Freelancing is full of growing pains: juggling client work, raising your rates, and trying to scale without burning out. One minute, you’re on top of the world, booking dream clients and feeling like a total boss. The next? You’re questioning everything, wondering if you should just go work at JCPenney (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you know what I mean). 

This past year has been full of lessons—some hard, some exciting, all worth sharing. In this solo episode, I’m getting a little more personal & real about what I’ve learned, what’s shifting in our industry, and what I’m doing differently in my business moving forward.

Listen in as I cover:

• Why clients are more hesitant to hire and how showing up as a reliable expert in this “trust recession” can set you apart
• Why raising your rates isn’t just about confidence but about proving your value and becoming indispensable 
• How saying no more often has helped me protect my energy and focus on the right opportunities
• What services are actually in demand right now after reviewing 3,000 job leads, 
• How AI is changing the way we work—and how you can use it to your advantage instead of fearing it

I’m not just a marketing assistant coach sitting on the sidelines. I’m in the trenches with you, testing strategies, juggling clients, and running my own programs. Whether you're scaling, pivoting, or just trying to keep up, tune in for my biggest takeaways on navigating freelancing’s ups and downs.

Sponsored by The Digital Marketer’s Workgroup

Are you already doing marketing work but need more clients and a stronger referral network? Join a tight-knit community of freelancers and get access to behind-the-scenes conversations, support, and troubleshooting that every solo marketer needs. Plus, you'll benefit from advanced trainings, networking opportunities, and exclusive job leads. Apply here!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

• 2025 State of the Union for Service Providers with Natalie Gingrich
• I’m shaking things up with UDMA School! If you’ve been thinking about joining, need a reboot, or the timing just wasn’t right before, get on my list & be the first to get updates on our new offers here.

Connect with Emily:

• Facebook Community: Emily’s Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant Lab
• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr 
• Facebook: @emilyreaganpr

3 ways we can work together: 

1. Get on the waitlist for the Live Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School. My signature course on digital marketing implementation will give you the confidence and teach you HOW to do the work that’s in demand and highly marketable. This is the secret weapon to getting booked out. Or get started now with the Self-Study version of UDMA School here.
2. Got the skills but need help getting your digital marketing services business to take off? I’ve got an advanced tight-knit referral and networking community that can help and I would love for you to apply here for The Digital Marketer's Workgroup. You’ll get the latest updates and trainings, networking opps and job leads from online business owners who are looking to hire digital marketing implementers and assistants.
3. Looking for a fast way to get your foot in the door with up-to-date skills? Take my 2-hour Quickstart to Facebook Community Management workshop and learn how to help online business owners like course creators and membership site owners manage and engage their community

  >>> Download my Top Ten Most Requested Digital Marketing Tasks & Services 

If you hire someone on your team, if you're not allowed in the first 30 days, if they're not just

jumping in and kicking ass and taking names and proving themselves, we got to let them go.

Hey, there. I'm Emily Reagan, and you found the marketing freelancer. This podcast is for

marketing freelancers and service providers who are already making an impact behind the

scenes and want to take their skills, income and business to the next level. Here we're all about

embracing the unicorn title a full stack marketer who can do it all, strategy, implementation,

creativity and everything in between. We're the magic makers who know how to deliver real

results for clients, and we're ready to rise as sought after marketing specialist. We're linking

arms with Sister service providers, geeking out over marketing strategies and learning how to

position ourselves as trusted experts who clients value and rely on. This podcast is about

building a business we're proud of working with Dream clients with impact and charging rates

that reflect our work's worth. Unicorns, unite. Hey, welcome back to the show, especially you

fellow marketing assistants, coordinators, managers and freelancers. Whether you've niched

down into some amazing specialty, you are working as a manager, a strategist, or you're still

doing a little bit of the generalist work, you are in the right place. I pride myself on being a

practitioner, being in the work with you, and over the last few years, on the podcast, I have

shared the lessons I've learned a by running my own business, being the face of my business,

doing the course side of things, trying to grow my own audience, but also within my own client

work. And you've kind of seen me rev up, rev down, do some specialty creative work, and then

do some generalist cmo work, and I've done everything from Pinterest to podcast pitching to

marketing funnels, and it's always keeps me in the loop when it comes to what's working, how

to do it like I really pride myself on the fact that I'm still in there. Not one of those VA coaches

who did one thing eight years ago, and now I'm teaching everyone how to build a business,

which is all searchable anyway, like how to start an LLC and all of that. I really pride myself on

doing the marketing, and it's really fun, because it's always changing. It keeps us on our toes. It

can also be kind of exhausting. So welcome to this podcast where we try to bring you what's

working today is gonna be a little bit more of a personal episode. Every year, I talk about the

lessons, what I learned, especially from the vantage point of being the face of my business. I

never started thinking I would have an audience that I had anything important to say. I always

thought I would be the behind the scenes Queen doing the work. I loved it so much. And so

E

you're probably like, what changed not being a money grabber. I'm not one of those VAs who

realized the only way to scale is to become a coach. It just happened, naturally. I booked out.

