Dr. Mimi Zhou is a conversion copywriter who works with coaches and service providers to unleash the full impact of their words. Clients love that she can swiftly see the missing pieces in their messaging and copy and impeccably fill them in to bring their vision to life. By nailing their messaging and copy, Mimi supports her clients in leveraging their revenue in less time.

Mimi’s path to becoming a copywriter began when she snuck into a personal finance class at 22. This class opened her eyes to the empowerment that comes along with knowing how to manage your own money. She believes that all women deserve to make their own money and uses her copywriting skills to help female business owners do exactly that.

Which researcher – dead or alive – do you find inspiring? I still admire my thesis advisor, Sarah Kay. Early in her career, she changed the field of medieval studies by bringing in post-structural theory (Derrida, Kristeva, etc.).

What is your favorite animal and why? Cats! My cat Noir helped me finish my dissertation. He is mentioned in my acknowledgments! 

TRANSCRIPT

Jo: Welcome, everyone. You’re listening to Access 2 Perspectives Conversations. My name is Dr. Jo Havemann, and I’m here with Dr. Mimi Zhou, who is a copywriter and supporting coaches and entrepreneurs. I’m very happy to have you here as a guest today, Mimi. Welcome and thanks for joining. 

Mimi: Thank you so much for having me, Jo. I’m really excited to be here. 

Jo: It’s a great pleasure. We got to know each other in a networking community, where I was eager to see some of your work with copywriting and helping entrepreneurs and coaches get their messaging right, which is also important in science communication, which is why in case some of the listeners might wonder what this conversation is going to be about, you also have a PhD title, so you have undergone a PhD program, which we’re going to talk about. The angle that we’re having this conversation with is around career building and career trajectories of what may happen after a PhD program if you decide to leave academia and then turn entrepreneur and create and build your own business, finding a purpose, building your business, supporting stakeholder groups of a certain kind. So we very much like to hear from you. What’s your career path, what made you what brought you to turn on certain routes, what were the decision making processes behind your career choices? And yeah, again, thanks for joining and we’re all ears. 

Mimi: Yeah. Well, thanks again for having me. That’s a really big question. So let me dive in and you can ask me questions if things don’t make sense. Yeah. So I finished a PhD in French literature at NYU at New York University, and I actually defended right before Lockdown. So I defended in February 2020. And prior to that, about 18 months prior, when I was in the last stage of my dissertation I started, I really had to decide, am I going to continue down the academic path or not. 

I really liked my research. My research was on the first stories of King Arthur’s Knights that were recorded in the Middle Ages by a person named Kritin du Tore. So my research was on medieval French romance. That was really fun. But the thing that brought me out of that was that some years before, kind of by chance, like I was in the right place at the right time. I had taken a personal finance class, and I had the time on my hands to do it at the time. And I did it and I kind of did it. And then I forgot about it. I didn’t forget the material, though. I remember that it was really like I never really thought about that.  I was 22 when I took it. So I never thought about budgeting or credit versus debit, which is really important in the US or investing or even retirement. And so I kind of just did this class and then went on my way. 

Jo: Was that before you started the PhD journey or in the middle of the same. 

Mimi: It was before. It was around the time when I was deciding what my next step would be. And I ended up deciding that it would be a PhD. But it was before I even knew I was going to do a PhD. Yeah. So I went on and I did my PhD. And it turned out that for living in New York City, it was really important to have undergrad students stipend. It was really important to know how to budget.

Jo: An expensive city to live in I hear. 

Mimi: Yeah, it is. And one thing I realized, though, was that just looking around in New York, which is quite Liberal, even in New York, I didn’t really see a lot of people talking about money, and I especially didn’t see women talking about money. So as much as I liked my research, I couldn’t shake this idea that women don’t talk about money enough. And it’s just so important to have some financial education because women tend to live longer than men. So you need to have some understanding of finances and how that will play out in your life. Anyway, so I decided to leave academia, and what I was going to do was start some kind of money coaching business for women. And as you know, Jo, that’s not what I’m doing now. And so I actually started down that path. I did a certificate in financial something or the other. I did a certificate, but I had only ever studied literature. So I quickly realized that I didn’t have as much expertise as I really needed to start that kind of business. And I think I could have done it, but it would have taken me a long time. And Meanwhile, once I entered the online business world, I realized that there really were a lot of coaches and creative service providers that needed a copy. And writing was a skill I already had. So I did lessons on conversion copywriting, which is what I do now. And so I pivoted and I’m really happy with where I landed because now I help mostly female, mostly underrepresented entrepreneurs make more money by working on their marketing.

