When you start a business, you wear all the hats everything from operations to accounting to marketing to customer service. Eventually you become your own roadblock to growth. So how do you get out of the weeds and hire the right people to join your team? To answer this question, we're joined by Emily Reagan, founder of the unicorn digital marketing assistance school, a program training women to become successful freelance marketing assistants and specialists every online business owner wants to hire.
Stay tuned to hear how Emily recommends you prep your business for hiring. The difference between hiring contractors versus employees, what pay rates you should expect for certain roles, and her take on why you should avoid agencies and Upwork when looking for talent.
Welcome to Cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. Every Monday go behind the business and a case study style interview with the leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business, exactly how they implemented it, and what the results and revenue were. You'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.
Hey, everyone, I'm here today with my friend Emily Reagan, the founder of the unicorn, digital marketing assistant school. And Emily is about to give us a crash course in hiring, and how to make better hires or even make your first hire if you're currently working solo in your business. I am so thrilled she's here to share her knowledge. Thank you, Emily, for joining us.
Thank you for having me. It's fun to help business owners find good help in their business. I've done the same kind of backend work for a long time. And I know how much it can move the needle.
Absolutely. And in fact, speaking of moving the needle, I know we all love data and metrics here. So if you apply what Emily is sharing here today, you could free up to 10 or more hours up in your work week in your business by again hiring the right help for you and your team. So before we get into that, though, Emily, I do want to ask your Cubicle to CEO story, because that's the first question we want to ask all our guests. How did you actually make this leap into entrepreneurship?
Well, my story is very similar to yours as an accidental freelancer. I was a military spouse for 20 years, always moving, always changing jobs. And I just kind of stumbled into it. We had gotten orders to move. I was leaving my dream job, which was a PR and communications director. And I just started writing press releases for some local clients. They just needed my help. And I fell into it. I didn't see the business I was creating. I didn't have the vision. It was just kind of one project at a time.
And my first project was a $300 media kit for a blogger slash influencer didn't really know what I was doing, but had the fortitude to google it and put together my background with other types of press kits. And then it just opened so many doors, client after client until I was booked out. Eventually I started training, you know, very smart over educated underemployed military spouses, a lot of stay at home moms who are looking to get back into work, how to do the same things I had been doing for for flexible freelance work.
I love that our stories have so much alignment there in terms of down to like the dollar down to that $300 first client project. That's so funny. You are probably honestly having worked as a publicity director you were probably a little bit more refined than I was I I feel like my first proposal was just like a bulleted point, Google Doc, I went to meet the owners of this business at a restaurant because I didn't really know how you take a client meeting or how you you know, get someone to sign on as a client and so but like you said it was just baptism by fire, you just go through it and each client project you learn a little bit more, you refine your process a little bit more.
So that's encouragement to any of you out there who are listening who are newer to business. Just keep in mind a lot of the overcomplicated systems that you see other people doing may not be your fastest path to your first dollar in your business. And if you can just really simplify like Emily and I did and then use that experience to refine over time. You will be better served by that in my opinion at least.
Alright Emily, so you help business owners free up 10 plus hours a week. And one thing that really caught my eye when we were preparing before this interview is us said this, a real business requires investment in human capital. But we have to be smart about where we spend it and how we track it. Can you just expand? What you mean by this? Like, maybe walk us through your hiring, approach your hiring ethos, how do you think about hiring?
Well, my goodness, this is such a good question. Because I think we're in this day of online businesses where it's so easy to get started, there's a low barrier, there's a low cost, and then we're not thinking long term what it takes to run a business, and how are businesses successful? How do they get out of that startup phase, right? And it takes human capital. And that's because what fuels a business is time and money. And so human capital can do both of those things.
And I see so many newer business owners, you know, really excited about the possibility of transforming and moving their skills online, and then not being realistic about the budget and the cost, right. So when we think about that, too, and then there's another thing happening in this space where we see very successful people, you know, you and I but we're not always aware of the teams behind them that are making it happen. And so we start kind of dogging ourselves and comparing ourselves and not being realistic about the work that goes into the level those people are at. I mean, love Amy Porterfield. I'm in her world, I'm one of her referral partners for vas. But like, she has a huge team, right? She has a whole content department.
And so we cannot compare ourselves to somebody like that. Everybody's successful, has somebody behind them, even even the Instagram influencers, people are helping them book those brand collaborations like style, their outfits, take the photos, write the captions, schedule, the captions, reply to the DMs, like people are helping in those businesses. And we just need to, to know that this is happening.
I cannot agree more. Because I think, you know, it's hard to outgrow your mentality when you're starting, when you wear all the hats and you're used to playing every single role in your business. It can be difficult to extrapolate and like look at someone who's more advanced in their business development. And thinking like the influencer example is actually an excellent I think analogy for this, that or not even analogy, just an example of this. How, you know, when you're starting as a full time content creator influencer, obviously are all the things but over time, it's almost like you graduate into the role of just talent, similar to how like a news network, right? Like an anchor on the show is just playing the role of talent.
Now, obviously, that's a very important role and probably helps to make or break the success of the show. But there are people who are producers behind the scenes, like you said, writers, camera people, makeup artists, lighting, sound technicians, like all of those people have their own role. And on screen, when you're watching at home, you only see that news anchor. And so I love that you kind of helped us, you know, reframe our mindset around like, what are all the people that are actually necessary to make an engine run? And I feel like that actually is the hurdle for most business owners is because they're used to playing in every role, they have a really hard time understanding like, what is the first thing that can be let go.
So talk to us about even before we get to like who the right first hire is, let's talk about how a business owner can prepare themselves to even be ready to take on a team member and to hire What is your hire preparation process?
