Gina: Hoot copy
A future-focused transformation
Gina is the founder of Hoot Copy. She works with businesses who want to be bold with how they communicate with their customers, and want to create genuine fun for the people they care about in a way that’s natural and authentic.
Gina joined Your Brand Blueprint in March 2024 to get clarity on the future of her business. I sat down to chat to her about how working on her brand has impacted her business.
Tell us how your business began and what your journey has been to getting to where you are today.
I've been a freelance copywriter for about two and a half years. Over that period of time, I’ve been doing everything for everyone. It’s been a great experience for me and I built some amazing connections, but I reached a stage where I thought, is this really it? I found myself asking what I wanted to be doing with my time and my skills.
HootCopy is the most recent face of my business. It’s a real concentration of all the threads that I've been doing for the last two years which is now pulled into something that feels really clear and easy to talk about.
What challenges did you have that made you decide you needed to work on your brand?
I think I would describe myself prior to the Blueprint as a busy fool. I was working a lot. I was grateful to be busy but I wasn't being that discerning over who I was working with and why I was working with them. I realised that I didn't really know who my dream client was.
As a freelancer it's such a crowded market, and as a copywriter, you really need to know exactly who you're speaking to to attract a specific group of people. I just didn't have that clarity. I didn't want to spend the next two years doing work and saying yes for the sake of it.
I wanted to be a bit more strategic about what I was spending my time on. Having a clear vision and a set of goals to be working towards was important to me, rather than just being in delivery mode continuously for the next two, three, four years.
How did these challenges manifest into specific issues or how did it make you feel?
The overwhelming feeling was panic. I wanted to think about how I was future-proofing what I was doing because I love what I do and I love the people I work with. I want to be able to do this for a very long time. But I knew that if I wasn’t being strategic about where I was building my expertise and where I was building my audience and my community, I would very quickly become another generic freelancer who offers a range of skills, but nothing super specific.
It was a fear that I wasn't going to be able to do this for as long as I wanted to, along with confusion when it came to decision making: lack of clarity around my long term goals. People would ask me, “Oh, where do you want to be in five years?” and I didn't know. Not only did I not know but I didn't know what I wanted to change.
It just felt like treading water: doing the same repeated motions over and over again while not making progress. But not really understanding what I wanted that progress to be and why.
I couldn't see where I wanted to be going.
How has the Blueprint helped to overcome those feelings?
Where do I start? It's completely changed how I think about my business. The business itself changed: I realised I needed to do a complete rebrand. I can also clearly see where I want to be in 3, 5, 10 years time now. I didn't have that kind of clarity before.
Not only can I see it, but I'm really, really excited about getting there. I always wanted to reach that stage and it felt like there was going to have to be a complete transformation somewhere in order to get to that point.
The Blueprint made it feel so manageable and easy to tackle and work through.
As soon as I realised what I didn't have, I started to spiral a little bit because I was so overwhelmed by how much work I felt I needed to do. I didn't know where to start. I didn't know what I needed to do first, and didn't know what I could park for later, and what was - and wasn’t - priority.
With the Blueprint, not only was it clearly structured, but I also got access to a community of other people who were going through exactly the same thing as me. I could check in with everyone and access that support and advice. I could ask them what they thought about things.
That's another part of being self-employed and a business owner. You're doing this on your own. As much as I can talk to friends and family about their advice, and ask what they think about what I'm doing, they don't get it in the same way that other business owners do. Having that specific kind of support really helped along that journey. It helped to remove the panic I felt. When you see other people in the same boat as you, you realise it's not the end of the world. “I'm not the first person to experience this.”
It makes you realise that actually it's probably quite a normal part of running a business that everybody goes through. What topics did you find most useful?
The first few modules helped me the most: bringing it right back to why we started.
Asking those really basic questions that we never think to ask ourselves was the foundation for everything else that came on top of it. It was thorough without being overwhelming and feeling like I had loads to do.
It was important having the right questions that teased out all the details. If we hadn't had that expanding process to detangle everything, I wouldn’t have had an epiphany moment about what I wanted to do.
It's so easy to get stuck in a cycle without stopping and reflecting. I'd been in business for two years when I decided I wanted to do the Blueprint. I thought two years was a decent milestone. I know I can do ‘business’, but what am I doing? It was a real turning point for me. I could either stay doing what I was doing, or try and look into what it is about what I want to do that's different, really hone in on that and niche down.
