Anatomy of a Fix: Suzi Istvan

I dragged myself out of bed after not sleeping especially well. A client’s site broke last night before a launch, and it kept me up way too late. My dreams were vivid, and I woke up again and again knowing my east coast client was just beyond the break of dawn.

The alarm went off as if on cue. Putting water on for my green tea, I took my laptop out to the porch and pulled her documents up. What was on deck for today?

A sales page. An email sequence promoting the launch. An influencer email to help spread the word. And if there was time, Instagram captions for the killer photos she’d already selected.

Score. The best part about working with someone who does what I do is that they have an idea of how long things should take. And this list? This was probably the most perfect breakdown I’d seen for a day’s work. I was going to crush this shit, and I couldn’t be happier about who I was doing it for.

Suzi Istvan is the brains and beauty behind Splendidly Curious, an agency serving creatives who are industry leaders in their specialties. We’ve been watching each other for a while now, and when she booked a Fix I was thrilled. I know how hard it is to prioritize your own material when you’re a service provider for other people’s businesses.

Taking a sip of tea, I read through her brand assessment. Her idea was original, smart, and ridiculously necessary for creatives like her and I. This was going to be a winner, as long as we could convey the value properly. It wasn’t your standard group coaching program or ecourse, which was great – but it also meant I had my work cut out for me to make the sales page really sing.

I gave her a call at 6:00am (my time). We jammed for 20 minutes on the particulars of her offer, how it was going to be delivered, what she wanted to make sure it was and wasn’t. Once I had everything I needed, we parted ways, her to finish creating her lead magnet for this sequence, me to go into my writer’s cave.

Which of course today is Playdate PDX, a local cafe designed for children to run wild in a contained space while their parents took advantage of the high speed internet, coffee, and wine. Basically, it’s a self-employed mom’s version of heaven. Or at least a tolerable hell until the kid gets into school. At least they get socialized this way, right? Right.

My son was coming back today from a few days with his dad, and that means making sure we both have the environment we need to thrive (or at least function).

Today, my assistant was meeting me to assist with this and a handful of other projects. She’s lovely, and I couldn’t make these Fixes happen without her. And as long as there is enough caffeine involved, she doesn’t seem to mind. We ordered some sweet potato fries, fruit, and two cups of coffee. Time to get to work.

I spent some time scraping her Instagram, Facebook, and blog for anecdotes to scatter through the emails and the sales page. This had to be relatable, and since Suzi was in the midst of the messy life of a creative professional, who better to speak to it? I took the short bits, expanded them, and tried to really get into the groove of being Suzi. As an extrovert with an acting background, my process often seems a little weird to other writers, but I literally monologue as them to create their copy. If you want to speak to their people the way they do, what else can you do?

By the time 12 rolled around, I’d wrapped up the first draft. It looked good, and I was pretty happy with where it had landed. Now, it was time to see if she would, too.

I shot her the link via Facebook Messenger, along with, “Feel free to leave me comments anywhere you want things changed.” This is always the moment I hold my breath a little, waiting for feedback that can range from the best possible scenario (no changes) to the less desirable and thankfully rare one where I end up trying to rectify what usually amounts to miscommunication.

I didn’t have long to wait. 30 seconds after Suzi got into the document, she was leaving comments chock full of feedback, like, “SOOOO GOOOD!”

“Can we change who we’re talking to from ‘they’ to ‘you’?” I didn’t respond – I just changed it on the fly. I should have done that in the first place. Duh.

I was thrilled she was happy with it. It’s not super often I write sales copy anymore, but damn, when I do, I make it count.

Adding the emails to ConvertKit, I closed out the day by creating her email to send to her influencers, and then I added some Instagram captions to Planoly. I checked in with Suzi to let her know I was winding down, and we ended on a pretty happy note, talking about our next Fix.