Tips For Copywriting In Your Creative Business

Welcome back to the She's Crafted to Thrive show. I am so excited that you're here to tune in to another amazing conversation with an amazing woman. The woman that we're having on the show today is Emily. She is a copywriter and a designer, website designer, and her company is called Buoyant Marketing. She is a fellow chronic illness warrior, a mom, a wife, and doing amazing things in her life, in her business. What I love about this conversation is that we really jump into her story of starting a business and kind of falling into entrepreneurship and how her chronic illness has shaped the things that she's done and the fear she's experienced and the different things that she's come to learn about herself. And I think it's really great to hear these affirming words that we hear from other women who have gone through some of the things that we have dealt with, whether life hurdles or chronic illness. And she's sharing some amazing copywriting tips, so stay tuned. Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host Nikita Williams, and this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone, you're discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey. And on this podcast, you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business that thrives. I'm so excited to have Miss Emily on. Um, as I mentioned in the intro, she is a copywriter and amazing. Um, I had like a little conversation with her when I initially met her and I can't even remember, I think it was on Instagram and you said something about life hurdles and it just like shattered my brain. I was so impressed. I was like, yeah, I've been trying to think of how to say challenges and things with life and she's like life hurdles. I'm like, I'm using that for the rest of my life. So welcome to the show. Hello.

Thanks for having me on. I am, yeah, life hurdles. For sure. There was one time, and keep in mind, I am like all of 5'4 3/4, and I tried hurdles once and it didn't turn out pretty. So the idea of having health hurdles, life hurdles, it all is very personal to me. I had gravel in my hands. That was not fun. So that's my analogy for any time you run into something that is a little bit tough to handle.

Yeah, I loved it. I feel like, so I have a love for copywriters or just people who love to to write because I do not love to write. If anybody listens to the very first episode I did, one of the main reasons why I started a podcast was so that I did not have to write. It was like, oh great, I can create content on a blog-ish without really having to write anything and it's just going to be here. And so whenever I meet people who are, you know, really great at what they do. I just was reading your website. I love how quirky and fun you are, but you're telling a story.

You're just really good at what you do.

And I'm like, man, that's why there's writers and that's why there's talkers.

It's true. It's true. I think that with any skill though, you can always develop it, but there's definitely like a natural feeling like I am just, you know, I'm naturally inclined toward writing and I love it and especially when it comes to that quirky, creative, lots of puns type of writing. That's my jam. I rarely, rarely work with people who are buttoned up and serious. And I mean, why would I? They don't, they don't want to look at me for writing because that's not their style. And I don't want to work with people who are buttoned up and serious. So it's a big win. And I love working with the clients I do have because they, they seek me out for the style.

That's awesome. So speaking about that, tell us how you started this journey. Like what brought you to copywriting? Why do you do it? We want to hear. Okay.

So I think like any entrepreneur probably can relate, but when it comes to entrepreneurship and small business ownership and all of that jazz, it's never a linear path. We always have a really messy squiggly journey and mine actually started where I was working a corporate job in higher education and I was making all the things, right? So I loved being a maker. I'm always doing something with my hands, making jewelry and painting and crocheting and all sorts of fun stuff. So I would literally wear some of the jewelry that I had made out of glass in my kiln. I know this sounds nothing like copywriting, but it will make sense, I promise. Okay, so at that time I was doing a lot of training and I was doing a lot of customer service and all sorts of fun things in the education space. But I kept having people come to my, my desk, and I was at the front desk, so people would come to me and ask for quest— ask questions, ask for advice, ask for financial aid stuff, and then they would literally buy my jewelry off of me. So I got into entrepreneurship kind of on accident. I never thought of myself as like I'm totally going to be a business owner. It was more an accident. I would have people say, where did you get that necklace? Where did you get those earrings? And I would say, oh, well, I made them. They're like, oh, well, can I have that? How much would you want for it? And it was the weirdest feeling, but it ended up being a really big first step into the entrepreneurial journey. But because I have some health hurdles, a couple of years after I had actually launched my business, went full time, all of the fun learning stuff, um, as a glass artist. That was my first big thing. A couple years after that, my health started changing and I couldn't physically manage the production work that needed to happen with that. So because of that, I looked at all the things that were happening in that journey of entrepreneurship and I said, what is it that I love, love, love to do and how can I serve others in a way that also works with my health? And it came down to copywriting and web design. So I love writing, and I even have a funnier story about how I got into writing for an ad agency, and it has a lot to do with my minivan I was trying to sell on Facebook Marketplace. Crazy stories I have. I have all sorts of fun ones. Long story short, I realized that copywriting was totally the thing that I love to do, and that's what I really like to do during those times when I felt kind of crummy and I couldn't do the physical glasswork, I was always spending time learning about social media marketing, learning about blogging, learning about how to write the most effective sales page and how to write product descriptions. So because I spent all of my downtime learning about that stuff and doing it for my own business, I was like, I can help other people with that too. And I made a transition and Now officially that's what I do now, and the glasswork is just a hobby.