There was a lot of people who wanted to hire me, who wanted a piece of me. There wasn't

enough of me. So I started teaching my smart, over educated, underemployed military spouse

friends, especially those who wanted to work during the school hours but have a job that would

move with them and let them clock out at 5pm none of us wanted to go work at JCPenney and

then just move two years later. So that happened at first I had an agency. Then I started

teaching other people with the videos I had created for my agency, so people knew how to do

the work, and I started passing off the clients. And so now I have a membership where we

continue learning marketing, where we work on our businesses together, and we share job

leads and referrals and insight. We help each other when we're stuck in tech glitches. And I also

have a course teaching those marketing foundations, because let's face it, a lot of those

general VA courses teach you how to set up a business, but they don't help you with the

services. They don't give you the confidence to actually put yourself out there and do the work.

And that's the number one thing clients care about. They don't care about logos. They don't

care what you named your business. They just want a solid, reliable contractor who gets it and

can deliver and communicate and all the soft skills and their business. So the last few years, I

have shared some of my lessons, and I super lazy, and I asked chatgpt to just kind of

summarize what they were. And I always go back and I look at it, I'm like, Okay, what are, what

are the key themes? What have I put out there? And it's the same stuff you're getting here on

the show, right? It's themes of growth, refinement, stepping into your CE role. I get more

vulnerable with this episode and tell you what's going on behind the curtain. A lot of it is

prioritizing my business over just the client work. It's confidence and seeing my own value and

raising my rates. It's all stuff I teach you. Is that not funny? Getting. Systematized and

organized for scalability, focusing on tightening the team, taking bolder risk, even though I'm

scared and uncertain. It's about protecting energy, setting boundaries, saying no, I mean, could

this not sound more cliche I've shared times. I've been swindled by lawyers joined bad

masterminds. I don't call anyone out. It's all like stepping stones and growth. You know, we all

just get smarter. So I really was happy we delayed this podcast. I was ready to record it in

December for January, but I just didn't want to interrupt my funnel series. So FYI, we just

wrapped up the funnel series. Go back and listen. If you want to dive deeper into marketing, all

of that's going to put you ahead above anyone who is calling themselves a general VA, it's

going to put you in the marketing sphere. It's also going to help you, if you're already doing

funnels, get that much more better and get tighter, and it will help you sell better. These are

the smart words. These are strategies that are working. So this is a perfect time to finally do

this episode back in December, Natalie Gingrich, who does the doo Director of Operations

Program, had me on her amazing podcast called The State of the Union. I didn't feel the need

to re share it on my podcast, but I'll link to it here. Definitely go listen. She had the top VA

coaches and service provider coaches, I mean, Abby, Ashley, Michaela, Quinn, Jordan, Gil

Veronica, Romney and Sarah. No good. I'm sure there's someone else I'm forgetting in this like

spurt of the moment, just sharing what they see trending and the economy, the services and

whatnot. And to be honest, it's a little bit of a frustrating conversation with me, because I don't

get to answer every question. I don't get to share my thoughts, and sometimes I wanted to go a

little deeper. So I thought today's episode could be a mix of my lessons and little bit of the

state of the economy, so that you can a learn from me, because that's how I learn, watching

first want to start with what is happening right now and just be very, very frank with you, the

truth of the matter is, teams are tightening. I've seen a lot of firings happen. I've seen a lot of

copywriters and OBM struggle the most to keep their roles. I'm seeing teams get lean and get

more efficient and want more out of people, which is kind of crappy if you're somebody who's

super specialized, and I'm not saying your work isn't going away, you just need to be really well

positioned to do that work. But for the rest of us who are kind of floating in that in between

stage, we might have to add more onto our plate, because the days of having 25 specialists on

one team are over for now, for now, especially in an ongoing capacity, we're still going to hire

the specialist to do things. I just brought somebody into my business to do air table. I don't

need her long term. You know what I mean? Like that specialty is still going to be there. But if

you're looking for the ongoing client, we need to really make ourselves indispensable and well

