Are you looking for a unicorn to help you with your marketing tasks? In today’s episode, Emily Reagan joins us to highlight importance of hiring the right marketing assistant to help grow a creative business so you don’t have regrets. Listen in as we discuss the differences between general virtual assistants and specialized marketing assistants, exploring the need for business owners to clearly define their goals and expectations when hiring.
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Guest Bio:
Emily Reagan is a mom of four, sheepadoodle owner and jill-of-all-trades when it comes to digital marketing and techie skills. She’s worked behind the scenes as a freelance digital marketer with many creatives, copywriters, and coaches to grow, nurture, and monetize their online audiences. She’s the founder of the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School and Digital Marketer’s Workgroup where she helps women advance their digital marketing skills and services to become booked-out, in-demand unicorn digital marketing assistants (and beyond).
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Here are the highlights…
01:20 – Meet Emily Reagan: The Magical Unicorn
02:23 – The Role of Virtual Assistants in Marketing
03:13 – Defining a Marketing Assistant
04:51 – Hiring the Right Help for Your Business
07:35 – Outsourcing and Delegating Tasks
09:04 – The Importance of Specialized Skills
12:32 – Balancing Costs and Benefits
14:23 – Preparing for Business Continuity
19:51 – Tracking ROI and Adjusting Strategies
29:55 – Consultant Confusion and Enneagram Insights
30:38 – Team Dynamics and Role Adjustments
32:32 – Effective Communication and Training
35:43 – Autonomy and Outcome in Business
38:15 – Hiring and Managing Virtual Assistants
Mentioned in this Episode
Expanding Your Business through Virtual Summits with KP & Jessie of Inkpot Creative
Successfully Delegating to Your Team (Building a Team Series) with Selina Johnson
Connect with Emily
Website: emilyreaganpr.com/
Website: hireaunicorn.com
Instagram: instagram.com/emilyreaganpr
Facebook: facebook.com/emilyreaganpr
Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/digitalmediava
TikTok: tiktok.com/@emilyreaganpr
Youtube: youtube.com/@emilyreaganpr
Podcast: emilyreaganpr.com/podcast
Review the Transcript:
Colie: You are listening to the business first creatives podcast. I’m your host, Koli James. In each episode, you will hear real life stories behind the scene takes and practical insights for how to streamline and grow a creative business that brings you joy and a paycheck. Let’s get started. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives Podcast.
Now, if you have been living under a rock and you have not heard the five or six episodes for the Marketing with Intention series that have preceded this episode, please hit pause to listen. Please go back and start at the beginning because we have talked about all kinds of marketing in this series.
And Emily Reagan is a unicorn, a magical unicorn, who is here to talk about hiring people to help us implement. All of the kinds of marketing that we have been talking about. And so while I am absolutely positive that you are going to get a lot out of this conversation, I really do want you to have listened to all of the marketing conversations that I’ve had earlier, because guys, we have talked about some marketing that doesn’t get discussed enough, like affiliate marketing.
Hello. So I really want to make sure that everybody has listened to this before you hop into this episode. Emily, it is so great to meet you and welcome to my podcast.
Emily: Thank you. Thank you. I’m so excited to be here
Colie: with
Emily: you today. Thanks for having me.
Colie: It is a miracle that you and I have not met slash discussed because I am unicorn obsessed.
And when I saw the name of your podcast, guys, it is Unicorns Unite, a podcast for unicorn digital marketers. I mean, can you guys imagine if I had named this podcast something with unicorns or rainbows? Like, I feel like we’re kindred spirits and we are
Emily: happy to meet you. I know I want to steal some of your branding and your stickers and your rainbows.
I’m like, this is my world. And it’s so funny because people make fun of the unicorn thing, but it really is the essence of someone being magical, being rare, like owning her power, knowing her worth, combining her skillset in a very cool way that makes her booked out.
Colie: No matter what the service. So Emily, you’re a little spicy.
So I feel like we’re going to start this conversation with like things that people probably shouldn’t say out loud, or in our opinion, that they should say out loud most. I was recently on Instagram and my friends from Inkpot Creative decided to get spicy and they post, Your VAs should not be writing your blogs.
And I felt like we should start this by saying your VAs should probably not be running your digital marketing. Like, okay. Because you have a special take on this and listen, no shame to virtual assistants. I happen to love mine. She is a magical unicorn. She does everything and anything, but that is definitely not what you get when you hire most people.
virtual assistants. So I want to talk to you specifically about this idea of a marketing assistant, because I don’t think that anybody realizes that those are different. So Emily, tell me what a magical marketing assistant is and why every entrepreneur probably needs one in their back pocket.
Emily: This is like my biggest beef in this industry because we say the term virtual assistant, which really is a very nonspecific blanket umbrella job title.
And for years I was helping my clients grow their email list, make sales, nurture their audience. Do their marketing and they would call me a va and it was like giving me this tick and this twich. And so finally I got smart. I’m like, I’m not a virtual assistant, but what am I? And I kind of made the joke on my unicorn and then I realized we really are in the marketing department.
Assisting, whether you are at a specialist level coordinator, beyond just some kind of manager, like a podcast manager, affiliate manager. So it boils down to the fact that there are different departments in each business. And for some reason, everyone is trying to use this like term VA and make them in charge of their VA.
Then they’re upset that they don’t know copywriting. They haven’t mastered their brand voice when they’re trying to make them work in operations, customer service, HR. accounting and finance product development and the marketing and sales department. I’m like, that is not, that’s not what we’re talking about here.
So I am like, like, hell bent on educating everyone out there that You, you can have a unicorn or a hybrid person who can work in different departments, but you really need to give someone a lane so you can get the outcomes you want. So you can hit those KPIs. So you can have someone grow up within your business and level up to that manager level.
And so marketing and sales is one department of business. And so you cannot give a VA everything and then expect results.
Colie: Yes,
Emily: that’s it. And
Colie: it’s not even about a level of training. I feel like I have conversations about hiring and yes, there are very important things to be discussed about. You can’t just hire someone and expect them to take off running.