Hmm, wow. So you— glasswork— when you say glasswork, you mean like, uh, like stained glass or like jewelry glass? What do you mean?

So basically there's a couple different ways to look at glasswork. Um, you— a lot of people ask, is it blown glass, like where you have a long rod and you blow into it and you have molten glass? Or is it like stained glass where you cut it and piece it together? And I like to say it's somewhere in the middle. Fusing glass is done in a kiln, but it— so it heats the glass up to sometimes 1,500 degrees, so it's extremely hot, but it's all contained, so you don't ever pull anything out while it's super hot like that. But you do have to cut pieces before you put it in and set it kind of like a crock pot. I think it's funny to say that because it's really technical. I'm like, oh, my kiln was just like a little crock pot, and I just put the glass in there and poof, it was done. But it's extremely technical work and yes, very sharp. It requires a lot of physical strength to pick up the giant sheets of glass and cut them down and a lot of dexterity to work on the itty-bitty details.

Gotcha.

I did a lot of screen printing on glass, so I burned my screens and I did screen printing and I did a lot of work for corporate client gifts. So I would make 50 or more plates at a time that were commemorative of an event or that kind of stuff. So I did a lot of things from giant corporate gifts to small necklaces, one-off, especially ones that, um, actually enclosed the cremains, which is like the ashes from after somebody had passed away and they were cremated. I would make special necklaces with the cremains inside as a memorial piece. So I did a lot of Wow, wow, that's so fascinating.

I'm always fascinated about all the different things like people, like how they do what they did or do what they still do. It's just really cool. So I can understand why you were saying like physically that sounds like, like a lot of physical work. So what you were saying, you were dealing with a lot of health hurdles, like what kind of things were you, if you feel comfortable talking about? Like, what kind of things were you— like, shifted you? Because everybody knows that listens to the show, I— that's basically how I started my business. It's like, I can't be a real estate agent and be on time telling people when and how and all this other stuff because I might be in the bathroom, or I might be on the floor in pain. So that's not fair to my clients. So what, what did that look like for you?

Sure. So at that time when I made the shift, so it was— I officially stopped doing my glasswork. I slowed it down a little bit. And then I officially stopped at the end of 2018, but I had started copywriting at the end of 2017. So I gave myself a 1-year overlap.

Mm-hmm.

But at that time I was not even diagnosed officially with the condition I have. So it was a big confusion point of what's really going on with me. I have all of these symptoms that seem to be getting worse and it's all confusing. And I would deal with anything from chronic pain to migraines to extreme amounts of fatigue, there were points where I lost a lot of manual dexterity, so my fingertips would get really numb and I couldn't physically do the intricate details of the glasswork and wire wrapping of jewelry. And it started to get really confusing for me, and I knew that something had to change, but I didn't know what. And it was really, really hard to let go of my baby, you know, my first business that I was so proud of. And honestly, it gave me so much creative freedom. And inspiration. And so to let go of something like that because of my health, that was a really big struggle for me. But fast forward a little bit, in January of 2019, which is a full year after— wait, was it a full year? Yeah, a full year after I started copywriting, but shortly after I quit glassmaking, I actually was diagnosed officially with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. In the hypermobility category. So what that means is Ehlers-Danlos is a big condition. I call it an umbrella condition for a multitude of types where we typically have hypermobility things. So our tendons, our ligaments, our tissue, our skin, everything like that is a little bit stretchier than normal, and it affects just about everything in your body, including your digestive system, including your joints. All of that, and it has to do with faulty collagen of all things. Unfortunately, it's not something that I can just ingest collagen and make it better. It's just a genetic thing that it's like, sorry, you just don't create collagen the way that everybody else does. So what I end up doing, or what I end up dealing with is a lot of joint, I don't wanna say dislocation because a lot of people get that idea wrong, Partial dislocation is called subluxation. It's where things kind of fall out of place a little bit, or, you know, when you're walking or you're sleeping, things kind of go a little off, or, you know, your vertebrae in your back kind of spin, and it's very painful, to say the least. But you deal—

I'm cringing with every word you are saying. I know.

Oh my gosh. It's tough, but the I think honestly what's tougher is not having a name for it.

Hmm, yeah.