versed in marketing, and kind of go up the ladder into marketing management and strategy,

and welcome to the podcast like that's what we talk about here on unicorns. Unite. How to Start

edging your way into the strategy, the audits, the management be better, right? So with that

said, there's also going to always be those clients who want more for less, and those just aren't

your people. So let's not even spend time wasting and complaining about them. The business

owners who are still doing well right now are still streamlining. I mean, I'm just thinking about

some of the cues we see. And Amy Porterfield, like she is shifting her business big time right

now, going after a slightly different audience, one that has more income, that's more

successful, getting away from the newbies, going to more established online course creators. We see that with her dropping affiliates like we are trying to be very smart with how we run our

businesses. And I mean, I share that every lesson every year in my business, that's the big

lesson is, how can I scale, stay organized and operate smoothly, but not hurt my profit, not

increase the cost of goods sold, the expenses and make things difficult? So why am I really

saying this? You just have to understand the value and articulate the value that you bring to

the table when you are in that role. It's not a black and white line. But how can you make

yourselves relevant and be the person that they want to keep that's not just the task assigner

and Asana or doing something subpar that AI could do. No offense to copywriters out there, but

you know, we have to bring this extra level. There's just, there's more pressure. Just going to

say it, there is more pressure. You're always going to need to focus your services on outcomes,

to charge more. So instead of saying, Oh, I manage your social you position yourself as, okay, I

increase your audience engagement. I drive conversions. We do strategic. Social media

campaigns. You're not just posting to social anymore. It's getting outsourced overseas, a lower

paid VA is doing it, or AI might be making up. So you have to focus on those outcomes. You

have to always be upskilling. And I think the big opportunity we talked about this on Natalie's

show is AI adding in AI actually gives me confidence when hiring a contractor for my team that

you are looking out for. My bottom line, you are doing things smart and efficient and AI right

now. You know, digital marketing, marketing metrics is very much in demand right now. We

need to be able to justify the marketing we're doing and tie it to results. Because teams are

getting smarter, marketing budgets are getting cut. We're being very, very smart where we put

our money in this economy. Right now, we're hearing about launches not doing as well. Quite a

few people in the fall had less launches, myself included. So this is why, in the work group, we

just had a round table with other service providers who are doing launching to figure out, like,

what's working for them? What can we add to the table? How can we step it up and not just be

the order taker, the launch assistant, the launch coordinator. How can we add that strategy,

the best practices, and actually help our clients get results? So PS, if you're not in the work

group, these round table conversations are priceless. You look so smart when you come back to

your team or your client and you have ideas. They want somebody who's that strategic

partner? So we're gonna keep having those. I think everyone wants to talk about evergreen

funnels next, which is so appropriate after the podcast series we just did. So it's not a total

doom and gloom with the economy, like things are down. What's really happening is buyers are

more vigilant. They're being careful where they spend their money. They've all been duped by

bad courses. How many of us have worked for a client who had no right starting a business and

selling a course and it didn't, it didn't provide I mean, the amount of emails and comments I get

that people are saying, I wish I would have met you before I took that VA course. You know,

people are feeling burned out, and so what we're in is what everyone's calling the trust

recession. They're scared, they're more hesitant, they're taking longer cycles to buy more

nurturing is required. And so how does this affect you as a freelancer? It's affecting the work

you do, what you put out there. But also the trust recession is it's slipping over into the

Freelancer community. I'm always hearing about people who are ghosting, taking money and

ghosting, who say they can do something, but can't actually do it. I think the number one

question in my inbox right now is, how can I know for sure that this contractor can do what they

say and so how could you use this trust recession to your advantage when you are the standout

one, you are the one learning, evolving, adapting, listening to this podcast, brava, you're

already that person, and so it's really I want you to just step in your power. And knowing that, I

think the freelancers who thought they could just be a quick VA make $75 an hour because

some Russian VA coach on Tiktok said they could make $75 an hour transcribing those flash in

the pan people are leaving, and they did give some of us a bad rep. But the good news is, those

of us with solid work ethic, especially if we came from previous work, we came from

corporations like we're doing well, the ones who do what they say are doing well. And I hear all

the time from my business peers, they love the ex corporate girlies. When they come into their

business as contractors, they don't have to babysit them. They're professional. They know what

they're doing. They have that executive presence. You don't have anything to worry about, but

just be aware that your clients are going through that they're scared online. Things aren't

selling as well. It's not going away. I mean, it's still going to increase, but we just have to get

better at selling them. Selling them and earning that trust with our own audience. Oh my gosh.

