Hey there, welcome to another episode of “The Art of Online Business”! Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Marissa Corcoran, a successful copywriter and founder of The Copy Chat. We talked about the importance of messaging and inclusivity in online summits, and Marissa’s unique approach to hosting them.

Marissa’s approach to hosting online summits is truly unique and impactful. She emphasizes the need for specificity and personalization in pitches to potential speakers, as well as the importance of maintaining the integrity and reputation of the event. Her summits have raised over $100,000 for organizations like the Headstrong Project, and she believes that giving back and creating a community that supports each other’s growth is key to success.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The importance of messaging and inclusivity in online summits
• Marissa’s unique approach to hosting summits, including a charitable component and a focus on community building
• Tips for crafting iconic copy that attracts clients, makes money, and creates a massive movement online
• The power of specificity and personalization in pitches to potential speakers

If you’re struggling to create a clear message for your business or want to learn more about hosting successful online summits, this episode is for you. Tune in now to learn from Marissa’s expertise and experience!

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

Marisa Corcoran’s Links: 

• Visit Marisa’s website
• Email Marisa
• Visit Marisa’s Facebook
• Follow Marisa on Twitter

Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!

What I found after the first time we did the copy chat was speaker saying to me, Marissa, I’ve never had anybody actually sign up for my list from a summit that I’ve been on until this summit. And I started to or people would say, I’ve never actually listened to the interviews before until this summit. Listeners, I’ve never actually joined the Facebook group and gotten anything out of it before this summit. I’ve never actually wanted to buy the all access pass before this summit, and I realized that I was on to something that has everything to do with my acting background, which was I made this my Broadway show.

All right. What is up, my friends?

Welcome to today’s episode of the podcast. Rick, I’m already here today. I want to talk to you about summits now. I started, so I’m almost on ten years here in the online business. And I remember when I first started it was all webinars and it kind of still is right, but all webinars and then maybe in like 2015 summits, online summits started to come into the picture and it was where a whole bunch of people like somebody would gather a whole bunch of people to get together to, you know, they would each present their POV or, you know, teach something on a specific topic and, you know, you’d get people to sign up for it and you would have some sort of sale with it or what have you.

And then everybody started doing summits, and I think it really watered down the quality of summits and wanted to have my guest on today. Her name is Marissa Corcoran and from Marissa Corcoran. And also copy chat or the copy chat. Com and she does a summit but she does the summit very differently and very successfully and she teaches how she does her summits. She calls it the signature summit system. And the reason I wanted to have her on is because of this fact that she does them differently. She has a charitable component in it. She is looking to uplift the inclusivity of people within the online space, which I absolutely love and is a very big value of mine. If, as you know, if you’ve been listening to podcasts for any period of time. And so I asked Marissa to come on the podcast here to break down this system, how she creates these summits, why she creates these summits, what she does. We get tactical, you know, ah, you know, how does she get her guests? How does she position the summit to the guests when she’s pitching them? You know, where how does she deliver the summit? How does she pitch her product, Her program after the summit? We break it all down here for you today.

And so whether you’ve done a summit in the past or maybe you’ve been considering a summit and are just looking for ideas in which to do it differently, that can be really successful for you and also in the process, create money and raise money for charity that’s close to you. I think you’re really going to like this episode here with Marissa. So without further ado, let’s go hang out with Marissa Corcoran. So Marissa, you finally have good Wi-Fi. You’re on a cross country trip right now. How many do you know how many? We were talking before we hit record here. Do you know how many cities that you’re going to hit?

That is such a good question. I don’t. But, you know, I feel like we’re kind of averaging. Some states are more like in California. We’re going to make our way up the coast. You know, in in Florida, we did Orlando, Miami, a small called Bonita Springs, Tallahassee. And obviously we’re driving through places, but those are places we actually made stops.

Okay. You know, and I’ve definitely been trying to take pictures every time we go to a new state. Yeah. You know, they had that sign like, Welcome to Louisiana. Welcome to Mississippi. Welcome to Alabama. Welcome to Texas. Like trying to get all those. But I don’t know, it’d be interesting for me to add it all up and I’ll I’ll let you know in the end like what’s what’s the can I count it if I’ve driven through it or only if I stop there? No, you know what I mean.

I would say only if you stopped there.

Yeah, okay, great. I’ll let you know. Yeah, I got it.

What’s been the most interesting thing that you’ve seen on the trip so far? The most.

So far. You know, I had never been to New Orleans. Yeah, And, you know, sometimes times people hype things up. Like, I remember I went on a study abroad trip in college to Italy, and I saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and I remember being like, okay, cool.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, people like hyped things up. You think to yourself, is it going to be as good? You know? So when I tell people about TV shows, I don’t because then if they hate it, I feel responsible, you know? So I’m always like, Yeah, check it out. Maybe. But New Orleans was magical in a way that I was like, Oh, no, I absolutely loved it there. And I just really had. The best time. I loved walking. I loved like the architecture and every street kind of had like the courtyards or something hidden. And I just I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did.

That’s one city I’ve never been to before.

Oh, you never been?

Oh, I’ve been to a lot of cities in the country. I’ve never been to New Orleans before.

Well, I hadn’t been until two weeks ago. So. Interesting. There’s.

Yeah, but you’re saying thumbs up for New Orleans.