Like there has to be a training period. I had Selena Johnson on the podcast, what feels like ages ago, but it wasn’t actually that long ago, but she was talking about, you know, having a 90 day plan. To train somebody in your business. And I feel like no matter what you’re hiring them for, that’s a good idea, but no amount of training is going to get somebody to be able to write in your brand voice.
If copywriting is not a skill that they themselves already come with. And I feel like marketing. Is its own skill set that not everyone is born with. I mean, I don’t know. I loved marketing in college. I never wanted to own my own business. The fact that I own my own business is very strange. When I tell people from grad school that I was a photographer, they were like, What?
And then I was like, Oh, but I also mentor and teach a photography class. They were like, that sounds way more like you. I’m like, yes, but I also do photography and I’m damn good at it. But like now that I do like these systems things, I still feel like it’s the same thing. Like I own a business. And this was never what I thought I was going to do.
I thought I was going to get a tenured position, be a professor for like life. I never imagined that I would be doing this. I definitely have skill sets and skill sets that I don’t have. I need help with. And while I love the idea of marketing, I am learning the longer that I am in my business. I really do need more help with marketing than I need when almost anything else, like, And I think that some of us just have to realize it’s okay.
It’s okay to bring someone specialized into your business. And I heard you on a couple of podcasts, actually. I mean, Emily, I think I heard you like three times in one week. I heard you on Jordan’s podcast systems saved me. I heard you on. I mean, gosh, now I can’t remember who the other two were. I apologize.
It was like three of them. Ellen came out. It was Ellen. Yes. It was cubicle, the CEO. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, Emily needs to come on my podcast and talk about this.
Emily: I love how you did the, like the DM pitch or like the, you know, like the quick pitch, like, will you be on my show? I was like, yes, this is my favorite time.
type of pitch, by the way.
Colie: Well, the funny thing is, I know that you’re supposed to write an email and you’re supposed to say how, you know, you’ve heard of. No, I mean, if the DM didn’t get you, I would have just gone to Jordan or Ellen and been like, Hey, uh, I really want Emily on my podcast. Can you write her a DM for me?
I mean, I had, I had backup plans because you were going to come on my podcast regardless, just so that you know that. But when it comes to marketing, I feel like a lot of people start with a VA. Because it’s an easy hire. But so realistically, Emily, how do you see people deciding if they need a more generalized virtual assistant to get them going?
Or if they need to start with somebody that’s more specialized, say in the specific marketing and sales department of your business?
Emily: This is such a loaded question. I want to backtrack for a second and I want to poke apart what your friend said. No beef there, but when you hire a contractor, they need to show up in your business with skills.
So although you said trading, I would turn that into touring, like you’re touring my business. You’re learning my business. You’re learning how I, Do things in my business, but you still bring the skills and the how to, I am not going to have an SOP on how to send out an email and active campaign. You should already know how to do that.
What do you need to know? How do I tag people? How do I report in track? Where does this email go? You know, like how does it work within a sauna? How do we pass the baton? It’s that. And so, yes, you do need an SOP. That tour time and that onboarding time.
Colie: That’s good, Emily. I’m going to stop saying training. I do get you.
Cause that is what I meant. Like, this is how my business
Emily: works. This is what you need to do. But most people don’t get that. They don’t get that. And then the problem is they’re hiring VAs who don’t actually have the skills, which is coming back to your, your question and expecting them and being frustrated when they can’t actually do things or things are taking longer and costing them more.
The other thing about marketing is it is a very broad. Term for a lot of things and there is not one person who can do it all perfectly. And I mean, I’m pretty damn good. Like I’m very creative. I’m very analytical. I can write, I can design, but at some point you will need a specialist to code something.
Or to, to edit that video, that sizzle reel, like that’s just beyond my capability, but there is a sweet spot where you can get someone well rounded enough, know your business enough, know your goals enough to help you kind of prioritize, like, what are the top tasks and things we need to be accomplishing?
Because one of the biggest mistakes I see is people like wanting. Like the whole, you know, buffet like served in one person. Yeah. And so that business owner has to choose, like, what is the priority? Because marketing could be inbound. It can be outbound marketing. You know, you could tuck in an ads manager in there.
You could tuck in a PR specialist under marketing. Like what is it that you’re actually trying to do and focus on and narrow that scope for your hire. So your bigger question about who do you hire first is really. Where are you at? What’s sucking up the most time and what are your goals? And for a lot of us, that is an admin assistant.
It was for me. Marketing is actually not the first thing I outsourced. What about you? What did you outsource first?
Colie: So I actually hired two people at the exact same time. Well, okay. Not bookkeeping. Let’s, let’s keep bookkeeping to the side. Cause that’s not what I mean. Yeah. But. Let’s see. I mean, I think it was almost two years now.
I hired my podcast manager and my virtual assistant at the exact same time. And the funny thing is I interviewed the virtual assistant first. And by the way, I got her from like recommendation of another photographer friend. So I was like, Oh yeah, what is she doing for you? And I was like, okay, no, none of that is what I need.
But if you’re impressed by her, let me have a conversation and tell her what I need in my business to see if those are skillsets that she possesses. And so when I interviewed her, I said, listen. Cause she’s very knowledgeable about Devsado and that was the biggest part of my business at the time when I hired her and I’m like, Oh, you can help me with bills.
That is administrative work, but it’s revenue generating work, which was even more important. But I was like, okay, here’s the thing. I was originally going to have you do some things for my podcast, but I’m actually interviewing a podcast manager later this week. If I hire her, you will not be doing any of that.
We will be focusing on. Dubsado set up builds. And then I was like, there’s a second portion that I don’t think the podcast manager is going to do, which is the scheduling of the social media content and those kinds of things. So I was like, let me have a conversation with her. Like you’re hired by the way, but let me have a conversation with her.