I love this question because it will solve all the problems that come later that I'm sure we'll talk about when we're not happy with our current hire and how to get back on the happy path. But the first thing you can do, because we don't always have the budget to just hire the whole content team and all the makeup artists, right, we need to be smart. And so that time audit, being aware of what you're spending your time on, is really important.
And it's not just all of the things that need to be done. It's also the things that you don't enjoy the things that are waiting till Friday at 4pm If you'd like you wait to the last minute and your drudgery zone to complete, but it's also creating awareness about the task and the things that will actually move the needle like at the beginning here. So we need to be aware of what will save us time and what will make us money. And in some cases, it makes sense to go all in with a specialist who will help us hit our main goal and make money.
And Ads Manager is a really good one on here. You know, you had Nikki on the show talking about like the performance of her ads. And that is something that you you do want to trust somebody to do because you know it will make money. But not we're not all of us are in that spot. It's not the goal for everybody. So that time audit will help and a lot of business owners don't really have that awareness, but it will tell you what are the chunks of things that I'm spending time on that I could offload because we have to think about our dream business.
Where do we want to be and when we're at capacity, what are the first things we need off our plate and start moving toward that now even if it's very slow, because you need to be prepared and hiring delegation. than getting that clarity and those clear roles on your team, it does take time. So I would start with the time audit. And then another thing we have to talk about, we can't skip this part. This is a very sexy SOPs, right the standard operating procedures, being able to bring someone on your team, you might not have the most perfect onboarding process, but being able to say like, here, this is how I'm doing things now. So that they have direction, and they know where to really start and plug themselves in. So they are not a burden to you, when they can actually take things off your plate.
That is the one thing that if I could go back in time, I think and change anything about my business, it would have been starting to document those SOPs from day one, it would have made everything else so much easier. And I am so glad that you brought up this idea of a generalist versus a specialist, because I think that's another confusing area to navigate. Right when let's say a business owner does a time audit.
And they realize a lot of the tasks that are either draining their time or their energy are kind of scattered across different specialties, different traditional roles, like maybe there's some marketing tasks over here, some admin tasks, some operations, space things, some more data entry, finance based things, it they're seeing this kind of mess, if you will, of random tasks that don't seemingly have a through line. Yeah, would you suggest hiring a more general person to to take on those repetitive tasks first, even if they don't have necessarily like a particular rhyme or reason to them?
Or do you actually suggest trying to hire for a specific lane first, even if it's not as like granular as oh, we're only going to hire an ad specialist. But maybe it's like grouping together like tasks for, let's say, content and only hiring a content person first, what are your thoughts on that?
My answer is kind of like both and all of it, but just like you and I started our freelance business, and we evolved, we could do that with our team too. And so I have kind of come up with this term unicorn. And that doesn't mean a unicorn does everything, right? It's not humanly possible, some of us are left and right brain and good at many things. But you don't set someone up for success when you just dump you know, your entire business on them.
Totally.
So what yeah, what we can think about is hiring within six different business departments. And there can absolutely be overlap between those, but where we don't set ourselves up for success is when we're expecting an admin person to be able to video at it, you know, and then like, what it was like dumping everything on them. So the six business departments or operations, customer service, HR, accounting, and finance, product development, and marketing and sales.
So I'm kind of in the marketing department with my marketing assistants, because I saw this need for like a higher, you know, a Saudi, more marketer in this department. But we can overlap operations and customer service pretty easily. But what we don't want to start doing is in throwing in a bookkeeper, right. So there are some roles that are separate, that really need to be separate, we can get someone into I call it the mailroom, and have them work up. So then when we are ready for that higher level, you said like Content Manager, we've kind of groomed them to be there, or we can hire someone specialist at that point.
I know in my business, I'm getting to this point where Okay, now I'm ready for a player's I have like, like expected lanes, like I do want the head of the department and I am going to go hire out for that. But I've also seen the admin assistant or the office assistant grow up to be the OBM, which is really, really fun when that happens, because it's somebody who knows your business so well. So people get really unhappy with their VAs when they are expecting an admin person to know marketing, or sales, you know, and so we have to be kind of smart about where it overlaps.
And it's okay to have some that distinction, that breakdown of those six departments and like what areas can have overlap versus what which one should stay entirely separate, is extremely helpful. So you mentioned for example, like operations and customer service could potentially have overlap.
Are there any other departments that you see being able to mesh well with another department at the early stages, and then can kind of grow more separate as your resources and staff expand? Or is operations and customer service? Really the only place where you would suggest seeing more of that overlap?
Yeah, well, I see marketing overlapping a little bit with product development. If you have somebody like I have some people in my world who are former teachers and good with curriculum design, you know, they could overlap with product development. Usually, that's, you know, the head CEO is you and me with our ideas trying to execute on those original ideas. But marketing can also overlap with operations, especially now that we have aI happening.
And then we have this whole area of client fulfillment depending on how our business offers are if you have a, you know paid coaching program, if you have a course, if you have a membership site, sometimes you can overlap community management or that, you know, client fulfillment with marketing as well. So there are areas what I don't see usually overlapping, it's almost easier to talk about the oil. But is it the oil and water? Like? Why am I investing? Accounting, there's not a lot of very numbers driven people who also do marketing, those tend to be very separate. Marketing can be a mix of creative and analytical.
And then, you know, sometimes customer service requires a very, very just well rounded person to who can work in different departments and really understand what's coming up because customer service and accounting can overlap, too. You know, when you're talking about the Dunning process in your business, and you're trying to recoup payments and failed payments, and customers are kind of disappearing so, but yeah, I think you have, you should feel empowered to kind of create the roles that you need.
But when you do that time audit exactly what you said you can, you're able to like bucket, dice, some of the tasks that make the most sense and create your own job. What I hate is the term virtual assistant. And I know that's what we use for SEO. I mean, I do it with my own podcast. But really, I want to encourage anyone listening to this to think about the job title, and the outcomes that you want, instead of just this blanket term that really means nothing.