Yes. I mean, we were walking home one night and saw this piano out in the middle of the street and these guys playing. I have a video of it and it was just the coolest thing. So I think, you know, obviously there’s Bourbon Street and stuff like that, but. Every street kind of had its own energy and it was really cool. And we took the streetcar over to the Garden District and all the little courtyards and it was great. Cool.

Yeah, sounds cool. Shout out to all my Louisiana listeners. What’s up? So you’re a copywriter. Tell us a little bit about what you do in your online business profession.

Yeah. So, you know, I always tell people, you know, people will always say, oh, you know, maybe copy something. I’ll, you know, worry about after. People kind of think it can sometimes be the icing on the cake. And I’m always like, No, it is the cake, it’s the butter, it’s the if you’re gluten free like me, it’s the gluten free flour, it’s the eggs, It’s how all these things that you want to make happen in your business, you want to sell in a way that feels good.

You want to call on the right people and you have to know what to say and how to say it, to do those two other things. And that’s what we support people with to help you create what we call your own copyable message and the copy that supports it inside of our signature program called the Copy Confidence Society. And and once you can message it, then I talk about it, then you can market it. And in the marketing, we help you then create your own stage. And that’s where the signature summit that I know we’re going to talk about comes in. How do you kind of create your own stage and bring that genius to the wider world and kind of make that impact that you want to make? But we got a message at first before we can before we can market it, we got to get really clear on the what to say and how to say it. Yeah. And then we can go ahead and create your own stage and, you know, bring create that community that you want to create.

So I’m so glad you bring that up in your positioning it in that way, because so many people have when they’re experiencing a hard time selling their whatever they’re selling, whether it’s a course or a membership or, you know, coaching program or whatever, and they don’t know what’s going on. Usually it comes back to the messaging and not being able to clearly communicate what it is that they do, what the promise is, can’t clearly articulate who the audience is. All that stuff. I just right before we started recording this, I just recorded an episode about ChatGPT prompts and one of the skills that you need to have in order to get the kind of results that you’re looking for is to be able to describe things like we’re talking about here. You have to be able to describe if you want an output, like an email series, for example, around your program, you’ve got to be able to describe your program in a way that’s compelling to describe your target audience, all that stuff.

I couldn’t agree more and I always tell people, so we always do this masterclass that invites people into the copy confidence society and people are coming because they’re like, okay, give me the copy tips.

Like, give me the, give me the swipe copy, give me the templates. And I’m not like hating on that because we need those things too. But I tell people like the best copy I can give you all the copy tips in the world, but the best copy will not fix a muddied message in 90% of the time you don’t have a copy problem, you have a messaging problem. And when we get that clear, then I say go back to the templates that you’ve already bought. Go back, you know, then you can use something like the like chat GPT and you’re going to get the kind of results and the specificity that you want. But we just can’t build it on this muddied foundation. And so even when somebody kind of wants to do a summit, I got to make sure that that message is super clear first and then we watch. You know, there’s not I always feel like there’s no magic being in your business. Like there’s days where I’m like, Whose idea was it to do this? What are we doing? You know, I’m never going to say it’s easy, but giving yourself that gift of a clear and specific message makes everything else a heck of a lot simpler and easier going forward.

Now I want to talk about this summits, but before we do, you just you just made a really important point there. And I’d love to hear how you describe the difference between the two messaging and copy. Yeah, What’s the difference?

So I always say that messaging is like what you say, like you asked me before, Hey, Marisa, can you share what your how you help people in the world that’s like that what I do statement That’s the messaging. Yeah. And then the copy comes in. It’s always say that people make purchasing decisions based on two things. One is what you’re selling, something that I want or I need, that’s your messaging. And then number two, are you the person that I want to do it with? Do I get a sense of your voice, your vibe, your personality, your values? And that’s where the copy elevates the messaging and brings all those other elements. So at the top of a website, we want to make sure that that tagline is super clear.

That’s your messaging. And then the rest of the words on the website support that to keep people reading, clicking, following and really filling that second question of like, Are you the person that I want to do it with? And that’s why if you try to use like, let’s see, like a sales page template. Yeah. But you don’t have the messaging. You’re not you’re going to. You’re not going to know. Why can’t I fill this in? Why is this so difficult? Right. So the copy can only support as good as that messaging is. And so that’s kind of how I define it.

Love it. Now, you mentioned Summit earlier, and I really want to dive into this. You call it the signature Summit system summits and have been around for I remember I remember first hearing about summits back in like, I want to say like 2015. Yeah, like eight years ago. And they started to become big. And but you kind of do a different twist on it. And I want to kind of dive into that like, how did these come up that you started doing them? Like, why did you start doing summits?

Yeah, it’s such a great question.

So I was actually a copywriter for summits, so I was an actor in my former life. I got my MFA in acting from the American Repertory Theater at Harvard, and when I went back to the city, I, I couldn’t really wait tables anymore. I couldn’t nanny other people’s kids. I had like five jobs at one point in my life.

At the same time.

Oh, yes. I was a cocktail waitress at this place called two 35th at a nanny for a family on the Upper West Side. I worked at a doctor’s office where I used to carry a human spine around in a suitcase. Not a real human spine, but like a science class skeleton. Because I was a sales rep for them. For a chiropractor’s office. Okay, so that’s one, two, three, four. And I was writing. That was a season of my life in 2014. That’s definitely a season of my life.