And figure out if I’m going to hire her and exactly what I’m hiring her for. And then you and I will have a second conversation to kind of solidify how I think I’m going to use my hours every month. And so I ended up hiring both of them in the same week. And it was great because I could describe how my podcast worked for both of them that same time in terms of like the management and using my air table in order to like move people through and what I expected from them in terms of like, Passing the baton, if you will, like that was great.
I did that all in one fell swoop. And then they just went running. Cause of course, both of them brought the skillset that I needed to kind of hammer your point home. So those were my first two hires.
Emily: Yeah. Well, you were really smart too, to be specific with that specialist. Like you had a goal you went for that.
I mean, a lot of people add like hire an ads manager or book or sign, whatever you want to say, an ads manager too soon. And they’re not really ready. Like the funnels aren’t ready. Things like that. Yeah. So you were smart. Like this is my goal. Get the podcast going and alleviate time, right? Cause it really comes down to that Pareto principle, the 80, 20 rule.
And you need to be working on the business that makes you the most money. And you need to be delegating and outsourcing the 80%. So with a podcast that’s showing up with me, right. You know, doing the conversation, putting your face out there and then anything you can pass off to your podcast manager. And you don’t have to touch buttons and you don’t have to edit.
You might just have to drag something to the right folder and like follow the SOP. That’s going to free up time for you to do more generating things. So, and you were smart with your VA that a lot of people don’t do as you were thinking. That scope, because I think a lot of people hire and they’re like, I just don’t really know what you’re going to help with.
And so one of the things that I recommend, and this is like very cliche business advice, that you check and see what you’re doing. What are you spending time on? Do your time audit. And for me, a lot of it is the drudgery zone. What do I wait till Friday? To work on what just isn’t getting done. That is actually a priority.
There’s things that are tertiary that just don’t matter. My YouTube channel, it’s like would be nice, you know, someday, but it is not the priority right now. Somehow by a miracle of God, it like grows. I don’t know how. So yeah. So with your VA, you were really smart with that and thinking in terms of like, how can she plug into what you already have?
And she is, you know, you’re not just like blanket, like giving her. No direction, right? So yeah. Okay. So your question is really like, when are you ready to hire? And it really comes back to your goals. And what are you trying to achieve? And like, concentrating on like, the big focus. So you’re a great example.
Yours was podcast. I’m trying to think besides bookkeeping. I was 1 of the 1st things I got help with because it was sucking up an entire day. To invoice my clients. I would be up till 2 a. m. And I love getting money. I love numbers, but it wasn’t billable hours And so getting help there was important for me.
I also hired Email tech was a big one, like, just like queuing up emails and formatting blogs and emails. It’s just a time suck and there’s no way to really do it any faster. And it’s a distraction for me. Like, I love ActiveCampaign. I still will build the automations, but I don’t need to be doing the weekly email anymore.
And that saves me two hours a week. Also, community management was one that I needed help. Because I needed a little bit of a buffer. Between me and my students, because I am a people pleaser and I don’t always have like the best boundaries and I, I want to be so available. And so having that community manager to help with my student group and my free group really helped me kind of pull away and do the big projects and the big work that we’re really going to move my business forward.
Colie: Yeah, and I mean, since I’ve had those hires now as a photographer, I will say the first thing that people outsource is editing like that’s a big one. And since I mean, you don’t really have photographers that wasn’t even worth covering. And I’ve talked about that a lot on this podcast, like low hanging fruit for photographers is definitely outsourcing your editing.
But since then, I’ve also hired a blog writer. and a designer so that I don’t have to be in there trying to design the things to go on the Instagram to, you know, revamp the podcast graphics and all of those kinds of things. But what I’ve noticed about myself is that I tend to figure out, like you said, I’m very focused.
Like I figure out this one thing that I want somebody to do and I go find somebody to do that. Now, I will say my blog writer is a designer. Is also a Pinterest marketing expert. Like she usually does both for people. So when I am ready to branch out into Pinterest marketing, she is just going to be there to just add it on to my invoice.
So I mean, that was also like a very, a very detailed hire for me. Like I hired her with the intention of eventually doing both. I don’t hire somebody to do my email marketing. Like I feel like in the future, that’s probably where I’m going to go. But one of the things that excites me most about like marketing assistance is like you said, you’re not going to find someone who does all of the things, but finding one person that maybe does more than one, they can help you with your content.
You know, moving it from one platform to another. We’ve already talked in this series about repurposing your content. And so you can hire an expert for that. But I have the feeling that like, if you’ve got a marketing assistant that is knowledgeable about, let’s say your convert kit, email marketing and your Instagram and your podcast.
I mean, those are three very big things. I’m sorry, but they can really help you make sure that you are using. Like the one piece of content effectively in all three places. So
Emily: here’s kind of the problem. People are like, Oh, I need a social media manager. I need a specialist and people hire first manager.
Yeah. And they’re not actually ready for that. And so the beauty of a marketing assistant or someone who’s savvy enough with messaging. knows the different platforms or your top platforms, or could easily add another one if they don’t already know it. They can really be deep into your content. It’s almost like a content marketer, which is where we’re struggling.
So somebody knows your content so well, You could go to the beach next week and they could go repurpose your top email and you probably wouldn’t need to approve anything. They could repurpose your post without you. They could take your email and dissect it and make it great. Are they going to be as good as, I don’t know, who’s a like seven figure business owner, social media manager, maybe not.
And I feel like this is a little bit of letdown because I see so many business owners who are such perfectionists. Like she didn’t get my. Voice, or, like, wasn’t written perfectly, but I’m like, if it’s like an A minus Like that’s pretty good. And until you’re ready for that social media strategist, who’s really going to help you have like massive growth.
Like this is great. This marketing assistant can help you with your blog, can help you with your email, your social, your website updates that create a landing page for you. And here’s the thing. We got to think about our businesses. Like what happens when we’re at capacity, right? When we can no longer do all the little piddly things that just like add up and weigh us down on our to do list.