So where do I go from this? Obviously, there's economic change. Things with Trump this year.

Big question mark, tariffs, economy, price of eggs. People are spending less, and so you don't

want to be the best for the cheapest anymore. Productivity, human management, AI strategy

are never going away. There's just things that AI cannot do. So how can you lean into those

heavier board can be done, but that's also good news for you, and we've got to embrace it. You

don't need a lecture on that. Okay? So then the next question is like, well, what services are

our jobs have dipped down a little bit, but we still hand them over to you on a silver platter,

right? It's still, still saves you marketing, but our numbers have dipped a little bit. I'm going to

be very transparent about that. Okay, I did something amazing. I took our type form, all of our

responses, all of the tasks, all of the questions from our hire a unicorn.com to see what's

trending right now. What are the top services first? I want to tell you, anytime you can start

adding specialized skills, is when you can charge more, right? Knowing Active Campaign. Is

going to set you apart, knowing it well, and eventually that's where we want to go. I mean, not

all of us want to be like a niche down WordPress element or website designer. I get it, but

adding specialized skills when it comes to tech platforms would be something I would

absolutely focus on and going after the tech platforms where the big clients are hanging out,

not the baby ones, baby ones might sign up for mail or light because they're scared to invest in

their business. The head honchos, the successful business owners, the ones who know a they're

going to do it, they're going to do it well, or they've already done it, and they're just improving

or using keep active campaign. Kit Kajabi, go to those platforms and start investing in those

first and you can really make yourself stand out if you know a tech platform really well, Zapier

air table right now, notion all very much in demand. Okay, so I went through our top jobs, and

first I want to tell you most of our 62% of our job leads wanted a marketing assistant. They

knew they needed that sweet spot of a generalist within the marketing department who could

handle a couple things that goes along with what I said, like streamlining the team, but having

less people do more and giving them more hours for it. I'm not saying they're doing it for free.

The next job that came up was creative specialty, so copywriting, video editing, tech, website, marketing, asset creation that came up, and then after that came admin. People need help still

as executive assistants, email, calendar management, customer service. And so if you can find

a way to add admin to anything else you do, you really are a hybrid person, and you can be

invaluable. I mean, customer service still goes with operations, fulfillment, and you can see how

some of our roles, that community manager, program manager, kind of intersect both of those

and could be very advantageous for your own positioning. Okay, the top services that were

requested, number one, email marketing by far. Everyone has an email list. Everyone's trying

to grow an email list and communicate with their people, blah, blah, blah. You know, we own

our email list. That's why it's crucial. It's becoming more competitive and noisy out there. Hard

to get emails open. IOS is changing. If you can add email to anything else you're doing,

whether you are building the Evergreen funnels, the Evergreen nurture funnels, you're writing

the emails, you are tracking the emails you are formatting and publishing and scheduling,

segmenting the emails. Any services that go into email will make you invaluable. Social media

came next. Instagram and Facebook definitely beat out anything else I see, YouTube down

Pinterest. I'm in a call Pinterest social for this sake. And yeah, it beat it out. LinkedIn is way,

way, way down there. But opportunity to be a niche SEO came next something clients don't

usually touch funnel, building, ads, admin, and then we got into blogging, graphic design,

copywriting, launch management, video editing. Down here is LinkedIn and YouTube, digital

course and product creation, you can kind of bring your skills together, Pinterest, project

management, web design, those were the top services. And then we got into what kind of

business owners were they? This is really interesting. Most of our job leads come from other

online business owners. You knew this, service providers, course creators, coaches, e

commerce, shop owners, membership site owners, subscription box owners, bloggers, and then

down at the bottom, brick and mortar and influencer. There's another category I probably

should have explored that more to call myself out there. So I had chat, GBT, rank and stack

everything. By far social media management was the top requested task. Okay, so services was

kind of like, hey, what do you see adding in the foreseeable future? Everybody wants to add

email marketing and social SEO and funnels and ads, but when it came through the job

opportunities, the number one requested service, social media, yeah, such an easy way in and

opens the doors to all these other services that are in demand, ads, content creation,

repurposing. Okay, so I hope that helps give you confidence. What are the complimentary

services I combine to make myself a unicorn, to make myself stand out in a very crowded

marketplace, a lot of service providers will say, Oh, why do I don't do that, and I don't do that,

and I only work day rates and blah, blah, blah, you can meet the market demand with the right

service and the right offering. So think about what I shared. That's some really good data for

you. It's really fun to talk about, and of course, you already know why digital marketing is never

going away. It's a high value skill. It's one of the top skills to learn, according to Forbes