When did you sleep in Slow?

God, when do I ever sleep? People always ask me this.

Sleep I think a good amount. But I was definitely go. And I was auditioning too. That’s the other thing. I was auditioning.

Which you need to have flexibility for when something comes up. But I needed to.

Have flexibility, so I had to figure it out. And so I had a good friend of mine, her name was Diana, and she was a parenting coach and she was in like this mastermind. And I remember being like, What is this world? It was kind of like the Wild West. This was like 2013, 2014. Yeah. And she said, Oh, you know, you’re and I had a background in writing a little bit. And she said, I think you’d be so great. They need help with like their website and stuff. And I was like, okay, well if, if this means I could like get rid of a job at some point, I could like write in a Panera or something, this would be great. And I slowly kind of learned like I failed forward some jobs.

I hit it out of the park and I kind of learned on the job. I remember my first job. The person asked me to write a packet. I had no clue what that was and I was like, Will you send me just an example of one that you love so I can just like get the flavor? And that’s how I learned. I was writing an affiliate packet and I, I very soon realized that the things that make you a great actor on stage are the same when you’re writing copy. It’s the it’s the exact same. And so when I started kind of applying this like actor’s guide to it, I started getting really great results for people. My friend Diana was started to do a summit herself. She had other people that were doing summits and so I kind of learned, learned how to do it cool. And so I was writing for that for a while. And then in 2018, I had this like Winnie the Pooh moment where I say, Winnie the Pooh broke me. I was auditioning for this children’s show, and I was like, okay, I’m done.

I don’t want to put my feet in anybody else’s hands. What am I going to do? I’m done acting. So I was just writing. And then I thought, okay, well, I’ve written for people in their summits. I’ve seen really great results for them. And I watched a lot of my friends in the actor world that had created their own stage that when they created their own stage, like a one person show, a web series and brought people to them, I was watching my friends get success. I thought, okay, I couldn’t do it as an actor of too much trauma around it, but maybe I could do it in this world, like this is my plan B, but there can be no plan C, And that’s when I turned around and created my own summit, which is called The Copycat, which premiered in February of 2019. And it absolutely changed my life. And we’re going into season seven now this summer. And so that’s kind of how I got into the world of summits.

And then of course, we could talk about like kind of what I took from that and made into like my own the things that I saw that I liked, the things that I saw that I didn’t like, Yeah. And how we came to the system. But that’s kind of like the origin of me and Summit’s.

So what were you selling when you first did your when you did your first summit, you’re like, Oh, I’m going to do this. I’ve been in this. I mean, working within summits for a few years now. What what were you selling?

So the first thing I sold is the thing we still is the Coffee Confidence Society. So I, I ran the copy chat and then a few weeks later opened the doors for the first time in the spring of 2019 to the cocky Confidence Society. That was nine times ago because we’ve we’ve now done the society nine times because I had been working with my private clients, my retainer clients, and I’d been doing these little workshops again where I was kind of applying this actor’s guide, the copy.

And I was finding that people really loved it. And so that’s when I kind of put it together into the copy Confidence Society. And so 2019, 20, 20, 2021, it was like a copy chat in the winter sell into the copy Confidence society, a copy chat in the summer, sell into the society in the fall. And that’s all I did for two years. I didn’t focus on any like make it a podcast, do this, try this, have another offer. I was like, I just got to stay. In the zone, and that’s what we did. And for two years, that’s good.

And most people don’t do that. They think like, Oh, I’ve tried this and I want to try something else after.

I wanted to, like, perfect it. Yeah.

So what was the intention of. The summit from the perspective of, okay, I’m going to do this summit to sell into my program. But most people think of summits as a list builder as, okay, I’m going to offer this offer free access to the summit and then whatever.

If people want to get the recordings or something like they can pay for that or a VIP level or whatever it might be. And then oftentimes there can be, you know, the need for like affiliate, you know, setups and stuff with people who are going to be speaking. ET cetera. ET cetera. So what was sort of your all right, I’m going to do this myself with the intention of selling my program. How did you set the summit up? I don’t mean technically, I will talk about that, but how did you set it up from a structural perspective?

Yeah, well, what I found after the first time we did the copy chat was speaker saying to me, Marissa, I’ve never had anybody actually sign up for my list from a summit that I’ve been on until this summit. And I started to or people would say, I’ve never actually listened to the interviews before until this summit. Listeners, I’ve never actually joined the Facebook group and gotten anything out of it before this summit.

I’ve never actually wanted to buy the all access pass before this summit, and I realized that I was on to something that has everything to do with my acting background, which was I made this my Broadway show. Yeah. Like I. I know you told me before I could swear. So I. I, like, sold the shit out of the speakers like I made every night. I would do these recaps inside of the Facebook group, and I would promote the crap out of the speakers. Oh, my gosh. Wasn’t Rick’s interview amazing today? You have to go. I would recap the things that you said that were so awesome. I really made it. Yes, I was the creator. Yes, I wanted to sell into something afterwards, but I made this by putting the community at the heart of it. I didn’t know that at the time. That was just something I knew from growing up as a theater kid, from going like I just applied everything, that this was my event and I was going to make everybody feel so that they my goal was that I didn’t even know if people would buy the copy confidences.