What are we going to outsource? So how can we get somebody kind of in our system, like learning our ways so they can pick up whatever’s like falling off. Yes. But also so we can have a vacation. Yes. So what if like something goes sideways, right? I don’t know. COVID wrecked. A lot of people are like, you know, sickness, health, um, illness.
Divorces, like all of that can kind of give us a jolt. And when we’re self employed business owners, when we’re entrepreneurs, I think the hardest thing I talk to all my friends about this is like, keep going when you’re secretly falling apart behind the scenes. And so I think that marketing assistant or having a savvy teammate who’s learning your business, even before you’re feeling like, like you’re there yet.
Is really important for the longevity of your business. Does that make sense? I kind of went
Colie: off a little bit there. No, it makes total sense. And I think it’s your break in case of emergency. So I haven’t really talked about all of the details, but this year in 2024, I was basically out of commission for almost the entire four months of the year, like quarter one and then another month.
And some people knew. But I would say 95 percent of my audience had absolutely no idea why, because I had 22 podcast episodes in my queue. All I did, yeah, 22 Emily, all I did, I used to be double, so I used to have two episodes a week. And when I realized that everything was falling apart, I basically told my podcast manager, Okay, listen, I’ve gone in and I’ve changed everything to be one a week.
That is going to last you until June. Just edit them. So she did that. And again, my system is she edits, she passes it off to Sarah. Sarah finishes the social media content. So I had stuff on Instagram every single week. Like some people noticed that I wasn’t in my stories, but the majority of people were like, had absolutely no idea that I was just laying in bed like for weeks on end.
So, I mean, yes, I agree. And I actually had to learn this really early, um, way back in 2016 when I was not doing systems. I was just a photographer. Well, I was a photographer and also an educator, but I went blind out of nowhere in less than 12 hours. I was seeing and things were a little fuzzy and by that night at 9 p.
m. I could not see. I mean, it got resolved. I was legally blind for about two weeks. Then most of my vision came back and it took another month until I could like see the peripheral. But that really taught me. I mean, literally you asked me about when I outsourced in my business, I was actually telling you about the systems.
That is actually the first time that I hired someone and I hired editors. Because I literally could not see my computer screen to edit any photos. So that is when I actually outsourced my first thing, but that was as a photographer, not really as a, like a systems person. But I agree that all of us need to be in a position where we have people that can pick up the ball when we have dropped it.
And you and I both feel very passionate about this. We all need to be, Charging prices where we are capable of doing that. Like if we are incapable of being in our business and we need to have someone step in and do things, we have to make sure that our profit margins are there so that we have the cashflow to be able to do that.
And that is why I know you are so passionate about pricing. I am so passionate about pricing.
Emily: Yeah. And that is a real thing. I talked to a lot of peers and business owners who they’re like, yeah, yeah. I had this big launch, but do you know what the net was? It’s not that impressive. And so you have to be aware of who you’re bringing in and can you afford to operate on your old prices when you start to grow?
And like, that’s the, that’s probably something people aren’t talking about. Is when you do start to hire, it’s not so sexy. You’re in that growth stage and you’re trying to be more profitable, but you’re also trying to unload the work, but it becomes profitable when you use that time and you watch Netflix.
Revenue generating. Hey, I like a Netflix and a martini and I’m good. I mean, sometimes we need to recap. Okay. I, I couldn’t help myself there, but you know, when we go out and, you know, do that next thing that is going to either bring us more leads or, you know, a different You know, offer, whatever that is, visibility.
So,
Colie: and Emily, so I hadn’t really thought about this, but I told you about when I hired people. So when I hired Haley, she was definitely, I mean, I don’t want to say a lost leader, cause that sounds really bad. Sorry, Haley. I apologize, but I knew. That when I started my podcast, that it was not actually going to be revenue generating from the beginning.
Like I knew that I was going to sink at least five figures into this podcast before I started getting sales off of the ads that I am doing for my own products and services inside of these episodes, like I knew that that was going to take a while. But when I hired Sarah and I was specifically going to have her help me with the Sato setups.
Yeah, no, that was definitely like, she was paying for herself multiple times over because she was literally helping me do the work that was directly related to my bottom line directly related to Toronto. And so I feel like with a marketing assistant. The ROI is not always as apparent and that shouldn’t stop us from hiring a marketing assistant.
Believe me, that’s not where I’m going with this, but I do think that people need to be convinced or that they need to have a plan in order to look at KPIs in order to figure out if the marketing assistant is getting them a return on their investment because marketing itself, especially like If you’re not doing a good job of tracking, Oh, well, my marketing assistant wrote this blog.
Do I know that I’m getting any traffic to this blog? Do I know if I’ve gotten any direct leads from this blog? Like that kind of thing. So is there any advice that you would give people besides just know that it is going to be a return on investment for them to hire a marketing assistant in this kind of conversation type?
Emily: So what you described was somebody who saved you time and somebody who made you money. And I think that’s why a lot of people jump to the ads manager I was talking about. It seems like, oh, I’ll immediately get an ROI, which actually is not even guaranteed. But I think the beautiful thing about a marketing assistant is it can be both.
It can save you the time and it can generate the leads if you use them right. One of the first things I did when I stepped out behind client businesses and started being the face of my business Scary, scary. I started a blog that, and I knew that blog and how the SEO game works. Like I knew it was going to be a slog, but I also knew what it would do for my business in the longterm.
So I blogged religiously. Some of them are embarrassing, so don’t go back and look, but most of them are pretty good, but they’re now ranking in Google. I am now getting thousands of hits per month of organic traffic. I use UTM links and I know I am getting sales from Google. And so it’s like knowing how long it will take and what that payback period is.
But also I’m at this point now where I have hired somebody to help me with the blogs, cause it’s really important. And it’s been kind of a baby that got dropped because I didn’t have the right person managing it. Understanding the click throughs, understanding my content. And so I just use that as an example of your personal goals.