Business Insider, all of those places, AI marketing and cyber security, software development. A

data analyst. Those are, like, the top ones. I don't know about you, but marketing seems the

jobs aren't going away, just some businesses are closing doors. Some are realizing it's not as

easy as the pipe dream. They were sold. Oh, I could just launch a course and make all this

money. No, no, no. No, no. So it's important for you to line up with the clients who are going

places. I'm seeing a lot of people inside our work group. I'm seeing a lot of freelancers have a

lot of success by just signing corporate contracts. Corporate contracts are where the big dollars

are, and those aren't going away. Oh, here's an interesting stat. Virtual assistants who use AI

earn an average of $700 more per month than those who don't. Hello. Okay, so I had to talk

about the State of the Union. I still see a demand. I still have business owners coming to our

group to hire, I still see it hard for them to find people who can do the work that they say. So

of the same themes. But just to be very open with you, I was going through a divorce and

separation last year. It's officially final, so I feel a little bit better talking about it. But last year, I

was separated and going through negotiations and really scared, and I kind of put my head in

the sand when it came to my business, and I was really relying heavily on my team to do the

work, and very grateful for them, because I just found myself as a classic avoider, avoiding

avoiding avoiding and I tried to hire out roles, and I was, like, extremely let down last year by

some people, and I didn't ever hire anybody from my training directly. But it's just been really

hard to find that upper level person who gets it, who brings management, professionalism,

follow through. And I even recorded a whole podcast about self management. I think that's

really critical that everybody listened to that. That's the number one skill you can bring to the

table. As a contractor, you have to be self managed. And my big lesson last year was bringing

in someone who appeared to be very systems and organized, and then didn't do a thing in that

department. And my lesson, and I've had this conversation, and I'm not here to talk trash about

that, I learned so much. I got such clarity. There were really good moments. There was a lot of

sad moments where I felt like I got taken advantage of, like expecting somebody to run with it

and take the lead, especially going through what I was going through, right? And I take

ownership of not having enough team meetings and follow ups. I struggled last year. I didn't do

a lot of things I should have. And you know what? I survived, and I'm proud of myself. So what I

wanted to say talking with other business owners, I mean, my peers. I've had this conversation

a few times, but we all agree, if you hire someone on your team, if you're not allowed in the

first 30 days, if they're not just jumping in and kicking ass and taking names and proving

themselves, we got to let them go. So that's my big advice for you today, you have 30 days to

make that impression. If I'm not getting your very best in those first 30 days, it's only going to

taper from that I mean, come on, we all know it. We start off really hot with a client. We're

doing everything we can to woo them, impress them, date them, get them to sign the contract. We kick it off, we have meetings, and then next thing we know, we start slacking. We don't

show up to the meetings prepared. We copied and pasted something. We are skipping

meetings, canceling meetings. Not afraid to put that clients like, third, fourth, fifth, and put

other clients first. Does this sound like my marriage? Does this sound like the dating world? I

don't know. I'm not dating, yeah, and I just realized in that moment I should have fired my new

teammate in 30 days. I should have, and I've had a lot of friends tell me that that's got to be

the new litmus test. I'm telling you this, so you can do better, so you can step out and really

wow your clients and take the reins. Because we're kind of we're waiting and we're watching. We're expecting you to take charge of your department and be responsible for your outcomes

and whatever we were paying you for, take the lead with the meetings. You hear all that on this

podcast. It's really disappointing. I have had some business friends tell me, Emily, you pay too

much for your contractors, because I pay my contractors more than I take home. Right now, I

am building a course business. It is not super profitable right now. It's just not I'm paying

people a lot to do things in my business, but that's because I am a busy woman, and I don't

want to do all of the things I work between 10 and two and. Feels like with all the kid

responsibilities, I've been a single default parent, it feels like forever, and it's almost easier

being divorced. I will tell you that, and I need the people to help me do the work, and I love it,

and because of my values, I'm not going to go hire a $2 an hour virtual assistant in the

Philippines. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to pay people fair wages. And why am

I talking about this? Every decision of who I hire and bring on my team takes profit away from

me. Right now, just in the space I'm in, I'm not in the scaled space. I've been struggling to get

celebrate like I didn't make big progress in 2024 under the surface, we have since closed the

work group, the $47 an offer. We're getting smarter about how we run the work group. We've

moved everything to air table. We have a new online directory so clients can search and find

our people. We've changed our our fees to be by annual and annual, like a professional society,

because I realize we're spending too much time in the little nitty gritty. I need to streamline my

team. I need to be more profitable, and we need to make things so they actually work and are

profitable in my business. Does that sound so cliche, but like we were wasting time answering

everyone's little question? Oh, I need to pause. I need to cancel. I need to change my credit

card. And it was just eating into the profit margins of running a membership. I think nobody's

talking about this, keeping the membership organized and aligned. And I just thought, like, No,

