 | you know, going back to journalism school

00:20:02.960 | and, you know, knowing how to ask questions

00:20:06.000 | and even beyond that, being curious, right?

00:20:09.080 | Being curious, asking, just like you're, you know,

00:20:14.880 | sitting at a bar with friends

00:20:16.320 | or around a campfire with kids, you know,

00:20:18.400 | asking questions and being naturally curious

00:20:21.440 | and listening, right?

00:20:22.680 | That's the last part is listening.

00:20:25.480 | And so all of those things, I think,

00:20:28.320 | combine to allow me to do what I do.

00:20:33.320 | You know, the challenge of,

00:20:34.840 | you mentioned of sort of tone and voice,

00:20:37.320 | it's important.

00:20:39.720 | And I think that comes through some trial and error

00:20:44.120 | when I'm first working with somebody

00:20:45.360 | and kind of goes back to the point I made earlier about,

00:20:47.720 | I prefer to have longer engagements with people

00:20:50.440 | because as I go along and I learn their style

00:20:54.520 | through more conversation and more access,

00:20:57.480 | then I can better sort of channel their voice

00:20:59.880 | and, you know, turn it into something on my first try

00:21:04.560 | that they're happy with, proud of, to put their name on.

00:21:08.280 | - As a writer, how do you deal with

00:21:13.720 | just harsh criticism and feedback?

00:21:15.680 | That would probably break me down as a human.

00:21:19.480 | So I'm pretty sure, like you mentioned,

00:21:20.960 | like it's been a journey for you

00:21:22.200 | and I'm pretty sure you learn a lot of things on the way

00:21:23.760 | to build a thick skin.

00:21:24.760 | Like how do you process criticism?

00:21:27.440 | Like how do you do it?

00:21:29.680 | - Well, yeah, I mean, you have to,

00:21:33.600 | it's human nature to get defensive, right?

00:21:36.120 | And I think I get defensive like everybody else.

00:21:39.480 | I try to minimize reacting in the moment, right?

00:21:44.480 | And just try to take it in.

00:21:47.440 | And if, 'cause your brain's first instinct

00:21:51.680 | is to shut it down.

00:21:54.200 | So it's just, I don't have a great answer for that

00:21:57.400 | other than you have to on some level be okay

00:22:01.840 | with feedback that you're not always gonna agree with.

00:22:05.040 | And then the real trick is to turn that feedback

00:22:08.160 | that you may not agree with

00:22:09.360 | and then find a compromise,

00:22:13.800 | if that's what it takes to finish your work

00:22:17.600 | that you're proud of.

00:22:18.640 | But ultimately you also have to know,

00:22:20.000 | like if it's a ghostwriting gig

00:22:22.120 | and this person's name is going to appear on top of it,

00:22:25.400 | they have to be proud of it, right?

00:22:26.960 | So you have to get to that point where they're proud.

00:22:29.480 | And I actually kind of relish that challenge.

00:22:33.040 | I've just seen my name on stuff once in a while,

00:22:35.240 | but it's a totally unique challenge

00:22:39.200 | to get somebody to sign off on like something

00:22:42.560 | that you basically wrote that has their name on it.

00:22:45.880 | - Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

00:22:49.680 | Shifting gears a little quick for here.

00:22:51.720 | So what advice would you give to someone

00:22:54.360 | who is at the start of their career going,

00:22:58.840 | and they generally know that they like writing,

00:23:02.040 | they don't know what to do with that.

00:23:04.040 | So what advice would you give them?

00:23:05.120 | And then alternatively,

00:23:06.680 | for someone who is a little more seasoned,

00:23:09.720 | what advice would you give them

00:23:10.880 | in terms of what they should consider

00:23:12.760 | when evaluating future moves in a career and whatnot?

00:23:16.960 | - So my advice early in your career

00:23:19.720 | would be to start broadly.

00:23:21.960 | When I first made the transition,

00:23:23.840 | I went to a tech PR agency when I left newspapers.

00:23:28.840 | And by working at a tech PR agency,

00:23:32.280 | I was able to start getting exposure

00:23:35.240 | to different businesses,

00:23:37.400 | whether a lot of B2C, a lot of B2B,

00:23:40.200 | understanding customers,

00:23:42.600 | understanding the media landscape,

00:23:45.600 | understanding audiences

00:23:48.680 | and what motivates different audiences

00:23:52.280 | and how to sort of start to create messaging

00:23:55.960 | targeted at different audiences.

00:23:58.480 | And that's a great foundation.

00:24:00.720 | I wouldn't recommend anybody that's coming out of college

00:24:04.800 | or early in their career to specialize too much, honestly.

00:24:07.800 | You wanna know what you're good at and really good at,

00:24:11.560 | and you can sort of hang your hat on that,

00:24:13.120 | but it's really important to have that,

00:24:15.920 | to sort of get a broader context to do your job well

00:24:20.360 | and understand a bigger landscape.