Not everyone’s playing a blogging game. Like you very clearly understood the podcasting game. I think a lot of business owners when they’re hiring, don’t get that. Or like maybe podcasters when they start that it is a longer game. And very long, very, very long guys.
Colie: Yes.
Emily: Yeah. And that’s why you need a marketing assistant who’s trained.
Who knows UTM links because I guarantee you that VA doesn’t not to dis VA’s It’s like kind of kind of awkward, but I will argue too that there are VA’s Who are fully capable of blogging and no SEO who are just calling themselves the wrong title
Colie: Yes,
Emily: so don’t be afraid to ask your teammate what they want to learn where they want to grow So you can nurture them, foster them.
They can grow up within your business. I did that with my big seven figure client. I started off with Pinterest, by the way, and like grew into so much more because I kept seeing patterns. I kept seeing opportunities. So don’t let the VA title scare you either, because somebody could be like me with a journalism background is very capable of writing your blog so you can.
Get that off your plate and move on.
Colie: So Emily, this is like, you know, the elephant in the room, but what happens? What should you do if you’ve hired someone? And they’re either a wrong fit or your marketing strategy changes and they are no longer a good fit for where you are intending to put like all of your marketing time and effort.
Emily: Yeah. Cause we’re not all Amy Porterfield. We don’t have 15 different specialists and like a whole content department. We have to CEO pants and make those decisions and it sucks. I like people. I’ve had to fire people. I’ve had to let people go because they were a wrong fit. I will tell you on one of my big clients teams, we hired a community manager.
She was horrible. She made people cry. She was an Enneagram eight, no offense to anybody listening, but like, it was the wrong fit captain obvious moment. And so we had to, we had to change, but there’s nothing wrong with leaning into their skills and finding a place for them. I think the reason I like marketing assistants is because you could give them a chunk of time.
And they could do it well instead of like three hours a week, just doing this, right? You get someone a little bit deeper in your business, more dedicated, but it’s absolutely possible to. You know, figure out the mix that you need and it’s on you to track your marketing and make sure it’s working. I mean, let’s let’s the other elephant in the room.
There’s a lot of businesses struggling this year last year with the economy and people are being more choosy. They’re getting leaner teams and they’re being smarter. About who they hire. And that’s, that’s on us to do.
Colie: I mean, just so that, you know, I’m an enneagram eight.
Emily: Oh my God. That is so like me to put my foot in my mouth, make fun of the bald guy while he’s sitting next to me, like, I will do that.
Colie: My eight and my three are just like, I mean, I think it’s one or two points. And I thought it was weird that I was an eight. But like, I’m an eight as a CEO, I was going to say like general, I’m a three. And so I just, I thought it was funny though. What you said is like spot on because with everything that was happening with my health this year, I actually told my husband like, don’t, don’t get it twisted.
I am not going to burn my business to the ground, but I did think about it. I did like seriously consider the business on pause, finding an actual job. And when I told him, I I’m like, I’m already over it, but this was my thought. And my husband was like, I love you. You should, you should find a consulting job.
And I kind of looked at him cause he’s not in business. He is a biochemist. He is a PhD scientist. Like he does. He knows nothing of the business world entrepreneurship other than what he gets from me. So when he said a consultant, I was like, So where is he going with this? And I said, Oh, you don’t think I can work for anybody anymore.
And he’s like, you can’t. I was like, Oh, that’s my Enneagram eight coming out. Okay. Let’s move on from this. I know,
Emily: I know plenty of eights who like have people skills in are very pleasant, but this lady just kept referring to it like that. But she, she literally made people cry. I was like proud about it.
And that’s just not the right person. You need somebody There’s a little bit more patient and they found a really good spot for her. I
Colie: was hoping that that was where you were also going to go is just because your marketing plan changes. That doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody on your team that was doing this other thing is like no longer needed or that you actually have to go and rehire.
You should, I mean, if you like your team, you should first see if they’re capable of doing and going in the direction that you have now decided as a CEO. CEO that your business needs to go in. I mean, you might not know that they work for you as a contractor doing this one thing, but you might not know that they’re working for another company doing this other thing.
Yeah. And that that’s where you’re trying to go and hey, you don’t need to rehire, you just need to reorganize and give them a different set of responsibilities versus what you originally hired them for.
Emily: Yeah, I have a lady in my inbox who helps with customer service. And for me, the inbox is a funnel.
Like I want someone like wicked smart in the inbox with good people skills, but understands my business. So the next thing I needed help was an affiliate manager. It’s not like a huge job. I don’t need the like 20, 000 affiliate manager to come in, but she is able to do that. She’s already knowing my people like, you know, like it made sense.
And so she’s learning a little bit on the fly, but she knows enough. So that’s working out well. This is what I did for years as a client. You know, you talked about how your blog person knows Pinterest. Well, like that’s the next step
Colie: they
Emily: go together when people complain about their VAs and they’re like, I don’t know what they’re working on, or I don’t know what they can do, I’m like, just talk to them and that sounds so basic.
But like have a conversation because you want somebody in your business, in their zone of genius, giving you their best, you don’t want them in their drudgery zone. doing their worst. Nobody wants to be the five o’clock client.
Colie: And I know earlier in this conversation, you talked about training and I meant to mention it then.
And now we’ve kind of come back around it. So I just want to say it again. Like one of those things that I feel like people go wrong when they hire is that they expect somebody to do it right the first time. And yes, those people have skills. But also you have expectations and if they are not meeting your expectations, I think a majority of the time it is that you are not communicating what your expectations are well enough.
Now, if you communicate them well, and they are still not making them, I mean, that is when you have that hard conversation. As you said, you put on your big girl panties and you have that CEO conversation, but you can’t just expect somebody to know what’s in your head. None of us are mind readers. And so I mean, training, I feel like because it’s much more palatable when I talk about photographers and hiring an editor, because people are amazed at how much back and forth I do every time I’ve gotten a new editor.
