Everybody loves a good before and after right?
Here’s my review of Copywriting for Creatives, the course I used to uplevel my business (and my confidence). If you sign up for the course through my link, I may get an affiliate commission, but I will shout this program from the rooftops any day of the week. And it’s at no additional cost to you.
Here’s a before of my website.
I took this screenshot in mid-December. At the beginning of CfC, one of the lessons recommends screenshotting your “before” website. Honestly, I rolled my eyes at that a little bit. Why would I want to see what my pitiful, duct-taped-together website looks like now?!
Today, I am grateful for those screenshots I hid away somewhere in my google drive.
I’m grateful to be looking back over the last year and seeing how much Kelsie Cakes has grown… and how much I have grown too. This website is just a really obvious, visual manifestation of all that growth.
I didn’t do it alone.
It was nice to have some help from my two very best cheerleaders
You’re wondering: who helped you?! How did you do it?! Where did this magical website come from?!
Answering those questions will require more than one blog post.
So let’s start at the very beginning.
Oops, not that far back. Let’s ⏩ to 2021.
Copywriting.
Specifically—
Copywriting for Creatives, which is the course that I used to write my website (and now my emails and blogs and Instagram captions and like…all the things)
And it’s going live today.
Before I keep going, full disclosure: I signed up to be an affiliate for this course, so if you bought it (like, right now), I’d get a kickback.
Which feels weird for me to say because I’ve never done anything like that before. But also, I’ve never taken a course like this before either.
Consider this my not-so-subtle way of asking you if learning more about copywriting and sales psychology (in a creatively satisfying way) is something you want to sign up for.
If you’ve got any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll even tell you what I don’t like about it. ??
→ I’m a shy and awkward introvert with a neurodiverse brain, and talking to people on facebook groups is very anxiety-inducing for me. That’s the biggest hesitation I had, tbh ? ←
I’m such a skeptic when it comes to buying online courses.
So why did I buy Copywriting for Creatives?
In the early days after Theo was born, and I was deep in my struggles with postpartum depression, I felt really really lost about what I wanted to do with my business —
— and with my life and my identity and my career and it was a whole thing.
(Yay for zoloft!)
Sidebar: I’m also grateful that Ashlyn has been open about her own mental health journey. It’s something that made me feel less alone in my depression-and-anxiety fog. Hey, if she can run a business and have a family and take care of herself, maybe I can too.
During those early newborn days nights, I started binge-watching Ashlyn’s YouTube videos to learn more about marketing while breastfeeding and pumping.
It made me feel human and adult to do something a little more stimulating than wash bottles and change diapers.
After months of consuming all of Ashlyn’s free stuff (don’t sleep on those free downloads!), I was 100% convinced.
Copywriting for Creatives cost $997, and as a DIYer and bootstrapper, that price tag had me going ?
…but as a frazzled new mom who felt like nothing was working anymore and who needed some a lot of help, I handed over my credit card and started taking screenshots.
And now?
I’ve been able to explain better what I do (I like to think of it as my words matching the quality of my products ?) which has led me to book bigger and better custom orders. Gah, that’s so exciting. And I’m still able to offer the retail side of my business to keep Sugar Flowers affordable for everyone.
This year, CfC is still $997 which is pretty awesome considering this whole inflation thing.
What was your Copywriting for Creatives
process like?
I jumped in as a former current overachiever who was up for the challenge. I started writing and—
— *gulp* asking past clients for their feedback.
I even e-mailed a repeat client and asked her if she wanted to FaceTime so I could pepper her with questions. #nervewracking
Fast forward to today and we chat all the time. She’s met Theo, and she sent me this after my website launch ???
Figuring out everything at the beginning was an uphill battle, but once I started, it was like a snowball effect. The more work I put into learning about copywriting, the more it started to pay off.
This gave me the confidence to reach out to a website designer (one who works with real businesses no less), but I’m getting ahead of myself. The beautiful visual branding + website part will be another post! Stay tuned.
Would Copywriting for Creatives work
for a bakery or cake business?
I sell Sugar Flowers. Isn’t Ashlyn’s target market photographers, florists, web designers, and service providers?
Yes, and we sugar artists and cakers are also service providers. I think we forget that, sometimes, because we provide a product.
But a cake isn’t just a cake
(and a Sugar Flower isn’t just a Sugar Flower): it’s an art form, it’s a point of connection, it’s meeting with clients and hearing their love story, it’s learning about their grandmother’s favorite flowers, it’s staying up at all hours of the night before a wedding to make sure the piping is perfectly placed.
That’s a service, and one we put our whole hearts into.
Which means we do need to know about sales psychology and marketing and copywriting, to talk about cakes and cookies and sweets in an authentic way that isn’t salesy, to show our clients before they even walk through our (virtual) doors how excited we are to create for them, and still be able to put food on our tables at home.
That was my biggest takeaway.
→ To acknowledge that I wasn’t “just” making Sugar Flowers— I was making memories, friendships, and connections.
If you’re thinking, “hmm Kelsie that actually sounds like something I’d get a lot of value from,” but you’re not 100% convinced—
(or you are 100% convinced but you want to consume allthethings before you sign up #itme)
—check out Ashlyn’s “Copy Class,” a video masterclass going over some of the stuff in CfC in an hour.
If you find that helpful + you learned even one mind-blowing thing to tweak in your biz, that’s a sign CfC will be worth your time & investment too.
And if it wasn’t helpful? Hey, at least it was free. ?
Don’t forget to watch the Homepage Homecoming replays before Friday (unless you buy the $37 lifetime access version which I totally did because #obsessed lol)
And if now isn’t the right time?
I totally get it. I once thought about signing up for a course for three years before I finally did it. There are still plenty of free resources out there, and the copy templates (at a lower price point) that Ashlyn sells too are also ?.
Mostly though: thank you for letting me share some of my story with you. I hope I’ll get the chance to hear your story one of these days ?
And next up I’ll share how my hair color influenced my new website
(because of course it did)
Quick note → Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. That means I get a small commission if you purchase through this link. However, I make it a point to only share tools and resources I truly love and use.
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