I just remember being like, I’m $178,000 in student loan debt. You know, my husband had made maybe $20,000 that year. Like I was angry at everyone. And then it was like, I have to change my life somehow. So I didn’t have any control over that. But I knew that if I could get people I always say these three hours, that if I could get people to remember me, rave about me and refer this, the copy chat, I was on to something. And so that’s how what would happen. And then after about season two, season three, people were asking me, Marissa, I want to learn whatever it is that you’re doing here. I want to create a summit like this. So I slowly started to kind of apply these little things. And the other thing that I realized was the typical kind of summit format, and I’m not hating on it, but it’s technically like 20, 30 speakers, like it’s so much. And from a listeners standpoint, that’s not actually helpful.

That’s like we’re like almost joking like the world we’re living in. It’s just like so much overwhelm. So I thought, okay, could I get the same results if I cut the speakers like in half? And I actually experimented with this on my clients first before myself. I asked like my very first Summit clients and they were like open to it. Could we cut it down to like this? Like one week, five day signature summit, ten speakers, maybe 12, 13 max and could we get the same results? And I found that we did my, my, my clients were getting, you know, and now we’ve done it enough times that we say following the system, you can bring in anywhere from 500 to 2000 plus new leads. But we were finding people were getting the same result. So in season four of the copy chat, I actually started applying my own method then and it was our highest season. We had over 4000 signups in season four for the copy chat and that was like ten speakers.

And at the same time I realized that teaching people the kind of community aspect to have the Facebook group to really promote the crap out of the speakers, to make them feel so included. I had these little pop up lives and there were two other things that were very important to me. Number one is when I was an actor, I was always like I wanted to be an actor, but I realized now I wanted to be an actor so I could have all the perks of doing these other things that I wanted to do, like giving back to charity, like having my platform, like having, you know? And I thought, okay, we could do this here. So that’s when I decided that, yes, this the summit is free to listen in to always. But the All-access Pass, we decided that we were going to donate all the profits to charity. And any client who does it with me agrees to do the same. So just from the coffee chat alone, we’ve now raised over $100,000 for organizations like Headstrong Project that supports military vets with the mental health care that they need and deserve.

We’ve supported an organization called Supplier Farm, which gives land back to Black and brown growers and an organization called Sage USA, which provides services and advocacy for Lgbtq+ elders. Awesome. And each season, we’re raising anywhere between 10 to $13,000 for these organizations off a $27 max, like a $47 upgrade, which is. So I was like. Okay, we cut it in half. We’re having the same results we can give to charity. And the third aspect is that most summits that you normally see are basically just all white people. And I really wanted this to actually reflect the like, the ecosystem that we’re living in. Yeah. So we decided that if you’re part of the signature summit system, your summit does not go live unless 50% or more of your speakers are representative of marginalized communities. And not just that, we’re checking out boxes, but there’s intention behind everything. The prizes that you’re giving away, the way that you’re looking at that, like the way that that marginalized person like so that everybody feels that they’re being taken care of.

And that’s what I set out to create and that’s what we’ve done. And this is what my clients are are now taking it in. My goal is they take it and they make it even better that they add their own flavor to it, that they invest in the system and they reap that ROI. Go do three four seasons, make it even, even better with these core things. Yeah. In there. Love it. Yeah.

So my listeners always love tactical stuff. Yeah. So let’s get tactical for a second. So you mentioned like sort of like a pop up Facebook group where you are talking about the speakers and whatever they, you know, whatever you learn that day and bullet points and go listen to this, etcetera, people are signing up for it. It’s free, but they can buy a VIP access. What does the VIP access include? Let’s start there.

Okay. So the VIP access includes lifetime access to the interviews so you can always go back and listen to them. We always do a bonus class with me, a bonus Q&A where people can come and we, gosh, say on like two hours, be like, edit, we answer questions.

And then there’s also this like workbook that I include as well. And then in the past I’ve also asked some of the speakers to include some things that maybe is like a lower ticket offer that they have or something that they would want to donate to the kind of bundle. So each season it’s a little bit different, but at the core is lifetime access to the interviews, the class with me and the workbook and it’s $27 during the promo period for the two week promo. And then we raise that to and I also have to say this yes, I’m the face of it, but I could do nothing without my team. Like my team has helped me craft this, their genius, their ideas just as much as me. And I say this because I’m like, let me go ask Hosanna. Is the oh, is it does it go up to $47 or $57? But during the week it goes up to that till the till the end. So that’s what’s included in the VIP upgrade.

Gotcha. Okay.

So do they get that as an opportunity when they they sign up for the somebody signs up for the summit, Are they presented with that offer like on the thank you page or something like that?

Yes. We say, hey, Rick, we’re so glad you signed up. One more thing. There’s this arrow. Yeah. And it basically presents the copy check kit and the charity. So we present to you, Hey, do you want to, like, help your copy? And a human, like, here’s what it is. We’re donating this, this. This is why we chose this charity. This is what it is. You can get this for $27. Here’s what it’s included during the week of the summit. It’s going to go up to 47 or 57. You can upgrade here. We also include it. So now you sign up, you get an email that’s like the welcome email. Rick, We’re so excited to have you part of the cop that you’re listening to, the copy chat.

There’s like a Schitt’s Creek gift of some sort of like someone. Dan You know, I think it’s Alexis like and then we include that as a PS, so we kind of include the upgrade throughout. I send a few welcome onboarding emails throughout that two week period, and we also include two solo like extra emails that one is to share my connection to whatever the charity is like, why we chose that in another one that gives a little bit more of the like bullet point statistics of the charity.