Jo: Okay, Is there a specific group of female entrepreneurs that find your services or that you, like, working with and reach out to offer your services? 

Mimi: Yeah, it’s kind of shifted a little because these things shift as you work on them and you pivot and you make adjustments. I started by working with, the idea was to work with women entrepreneurs who are coaches and creative service providers. So like leadership coaching or like Maureen Archer was on your podcast, and she is a professional English coach. So coaches and creative service providers. So like web designers, photographers, women in those kinds of positions. And right now, I’m actually pivoting my messaging a little more to serve people who either feel or have felt under represented. And so I still work mostly in the niche of coaches and creative service providers. But I actually feel that it has become important to me. I know our listeners can’t see this, but I am Chinese American, and as someone who has felt underrepresented in spaces like academia, it became important for me to explore this. And so right now, I’m pivoting more towards people who feel or have felt underrepresented. Still keeping kind of the same services, though, in messaging and web copy. 

Jo: Since you mentioned your cultural heritage of being Chinese American, now with your PhD research topic on medieval French literature, was there questioning why are you, because of your Asian background, now investigating European literature? Was there ever a question or was it normal and never questioned by others? I’m asking that because I work a lot with African scholars, and it’s very normal for Europeans or Western researchers to conduct African studies of some sort. But the other way around seems pretty much incomprehensible. When you have an African who studies American history or European history of some sort, they’d be like why shouldn’t you focus on your own countries? Is that something you also experience? 

Mimi: Yeah, that’s a good question. What I would like to say is that I had a number of privileges on my path, for sure, and I think that buffered my experience, not to say that there wasn’t some of that.

Yeah. So this is just my perspective, and I hope that listeners will. If it resonates, then I’m glad. And if it doesn’t, they’re welcome to leave it. So I grew up in California, and there’s a large immigrant population in California. And so when I was younger, I think for a long time, I didn’t actually realize I was really different. I don’t really stand out here. It’d be very different. And I’ve heard very different experiences from people who are from Asia or from other places in, like, the American Midwest, for example, where the immigrant population can be much less.

Yeah. So I started my studies at Berkeley as an undergrad, and I think I honestly didn’t really feel like I stuck out until I studied abroad in Bordeaux in France, which was an amazing experience. I didn’t stick out because I was Chinese American studying French literature. Like the people at the universities I found, I don’t think I got a lot of things I don’t know, like questioning or stuff. But living in Bordeaux did make me realize, like, oh, there aren’t a lot of immigrant populations everywhere in the world. I would get, like, calls on the street, you know, because that was not as fun. And then I think as I progressed in my graduate studies, the questions were not overt. And I think that is kind of more difficult. So very few people would say directly, like, why are you studying these topics? I don’t recall experiencing that so much, but the stuff I experienced as a grad student were more, I guess, what’s now called microaggressions. So I’ll just give you a quick example, at NYU, the French Department, it was in this building with six stories. You had to take the elevator up, which is really totally normal in lower Manhattan. And I think the East Asian language Department was on the fifth story. I don’t recall exactly anymore, but I would get onto the elevator and other people would get on the elevator and people would look at me and assume that I had pressed the button. They were going to the fifth floor, and they would assume that I had pressed the button for that when in fact, I hadn’t. And so stuff like that would happen. Like, there were little assumptions. I did have a professor once say, oh, you must translate from Chinese into English into French because she assumed that Chinese was my native language, which I guess it is, although I’m not totally fluent anymore, but little things like that, it was never over. 

Jo: Okay. Now the context of this preceding question might come as now my question is exactly that. But I just want to also because my research and my PhD was about evolution and the origin of animals, and I find it fascinating to be able to contribute to the knowledge or the proving of the animatory of life from a level. What was your fascination about the research topic that you chose for your PhD with medieval French literature and then going to France? What was the wow moment?

