Sarah Ashley: The Strategy Most Copywriters Skip

Most copywriters are writers who can do a little strategy. Sarah Ashley of Portal Copy Co built her business the other way around. Host Zaneta Chuniq Inpower talks with her about pivoting without betraying yourself, why the honest version of freelancing is unglamorous, and using AI as a thought partner rather than a ghostwriter.

In this episode

• Why the question “where do I start” is answered with introspection, not tactics
• The emotional attachment trap — feeling like a pivot means betraying yourself
• Honest expectations for freelancing: long hours, trial and error, no glamour
• Be a generalist first and narrow into a niche later, not the reverse
• Mississippi State computer science to an MBA to five-dollar Fiverr blog posts
• Is SEO dead? Why semantic search and adopting new tools is non-negotiable
• AI as a thought partner: brainstorm and organize, never publish the output
• Why even a book needs a marketing strategy behind it

“Understanding like where to start and where to go just always begins with a lot of introspection and a lot of self-awareness and a lot of asking yourself hard questions that maybe you haven’t asked yourself in a long time or ever.” — Sarah Ashley

“A lot of people online make it look simple and they think it’s like a glamorous path, but it’s really not. It’s very time consuming and a lot of just throwing things at the wall and figuring out what works at first.” — Sarah Ashley

“So many people don’t really think about marketing strategy, but it’s so huge. Even if you feel like you don’t need marketing or you just need like a one-off sales page, some people don’t even think about the marketing component, but it’s there.” — Sarah Ashley

Read the full recap: How I Fuse Marketing Strategy With Copywriting to Get Clients Results

Connect with Sarah: portalcopyco.com

Hosted by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower. More at Unscripted Small Business.