It took me 13 years to get diagnosed with this, and it's not because it's a rare condition. It's just a rarely diagnosed condition. I think there's a very big difference there. Yeah, it's because some of the things that you deal with are so common for people. You go to the doctor and say, "Oh, I get headaches a lot." They're gonna say, Okay, well, let's think, you know, maybe you're not hydrated, right? Stress, maybe you don't sleep enough, maybe you're eating things that are bothering you. They think of the common things. They're not going to think of the most significant rare disease that they've thought of in medicine, right? It's just not the case. So it took a long time to get diagnosed, but now that I have a diagnosis, I feel so much more empowered to care for my own body. And help advocate for others?

Yeah, I, yeah, never heard of it. Never heard of it. But that's not uncommon. I find like a lot of women haven't heard of a lot of different things when they're diagnosed with things. I mean, back in 2009 when I was diagnosed with endometriosis, I had never heard that word ever. Really? And I asked people, What is it? And they're like, I don't know what that is. I never heard it either. And I'm like, what? So I can only imagine just having to, you know, cope with that. And I know for me, I always tell people that it's kind of like, um, it's like a grieving process. It's, it's weird because you're like, yeah, I'm young or I'm relatively young and I can do all these things. Or I used to be able to do all these things and now I, I can't. And I had this dream or this goal of doing something. And when you don't have a diagnosis, you don't really know how to treat it. So you're trying all these different things and all the things. I had a reconstruction of my knee. Ouch. In 2016. Yeah. Ouch. So anytime anybody says anything about bones or cartilage, like, I literally feel it within me. So while you're talking, I'm just like, oh, I feel you how that hurts. I feel you. So how have you been able to cope and like how, how, you know, deal with what's going on with, with, with that and run a business and be a mom, be married and all that jazz?

Well, so one of the first things, I think it's actually easier knowing. I think there's some relief in knowing what's going on. What's really, really hard is not knowing what you have and constantly coming up across healthcare providers, family members, work colleagues, people that literally they don't see that you have a chronic health condition. You know on your inside, in the deepest of your soul, that something's wrong, but you have no name for it. So people don't believe you.

Yeah.

And then it starts to take a toll on you and you start to almost believe, is there something wrong?

Or am I crazy?

It's actually all in my head like they might say it is. And that is such a detrimental piece of it. So when you do actually have a diagnosis for something, it makes things so much easier. But you are absolutely right, when you do have a diagnosis, then it's a, oh, oh shoot, this means that there's literally— there's no pill, there's no surgery, there's literally no cure-all easy button that you can press that's going to fix it. And I think similar with mine is similar to endometriosis where it's like, oh yeah, there's— this just keeps going and going and going and there's no rhyme or reason as to why things might get better or worse because it's an ebb and flow kind of a health thing. And there's no one surgery that's gonna cure it and there's no one medication that'll cure it.

Or one vegetable or one fruit or anything. I guess just what it is.

You can try and try and try to optimize everything in your life and control it if you're, you know, if you're kind of a perfectionist control freak. I mean, I'm not speaking to myself directly, but maybe I am. I am a recovering perfectionist. I will be honest and there's a lot of tendency I think inside of us to try to control everything we can with our knowledge that we have. So a lot of people in my community in the community that have Ehlers-Danlos will say, okay, there's no cure, we got that, I understand it, good, but maybe I can optimize what I'm eating. Maybe I can eat just the right amount of things, take just the right amount of supplements, take the right probiotics, take the right whatever, and that's gonna make my life so much better. But I think there's some flaws in that thinking too, in that I think that that's trying to control something that's not inherently very controllable. I think going with the flow is honestly a much better practice, and just evaluating. If something doesn't feel good, don't do it. If something doesn't digest well, don't eat it. If, if you know that you want to pursue something and it's worth a little bit of pain and fatigue, try it. It's okay to try it. Don't hold yourself back just because you're afraid, but also know that there might be consequences, and it's okay to have good days and bad days. We can't optimize everything in our life, but we can try our best to live as normally as we can. But hey, we're not normal, we're super normal.

I love it!

We're super extra. I call myself Mrs. Incredible or Alaska Girl because she has stretchy arms and legs, and I'm like, well, that's perfect with my collagen deficiency. I'm extra stretchy, so I'll just call myself a super.

I love it. I love how you've turned that upside down in a sense, just being positive and looking at it in a different way. How has, has living with this helped you in your business? Like be more like, think about things differently, like how you communicate, how you write for your clients or even for your own kind of things?