I’m like, oh, no, I had a company that I was using. I wasn’t using an individual. Then I was like, but every time they had a shift in personnel and they gave me a new editor. For the first five sessions that I sent them, they would send it to me. I would make little notes. I would show them how I would have done it.
And I sent them back videos. And after that, after like four or five times, I didn’t have to comment on anything. They sent it. It was exactly what I needed, or it only had five minutes of tweaks. And then I could deliver it to the client. And the same thing is true of everything else in your business. You can’t expect them to get it perfect the first time, even if you’ve given them even if you’ve explained it, you do have to highlight.
How they have not met your expectations and give them a chance to rectify it.
Emily: Yes. I have to piggyback off that. My new blog writer, I had to go through like her blogs were great, but I could add in my style or this is where I would seed in my credibility. This is where I would link to that. Like she couldn’t know that, but we’re pretty much at the point now.
Where she can take a transcript or something else I’ve done and make it a blog and I am totally the bottleneck and she will just have to publish without me, but I got her there. There was some back and forth. There was a time investment. You know, we did have her kickoff call. I did have to get her access.
Like, that’s it’s so annoying, right? You’re like two factor. You know, authentication, like it’s so annoying. That’s my worst
Colie: nightmare. I mean, and it’s funny because I did a hiring a team series. I think it was September of 2022. And one of the things that we talked about is right now, you might be a solopreneur, but these are the things that you should do to prepare for hiring a team in the future.
And one of them was never use Google single sign on. Because you will forever be beholden to two factor authentication, like for the rest of your life.
Emily: Yeah, I’m worried now next week when I go to the beach and Google kicks everyone out of the inbox, but I’m gonna you know Not check my phone. I promise.
Okay I I do want to add on to what you were saying with A lot of times it is the client the business owner like our fault, right? But we also have to think about Three things. Have you read clockwork by the way? I feel like you’re a clockwork girl. No. Okay. You would love it. Get it. It’s really good for people in this stage of business where they’re not, they’ve we’ve started, we kicked off, but we’re not quite like huge in scaling.
And there’s three things we need to give information, permission, and outcome. So somebody can be completely, my goal is to be autonomous. Like when I’m a marketing assistant in someone’s business, like I want you to leave me alone. I’m going to go do the work when I can. I’m going to bug you and ask you questions minimally.
I’m going to get your feedback minimally, but you have to give me permission to do some things on my own. You have to give me all the information I need to make that decision. So I think my team gets a little bit annoyed with me because I’m always like big picture berseye explaining why we’re doing things, but that’s because I want them to think within their lane and I want them to think beyond their little task.
What’s the next thing or what am I not considering that maybe Emily didn’t tell me? And so we can. We can make sure that we have the outcome that we want. And the outcome would be, so for a marketing assistant, you know, you, yes, you do want maybe two, three, four blogs posted a week, but like, really, what is your goal for traffic?
What is your goal for Google page ranking? Like give them that incentive so that they can do what they need to hit it. Right. And then they can help you prioritize better. And they might say like, I know you wanted me, I don’t know why I keep using blogs, but like, I know you wanted to write this blog, but.
You know, you felt passionate about, but actually Uber suggest is telling me this will do better. Let’s do this. I think it’s better aligned with your priorities and like the outcome you wanted.
Colie: I love people when they come with ideas.
Emily: I’m like, take
Colie: it away. I mean, hello. Yes, please. I mean, it was one of the things that I finally told my podcast manager.
Was I’m tired of naming things. Like you are the ones that is listening to the episodes now. Cause originally, like when I invited someone on, I would kind of have a title in mind, but then I was realizing it was kind of a bottleneck because if I didn’t think of a title first, I would have to wait and then we would make the graphics or whatever.
So I finally told my podcast manager, nope. You just name it, whatever you see fit based on listening to it. And then you can make the graphics and stick them in the, the blog post and do all of that. And so that was one of those things where eventually I was just like, you know what? Haley does a really good job.
And if one every four episodes or one, every 10 episodes, I would name it something different. It would probably have to be like really strong evidence. Like Uber suggests, like you said, name it. This it’s going to be amazing. I mean, Then I might go in and like change it after the fact. But other than that, I mean, you have, you have my full permission.
Hey, to use that word, you have my full permission to just name it and go with it.
Emily: Yeah. You know what I think one of the biggest hacks would be for anyone listening who maybe hasn’t hired, or they’re thinking about hiring a marketing assistant, it would be to start your word bank, start your word closet of words and things and how you say things and words you’d never say.
So then a marketing assistant who doesn’t know you that well, could pop into your business, put a strategic adjective in the right place and just start sounding like you like, yeah, we’re not expecting them to be. You know, a six figure copywriter there, but if they could just sound just enough, like you, I think we’ll all feel good.
And that comes down to the titling, like paying attention to how, how you titled in the past, what do you tend to like? And then now Haley can just run with it. I love that.
Colie: I will say, I don’t want to go down the AI rabbit hole because we don’t have enough time for that. But one of the things that I was listening to recently that I thought was like, Oh my God, why have I never done that?
If you asked me to tell you how I talk and how I say things, I really don’t know what I would tell you other than to tell you that I cuss a lot. Which, Emily, we haven’t really said many cuss words on this episode. I’m very surprised. We’ve been good. But like, if someone asked me, you know, how I write things, I would probably say, Oh, I just cuss.
Like that would be what I said, but someone, it was a, I don’t know, it was a tip and I’m sorry for whoever’s listening. If it was you that said this on a podcast, but I feel like they said, take your last few podcast episodes or the last few emails or blogs that you’ve written, feed it in a chat GPT and just ask it, what words do I use?
A lot. And then they can give you an idea because I don’t know that I could just pick off the words because I mean, I like to write, kind of. But I actually like to talk way more. So I’m constantly like on my phone, dictating emails while I’m in the car. I bring that onto my computer and then I’m reformatting.
And then I’m rewriting because I talk way better than I actually write. But if you asked me for that, I could tell you the words that I don’t want to use. Like, I think I can name those up. Top of my head, but the words that I actually use, I don’t think I pay enough attention to the way that I write or even the way that I talk to be able to give that to someone.