Mimi: Yeah. So to be really honest, when I was in Undergrad, I did an honors thesis on one of the stories about our 30 nights. It was called The Story of the Grail or the Conducal. And that was a completely stressful experience. And I did it. I wrote my honors thesis, and I was like, oh, my goodness, I’m never going back to school. And the thing that happened was that actually when I finished Undergrad, my parents divorced. And that was a rough time. And during that same time, in part because I had just spent so much time with this one text. And having finished the honors thesis, I took like a two week break. And then I was like, oh, well, you know what? It was actually not that bad. So I started rereading and reading some of the other stories by Kritin du Tore, the other romances about Arthurian nights when I was going through this painful time. And it was such an interesting overlap because these nights you think they have it together because they go on these courageous journeys and they rescue the maidens, but they don’t. They don’t. They make mistakes. They make mistakes. They really mess up sometimes, and then they have to figure out how to correct those mistakes, which often they can’t because the mistakes are made and there’s no going back. It makes for an interesting story because it’s not what you expect. And kind of being in this space, of being kind of sort of confused and like, okay, what’s going on with my life? What’s going to happen? What am I going to do? I felt like I was in good company with these nights who are also kind of in the same kind of head space of like, I did something wrong and I don’t know what to do. And there’s no right way and there’s no clear way forward, which is the nature of the kind of adventure in medieval romance. It just refers to going out and seeing what happens. That was really the moment. That was the moment.

Jo: In a way. Did you feel seen in those narratives in the literature by those knights? So there was a level of identifying. 

Mimi: Yeah, totally. 

Jo: That’s cool. I mean, it’s interesting to learn how each of us are researchers for some time, find out ways to do a certain kind of research, and then what comes out of it, like what we find doing the research. Okay. Thank you for sharing that.

Okay. Now you mentioned in the beginning that you at some point made a decision and it was a tough one to leave academia. I want to set the stage and maybe burst a bubble here for many of our listeners. Less than 10%, like, single digits of PhD students, like whoever is currently doing a PhD program raised up. But also it’s a great variety of options out there. This is basically the message we want to convey here of things to discover outside academia as career opportunities. And there’s only so many positions inside academia. And whoever is willing to take on that journey, first of all, good luck. But also enjoy the right in the best possible way because we also need these positions to be filled. I’m not here to tell you we’re just widening the horizon in the sense that there’s many cool things to discover inside and also outside academia. And you made a decision to go outside to enter the entrepreneurial world. Would you want to share with us how this decision came about and how it grew inside you and when you felt ready to take that step? And also what were the opportunities and challenges that presented themselves along the way? 

Mimi: Yeah, sure. So I think at the very beginning when I was first thinking of leaving academia, one thing I did and which I really recommend people do if you’re in a position in grad school or in a temporary position perhaps is I started following people who had gone on other career paths. So you can do that really easily on Twitter and I think on LinkedIn. Yeah. You can find so many academics who have left the academic field on Twitter. And so I followed a bunch of people, some people who are entrepreneurs who are in the personal finance space because that’s what I was really interested in at the time. I followed some people who had gone on to admin positions because that is something that people do. And I think there are, from what I see on Twitter, there are enjoyable aspects of that because you’re still in the University, if you want to do research, you have all the resources at your fingertips. I talked to people in my field who had become independent scholars, which is the title that you, at least in the US, like, I would be an independent scholar now if I published. So I talked to people and I followed them on Twitter. And people do all sorts. There are all sorts of positions, like people. You can work at a rare book library as a medievalist because we have training in manuscripts.

Yeah. So the first thing I did was just to find what people were doing, what kinds of positions they were doing, and follow along because I’m always scrolling Twitter. Anyway, at least this way I kind of am productive and have a sense of keeping track of people’s career paths. 

Jo: Yeah, that’s great. Also to show, like, I sometimes also show this in my courses for career building or career networking using LinkedIn, if you just check the organizational page of the school page of your University and then check your connections there. Or you can also see where alumni of that University, like Berkeley was yours or where you did your undergrad, is that right? 

Mimi: Yes. 