Love it. Okay. So they they’ve signed up. Maybe they’ve gotten the VIP offer. Is is the delivery of the content with your guess? Is that live? Is that recorded? Is it on video? Is it what is it?

(00:26:16) – This is such a great question. So it’s recorded. So like for example, this summer will do copycats instead than in July. I try to get the recordings done in around May. After the first copy chat, I told people because I did it audio to start.

(00:26:31) – Because when I tell you I would like like just scraping by, I’m not even kidding you. And I was doing it in my living room. I didn’t have like a fancy crowd. So I’m just going to do an audio because I’m a Leo and we’re vain, right? If it’s not going to, like look 100% great, like, so I did audio and after and most of it’s people would do them video. So when I got done I pulled copy chat listeners and they said they loved that it was audio. They love that it was podcast style. Yeah. Because they could listen whenever, you know, they wanted her on the go. So we’ve always kept it that the core interviews are audio. Okay, but then we ask you to join the Facebook group because in the Facebook group I will do some pop up lives with some of the speakers that will come back in and that’s on video. I do the recaps on video, so there’s the video elements inside of the Facebook group. But the core interviews are audio still.

Still to this day. Still, I like it. Kept it that way. I like it. Yeah. Even with my fancy office when I finally got myself a chair. I’ve always kept it audio.

Yeah, well, I like that because, I mean, for obvious reasons, I’ve been podcasting for for ten years now. I mean, it’s, it’s passive. It gives people much more accessibility to be able to consume the content because like you mentioned, they can be out for a walk. They can be, you know, in the kitchen, they can be walking their dog, whatever it might be. They can be consuming the content. How? Yeah. When you ask a guest, are you asking them one specific question and then they’re sending you a recording or are you doing like, are you getting on like this and doing like a quick little interview? That’s just audio or how are you doing it?

Yeah, it’s an interview. Okay. We we do an interview and when I reach out to somebody, I make it really clear of what the topic.

So when I teach the signature summit system, we work backwards. We go, okay, what is this like ultimately? Like, what’s your ultimate goal? Like, what is this selling into? What’s the program? What’s the experience? And then we work backwards to create a summit that connects to that that you could repeat again and again. And then we got to fill in these individual buckets. So if I knew I wanted people to come into the coffee Confident society, of course, the summit itself needed to be around Copy. Sure. And then. Okay, what are the buckets that I want to hit? Okay. I want to hit like some of those more educational pieces, like sales pages, launch emails. Then there might be a bucket around more of the kind of mindset of copy, you know, putting your personality out there. There’s like a messaging bucket, right? So then each season I’m trying to hit certain buckets and I’m pitching people very specifically to where I think they’re a zone of genius around this could fit in, but it also let them know, Hey, if there’s something else that you feel jazzed to speak about, like, of course, let’s make it work.

But usually I really never thought about this. But this is true because I reach out so specifically to people and the way that I do it. Most people are so like excited to then talk about that. We come up with the questions together. Yeah. So that they feel like they can show up and shine. My team takes care of of everything. They show up for the interview, we record it, but we make it like an it is and it’s an interview.

Yeah. Is that then delivered in an in an email during the week of the summit?

Yeah. So those are the daily emails. So day one happens, day one of copycat season seven, it’s Rick Moretti and Laura Boger on day one. Awesome. It’s a great day. So we open the door. Oh, my gosh. Copyright Season seven is here and I’m so excited to kick things off with the great Rick and Morty, you know, and Rick’s going to talk about X, Y and Z. Click here. You know, Laura’s going to buy X, Y and Z.

And when I say click here or whatever the button is, it takes you over to the interview page, which is going to show your and Laura’s interviews. And then you can click the little play button or however you’re going to listen to it. Gotcha.

Are you showing. I’m getting very tactical, right?

No, no. This is.

Great. On the listening page, are you showing kind of like what’s coming up? But they’re grayed out like you can’t listen.

You you can’t listen, okay. And when you go to opt in on the opposite page, copycat, it’s not. It’s going to show your phone like it’s going to show the speakers that season.

Okay. Gotcha.

It’s not going to say the exact title because I don’t really know until after I’m done interviewing. Sure. But I have a flavor of like this season, you can expect things like but you can see the speakers in there. And then if you go to the interview page, once we’re up, you’ll see like Rick and Laura and it’s like.

(What your topics are. And then you can see everyone else just you can’t press play. Yeah.

Gotcha. Okay. So you’re delivering the emails. So I want to get like getting in. How do you transition into the actual offer? But I have to ask this question. Sure. How do you get the people? How do you get the guests to say yes? Because here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. And this is going to sound super crappy to say, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been invited to speak on a summit, but I didn’t. They were just reaching out cold. I’ve never met this person one bit. And it’s actually to be, you know, if I’m being fair, it’s been a few years or a couple of years since I’ve been asked, simply because I think a lot of people weren’t like there was a period of time where everybody was doing summits, and then I feel like they kind of started to slow down in favor of other sort of other things.

But I always just had my team, you know, you know, again, nine times out of ten, I didn’t know the person, never met the person. But I always like said no because I was like, oh, just another summit. Right, right. But the way that you’re talking about it is just I feel like it’s so much more, especially with the charitable component to it. How are you pitching, if you will, to get your guests to take part in it?