All right, I want to harken back to two things real quick. The first is, you briefly kind of mentioned these two terms, customer service and customer fulfillment. And I feel like I have a pretty clear definition of what those two things mean in my business. But since you've worked behind the scenes on so many other people's businesses, I'm just curious, what you would say is the difference how you would distinguish those two roles, customer service versus fulfillment?
Oh, now I'm nervous, that might have a different, but I see fulfillment as being in a group coaching program. And you need to make sure your students are showing up that they're getting what they need. They're at the meetings, they're getting access to the right courses, and the right video trainings, things like that, or whatever you promised in the sales process. Like you're making sure that as fulfilled, I see customer service, a little bit broader than that, and still including the inbox, because you have past clients, you know, reaching out asking questions, there's troubleshooting with login information, things like that.
So you might not actually be in a live cohort, but you still want to, you know, represent your business and your brand and take care of the people in your community. That what you think?
Yeah, actually, I mean, you were obviously using a coaching program as like the example of an offer, but that's exactly on the same lines of what I think like fulfillment to me is, whatever your product or services, it's the delivery of said product or service, like whatever your customers buying, how are they actually receiving what they purchased. And then customer service to me is more like after the purchase or even during the purchase? What are some of the, like you said technical issues that come up, or maybe other you know, sort of billing issues, let's say, just questions in general, that may not necessarily be tied to delivery could be but more so like just managing that client relationship? I would say,.
Oh, yeah, yeah, you got it. You nailed it.
I love it. No, it's really great, though, to hear like specific examples, because I feel like that helps people kind of wrap their brains around how that might look in their business more. And the other thing I just wanted to really quickly point out before we move on to the next question, you mentioned, like this idea of almost thinking about starting someone in a mailroom.
Now, obviously, many of us have online businesses. We don't actually have a physical mail room where someone's like sorting mail, but it kind of made me smile, because weirdly at the first and last, I guess, corporate job I ever worked, this CEO of that company, literally started in the mailroom like I always thought that was such a fascinating story, that her first job at that business when she was hired was literally like sorting and delivering mail in the mailroom.
And then, you know, however many years later, like when I arrived on the scene, she was literally the CEO. And so how, yeah, you never know, I guess where someone could advance to and your business and what the potential is. And so anyways, I just wanted to throw out that little inspiring anecdote.
That's awesome. And it's true. I talk to a lot of business owners and I talk to a lot of people behind the scenes and I mean, for six years, I worked with Jennifer all within her business and I started off with that media kit like doing little piddly things doing Pinterest. It was important because it grew her business it grew her brand but I just kept taking on more on and more and you know, I don't know if you know, Sean Kennel I always say his name wrong but the YouTube guy I was talking to someone on on his team and she did the same thing. You know, started out just learning the ropes impressed him with her work ethic and her brain showed that she was not here just to collect a paycheck, and then rose up the ranks to an OPM.
And so that happens all the time. And it's okay to not have this, you know, high level job position that you are putting out there that you can really nurture someone inside your business.
100%. Yes. And sometimes like, just like, we don't know things about ourselves in this moment, as even in the leadership role as a CEO, oftentimes, you know, things are kind of made aware to us, as we're moving through the doing. And so I can see obviously, why that would translate to your team members as well.
And I wanted to circle back real quick to an earlier thing that I promised I would circle back on, which is your kind of delineation of all these different roles and names that we hear, especially in the online business space, I would say. So I'm just gonna read a few of these acronyms that I'm sure we've all heard, you know, just one way or the other VAs versus dma's versus OPM versus D O 's versus CMOS, like, wow, huge mouthful. It's like a whole other language. But you had said earlier, Emily, that you don't really love the all encompassing term of virtual assistant, which obviously is the one that VA stands for.
So talk us through each of these different ones. So like a VA as a virtual assistant, and DMA. What does that stand for?
Okay, so we have, you know, VA, which confused me when I first started because my clients were calling me that and coming from the military word. I'm like, veteran Virginia, like, what the heck is this? Veteran Affairs? Yeah, I was like, what is happening here? And so I think it's just important that you clarify the job title, and then that will help you figure out what are the outcomes that I want from this person and not be frankensteining some unrealistic role? Okay, so DMA marketing assistant, we're really seeing this term really grow like more people are becoming aware that marketing is its own thing they want someone who understands the algorithms might not have the strategic capability to set the plan and create the strategy but can implement the strategy so the student can come in in different ways.
And it's not just oh, my gosh, I'm hiring a tic toc specialist, I'm getting someone who can feed the different algorithms to do different things within marketing. So we also have one we didn't mention the executive assistant, this, this person is managing the calendar, the inbox, just making sure the C level person can do their best work and frees up time.
And so an executive assistant is a lot of what we think of I think people think of when they think of VA, but that's, that's also confusing there. One of the things that we hear a lot of is this whole OBM I think, I think that might be trademarked. But it's OBM is online business manager, you could also hear virtual business manager, digital business manager, I mean, this is acronym city here, but basically, this assistant, this implementer, this Doer grows up and starts managing the projects and managing the day to day in the business.
And so this person isn't always doing the work, but they're making sure key contractors have the things they need to hit the deadlines and move forward in the business. And so we can take that same manager idea and apply it to every department, we can apply it to the programs, you run in your business, like I now have a manager for my course, it's a 12 week course we're learning marketing services, I need a dedicated person to oversee all of the moving parts. And that's the same as a social media manager, you think about it, they're overseeing that and executing it.
