How Tarla Makaeff Went from Copywriter to Seven-figure CEO Using Mindset and Manifestation

At some point in their career, almost every employee dreams of leaving their position and starting their own company, launching a product, or going after a professional dream. Reaching these empowering goals is much easier when you have guidance from someone who has done it successfully. That person could be an inspiring mentor, trusted friend or gifted teacher. 

Seven-figure-earning Copy Queen Tarla Makaeff knows the feeling of wanting to start your own business well. After shifting her mindset and searching her soul, she successfully quit her agency copywriting job to launch her own business and become her own boss – and now she is empowering other women to do the same. 

Through her popular online courses: Social Star, Direct Response Launch, and the forthcoming Iconic Copy, she has endowed female business owners from around the world with the secrets to crafting marketing strategy that compels people to take action and copy that converts strangers into clients.

Copywriter to CEO 

Though Makaeff had a ‘good’ job working at an agency, she knew she was being underpaid, undervalued and micromanaged. Her brilliant copy was making millions of dollars in revenue for the agency’s clients, but she was only surviving while she dreamed of thriving. 

After reading up on the subject from practical and philosophical standpoints, she began to create a plan for starting her career as a freelance copywriter – with the lofty goal of making $85,000 a year inspired by a book on the topic.

Among the more interesting things she read was the concept of manifesting goals by listening to affirmations, which she recorded herself and began listening to in the car every day on the way to and from work.   

“I programmed myself to believe that I could be a freelance copywriter making $85,000 a year,” she said.

She didn’t reach that goal immediately, falling just shy of $85,000 in her first year as a freelancer – $25,000 more than she’d made in her agency role while clocking in for just ten hours per week. In her second year, she breezed past the six-figure mark and soon became a seven-figure brand.

Today, she has over 17 years of experience in the field and is the CEO of an online brand that earns revenue while also offering a hand up to heart-centered female entrepreneurs that are ready to take the leap into owning their own businesses. 

Minding Your Mindset

Rather than rest on her considerable laurels while cashing in on her smarts, Makaeff made the decision to continue on her quest, designing courses to empower other women to succeed as she had. 

“I wanted to make sure that other soul-led women had a place to turn to – a place of integrity. I knew I could create step-by-step courses for those looking to leverage the world of online entrepreneurship,” she said. 

For those interested in advice from the Copy Queen, her courses provide the nuts and bolts of the industry, but her most valued words of wisdom aren’t technical. Her best advice is to always focus on emotional triggers when writing copy. Yes, factual details are important, but Makaeff knows from experience that it’s emotional messaging that convinces readers to hit the ‘buy now’ button – not carefully crafted alliteration or clever puns.

She advises her students to consider emotions over logic to successfully write copy that converts. Thinking about how a piece of writing will make the reader feel, respond and react are key to closing sales with copy. Once your audience sees you understand their pain and empathize with what keeps them up at night because you’ve been there yourself, they start to believe you are just the person to solve their challenge.

She also cannot say enough about the power of positive thinking and affirmations in manifesting your goals and truly changing your mindset. Makaeff recalls the extremely difficult periods in her own life that resulted in her damaged mindset. She lost first her father as a child, and then years later, her mother. It’s in these rock bottom moments that she learned in order to master her mindset – the key to success in life and business – she had to tame her inner bully and become her own teacher and cheering section. All told, she spent a full decade immersed in self-care and self-discovery to find self love and transcend her pain into purpose – the purpose of helping other women make their dreams a reality. “It’s only through finding emotional healing that we can change our mindset. And it’s only through changing our mindset that we can manifest and be unapologetically who we’re meant to be,” she shared. 

About Tarla Makaeff

Tarla Makaeff, The Copy Queen and Founder of the Iconic Copy Course is bringing her vast experience as a 7-figure copywriter to help others learn how to craft their strategy and messaging for ultimate growth. Leveraging her decade-plus of agency and freelance copywriting experience, Makaeff is helping hundreds of creative, heart-centered female entrepreneurs start their purpose-filled businesses online and grow their brands with copy that converts. To learn more, visit.

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