Jo - Hola Creative

Meet Jo! She’s a copywriter over at Hola Creative based in sweaty Brisbane.

No one actually knows what a copywriter is, so here's her MO:

“I get into your head, your brand, your customers and your cocktail preferences to find words and language that'll connect with the peeps you wanna talk to.

For content that's consistent, Google-loving, and unmistakably you”

She ditched the day job in December last year and now she runs Hola Creative from her home or fave local cafes and nature spots.

“I do not miss bras and buses, hey?”

When she’s not writing, she’s hanging out with her husband and dog, jazzing around Moreton Bay on their jet ski or exploring this bloody glorious country of ours.

She moved here in 2012 and became an Australian in 2016. 

Which then explains one of her fave poems?

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel sea,

her beauty and her terror,

the wide brown land for me

~ Dorothea Mackellar

What advice would you give to your 15-year-old self?

Love yourself first.

I had a pretty turbulent time in my late teens and early twenties; mixing with a questionable crowd, staying out late, giving my parents heart palpitations, that kinda stuff.

It’s great how self-love and mental health are so in-your-face these days.

That certainly wasn’t the case when I was in high school, and it was hard to navigate those awkward teenage years without those skills or resources.

What makes you proud to be a woman?

The natural bond we have.

As women, we tend to support and love each other through all of life’s bullshit and beauty.

Since starting a business and making connections via Instagram, I’ve attracted some startlingly kind, dependable and encouraging women to my life. 

Women who send me branded coffee cups (hey, Gabs).

Women who’ve become my go-to when shit hits the shredder.

Women without whom I probs would have quit by now.

What’s been the biggest challenge in your career so far?

Ugh, impostor syndrome.

When you take that leap from the corporate marketing world to set up on your own, it takes a lot of courage to move past the anxiety and pressure of who is watching.

I’ve managed logistics for an Olympic team, organised pizza parties in Jamie Oliver’s garden and written media releases for one of Australia’s top universities, but there’s nothing scarier than putting yourself out there.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

An FBI Agent. LOL.

You can blame that on the books I read obsessively throughout my early teens. Dean Koontz, in particular. Psychic Golden Retriever, anyone?

Who inspires you most and why?

Um, can I say me? Cringe.

I was a painfully shy, introverted teenager, to the point where I couldn’t wear my hair up at school because I needed it to hide my face.

I was bullied for my kinda-out-there first name (it’s not Jo) and for being a serial blusher.
I’d blush from collarbones to forehead for no reason at all, and it happened all the freaking time.

But look at me now!
Running my own business, showing my un-blushed chops on Instagram stories, talking on Clubhouse, networking, talking to clients on Google Meet.

What the eff?
If you’d told me 20 years ago that one day I’d be living in Australia (I’m from the UK) running my own business from home, managing clients and invoicing people for my skills, I’d have laughed in your face.

Or thrown a cigarette butt at you (I was that classy).

#mindblown

Check out all Jo’s work over at Hola Creative, and follow her on socials here and here!