And then we hear this term do Oh, Director of Operations, and that is even more higher level now we're really getting into the strategy of it, someone who can read the numbers and understand kind of that, that sea level. So it gets confusing, when a lot of times all we really needed was an admin assistant, or some kind of implementer within a certain department. So I like to like keep it simple, because it's very, it's a lot to take on, you know, when you're a new business owner.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's funny because me and some of my friends will joke that the online business niche in specific likes to make up our own language for things that in the corporate world or in like, other big types of businesses are, you know, for example, like the OBM, right? In a normal I could say, quote, unquote, normal as in like, not in this industry. I feel like an OBM would just be a project manager.
Like that's, like you walk into a construction site, you're like, who's the project manager, they know what that is. You go and you say, who's your, I guess it wouldn't be online, but your BM, like your business manager, they might not they'd be like, our office manager, like, you know, these are all different terms. And so Yeah, sometimes I think to your point we overcomplicate something, when really, it's just like what is the actual outcome that needs to be fulfilled and like, who is the right person to serve that role in our business?
DMA just to clarify digital marketing assistant that's like what you are known for, right? Who you train in your unicorn, digital marketing assistant school is like people who learn these different marketing skill sets and then can be employed by other businesses, primarily, I assume online businesses who need that extra marketing assistant support? Is that inaccurate?
I don't, yeah, thanks for leading me into that. So this whole marketing department, we think we can just do it all a lot of us are marketers when we started our business, are we, we might enjoy it. But then very quickly, it becomes very time consuming. I mean, we're supposed to be posting to all these social media platforms sending out, you know, our weekly nurture email and showing up on other platforms with signature content, and then we're supposed to be guesting on podcasts. And it's all these things that really can add up to that 10 hours a week you're talking about, where if we do get help, we can offload some of that. And your marketing assistant is the person who can be formatting pushing buttons, who can be, you know, content repurposing for you? Because that's not the work that you need to be spending your time on in your business.
Right, absolutely. And cmo that's like that last title that we didn't really touch on. I mean, this is more of a traditional role. You could go to a company like Disney and be like, who's your CMO, your chief marketing officer? And they're going to have one?
When do you feel that a small business graduates from just needing you know marketing assistant support or even a marketing manager to, let's say, manage a few specialists under them to truly needing a CMO or someone have that skill level of that caliber? Or to step into the business?
Ooh, great question. I think there's usual you know, revenue marks that we want to hit before we start bringing in the high level managers. So probably above, you know, 100k, in revenue, you're gonna start needing additional help, right. And then above 250, it's time to start thinking about, you know, that project manager, that online business manager and getting that help. Luckily, in the online space, we do this thing called fractional services. And we can kind of find ways to contract with people, but not bringing them in at that Disney employee level.
So we can get a brain in our business who can come in, set the strategy, set the goals, and then let other people implement it. So it really depends on where you're at. I know for me, in my business, I'm starting to drown in all of the marketing and I'm realizing right now I have a marketing assistant, I am going to need that marketing manager or a launch manager because that is what sucking up my time I like I'm spending too much time in Asana, assigning tasks to people, I'm like, okay, Emily, it's time-
Then following up on those tasks, right, and making sure they get done correctly.
Yeah, yeah. And that's what the manager person could do. So for the fractional CMO, I'm gonna say you're getting closer to 500,000. And you're a business where now you need that elevated messaging stamp that person who really understands where your business is going and can set the direction help you get there. That's, that's probably that level.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting, too, because, you know, I'm thinking as this relates to our business, and you know, that I'm very open about our business finances, we shared, shared it freely in our income reports for years now. And our business has made more than half a million for the last four years, right, four plus years. And, to this point, we've never had a like a senior marketing leader on our team, such as a CMO. And I, I do feel like it's a little bit maybe unique to my background, having like my professional background, being in marketing, and then even starting my business as a marketing agency.
So like, it's probably a little bit different than let's say, if you were, I don't know, if you were like a family therapist, starting a business and marketing is not your forte, it's not your zone of genius. So I recognize that there may be that factor at play. But I only say that because if you're listening to this podcast, I love bringing on experts like Emily because you can kind of give yourself some like guidelines, some frame of references for like what may be more of a average milestone for when you can start to consider some of these rules that you need to bring on but also just keeping in mind too that if you excel at marketing or if you genuinely enjoy it, you may not need that role just because you hit a certain milestone.
So anyways, I digress. I would love now to chat with you, Emily about finding good teammates because that's I mean, that's probably the hardest part right? We can know what we need help with and who we want to hire but then finding that actual person can be a whole other ballgame. So you have a little hot take that you don't love finding People from Upwork or from agencies tell us why and where do you recommend business owners go to look for this type of support instead?
Okay, I have to preface this and you know, everyone listening to the podcast is the same, there is a reason we left the cubicle, there is a reason we're doing our own thing. And so to attract top talent, and to not be in this place where you hire someone, bring someone on your team or contract with them, and you're just more miserable, because they can't deliver or, you know, whatever is going on, we need to be aware of this like Freelancer culture and what we can do.
So the reason I don't like agencies is because they are the middleman. Now they can help you get started, you're in a burning fire, you need help fast, you need someone trained, but the top talent is going to go off on their own, they're not going to be working for less letting someone else skim off of it. And I have seen that time and time again. And then I've heard of a lot of people disappointed with different agencies, I won't name names. Now the problem with Upwork and hiring, marketing, you know, what do we call this marketplaces is that we tend to get more of the project one off work.
And the point that a lot of our listeners are as we need ongoing, loyal people in our business, who are dedicated to us and treat our business like they're so we're looking for that intrapreneur to bring back Disney, we have Walt Disney in the face of Disney, we also have Roy Disney in the back end making everything happening. So we're all kind of secretly looking for Roy Disney, who doesn't want to be the face of the business, who has the brains who will grow up from that marketing mailroom with us. And that person could be on up work. But generally we're seeing lower rates, we're seeing more one off projects and people who don't really get it, we want someone on our team to take leadership to think about the next step to connect the dots.