I'm done. I'm done. I'm done doing it like this. The business I need. I need a solid team paid

monthly retainer, who doesn't feel like they need to clock in and clock out all day hours, who

can take care of the clients. But also, it's not this, like burning fire in the inbox every day and

just felt like I was wasting and I probably should have pulled up the numbers, but spending a lot

of time on low level admin when we weren't getting the big things done. So since then, the

work group is now a professional society. There's an annual fee. Let's keep it easy. Let's keep

the people who jump in and out of memberships out in the first place. Let's save everybody

time and heartache. Let's create a business that's aligned with the workflows and the systems

that make our life easier. It was a long time coming, and quite honestly, I wanted this done a

year ago, and I got a lot of clarity in the process. I also updated the work group, where we have

a assessment, so somebody new can come in and figure out, what do I need to focus on?

Where am I? Where am I going? What is a waste of time and what is my priority, and what's my

90 day action plan? And the work group initially was set up for somebody who wanted to keep

learning marketing and wanted to share job leads clients, right? And I'm realizing, oh my gosh,

there's a huge hole in how people are running their business, how they're showing up to

discovery calls. And I know I make fun of the general admin ba courses, but you all have a lot of

holes in your business. You haven't done the marketing for yourself, you're not doing your

visibility. You haven't set up a proper onboarding system. And so now we're able to see the

holes and what people need in different phases. And what sucks is it took me getting in there

and doing it. I couldn't count on somebody else to do it. I had to do it, but I'm there. It took a

January and February would be insane, and I can stop going at this pace and just be realistic

about my deadlines, because I'm running two businesses, it's the client work, it's the

coursework, it's the membership, it almost feels like three and plus all the content we're

supposed to put out. I just couldn't do it anymore, like, Where can I streamline things that make

sense? So we're making some changes with UDMA School, where I can't do the live launch. Put

all my eggs in that live launch basket when I was expected to be going into court, it didn't go

well, although I had like 15 amazing, amazing, top tier students in the program, profit wise,

expenditure wise, it was really tough. One of the mistakes I made, and I'm just going to say it. I

don't know how not to say it is I hired an ads manager over the summer because I knew I was

struggling preparing for court. It was mentally exhausting. I needed support, and she was

expensive. She's a friend. She tried everything she could, but I wasn't in a place where I should

have hired that out, like I needed to do some work in my business, and I'm fully capable of

doing ads. I run ads for clients, so I outsource something I probably shouldn't have. And I

learned a lot. I'm not mad. I learned a lot in that process that you can't rush it, although it's

funny is with my cmo client. Our ads are taking off and doing exactly what we wanted it to do.

But yeah, we tried different things. We tried different lead magnets. It just wasn't working. But I

think leading up into that election, it just wasn't meant to be. And so I'm going to be very

careful which contractors I bring into my business next time, and truly ask, Am I ready for this?

I want to tie that into our trust recession. We're going to be very careful who we bring into our

business next. It's not going to be anyone. It's not going to be somebody who cold pitches me

in an Instagram DM and says, Hey, your LinkedIn sucks. Your Instagram could grow quicker

with our bots, or your YouTube could be better. Like, no, I'm not going to just jump in bed with

any of those people to be very careful and methodical who I bring on, and it is going to be

either someone highly specialized who can do something I need, aka the air table project, or it's

going to be the all around marketer who can help. So I'm going to be very careful, and so is

everyone else out there, especially if they've been in business a few years. Everyone's getting

smarter and evolving, and that's exactly why this podcast exists, too, right? A lot of us have

evolved out of the virtual assistant title. We're figuring out our next step. What do we call

ourselves? How do we change our offers? How do we evolve into better pricing and better

clients? Let's speak to the client who's further along in the journey, because they're they're

getting really smart and they're expecting a higher level from all of you when you show up to a

discovery call, when you show your services and pricing guide, when you have your website,

when you show up on Instagram, like they are expecting excellence, you have to demonstrate

that. Okay, so I talked about that. Let me think, yeah, so I'm changing UDMA school to be a

ongoing open enrollment. You get 100 days and you get out. I am done with the open ended

forever cheering people on when they're not going to change. Okay? Again. Just joking about

my marriage, there a high percentage of all of my udma School students do well, we're always

going to have a percentage who runs into roadblocks, decides to change. It's not for them, goes

and gets a full time job. You know, I'm not, I'm not shaming anyone, really, just making fun of

my marriage there. But like, I knew with my energy, with what's going on as a single mom now

with primary custody, like, I have to be very protective of how I do things, and my hours, it feels

like they shrunk. And so I need more help, and I need more better focus and more intention. So

be on the lookout for that. If you've been thinking about udma school and you need a reboot. If

you're alumni or you're somebody who's like, oh, the timing just wasn't right. I think having this