Jo: So you could check where people end up in what kind of positions from Berkeley, like where alumni from Berkeley find the professional positions to work in for their careers. And that’s like the magnitudes outside academia, you find all kinds of companies and sectors, nonprofit, for profit, whatever, business, finance, anything, really. So, yeah, it’s good to be aware of these opportunities and possibilities early on within your career path. So, yeah, thanks for pointing that out as an option. So when did this idea grow in you to want to leave academia and maybe stitching briefly on the pros and cons for academia? What did you experience challenging and what were the things you maybe today miss from academia or anything? 

Mimi: Yeah, well, I do miss things sometimes, to be really honest with my kind of research, because it was so established, it’s quite old. It’s from the 1100s. It’s also very canonical. So there’s been a lot said. So when I was writing my dissertation, I did sometimes feel that I had made up a problem so that I could answer the problem. One of the things that brought me out of research was that the fact that women don’t talk about money, that’s a real problem. You know, I didn’t make that up just so I could write a dissertation and get a degree. But that said, I do miss my research sometimes and I guess I shouldn’t speak for other people who have left academia. But I imagine I’m not alone in this just because I have a set of skills that not a lot of people have. So the ability to read old French, some knowledge of Latin and all of that skill around dead languages. Being able to look at manuscripts and having done some work on philology and some poststructural theory in my dissertation, which are all really obscure, I do miss that. I miss looking at manuscripts. Manuscripts are beautiful. And that was really one of the highlights of my career was to be able to go to the Bibliotech nacional now in Paris to look at some of the originals. And I miss being in an environment where people sort of speak that kind of language. Like if I talked to another medievalist and I said, I’m going to go look at this manuscript, you understand that it’s like you’re part of the same family. There are definitely things that I miss. 

Jo: You also mentioned to me on a prep call that you still keep ties in connection with your PhD advisor. You still contact, you occasionally reach out to from your PhD program friends and connections on LinkedIn that you keep having on your radar and sometimes reconnect with. 

Mimi: Yeah, and this is something I really want to say because this is something I did. I wish someone had told me this. I wish more people were vocal about this, but leaving. I think I had this fear before I left that it would just be like a door closed on my life and it is the end of a chapter. But I am still in touch with my dissertation advisor, which has been really nice.

Sarah, I should say, Sarah, if you ever listen to this I hope it’s okay that I say these things. I wouldn’t say we’re best friends, but she gave a talk at Berkeley recently and I’m in the area again, so I met up with her. She met my mom. And so I went to see her talk on campus and it was amazing. It was a beautiful talk.

I wish I had known that people do. You can finish your PhD. You can go on and do something else because you want to prioritize. Maybe your quality of life, you know, like or living like in California. I’m closer to my family. You can do that and you can still stay in touch with your professors. It’s not like you disappeared. 

Jo: It’s still the same world we all live in and we can meet for coffee, including people from a different sector now and exchange memories and experiences that make sense. That’s beautiful. I also reconnected with some of my PhD connections just last year. There was also fear involved because some of my ride was a bit bumpy. Fears to reconnect and has to do with vulnerability and fears of being seen like ten years ago, where we all have grown since. But then the experience was much better. It was a matter of self perception.

It’s nice even though for me, the termination of my PhD was a bumpy road, I know on good terms. And yet there were these memories, and so I was a bit fearful of reconnecting in the first place. But then it turned out really positive. And nice memories came after some time had passed. So, yeah, I can totally agree with you that we should not close the chapter fully, but yes, I think we maybe need, I don’t know, maybe some of us need a hard cut to be able to move on to a new vendor venue. And at the same time, it’s nice to keep some connections and to know you don’t have to cut all ties with everyone. 

Mimi: Yeah. And I want to add, the end of my PhD was also bumpy. It was also bumpy. And even though I felt fine about it, mostly because going into that stretch, I knew at 80% I was not going to continue. And when the pandemic hit, I felt like that door really closed the door to an academic career.

If you’re going through a bumpy time, I just want you to know that that’s normal. Just take one step at a time and you do get to the end. And the amazing thing about finishing is that once you defend, you really become I have the sense that you become colleagues with your professors. And so that’s really quite nice. Things do change, I guess, that’s what I’m saying. 

Jo: Yeah. And to a positive for sure. Well, they can remain positive and they can become even more positive. 

Mimi: Yeah.