So then the different departments and so that's why I when I talk to a lot of our peers and fellow business owners, they're not always happy with their VA, it seems like they kind of come in and just do the bare minimum and they don't really get it. So that's my little spiel about that.
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No, I love your your take on that. And I do have a question about getting team members more invested. But before I ask that I would love to hear your perspective on where you like to go and source. You know, these these types of assistants instead of Upwork and agencies.
Yeah, you know, it's even hard in my own marketing, because I'm like trying to appeal to the woman who is intrinsically motivated, right? Who has that follow through. So it's something I'm always kind of working through. But my favorite two places are one within your own community, you have people following you on social who already know your brand who are already passionate about what you do. That could be a pretty seamless transition if they have skills.
So start with your community, you know, send an email, do a social media posts, let your community do some of the work, we might want to talk about what that looks like to write the job description, share it not get inundated and maybe have a collection process. I mean, that's like a whole nother thing. But, you know, don't be afraid to post that to your community. But also speaking of you know, Roy Disney and this, you know, intrapreneur there's a whole secret network and underground network of people behind the scenes who don't have websites who aren't dancing on Tik Tok, who are looking for work. And I mean for six years I helped Jennifer allwood, you know, grow her email list to 80,000 make a million dollars. I didn't have a website. I was not the smartest freelancer. I was not like doing those things. I didn't need to and I didn't want to. I was happy doing the work and having the impact I had to her business.
So talk to your business friends, find out who's on their team because they're going to know people if they're not available, they'll know people and I think that's kind of a like a roundabout way of doing it. But you know, we're having These Voxer chats these top people are in masterminds, like we're passing around names and sharing who's good and who follows through.
Absolutely. And I mean, I mean, I can attest to both those things. Whenever someone's like, I need a digital marketing assistant, you're one of the first people, I refer people, and I'm like, go talk to Emily. And because you know, you literally train people on this all day long. So like you have such a great community you can pull from, but also some of my favorite hires, I will agree with, you have come directly from my own community, two of the coaches, for example, that we had in my mentorship program before we retired in 2022.
You know, they had been with us for, I think, three plus years, and they were people who had gone through our curriculum themselves, applied it successfully. And we're really then able to help support our incoming students from the perspective of both like, being trained under me in the actual methodology, but also being real business owners themselves, and applying what we were teaching to attract new clients in real time. So it was, you know, some of my favorite people I've worked with have been directly from my community. And so I really, really want to, you know, highlight that for our listeners.
And also the piece though about like being invested, right, like finding people who aren't just here for a project are here to do the bare minimum, this is a common struggle, I guess, that business owners have to face is, are we going to hire contractors? Or are we going to hire employees? And there is that kind of debate right over? Is an employee going to be more invested in your business, because they're working only on your team versus contractors who have multiple clients to juggle, but then maybe more specialist may have more ideas from working with multiple different classes. There's pros and cons, I think, and I, me personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here just kind of depends on a lot of different factors in your business, frankly, for our listeners, just so you know, for context, in my business, I have two full time employees.
So w2 earners, you know, the whole shebang, we've got benefits, 401 k, like all these things, you know, they're on payroll, it's a much bigger responsibility. And then we also have a few contractors that we work with on a very specialized lane or for a very specific scope. For you, Emily, having worked with so many different business owners, and now also running a very successful business yourself, What's your general take on contractors versus employees? Do you lean one way or the other? And why?
Oh, I love it. I love it. I think most of us are in that place, that starting place to bring on the contractors and start small, you know, because it takes time to grow that part of your business. And then as you're making more money, you will see people shifted to the employee zone, where a lot of people make mistakes is misclassifying, their contractor as an employee? Yes, you know, I mean, I feel like we have to talk about that, because a contractor has to show up with skills in your business, you do not train them, you give them a tour of your business, and you expect them to get to work contractor has a contract, you don't want to get in trouble with the IRS.
And you can't require them to be at weekly meetings, you can't require them when they have to work. There's all these little nuances to the contractor space. So if you do probably have, you know, that general need that you were talking about, it might make more sense to get an employee. But if you're seeing more specific carved out little buckets that you can pass on, I like to start smaller with contractors and test them out. But here's the thing, not everybody wants to become an employee, either. My friend Braden, a tax attorney, he just assumed every VA wanted a full time job. And I like no, a lot of us are wanting to work during school hours, like my business is part time.
Like, let's be real, I got four kids, I want to end five, you know, when does the bus get here 2:30 Way too soon. But you know, there's so many little nuances here is there's no right or wrong. But what I don't want people to do is run out and feel like they immediately have to get employed and overextend themselves and not have the budget. All the things you talked about benefits 401 K's like figuring that out. Like we might not be at that level yet. And that's okay.
Yes, 100%. And as further assurance of what Emily is saying, I did not start out with a full time employee out the gate, I would not have been ready for that. I made my first full time hire in the summer of 2018. But prior to her becoming full time, I had hired her literally for one project. It was like a tiny little project. And we worked well together in that capacity. And I was like, Oh, would you like to expand your role a little bit and I can train you on managing some of our client accounts.
Again, at this time, we were still a Social Media Marketing Agency. And then you know, that grew and grew and then you know, started ticking on different other things under her scope and then kind of came to a point where I was like, Look, you can continue to doing you know what you're doing in a contractor position or if you want to join me as a full time employee. I would love to Have you and then, you know, that ended up being the right choice for both of us at that moment in time. And so, yeah, I definitely agree with the fact that you do not have to be 100% and gung ho out the gate, because it is a huge responsibility.