100 days to get in and get out, or just legit buying a self study version where you have access

and no extra calls, no extra nothing, where you can go through as a resource, as an

encyclopedia or Wikipedia of sorts, and get it and then get out with what you need. Is the

better way for me to do it, and I think it's gonna be better for my students, too. And so we're

seeing this kind of change in the online space. There's like, no longer true, done, you know, one

time, twice a year, courses like this hybrid of meeting people, where they are a mix of done

with you and done self study, right alone, self paced DIY. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Okay, so that's happening in my business, so be on the lookout for that. I knew January and

February would be insane with my daughter's travel volleyball schedule, and so I purposely

didn't plan much. It's like, Let's do these projects under the table. Let's get it done, and let's

onboard the new person. Let's get the cycle for UDMA students into the work group, because

they get some free time, a free membership there, so they can pick up their first clients. Like,

let's be smart with our planning and our campaigns and our podcast and our content. So that's

what's happening under the surface. I got asked on a podcast the other day, what's next for

me? And I kind of fumbled at that question. I really want to invest in the work group, and trying

to figure out how I can make that the best resource for people. Because, let's face it, there's a

lot of people in there who are busy booked doing the client work, and they just they're there for

the community. There's a lot of people in there who want the jobs and they want the client

leads and prospects handed to them so they don't feel the pressure of marketing. There's a lot

of people who really enjoy nerding out all marketing and so making sure that this work group is

really, really focused on what people need, and the systems and the processes are cleaned up,

I think I should just tell you like it was a mess. I've had three different work group managers,

and none of them ran it as efficiently as I would have, but I've gotten so much clarity in the

process, so it's okay. So now it's time to just tighten it and just make sure it's better. It's

already good. So. But on the back end, better the team better and that we have a launching

mechanism for it. Instead of doing this, like, Hey, open enrollment. You know, I I'm so over that.

So we have some amazing trainings coming up in the work group. We have a chat GPT one that

we're doing this week. So that's going to be great, because we should all be learning how to do

custom gbts Now, if not for our clients, for ourselves, we have the Laurens coming in with they

did the AI unit in Edma school, talking about AI with marketing. Rob Marsh, who's going to be

on the podcast, is going to talk about persuasion techniques, and Sally Arias is going to talk

about the sales pipeline training. So you can see what I'm doing. I'm coming back and filling the

gaps that some of these freelance marketers have, so they don't have to feel like they just

have to keep buying courses. They can just have one place to come, pick and choose what they

need, or maybe it's just water cooler talk. So okay, so my focus is that we have a brand new

directory that's outward facing already. Two of my work group members have said clients

found me through the directory. I haven't even promoted it at all because air table was so

messed up. It's like, officially ready to share. I'm like, that's amazing. That's my vision. And I'm

not trying to compete with Upwork here. But I had a hard time answering that podcast

question, because I was like, I want this tight little community of like, the best. That's what I

want. Let's own that. And then inside air table, somebody can we can track their progress

better. They can submit 90 day action plans. We can see the results of their assessment. We

can have better follow up and a better onboarding and retention strategy, right? That's the

goal. Focusing on that, I think the one problem I have, which I'll just share with you here, is the

job board. Right now we're in Facebook. I don't know about you, anytime a membership, switch

to circle, Kajabi communities, mighty networks. I'm annoyed. I'm so annoyed with all of the

stupid apps I need to log into to pay my bills, to communicate with the school, the teams shop

for clothes, whatever it is. I'm so annoyed that I have to log into anything else. Facebook is just

easy, but we have a job board problem. We do you can search. We have hashtags. I like that.