But if I wanted to start getting ready, feeding that into the AI, you know, application of my choice in order to get started with that would probably help me start writing that a lot easier.
Emily: Yeah. I actually had written down a note for myself and I’m going to tie this into two things. So bear with me. One, I think it’s human nature.
There’s probably some law or principle that we don’t know what we want until we see something we don’t like in front of us. And so you’re talking about those words. I’ve been like that too. I had a teammate who kept writing the word amazing for her adjective of choice. I know I do that sometimes, but I’m way like this point in my business.
We don’t say amazing ever, ever, ever. And I educated her several times. Like take that word out, take that word out. And once I saw it, it was like really triggering for me. And she didn’t really learn that. And she’s not on my team anymore, but I will say things like contractions. Like you’ll sound more like me if you use contractions, like just some copywriting basics there.
So sometimes when you see things that aren’t you, it just gives you ideas of, well, this is what I am about. And this is just like marketing lesson 101. I was in this social media kind of hot seat and I was the last to go because that’s what I do. I wait to raise my hand and then she got to me. And she’s like, Oh, you’re a military spouse.
So we’re going to use words like bombs away and deploy. And I was like, Oh, fuck no. Oh my God. And I just kind of sat there and like took it. And then I was like, this is bullshit. And then afterward, I just scribbled down everything that I hated about that. And it gave me a direction of who I do want to speak to.
Who do I want to speak to? The woman who doesn’t wear her husband’s rank, who wants to be independent, who doesn’t give a shit about her husband’s military career. Like that’s my person. I don’t want the depend upon them as that’s what they call them. So it helps you get clarity in those moments. And so pay attention.
If something’s like really annoying you write it down and then that will give your, your VA or your DMA a good starting point, even if they’re shooting out little emails in your inbox, replying to people, if they can just sound more on ground for you. There’s more trust, right? The other thing I was going to say, kind of tying back to our VA conversation, sometimes we hire the wrong person.
It doesn’t work out. We’re getting better as leaders, as delegators, but sometimes that wrong person gives you clarity to actually what you do need. Yes. And I have to say this probably happens more than anyone’s ever talked about. We hire the generalist VA, we get going, we feel like a CEO. And then we’re like, Oh, wait a second.
I actually need this. And that’s okay to evolve that person. Let that person go or hire the person you actually do need that you got clarity on again. The wrong thing in front of you will tell you
Colie: and I find it shocking that that person couldn’t get the amazing because like I am no one’s virtual assistant, but I guess if I was setting something up and they said, oh, no, I never use that word.
I think I would make a little note. And then every time I wrote something, I would just do. What is it? Command F. And type amazing and see if I used it anywhere in the, I mean, to me, that’s a really easy thing to fix. And I’m glad that you said that because now I feel like I should make a list and be like, Kara, when you’re done writing the blogs, can you please check to make sure that you have used none of these words?
Like that would be very appreciative. And coming on the, like, I wouldn’t say that. My blog writer has only been with me for, I don’t know, is it four months now? Four months when we’re recording this, but she gave me a blog recently and she used Swiss Army knife. And I read it and I was like, That is not what I would say.
And maybe you were on my brain, Emily. I don’t know, but I changed it to magical unicorn assistant. That was what I replaced it with. And then it was funny because I had another conversation with her and I was like, Oh, I could have used pixie dust. Like all of these things came to mind like after, but I was just like, okay, I made a few changes.
Can you go look and make sure that I didn’t mess anything up, that it still sounds great. As I, but just so that you know, I would never ever use pixie dust. not a me thing, that is, no.
Emily: I have a teammate, and I’m sorry if she’s listening, but she always uses the same analogy. And I’m like, I would, I have never heard that before.
I would never say that. And she always says stretched like a rubber band. And I’m like, that’s just like not a visual. I mean, I’ve actually read it out in the wild, but like, this is not a visual, but does it really matter? No. Did it matter? Did I need to like die on a hill? Did I need? Like, no. If we start seeing it a second time, a third time, like I’ll kill it over and over
Colie: again.
Yes.
Emily: Yeah. But at the time, like sometimes it just needs to be a B plus and you need to get it out. Right. So it’s like making that call.
Colie: Well, also I feel like all of us that are hiring people, we should be aware of what’s permanent and what’s not permanent. I feel like YouTube videos are permanent. Not in that you can hide them, delete them, repost them, but you actually can’t swap a video for a video.
Like they don’t let you do that. Like you can on Vimeo, which is, I love Vimeo for that reason. You know, you can just swap it out. But like a blog post, if they write something that like bothers you a little bit and you just think about it and like a month later, you’re like, yeah, I just really can’t stand that.
You can always go in and change that one or two sentences and republish. And if you really need to add it in a console so that it, you know, it indexes it again, like that is possible. So, you know, even a podcast episode, like if you, if you change your mind about something in here and you’re like, yeah, I just, I a hundred percent don’t think that anymore.
Like, can we take that part out? Or if you mentioned an offer that you no longer do, I mean, I’ve never done this. I’ve done it to my solos, not really for guest episodes, but if something changes, I can always rerecord it and swap in that new recording. And everything else stays the same. The link, the downloads that I don’t know, the description, like all of that will stay the same.
And so. I feel like some of us should give some grace between what’s permanent and what’s not permanent. And if it’s not permanent, maybe you are quicker to give them permission to move on without you. Because if it needs to be changed, that is always possible in the future. Versus something that’s like, you know, once you’ve sent this in, it’s published on like the New York Times in print and it can’t be undone.
Like, I mean, You should pay attention if you’re going to be printed in the Times, but you know what I’m saying. Yeah,
Emily: in the same breath, I had a client that I would Like, listen to all her Facebook lives for her podcast. I really was starting to learn her voice. I was not a copywriter, but I was doing a lot of writing for her.