Yeah. Okay. I’m going to tell you right now, most people pitch in a very shitty way, so we just have to call it out because it ain’t good. Yeah, Agree. We’re going to change it. And I think I have changed it and I’m going to tell you why. So if I go all the way back to when I was in grad school at Harvard, you do these showcases for agents, you do one in LA, you do one in New York. And your goal is that agents will call you in, you’ll have meetings with them, and you’re supposed to send them like a really nice thank you card or an email.

And my friends, my Harvard classmates would come into my room and they’d be like, Marissa, can you help me write this thank you card? Like, you’re so great at that. Because basically what I was having them do was like, get specific. Well, did you talk What else did you talk about that wasn’t the business? Did you all bond over the weather? Your favorite movie that you both have a dog. So we would like bring that like it was specific. Like, what did you talk about? Don’t just say like, oh, we talked about like my possible career. It’s like my possible, like, ability to play this role and this role and upcoming like indie, whatever it was. And my friends were getting a lot of great responses from that. And so when I started pitching for the copy chat, I did most of my clients. I did not have like celebrity clients. I wrote for a lot of people that were like health coaches. I wrote for a matchmaker, I wrote for a parenting coach.

So when I was reaching out to people, nobody knew who the hell I was. Like, in the fall of 2019, 2018, nobody knew who the hell was. So I knew I had to apply the same thing. And so actually, Eric O’Leary Mark, if you know Eric Leo Marcus I pitched Erica cold. She didn’t know who the hell I was, and she calls my pitch now. She teaches part of it in her program, my five step pitch process. She calls it the red hot cold call because she describes it. She remember looking at it going, who the hell is this girl like I’m in. Yeah. And the way that we do that is to get like, you got to take a one way ticket to specific town. So when I’m pitching you, I have to first show that I. That I not just like, Oh, Rick, I’m a fan of your work, but like, give an example. Oh my gosh, Rick, I’m such a fan of the podcast.

I absolutely love your interview with Brenna where you talked about X, Y, and Z. Oh, my God. And I actually shared the interview that you had, you know, with Britney about this to my audience, because it’s such gold. And this is why I know you’d be such a great and then I go into specifically why I want to have you what the goal is. And then the magic is also in the where I’m like connecting with you as a real person. Yeah. Like, oh my gosh. Like you love rock music or oh, my gosh, Rick, you. You like hockey, right? Rick For real. Sorry, I’m outside of the pitch. No, I do. Yes. Right. I’m not a hockey fan, but I might tell you the story of my grandma going up to Wayne Gretzky in the middle of Toronto, and we were like, Oh, my God, we think that’s Wayne Gretzky. And my grandma literally walks up to him and goes, Excuse me, are you a hockey player? Two Wayne Gretzky Okay.

And my family talks about it for years, you know what I mean? And I might mention that to you. And now I’ve had people write back to me and say, Oh my gosh, I’ve never had anybody pitch me in this way. Like, next thing you know, they’re booking the 15 minute discovery call. So the pitch is a huge part of our process. Totally. And I’m a real stickler on it. Like, I will like a school, send it back to apply and go. No more specific. No more specific. And sometimes people like this is so specific. I’m like, it has to be that specific. We have to stand out. And so I would say, and here’s the other thing I’m going to say. I’m not saying that every single person I pitched in season one said, yes, that’s not the case. Yeah, but I’ll tell you this, a lot of people that I wanted to have would go on to be on the copy chat and at some point, because the way I reached out was so personable that they were like, Hey, Marissa, I’m not available for this, or still like, let me check this out.

But we started a relationship and they were on season two, season three, season four. And so that’s one of my biggest passions, is to change the way we pitch for summits. And from I’m a huge fan of your work. Here’s all the things that I need you to do for me. Yeah, yeah.

I’m laughing because I hear that all the time from my podcast. I get pitched every single day and they’re just the worst. Yeah. So yeah, it’s such a it’s such a big piece. What is the. All right, so you’ve gotten the pitch. People appreciate the style of the pitch and how you’ve positioned it. This is going to sound terrible, but what’s in it for them? What’s in it for the guest to say yes. Yeah.

So there’s a couple of things. The first thing is that we always allow the the speakers to share. They’re a free gift and we really promote it every step of the way. So we really say from doing the seven seasons that I’ve done or the way that I help my clients do it, we they’re we can we’re making sure that people go and sign up for your audience or join your community in some way.

Like you mean, we only have so much time here, but there’s like so many little things that we are doing during the recaps, during the interviews at the end of the interview, all this to really make that special for the speakers. So that’s something that we we talk about. Also there is what I found is a lot of speakers is like the caliber of the people that we bring together. It starts to also create like collaborations between what I found is the speakers and like the community that we create. And also one of the biggest things I talk about is that to be when we go back, so, okay, how do I want to say this? So yes, I worked my ass off 100%, but I cannot deny that being a white, cisgendered, able bodied, thin woman did not help me out to get where I was. So if I claim that I want to be a rising tide that lifts all boats in this industry, and I want to truly create an ecosystem that represents all people, and I’m over here saying, Hey, this is a summit that is 50% or more and as like a heavy hitter or like a person who has an audience, you have the opportunity to actually become a rising tide that lifts all boats.