There's like, a whole other slew of things that come with employment law, and so much paperwork like I was not prepared. I did not realize, I think, in stepping into that process, and so I always, you know, love to provide that extra, you know, just just be aware of all the things like you said that come with, with having employees, although I-
Ellen, I'm curious, though, who was the first person you brought in? Like, what were the first contractors and I know, you did an agency and I did an agency at first. But like, what, who were the first people you brought in to help you out?
So my very first hire contractor or employee was page shout out Paige. She was also page also actually eventually became our first Podcast Producer, before Sabrina took over a number of years ago. But Paige was that person that was describing who I hired for a very specific project, I was running an influencer marketing campaign for a university bookstore. And I needed help on the data side, like putting pulling together the reports, because we had like 11 or 12 creators that we were managing under this campaign. And you know, she did an excellent job.
So I started assigning her different social media client accounts, you know, she started working on like, the captions, hashtag research, actually scheduling the posts out. And then in that summer, when, when she became a full time employee, she really took on that podcast production role. And also, a lot of our social media content was created and managed by her. And then it's funny, you know, again, how much things can change and how fluid you really have to be in the team space, because Paige was a full time employee with me for, it's kind of hard to remember now, because this was back like 2018 2020, I think, I think maybe almost two years.
And then she actually decided to step out on her own. And she's really, really talented and really passionate about wellness for women. So she decided to step out as like a coach, a health coach for women. And I loved working with her, she loved working with me. And so then she transitioned back into a contractor role as a coach for that program that we have since retired. So at this point in time, she no longer works in my business, because that program no longer exists in my business. But, you know, from 2019, through end of 2022, she had some sort of role in the business.
And that's just the evolution of one person. And over the past five years since I first started hiring help. We've employed I think, five, maybe five employees at one point or another, and also have actually, it might be six, five, or six, and then dozens of contractors, honestly, that we've worked with throughout the years.
Yeah, the contractors can really come in and augment what you have going on when you're at that level. For me, that first person I brought in, because I was doing the agency thing, too. Yep. I at the point where I was doing most of the client work, I brought in a bookkeeper. Because for me, I had this awareness of one day a month, I hated my life, as much as I love numbers. I love getting money, I would be up till one or 2am sorting the invoices. Now I'm older, and I didn't have honey book. And you know, I could have done things smarter, but I was like, 2017, I'm like, I hate this. I'm spending so much time and this isn't billable hours.
So that's when I kind of created this awareness like wow, I need help. And it's not that I can't do it. It also was something I was I just found myself kind of dreading and it took a lot of time away. So I got a bookkeeper. And then I did have, you know, women working with me and my agency, we were doing a lot of content marketing, Pinterest, SEO blogging, not that really that much social, but having that help with the clients was important because we got it systematic where I could just kind of come in and get my stamp on it, but they could do a lot of the legwork.
Yeah, honestly, I could not emphatically agree more that one of my best hires early in my business was a finance team. I was one of those people I didn't even I am so afraid of Miss stepping in the tax department because I'm like such a rule follower when it comes to taxes that I was like, I cannot even bear the pressure of trying to do my own books because like what if I accidentally miss categorize something or miss something like an important tax form, whatever it may be, so yeah, basically 2018 I was a true Freelancer in the sense that even under like a tax classification, I was filing my taxes as a sole proprietor.
And that's another point. This is a whole other tangent. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on but just so people are aware, I think a common misnomer is that if you have an LLC, then you are somehow filing your taxes. as some sort of different classification, you're not an LLC is just a legal entity, all of the money still passes through to you as a sole proprietor unless you are filing taxes like as an S corp, or, as a C corporate, like your business structure from a tax classification is actually different. So these days, we, I mean, we've been an S corp since 2019. But in 2018, that was the only year that I did not have like a bookkeeper and an accountant on retainer through the whole year.
And even though it like my invoices were very few that I had to manage that year, I was still so stressed out, honestly. I love that help from like, I'm so glad I don't ever have to manage my books. It's just about for me, it's like I love looking at the numbers, the end of month reports with my finance team, but it's like from an analytical like strategy side of like, how can we optimize? Not like, oh, how do I reconcile this transaction with my bank, you know what I'm saying?
It's so easy to get stuck in those weeds. And I mean, that's really why we're talking here. Today, I'm thinking about my business here, like I have managed podcast, and then it comes to my own podcast, and I'm gonna sound like such a diva that I don't want to do it. I don't want to write my show notes. And I mean, there's amazing tools to help it go faster. So my marketing assistant, Shannon, who actually graduated from my program, just like makes it so all I have to do is show up and be the talent. I don't have to worry about what wonky thing is LinkedIn and Apple podcasts doing right now. Like, I don't need to spend my time on that. And what else does Shannon do, she helps me with blogging and getting making sure my SEO game is really good.
So we're, you know, showing up every day on like page one, she's repurposing content. Because there after being in business for four years, there's so much out there that I don't even need to be the content department as much anymore. I mean, I know our messaging is refining. But I just had a launch in the fall. And I was going through some things personally, and I couldn't quite show up and social like I did the last launch. And she was just able to go pluck things out because I don't have a full time Social Media Manager, right, and just augment what we already had in and just stay aligned.
And I think that was the beautiful thing about having a marketing assistant who gets it, who knows what I'm trying to do is trying to collect testimonials trying to gather, you know, Voice of Customer Data, trying to create leads all at the same time. She's not just like posting and, you know, forgetting so, so much time is freed up just because I have Shannon in my life and I can do the work, I'm very capable of doing it. I also don't want to anymore.
And that discernment right? Is everything. That's the wisdom of running a business for many years is knowing where you can absolutely shine and add more impact to your business and where you could but shouldn't honestly be. And so I really appreciate your honesty around that too. And I'm glad you actually started listing out some of these specific tasks that Shannon plays in your business because it kind of flows perfectly with what I wanted to ask you around.