I probably should have called myself that, but I would have charged more too. But one time I said, Oh, that’s stinking cute. And she’s like, I would never say that. And I’m like, correction. You say it all the fucking time. I, you know, I did not say this. I never say that. I love this tangent we’re going off on.
I never say stinking cute. Like, those are your words and I threw them back at you and you didn’t like them. Like, okay, noted. I will not use that again. But I, I was like But also,
Colie: I’m listening to you say it over and over again while I’m listening to your Facebook lives. I mean, that’s when you just gently send her a transcript.
I don’t know. See, I don’t know. I don’t know. I
Emily: know me too. Well, I’m not, I, you know, I, I’m not working with my retainer clients anymore. Like I’ve had to give a lot of them up, but I just remember that I will never forget that story because sometimes I think this is it as a VA sometimes, like if we make a mistake, we want to defend ourselves, right.
And explain why, but like in the end, you just need someone to correct it and move on and not give you all the excuses. And like, I have a hard time with that because I always want to explain like, well, Why does it look like that? Or what happened? Or what was the thought process? But something like that, it was just like, all right, okay, let’s move on.
And the VAs that I see that aren’t so successful are full of excuses.
Colie: I just can’t
Emily: correct
Colie: and move on.
Emily: Yeah, which is hard too, because we’re also, we were kind of joking about being unemployable, you know, sometimes, sometimes this is a little spicy, sometimes the freelancer culture is not always the cream of the crop.
Okay. There’s a lot of people starting out as VAs who are getting lured by like the quick money. You know, even, even in the course creator business, like quick money, like the online business. But like, there are always good people out there. You might have to work through some of them to find out like who.
Who really gets your business? Who really cares? Who’s the true intrapreneur behind the scenes. And some people might not have the chops to do the work and that’s okay. And you have to recognize that as a CEO.
Colie: If you don’t have a clear vision of like where your business is going, what the goals are, what the goals should be, if that’s something that we should say, I mean, you might need to have a conversation before you get to the hiring phase so that you can figure that out.
Like, what is it that you really do need in your business and what is your top priority to get like now ASAP immediately?
Emily: Yeah, and you’re talking about somebody who understands strategy, maybe a blend of business coaching. And there are people like me who I did that with clients all the time, kind of, as it happened, should I have been charging for that?
Yes. But I think this market is getting sophisticated. My unicorns know better. They’re pulling out strategy sessions. Like it’s going to happen. And it’s awesome because we’re in so many businesses. We see what’s working like a lot of VAs, good VAs, good marketing assistants, grow up to be so much more than a VA or an assistant.
So if you have somebody smart like that, who’s a brainiac, use them, pay them what they’re worth, but don’t expect strategy from somebody new. And then also this phenomenon of business coaches who. I don’t know, maybe did it once for themselves, but don’t actually know tech. Don’t actually know implementation.
Maybe they hired it all out anyway. Like I can name so many names. You might just like straight up, like get the strategy from another source and then you need the implementation. Like that’s the gap I saw. And in my unicorn digital marketing assistance school, my main goal is to get my marketing assistants to a place where they’re confident in their thinking.
Maybe their first couple clients, they’re not leading marketing, but I see the trajectory of where it’s going. And if I can get them to understand and think inside a client’s business, okay, what’s our goal of marketing? What are their priorities? How can I help? Then like developing that critical thinking, high order thinking is really like what we want in our business.
Colie: Absolutely. Emily, if people want, I’ve already said your podcast. I mean, it’s Unicorns Unite, guys. It’s not that hard to remember. Go listen to her podcast. It is awesome. But if people want to find out more information about you, where else can they find you on the internet?
Emily: You know, I’m having the most fun on Instagram, so you can find me there at emilyreaganpr.
I also have a blog, you check it out. I talk about hiring, I talk about marketing services, I nerd out on marketing strategies. And then also if you want to hire, work with one of my marketing assistants, go to hireaunicorn. com and we do this Super easy form where we just take your, we do a quick intake form and we share it with my work group.
So if you were to post a job, like in a Facebook group with 40, 000 VAs, you’re going to hate your life. You’re going to be inundated. Like, you know, you’re not going to be able to figure it out. And so what I have done is take that process and make it a little bit easier. And we’ll have up to 10 unicorns reach out to you with different skill sets.
They’re all, they’re all their own business owners. Can meet with you on a discovery call and you can make that decision. I am not a matchmaking agency. I just love hooking my friends up with awesome clients and good jobs and helping them find paying work. So hireunicorn. com will get you into my work group.
Colie: I am really mad that she got hireunicorn. com before I could guys. I mean, don’t you think that that would be an awesome URL for me? Hire a unicorn. com to fix all of your systems needs. It’s okay though. I like Emily. So I’m gonna let her keep that URL. Yeah. Maybe
Emily: there’s like systemsunicorn. com. I mean, shh, don’t tell
Colie: everybody I got to go.
What’s okay. This is not going to go live for a while. I’m actually, I’m going to go look first. I love buying URLs. Emily, you have no idea. I had so many for my photography business and I haven’t really done that for my systems business. So maybe it’s time.
Emily: Yeah. I just bought one last year.
becomeamarketingassistant. com That is, can you believe that was open
Colie: open? I mean you just paid like regular like 8. 99 for
Emily: it It was like 40 for four years It was like a cent a month or whatever the and then they get you on all the Little things you have to add on but yeah,
Colie: okay, that’s amazing Yeah.
All right, everyone. I hope that you have found this episode insightful. There is just one more episode in the marketing with intention series, and you will have to tune in next week to see who it is. All right. That’s it for this episode. See you next time. Hey friend, are you drowning in a sea of post its trying to keep track of all your content ideas?
Or maybe you’re struggling to remember what you posted on which platform and when. I totally get it. That’s why I created the content organization hub for Airtable. For just 9, you can finally put an end to content chaos. Imagine having all your marketing content in one central location, easily linked, perfectly organized, and ready to go whenever you are ready to take control of your content.
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