So that’s something that I encourage, is that we’ve we’ve really like helped shine light on different people and their zones of genius. So it’s also asking people to be part of something that like yes, there’s something in it for you. And I have those tangible things, but it’s also being a part of a way that I’m trying to disrupt and change the industry at the same time. And I’ve had to have conversations like that with people and it’s had to be like, You know what I’m saying? Like, if you want to say you’re a rising tide that lifts all boats, but then you say you’re not going to share with your email list, well, there’s a disconnect there. And yes, we want to respect the relationship that you have with your list 100%. Let’s talk about it. But this is and it’s like my old mission that I’ve been on because I’ve seen the power of what happens, where people turn around and go, Wow, I actually had people sign up for my audience or I have a colleague of mine who’s going to be on the copy chat.

This is her third time and she’s like, Reset any time is yes, because people sign up and then they buy. For me, she’s like, Whatever you want. Like I’m in. Yeah. And I think that there’s things that we’ve done while also being open to how kind of not so great summits have been in the past, how we can make them better, how we can make it truly feel like a win win. So I hope that is a good answer. Yeah, love it.

I love it. Especially, you know, you’re talking about making a difference and making it more inclusive in a space that I don’t feel and I’ve talked about it a lot here in the podcast in the past. Does a. Very good job of that. Or maybe there’s a lot of talk about it, but no action to back up the talk. And I love that you’re doing that as sort of the foundation of these types of summits now. Yeah. So we have all that information. How do you and I know that my audience is like, okay, how do we transition into selling whatever it is I want to sell?

Yeah, it’s such a great question.

So I differ from a lot of people on this is that people call, Oh my gosh, Marissa, you have to ride the wave. You have to sell something immediately. You’re going to lose momentum. And I’m like, okay, sure. But again, I in integrity of what I’ve promised this week, I really try to make this. This is this is yes, I’m promoting me, but don’t worry about me. I’m going to be just fine. I want to make sure that the reputation and the integrity of the summit, like it lands, we raise the money for the charity. So when the summit ends the following week, I usually send an email that’s like to everybody, like, Oh my gosh, this is how much money we raise. This is how many listeners we had. Here’s some of the best things that we did, and here’s what you can expect If you want to choose to stay part of this community. And then I usually give about I’ve done anywhere from 4 to 7 weeks of like a quote unquote pre-launch, to quote the great Brendan McGowan, the pre-launch plan like.

And then I will go into opening the doors and I’ve done it where I’ve just gone straight to opening like, you know, four weeks pre-launch, open the doors of the copy Confident Society. I’ve done it where there’s like a webinar in between, but I like to wait like at least 3 to 4 weeks. And then I go into what, after the summit? And that’s what I’ve traditionally done.

After the summit.

So let’s see the summit.

Yep. Yeah. So go ahead. Go ahead.

So let’s say. Okay, the summit ends on a Friday. We do an encore weekend where all the interviews become available again for the weekend. And then Sunday, this thing becomes a pumpkin. So get the all access pass. Yeah. The following week we deliver the bonuses and then that counts as week one. And I’ve had it like week one, week two, week three, week four, and then I start selling. But here’s the thing. Nobody from the minute I start promoting the copy chat, the copy confidence society is not something like I’m talking about it all the time.

So I’m interviewing you, Rick, and yes, I’m promoting the crap out of you, but I’m definitely seeding in the copy. Can you make a comment about something? You know what? That’s so great. You know, actually inside of the Copy Confidence Society, one of my clients. So people there’s buzz, I’m talking about it in the recap. I say, yeah, we’re opening the doors of society in a couple of weeks, so it’s all part of it. While giving that space to the summit to let it be this awesome thing and then going into. So it’s not like it’s a surprise to anybody. Everybody knows it’s it’s coming. Yeah. But I like let that breath take place and I’ve done four weeks. Seven was long because the copy confidence society used to be a higher ticket experience. And then just as we grew the audience more, I turned it into more of like a course in a community, which is what it is now. And I needed that time at this moment in my life in 2021 where I was like, I want to change it.

So I needed to extend that time.

Change it. Yeah, Yes.

But mostly it’s around four weeks. Like if we do it in July, it’ll be July 10th through the 14th of fall. Actually, that’s kind of longer because we won’t start promoting the leave them wanting more master class until like the beginning of September. Oh wow. So that’s a little bit of time. Yeah.

Have you ever tried, like, going right into a sale like the following week? Because you have their sort of immediate attention, if you will, because the summit is just wrapped up?

Yeah, I never has. I’m not against it. Yeah. Because usually, what a lot of times when I’m helping people is like, you know, their course or maybe a higher ticket thing where now, like Poppy, like we got to like, you know, the copywriter in me is like, okay, now we got to hit this and hit this objection and yeah, but a lot of that you can actually do during the summit, too.

But I’m going to do season eight, actually. So season I took a break last year from the copy chat season six. As I shared with you before, it’s not new. Anybody knows me. Breast cancer last year, I’m totally fine, but we had to take a break from the coffee chat. Last year had breast cancer, so we’re back to season seven and I asked a bunch of people and like nearly everyone said yes and I had enough to fill a season seven and then a season eight. So we’re going to do a season eight for the first time and like the beginning of 2024, like a January 1st in the society I always sell in February. So that will be like right after for the very first time. So I’ll let you know. Cool.