What are some of the specific tasks that a digital marketing assistant can do for anyone who's listening? Since that's your specialty, and that's who you train up into other people's businesses? Can you just kind of walk us through some of the most common tasks that you see dma's takeover?
Yeah, okay, I don't, I don't know where to start here. But I'm gonna paint a picture with email marketing, because we all know, you know, that's an asset we own and we need to be developing and right, we don't realize how much time is sucking up. So for email marketing, you know that you can spend two hours formatting it, you can be figuring out your link chiggers. And then you can hit send, and then you move on to the next thing, and you kind of forget it. But a good digital marketing assistant is going to set you up on a schedule, get things done ahead of time, so they're not harried and you're not making mistakes, because that's when all of our worst like, subject lines go out, right?
Like something was like kind of thrown together, they're going to track and you kind of mentioned this to the reports, you're gathering in your agency, they're going to track and report it, and then give you those numbers back. If it's not weekly, it's the end of the month. So you're getting the high level look at what's actually happening in your business. So you're really getting to a new elevated place. Like we start off, you know, in that startup phase, doing things really messy, like we both did, but now we're ready to really hone in on what's working in our business and refine it and make sure it's repeatable and it's smooth sailing with no mistakes.
So email can easily be two hours, maybe another hour with, you know, all the reporting and tracking when somebody is in your email, and they were really understanding your segments and your audiences and they're like tracking like who clicked the sales page. Like you don't have to hold those tabs open. You could just say, alright, we are going to do a last minute email. Sorry, not sorry. And this is who you're sending it to, and you don't have to worry about it right now. and that person can then start to understand your automations. And, you know, really go over audit your funnel, see what's working report, if we're not all paying for analytics right now, and there are software out there that can do that. But like, that's really expensive.
So someone who has an eye on your automations, who's making sure of you know what that's going to your old master class, you should probably change that. You want that forward thinking person. So blogging and SEO. I mean, we're seeing a big comeback with that with AI. I love AI. But I don't have time to be running through that. And I just want to someone to take my podcast that I did this one with you grab the transcript, have a field day with making content for it. And I just, I've already shown up and done the talent.
Another thing that we don't think about is all the stuff that sets up the marketing machine, you know, we're supposed to be gathering, that voc, that voice of customer data. And there's all these like little places it is that marketing assistant will set you up to work with your specialist. And then you can just hand it over, like you hire Sofia to come in and write your sales page. And you can say severe, here's all of our voc. And, you know, here's what they're saying in the DMS. Here's what they're replying back in emails, this is what they're saying, you know, on our surveys, and you can just have it very organized and easy.
And from there, your marketing machine builds, because what do we need, we need social proof, we need testimonials. We need someone who gets that, and who can set us up because you and I don't have time to go record anything ever, but with a past client, and then chop up the video and do all of the things that we know will elevate our marketing. And there's so much within that to like comparing to our competitors. Like all of that analysis that could be happening. A smart marketer could assist with affiliates. I did that a lot with Jennifer allwood. I started creating content for her that she was getting paid for clicks, she wasn't involved at all.
So now I'm making money for her. And I'm able to help her show up across different platforms with content that she had no time to do. Community Management is a big one. I know I'm like I'm going rapid fire but community management, having somebody in there who understands that office and that marketing, and can really nurture the people in there, but extract the testimonials at the same time. That's a big one. That's usually one of the first roles people need help with. They have a free Facebook group, they have a paid group, and they need someone to just manage making sure the events, people are getting the emails, the advent calendar is up. You know, I talked about affiliates, and then it kind of opens the door to pitching for podcasts like you can have your DMA set you up for that. So all you have to do is hit send on some of the pitches.
If you're really organized and systematic about it. Your marketing assistant can really take over so much that you were holding space for before.
Yeah, absolutely. Super insightful. Thank you for that quick kind of rundown of like all these possible ways that a digital marketing assistant could help someone in their business. I hope for those of you listening that gives you some fresh ideas for oh, I didn't even think that was a place that I could maybe outsource right now.
So to wrap up our time, Emily, I could talk to you all day because like, topic of hiring is such a broad and expansive subject, right. So we really could be here all day. But to wrap up our time, I feel like an important thing we haven't really discussed. Yeah, is is pay and budget and thinking through right the finances of can I afford to hire help?
What does that look like? What is reasonable and ethical and realistic? Right. So give us your thoughts on a budget like what what are the typical market averages you're seeing for different types of work? And then maybe also like, Do you have any sort of approach or perspective on pay in terms of maybe incentivized reward? base pay or or you know, raises or anything of that of that ilk?
Okay, yeah, this is a fun topic. And this is everyone's question, because we're scared. We don't want the surprise invoice at the end of the month, and to be blowing out our budget. So if you're getting an implementer in your business, somebody who's really like doing the work, not setting the strategy, not necessarily managing, they're going to be about 20 to $30 an hour. I mean, keeping in mind that top talent is going to go up from there, that might be someone who's a little bit newer, right? And that's okay, that's okay, if they're coming to the table with skills above 35, let's say 40 $45. An hour above that, we're starting to get more into the managers who really understand the outcome that you want and can help you lead lead you to that, you know, that final output that you're looking for.
So managers are the good ones are starting at 45. And then you're gonna start to see OBM 6575 $100 an hour. There's this whole field of creative specialist. Some of them might be hourly, you might be able to get a tech person in your business helping you set up some funnels, they might just do hourly. because it's easier, and they could be anywhere between 50 and $100 an hour, but they might be also quoting in projects. And so we start to see that a little bit more. And you don't have to be as worried I think hourly is a little stressful for us, because we don't really know what the outcome is. And it discourages efficiency.
And so I think you just have to have a little level of trust with the person you're hiring, that they're going to do the job. And I'm going to bring it back to like, what is the outcome you want, you know, if you have someone in your inbox, tell them you know, I expect 24 hour responses 48 hour responses inbox zero by Friday, you know, think in terms of that.