00:24:22.280 | 'Cause as I said, I think that's something

00:24:25.400 | that has allowed me to have that context

00:24:28.000 | when I'm having those first conversations

00:24:29.560 | with thought leaders today

00:24:30.520 | is to sort of point back to those broader experiences

00:24:34.680 | that I had earlier in my career.

00:24:37.080 | When it comes to leaders

00:24:39.520 | that maybe wanted to focus more on writing

00:24:42.400 | or be ghostwriting later in their career,

00:24:44.520 | I mean, I think if you realize that like me,

00:24:49.520 | you really relish the storytelling above all else

00:24:55.720 | and you relish this idea of helping businesses

00:25:00.120 | get their thought leadership out

00:25:03.720 | and actually achieve some kind of ROI out of it,

00:25:08.400 | which is what I do.

00:25:10.600 | That's the time to consider it.

00:25:12.480 | I think there's two ways to go.

00:25:13.760 | There's one would be to work at a bigger agency

00:25:17.560 | where maybe you have benefits and things like that.

00:25:20.960 | Bigger marketing agencies,

00:25:23.880 | a lot of them have internal writers these days.

00:25:26.920 | Sometimes really big companies have content marketers,

00:25:33.920 | they call them, that do a lot of writing,

00:25:35.360 | so that's another path.

00:25:36.560 | If you get to my point in my career

00:25:40.400 | where I've been doing this for a while

00:25:41.320 | and I've got a decent professional network,

00:25:43.360 | then you can think about freelancing.

00:25:45.360 | I haven't, I've been lucky,

00:25:47.000 | I haven't had to do a whole lot of marketing,

00:25:48.720 | but there's definitely ups and downs

00:25:52.040 | that you have to be prepared for when you're freelancing.

00:25:56.680 | - But Troy, those are super, super helpful conversation

00:26:02.760 | for me 'cause you reminded me of a lot of really good things

00:26:04.720 | and even in the web marketing world,

00:26:06.520 | like a lot of muscles to exercise.

00:26:08.400 | And I would agree with your statement around

00:26:11.200 | starting your career as a generalist, right?

00:26:14.600 | I think I also started my career

00:26:16.400 | in a agency side of the business,

00:26:17.920 | and you just get exposed to so many different aspects

00:26:20.720 | of that discipline, I totally agree.

00:26:22.560 | Kind of coming back full circle,

00:26:25.520 | as kind of just kind of closing thoughts,

00:26:28.680 | again, every piece having a purpose is so important, right?

00:26:32.880 | And if you're entering this field,

00:26:35.440 | being intimately familiar with your audiences

00:26:37.880 | and the mediums of what you're gonna write for

00:26:39.720 | is really important.

00:26:40.760 | Do you have any closing thoughts for us, Troy?

00:26:43.000 | - No, I mean, I do think AI is interesting right now.

00:26:49.040 | Like I said earlier, Tim,

00:26:54.800 | I have some mixed feelings about AI,

00:26:58.800 | but I think one of the reasons why I believe

00:27:01.760 | there's gonna be people like me for a very long time

00:27:04.000 | is AI is great at helping look back

00:27:08.040 | and assimilate background knowledge on things,

00:27:11.600 | but in terms of AI's role in writing,

00:27:14.840 | it can't, at least right now, it can't really lead, right?

00:27:18.480 | So we still have, our leaders are human,

00:27:23.480 | our innovators are human.

00:27:25.800 | They're using AI tools to lead and to innovate,

00:27:29.800 | but in terms of telling their stories,

00:27:33.000 | I think we're a long way away from AI

00:27:38.000 | being able to look forward and to lead, right?

00:27:42.960 | Which is something only humans can do.

00:27:47.960 | So yeah, aside from that, I think I'm good, Tim.

00:27:53.280 | I've really enjoyed having this conversation with you

00:27:57.160 | and love your podcast.

00:28:00.040 | (laughing)

00:28:01.520 | - Thanks a lot, Troy.

00:28:02.360 | - Great having you on.

00:28:03.200 | We'll have to bring you back on this show

00:28:04.840 | 'cause there's other things I wanna talk to you about

00:28:06.200 | that has nothing to do with ghostwriting,

00:28:07.600 | but I just love to get your perspective on stuff,

00:28:09.520 | but thank you for following it.

00:28:12.520 | For more information on Troy and information,

00:28:14.360 | just follow the descriptions below.

00:28:16.520 | Troy, thank you for your time.

00:28:18.600 | - Awesome, thanks, Tim.

00:28:19.440 | I appreciate being on.

00:28:20.520 | (gentle music)

00:28:23.120 | (upbeat music)

00:28:25.700 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How to be a Freelance Copywriter, Ghost Writer, and Content Marketer

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