I like it. Yeah. Is there anything we haven’t touched on? Because we talked about, you know, sort of the format, why you get into it, how you get into it, how you position it, how it’s different from other, you know, other summits in the past, how you get your guests, how many guests, how you deliver it, Facebook, group, speaker page, anything else.

We haven’t we haven’t hit on that. You feel like, well, we should definitely talk about that.

I feel like we’ve yeah, we’ve done so much. We’ve talked about that charity and raising money and what the bonuses look like. And, you know, I think the beautiful part about the summit, what I always tell people is like, it’s never not going to grow your audience. It’s like built in that way. So that is like taking care of. But what we’re looking at and what I think is really powerful with this system. Is. It’s not just about the quantity. It’s really about the quality of the listeners and making sure that your summit is very specific. Going back to messaging that we’re not just having a summit that’s like live your best life, that it’s that we that every step of the way is intentional. And I think that’s where these results really start to come, you know, to life. Like a client of mine did a summit for therapists to help them, you know, have their own boundaries and like bankroll their lifestyle.

And I mean, her first season, she had 1300 people that signed up and that was a gateway to an $87,000 launch that she had her second season. She like 2300 people. She raised $15,000 for her charity. But that’s because the people knew. Exactly. Oh, like I know this is for me. So everything around it had that intention to, you know, what we call it, the purchasing pathway into her program, like all of that. So I think there’s such a specificity and intention that goes into every step of the system that I think is really important for people to kind of remember, like to go back always at the beginning, like messaging is key here. We can’t be doing a summit that’s just like live your best life for like Shine the Sun. We just cannot in this economy.

What is the what is the July coffee chat about?

It’s always it’s mine is still around. Copy the copy, the copy chat right in each in each season we’re talking about how to craft, you know, like iconic copy that attracts clients, makes money and even creates a massive movement online.

And we usually cover and I have each of them. This is another aspect when you talk about this, but planning each day according to like different topics. So we have like messaging. We have like the Tuesday is usually like the copy specific things, like sales pages or launch emails. Yeah. Wednesday is our social media day. Thursdays more outside the box, more of like the mindset stuff, but it’s all goes back to the copy chat all goes back to to copy.

So I want to make sure that all my listeners here can not only come see this in action, but also learn a heck of a lot about copy everything you’re talking about. Where can they go to sign up for the July copy chat?

Yeah, so you can sign up for the July copy chat when it is like ready and ready to go. I think if you go now, it’ll have like a little waitlist button there. Again, my team knows I could say that and my team is probably going to listen and be like, That’s not true because I can do nothing without them.

But it’s the copy chat.

The copy chat.

The. Yep, copy chat. Okay. I don’t think we have our new speakers up just yet, depending on when this airs, but when you go you can still kind of see the the layout of it. And then this season seven will be July 10th through the 14th and our promo period, we will start promoting it as June 27th through around July 9th. And so that is a great place to check out the copy chat and a great place to like connect with me. If there’s something that you heard that you loved, if you were like, I heard something in a different way, definitely. So our Facebook group is always happening. That’s something that’s I don’t do this all with all my clients, but the copy chat, Facebook, Facebook group exists. We have almost 8000 people in there. So you can join the coffee chat Facebook group. And that’s a great place to just see the community and like ordinary time and like what we’re up to.

I grew up Catholic, so an ordinary time like what we’re up to and you can always DM me like on Instagram, my team does support me a little bit in the DMS, but it’ll always be me. That’s like initially like I will respond to you and that’s at M as in Marissa, Tony, Tony like Toni Braxton That’s my Instagram.

At M Tony. Yep. Got it. Awesome. This has been great. We haven’t talked about. I think this is. I was thinking about it while we were talking here. I don’t think I’ve covered summits. On the podcast. Oh, and I’m glad. 700 episodes. Well, maybe like, way back. Like, way, way, way back. But I’m so glad to hear this fresh perspective and with a bigger purpose of why you’re doing it and how you’re doing it. And I really appreciate that. And I’m so glad that you’re having so much success and teaching people so that this is like you’re creating a ripple effect and helping other people do this type of thing and with their clients and so forth and raising money for great charities and so forth.

So thanks for coming on here to chat about this.

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. And I always say it’s my goal. I remember saying, could I give away my student loan? Could I could I give away $178,000? And we’re like almost there. It’s like, yeah, it’s really wild. And we’ve made it, you know, over 2 million in revenue and never spent a dime on paid advertising. And it’s like, that’s the power of this community, of creating a community like this. So if I can help people do it, I talk about it all day, every day. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to to do it. I really appreciate it.

Absolutely. All right. I hope you got a ton out of that episode here with Marissa. I know that I could have kept going. Like I was taking a whole bunch of notes here is learning a lot about the whole process of how she does summits. I think it’s really, really smart.

And I’m so glad that somebody’s reinventing the how to do a summit really properly and add a ton of value on so many different levels. And I’m not just talking, you know, the content that’s being delivered, the why behind the summit, etcetera. So go check out Marissa. Her website is Marissa Corcoran. You can connect with her on Instagram at M Tony. M as in already t o And I tell her you heard her on the podcast here. And also be sure and sign up for her next copycat summit, which is coming up here shortly in July. Go to the copy chat and you can register there. Hope you enjoy that one. And thanks so much as always, for listening to today’s episode. I appreciate you, my friend. Have an amazing rest of your day. I’ll chat with you soon. We?