People are active and involved. They let us know when they've applied for a job. They let us

know if it's a red flag client. They let us know what they heard, or if the rates are too cheap,

we're able to warn each other, almost like, Are we dating the same guy? I don't know what I

see. My vision isn't very clear for where that moves, because I've been there with clients too,

who move their communities to different platforms. So we'll think about it. There's options, and

maybe this isn't something for me to figure out this year that part's working, but I can just see

this being so much bigger than the container of a Facebook group right now. So if you have

ideas, feel free to DM me. Not gonna hire a contractor for that yet, but I'm giving myself more

breathing room to sit on it. You know, like planning out the summer with UDMA school and how

we launch it. I just plopped everything in my calendar, I'm like, listen, just gonna let it breathe

and see how it feels, and then I'm gonna make a decision, because I tend to be really hasty and

quick. Make a decision pretty fast, but I've really been dragging my feet on this because I knew

there would be changes. I also knew I needed to get through the other end of the divorce and

all the paperwork and the emotional crap that happens with that, getting in a good battle

rhythm with the kids and a good budget, and like, figuring out new living expenses and all of

that, still paperwork left. So we're gonna go away. Please, please tell me it will so just like

sitting on it me, like, How does this feel? Is this a line? Is this what Emily wants? I'm in a new

freaking phase of my life, and I'm calling it Emily 5.0 hence the new podcast where I don't

settle. I don't settle for a bad contractor in my business. I don't settle for a husband that's, you

know, lacking. I probably shouldn't say that a marriage that's not what it should be. I'm not

going to settle anymore. I'm not going to settle for relationships where people tell me all the

things I should be doing when I didn't even freaking ask. I'm not settling for people lecturing me

when I didn't ask for their opinion. It's like boundary prioritization right now, and it's alignment. What do I need in the moment? And I just want you to take a piece of that for you when it

comes to your client work, your work life balance, your living situation, your rates. My friend

was telling me that she sat down with her husband and they had a kind of, like a little pow wow

about their goals in five years. Like, that's like, something my ex and I never did, but we were

in the military. He was in the military. We didn't have any control. But now I'm in this situation,

wow, I can actually think ahead. What are my goals? Where am I going with this? And it's okay

to not have the clearest vision or murky visions, but let's see them. Let's state them. What do

you want out of this? Why are you doing this? Well, not all of us are setting out to be like Amy

Porterfield. I. What do you want in the bank? What number do you want in the bank by the end

of the year? I know, and I'm no goal setting coach here, but when you say it, you write it down,

when you face it, you actually do it. I am tired of hustling for eight years. I was scared about my

future. I knew my marriage was ending. I knew I couldn't count on him with his issues, with a

paycheck, with the military, I just I couldn't trust any of it. I have work to do. I realized that, but

I knew I had to get my butt in gear to make a change. And I'm sad that it ended this way. I also

had the gift of seeing it coming, and I'm in a better situation, and I'm going to always choose to

see the silver lining and fight for my kids to create a better life, to have stability for them, to

see their mom going for her dreams. And I'm so lucky. He's well, we're co parenting. Well, the

kids are happy. Some of them are in therapy, like things are going really well. On the on the flip

side of that, in case you're like wondering. I never talked about this publicly. It's a bit nerve

wracking, but it's really going into the story of Emily, 5.0 so I'm just gonna end this podcast

now. What's your version? 2.0 3.0 5.0 we are constantly evolving, getting better. We cannot

have it all figured out the first time we are going to make mistakes. I've shared them on these

podcasts. I never want to appear like I'm some perfectly put together business coach, just like

bringing in all of the money and on a perfect pedestal. I mean, you guys know me, that's not

me anyway. I always want to be open and transparent. But I also want to encourage you,

because this life you get one life, and this work has given me a new chance, a second start, and

a way to pay for my kids, sports, orthodontics, food, electricity, car. I'm not rolling into cash

over here. But if I hadn't have started working and freelancing, I do not know where I would be

right now, I would have been completely co dependent, vulnerable, broke, probably unable to

stay in my house the way things played out. So if you're listening to this and you're not quite

there, like you started, you started, and it can only go up from here. If you've exchanged that

first invoice and gotten paid by a client, you are on your way. If you are doing the billable work,

if you're working 30 20, 30 40, hours a week, you're there. You can turn this business into

whatever you want, and I hope this podcast will help you do it. I'm sharing you on I'm living

proof it's possible. I'm glad you're here. I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to

the marketing freelancer. If you're ready to connect with other marketing freelancers, learn

advanced strategies and take your business to the next level. Check out our digital marketers

work group. It's my exclusive membership where you'll find the support community and tools to

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just use the link in the show notes. Apply today. Step into your power, own your expertise, and

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unicorns, unite. The next thing that came up 50. Oh, these numbers don't add up. Okay, let's

many chat funnels. Oh, my God, no. Get down out. Sorry. I'm sorry I were yelling.