Jo: Okay. So now in the entrepreneurial world, could you summarize key lessons learned for some of the listeners who might consider either skipping or even finishing? I mean, there’s always a way to frame the PhD journey as a research assistance time. I also consider at some point just to end it just before. And then I put it on the left with all payments. And I also don’t regret that there was quite a right. And also there’s no shame in quitting and we don’t have to call it that. And yet we can. So these labels. I know that it was attached to me with a lot of shame and that’s maybe one of the major reasons why I decided to go through. But there were also times like the world will not end and it’s an experience made nonetheless. Okay, what am I trying to say here? So no matter at what point you decide to enter or some of the listeners and decide to make a decision towards entrepreneurship with or without the degree, what are the things that are different to consider, as you said earlier, that you wish someone had told you that you found good and challenging and something that you might have repaired yourself differently for if you knew? 

Mimi: Yeah, that’s such an important question. This is, like, what advice would I give myself, like, two to three years ago? Well, let’s start with the good. Let’s start with the good. So one of the things I really struggled with as a grad student was my physical and mental health. I got, I guess, what is acid reflux or Gerd very routinely. And that always came for me with so much eczema. At one point, I had eczema all over. Like, the rashes would just spread all over my body. It was totally a stress reaction. And I got prescription creams and stuff from the doctor, and I realized for me that antihistamines made it more manageable. So shout out to over the counter Claritin D for helping me manage my eczema. Otherwise, it was so painful.

Jo: Sometimes the most important support comes from unexpected individuals also or corners.

Mimi: Yeah. Anyway, since leaving academia, I haven’t had eczema, and I am so grateful. So I know that for my body and probably my mental health, it was the right thing for me. I don’t think academia would have been sustainable for me. And one of the other good things about entrepreneurship is that you have much more control over what you do. So one of my goals for entrepreneurship, because my partner and I do want a family, is that I can design a life where I have my career and I can also have a family, which even though I know steps have been made in academia towards this, the fact remains that if you’re a woman who wants a family, your childbearing years overlap with usually the time you’re either trying to obtain the ten year track job or you’re on the really stressful ten year track job. And I think that would have been extremely difficult for me, knowing what my goals are. 

Jo: Yeah.That’s when I’m important point also, how to coordinate career and family life. Well, research career, academic careers, and family life. That’s probably better organized than a nine to five job, which is not the same as being an entrepreneur, for sure. But you have more control. As you said, you can design your own work life patterns. Self control. 

Mimi: Yeah. If you know what your goals are, then you can like, I’m trying to build my business so that it works for my life, and there might be things that are hard. Let’s move on to some of the challenges. So I’ve learned that entrepreneurship is not easy. I don’t think it’s as hard as academia for me personally. So every day that I wake up and I come to my desk and I look at my tasks and I do them, I’m so grateful that this career path is not as difficult in my perception as the other career path. That makes a huge difference for me.

Yeah. But that said, it is still difficult. I think one of the big mistakes I made that I’ve already shared was thinking that I could enter like, just become a money coach. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have the background. So I think one really big piece of advice I have is that if listeners are considering entrepreneurship or just dipping a toe in, look at your resume. If you don’t have a resume, turn your CV into a resume, because that’s a useful exercise. 

Jo: Oh, my God, we can expand the difference because to me, those things were interchangeable. And I was always confused about why some people would call a resume a CV. But there’s an extra difference. Is it between tabular versus text, low text? Mimi: I don’t actually know what the difference is. I’m probably not the expert to ask. I think a CV is all of your scholarly accomplishments. That’s why you have your publications and your conference presentations and your education. I think that a resume. It focuses on your employment and skills and sort of metrics if you have them.

I remember when I was before I finished, I was working on putting together a resume with a career counselor at NYU. I had access to the services. So that’s something that listeners can do. If you have a career center at your school, you can have help putting together a resume. And I really recommend that because this woman helped me identify my skills. So my skills were not money coaching, they were public speaking because I had taught for a long time. I gave conference papers and I’m comfortable speaking in public writing and teaching. And I think those were the main ones. Long story short, if you don’t have a resume, try to think of what your skills are from your research and then see how you can monetize them, because that would be your fastest path to cash. Right. And there’s no right answer. There’s plenty of ways you can monetize your skills. But I wish I had been more cognizant because I lost like a little bit of time going down the money coach route. I don’t regret it. Well, sometimes I regret it a little bit, but overall, I don’t regret it. But yeah, I wish I had known. I think I would have been a bit more grounded and realistic if I had known that. And then if you decide to go down the entrepreneurial route, I think having a plan for where the money is going to come from. So either maybe you have savings.