Have you discovered or learned anything from doing the Blueprint?
I've learned so much. I think more than anything it's the importance of taking things step by step. I'm the kind of person that when I want something, I want it to be that now. But it doesn't work like that.
Also, when you're running a business, you don't have time to make it happen immediately. This process has really reinforced the value of breaking it down and not getting ahead of yourself. Making sure that the foundations are there before you go off and deliver, and do everything.
I've also learned to trust myself a lot more as well. Like I said, as much as I can ask other people what they think, at the end of the day, it's my business. And if I want to do something - if my gut is telling me this is the right thing for what I want to do - then I've got to do it.
"I didn't realize that running a business and designing what you want to do could be this fun. When it's completely up to you, there's the temptation to make yourself feel more professional or to try and stuff yourself in a corporate looking box so that people will take you seriously.Really the superpower that small businesses have is leaning into their personality and creating something that is really shaped around who they are and what they care about. So just realizing that this could actually be exactly what I want it to be andI don't have to follow anyone's rules was amazing."Now that it's fun, I want to protect it as much as I can and sustain it and, help other people find it now as well.
When you're on your own, you don't have the same resources and capacity as a big business, so you have to lean into other advantages you've got, which is your personality and your uniqueness. You've got to be brave and just lean into it.
At the beginning, you touched on the fact that you have a rebranded. Tell us what's changed since putting your Blueprint together
I'm doing a full Monty rebrand. New name, new logo, new messaging. I'm launching officially soon, but in the meantime I've been trying to make my social content a lot more reflective of this new focus that I've found. The initial reaction I've had from people has been great. It's not a complete 180 from what I've been saying up to this point, but it's just a clarification. It’s me setting up my stall and saying “this is what I'm doing”, and yeah, the reactions have been really good so far.
It's quite scary to let go of what you have known for so long and the business format that I know has been working for two years, but I think the idea of staying in the same place for the rest of my career just doesn’t appeal.
It's been a learning process, definitely. Everything has changed but in the best way. I'm just really excited and motivated to make it happen: to see it come to life.
Would you say a lot of change is actually more mindset related?
Yeah. I had settled on ‘fun’ as being the thing that I wanted to specialize in and support other businesses with finding. The word fun has quite flimsy and frivolous connotations. So once I decided on that, there was a little voice in my head saying “is this going to work? Is this something you can sell?” When I presented my idea to the rest of the Blueprint group, everyone was so supportive and the people in the community said “this sounds perfect for you”.
Just having the support of people who know what it's like just made me believe in it even more. And it made certain it was going to work and that it was a well thought through idea. And that's another thing, I've not just pulled this idea out of thin air: I've done the work. I've worked through all the sections of the course, I've done my Blueprint, the proof is there in black and white. From mapping why I got into this in the first place, to the services that I'm creating for people. Having reams of proof that I've thought this through has helped with my confidence when it comes to talking about it and selling it.
What's one bit of advice you'd give somebody who's struggling with direction and focus in their business: feeling a little bit overwhelmed about what they should do?
I would say the panic is normal. Don't worry. It's not the end of the world. You've got to push past the panic and really poke around and consolidate what you don't have. You need to write a list of what you don't have and what you feel is stopping you from moving forward.
And then you've just got to break it down and take it one step at a time. If it's not manageable - and if you don't feel like you can tackle it in a way that's sustainable - then you just won't do it. You need to really drill it down and just focus on one step at a time.
Is there anything else you'd like to say about your experience of Your Brand Blueprint?
It's been wonderful. Completely transformative in a way that hasn't felt at breakneck speed.
If March Gina spoke to July Gina, I don't think she would believe what she would be saying about Hoot Copy, she'd wonder what I’ve done to the business. It's been completely transformative in a way that hasn't felt overwhelming at all.
Really manageable and also really fun as well, which is the most important thing.
Have you learned anything from the other members of the group?
Oh, that's a good question. I think the most important thing I've learned from the other Blueprinters, is to lean into your community and lean into the people around you. Don't be afraid to ask for advice because I apprehensive of speaking too much when we first started the sessions, and taking too much air time on the sessions. But I knew how much I enjoyed helping the other Blueprinters.
I realised if I love helping people, I've got to assume that they love helping me as much as I do them. So don't be afraid to put your head above the parapet and go, “Hey guys, can I just get your feedback?”. You've got to just be open. People are there. You’ve just got to ask them for help.