So you can set them up for success. There's that and then you could also find contractors to work with you within a day, which is really fun. There's a lot of people doing these VIP days, where you can get through a punch list, get through it fast, because a lot of people are expecting fast turnaround times high quality, like you want to get all of that all at once. So VIP day could do that for you. Okay, I'm now I'm trying to remember what your other question was helped me?
Oh, no, that was really great. Excellent, by the way. And I also do want to add in a note here, I'm assuming and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm assuming all of these kind of like market averages are based on hiring contractors, I do feel that employees are a slightly different conversation. And what I would just impart on any of our listeners, if you're thinking about hiring employees is it's not a direct translation of I think our for our dollar per dollar.
Because with contractors, keep in mind that you are not responsible for any of their taxes, any of their business operations is just like, here's your like, let's say, here's your $25 an hour, and then they have to manage those funds. Whereas with employees, you are sharing a significant portion of their payroll taxes, you're likely paying into benefits, you're likely paying into retirement, and there's many other you know, paid leave vacation, all that keep in mind, those are things you should factor into what is the overall compensation that your business can support in hiring an employee specifically, but.
Yeah, no, I'm glad you said that, because employees will be less expensive. On an hourly rate contractors will charge more because they're paying for all those things out of pocket. And so I think I'm glad you brought that up, because people are surprised by that. But they're saving you money, because you're not committing to 40 hours a week with them. Yes, you're getting them in. And there's a lot of, you know, very smart moms like me, who might only want to work five or 10 hours a week, you know, and be available. And that's the sweet spot that's finding your unicorn, someone who can be passionate about your business and meet you where you are and what you need.
What you don't want to do is give somebody this blanket, like go to town, do whatever you want, you know, you communicate your budget and what you have. Now, a contractor sets their own rates, you know, they tell you how you should pay them, they will take that lead, but you can give them constrictions, yeah, like, what is that for you? And that's up to you to look at your finances and know and it's okay to say, for now it's this and I'd like to grow as my business grows, and nothing wrong with that.
100%. Yes. And I love the flexibility of that when it comes to working with contractors that you can expand scope over time. So like we said at the very beginning, start small and you can you can evolve with someone. The other question I had the second piece of that question, Emily was just what's your take on performance based incentives for either contractors or employees? Like, do you have a general approach that you teach people around raises at certain times or giving people bonuses for certain scenarios? Any thoughts on that?
Yeah. And I'll say first, it's not always about money. For a lot of us, a lot of us freelancers, we're here. We love to be a part of a team, we love to have this new professional identity, creative expression, there are ways to reward people outside of money. I love being on a team again. Yeah, going on the team retreats, like my clients send me a box of pizza and my husband deploys like little things like that go a long way. If you do want to keep your talent, you do want to be expecting to reward them and compensate them fiscally to when I'm involved in a launch guide. I sound like a diva. I do expect a launch bonus.
You know if I'm critical part of your success, and I see you making money. And I'm bringing ideas to the table like those bonuses are very, very important, right from my buy in and for keeping up the culture of the team. There are options too, when it comes to profit sharing, you'll see launch managers do that, you know, they might come in and be like, well, I'll take 10% of this revenue for managing that. And you can see how that works because it's hard to quantify what goes into a lunch and sometimes, you know, bidding something hourly. If someone's not an employee that makes sense. I'm actually coming to this. I'll call it problem with a couple of my original market He assistants who now have been in seven figure businesses for a while.
And they are more of a factor and they do want some more compensation. So we're talking about ways to do royalties, or affiliates, and profit sharing when it comes to them creating new new products for their client. And it's kind of a sticky little situation. I feel like I'm opening Pandora's box that perfectly the contractor owns the copyright and less that specified Yeah, and so you want to have this conversation, and make sure everyone's on the happy path. And people who have a good work ethic and are really motivated, they're just, they're just gonna love being appreciated like that.
Yeah, that's a really actually excellent disclaimer to make people more aware of is this idea, you really got to look at your contracts, right. And it's so helpful to get legal support in this area. But like, like, to your point, a lot of times when people are signing on as employees, anything they create, during their time with the company is a work for hire, meaning the company owns that work, right. Whereas to your point, as a contractor, sometimes that's not always the case.
And so great point to make people aware of, again, like I said, a moment before, I feel like we could deep dive into that, just that topic for an hour. But Emily, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing your experience both working in someone else's business, but also training up other people who have worked in other people's businesses. I feel like you bring a really unique perspective to this conversation.
Where can our listeners continue to connect with you? Or if they are like, Emily, I need your help. I need some help with my business. How can they connect with you so that you can connect them to the right assistance?
Oh, and thank you so much for having me. This is a fun conversation. And we're just like skimming like the tip of the iceberg here. So first of all, if you're like, yes, I need support. I need somebody who's really marketing savvy and who can come in and take charge. If you go to hireaunicorn.com I will share your job opening with my membership, it's called the digital marketers workgroup. We have all kinds of virtual assistants, marketing assistance specialist and beyond launch managers and they're and you're getting just a good, a good, reliable, honest person.
When you come to my community. We're very supportive of each other. And if you're listening to this, and you're thinking like oh my gosh, like I actually love the tech in my business and I love doing this for my business. Like maybe it's time to start offering this service. I can teach those services in my unicorn, digital marketing assistant school, help you set up your business but also help you you know, get hooked up with clients and keep advancing inside our workgroup too. So you can check that out just find me on Instagram, you'll get all my links. I'm at Emily Reagan PR.
Awesome. Those links by the way will all be below in the show notes. So scroll down click say hi, send Emily a DM today to start that conversation. And thank you all for joining us. We will catch you in the next episode.
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