And I think people don’t say this enough. I wish people said this more. So I’m going to be very honest. I had some savings because, again, I took a personal finance class when I was really young, so I knew the importance of savings. And I live with my partner. So if I don’t bring in anything, I know I’m not going to be out on the streets. I know what a huge privilege that is. And if you’re not in this position, I guess I want to say I’m sorry, I don’t really know what to say, but I wish more people were honest about their privileges, because sometimes I do see in our space, Jo, like, entrepreneurs who are it looks like they made progress really fast. But then you found out like, oh, they did something ten years ago because they were able to invest in that ten years ago. So really, they’ve been working for ten years behind the scenes. And of course, it’s taken off. They’ve worked at it for ten years. I wish people were more, a little more honest about their privileges and how they came by their successes, because I think very, extremely few successes if none are truly overnight.

Yeah. And then I would also say I would advise people not to do it alone. I hate to say you can’t, but I just want to say that you can’t do it alone. So find like minded people. There are many groups where you might pay some membership fee, but I’ve always found it’s worth it. It doesn’t have to be like what we call a high ticket mastermind. There are different options.

Yeah. Find like minded people because things will get hard. It’s not a matter of if things get hard, it’s a matter of when things get hard. 

Jo: The entrepreneurial journey is very similar to a PhD journey, just longer. I feel like the PhD journey was stronger like racers are for entrepreneurship. And also there are many things that I’ve learned in academia and further PhD that I can adapt to entrepreneurship. It doesn’t make it easier, but I feel that I’ve already been through some struggles which now present themselves again, and I know how to tackle them. And yes, support helps. Peer support helps people in networking groups to know that we’re not the only ones having these thoughts and doubts and how to get over and through them and how to take the next step that we need as human beings and also entrepreneurs. 

Mimi: Yeah. You had an episode about mental health a few episodes back, and I have to apologize. I don’t remember the name of the interviewer, but I really appreciated her discussion of mental health. And one of the things she mentioned was the importance of community. Yeah.

Jo: Yeah. Okay. So now you are a copywriter service provider and copywriting. For any of our listeners who find themselves on an entrepreneurial journey. So we will put your contact details into the show notes to explore your website to check some of your works that you present on your website. And I’m just happy to have you on my network. And I can recommend your services to anyone who feel they want to learn how to market themselves, how to write the copy in a way that also captures the essence of what us entrepreneurs, including myself, what we’re here to present to our customers and clients and to frame that in a way that captures the messaging in a way that the service provider wants to present. I mean, that’s a skill in itself to have, which is why you’re here to provide that service for those who have other services to present, to package those.

Mimi: Yeah. So what I do now is working on marketing messages, so defining what people want to say, which is really important, and turning that into a copy if people want. And what I really love doing is working with people who maybe have felt underrepresented before or feel underrepresented and taking the time to really pull apart all the nuances of who they are. So I’m not just, like, rushing the job of getting the copy done. I think it’s really important for people who feel underrepresented to take that time to really get to know all the aspects of who they are and then translating that into messaging and copy so they feel really seen by that, which is part of what helps you market. Like, you have to really love your marketing materials to put them out there. 

Jo: Yeah. We should also close the circuit with why you’re here. What brought you on that journey to serve people who feel underrepresented in society will have something to offer to society, to package it in a way that is accessible. 

Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us today, Mimi. And I wish you all the best. 

 Mimi: Thank you so much, Joe. Thank you so much for giving me the space to share parts of this, and I hope that listeners found it helpful. My social media, my Twitter, and I think LinkedIn, I think will be in the show notes along with my Instagram. I am most active on Instagram these days, but if you find me and pop me a note saying that you listened to the podcast, I’d love to connect with you. And yeah. Thank you so much. For letting me and giving me the space to share. 

Jo: It’s a great pleasure. Thank you. Okay. See you again.

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