In some ways. Yeah. So I feel like that's, that's a tough one because in some ways it has helped me identify who I really want to help. And it has helped me understand how I want to serve others. And honestly, it gives me a lot more depth to that. So what I, what I mean by all of this is that yes, I could offer copywriting services. Yes, I could pitch these corporate clients with like 5,000 employees and multiple millions of dollars in annual revenue. Yay. But that has no meaning to me, if that makes sense. It really doesn't feel connected. And I, as an Enneagram 4 or Enneagram 3, depending on the day, really want to feel connected to my clients. So when it comes to that, I can hear their story and I connect with it so deeply, and then I help them figure out how to share that. And part of what I do as well in the content marketing strategy side of things is I help them figure out how to tell their story and how to plan their content and write the content in batches so that when they are feeling really crummy, they can basically pull from their content vault. Right. I really love working with people who have life hurdles. Like, I don't seek out perfectionists that have like literally all of their life in complete order and everything is perfect. I seek the people who struggle with certain things. Maybe they're just a super, super busy mom who has like all the things going on and just has only 1 hour to spare during the day to work on their business. That's cool. I also love serving other creative and chronically ill entrepreneurs because first of all, they get me and I get them in a totally different way. So I love serving that clientele because I can help them prepare their content to use when they don't feel so great. It can be scheduled out and they can write when they feel well and schedule it and pull from things when they don't feel well and their business will still run kind of in the background when they can rest. So I feel super connected to that mission of helping serve others who are just plain old exhausted. Yeah.

And there's a lot of us, whether you have a chronic illness or you just have life. Craziness. Honest life. Exactly. We all are, we all feel that. So I want to delve a little bit into like what you do because I feel like copywriting is such a huge part of any business that we, I don't think I even like when I started my businesses back in the day really thought about it. There's so much psychology behind it. There's so much research that goes into it. So it's like, how does one start to create a copywriting strategy that works for the stories that they want to tell for their business? Like, how do you start that?

How do you even start? Okay, so this is, this is really, uh, how do you even start? First of all, give yourself permission to screw up. That's first, first rule of everything is give yourself permission to try something and it might not work, and that's okay. Try again, see what worked, see what didn't. Okay, so that's base level foundation. But when it comes down to copywriting, it's all about bridging a communication gap between you and your dream client. That's it. It does not have to be more complicated than that, but that is the foundation of it. So you want to basically be talking to that person you are dying to work for, or dying to work with, depending on what your context is. And it can be so simple as just literally sitting back and just listening, soaking in what are people saying? What are those people that I want to work with? What are they saying? What are they talking about? What things are they struggling with? How do they serve their clients? What's meaningful to them? How do they like to receive love? People like to talk about love languages. People like to talk about Enneagram types. And then from a design perspective, because I do web design as well, think about like, what are they showing on their Instagram feeds? Are they on Facebook? And what are they doing on Facebook? What, like, What are they showing in terms of colors and vibes? Because people might feel very cool and calm and collected, or they might be bold and buoyant like me and bright and energetic. And what kind of feelings are they giving off? You need to kind of sit back and observe before you start to write because you don't want to come from a totally different angle and you're just not going to connect. Right.

So when you say listen, And because we're going to break this down a minute because I feel like when you say listen, what do you mean? Do you mean like go stalk people or do you mean like, do you mean like go into Facebook groups and be like, oh, let me see what this person I would love to have a client is talking about or let me check out their IG stories or what are we talking about?

So basically all of the above and a little bit more. So I always like to look when I'm doing some research for one of my clients, I always like to look at who are they wanting to work with, right? And it's always going to be a combination of like 3 to 5 people, never just one, because I know, I know, I know copywriters will say solve one problem for one client with one offer. That's a very common thing you'll hear among a lot of copywriters. But for me, I always work with the average of like 3 to 5 people of who their dream client is because it makes it a little bit easier to understand who they really want to target. And that person is actually, um, I don't want to say it in a weird way, but multipliable.

Yeah, because it makes it—

vulnerable people. But there's— you're always going to find more people that are similar to that, that particular dream client. So if you have just one person, you might be picking out their unique nuances rather than some similarities between multiple people that you would love to all work— you'd all love to work with, right? So if that means going onto their Instagram and seeing what they talk about, and that's in the posts and their stories, going— if they have a YouTube channel, check out their YouTube channel. If they have Facebook and they're in groups, search for them. What are they asking questions about and how can you serve them there? Now it doesn't mean stalk them in like a literally sending them snail mail and stuff, but like, it just means pay attention to them. If you have people that you would love to work with, pay attention to them. And then once you do pay attention to them, it's totally okay to actually follow them and try to cultivate a relationship. Don't be a weirdo, but like, it's okay to try to make friends too. And your friends can be your clients and vice versa. It's not weird to do that at all, especially in industry of like us where we have, you know, creative connections, it's totally fine to like want to become friends with and want to become clients, you know, client-service provider relationship with. That's all normal. But don't just like stalk people and be their friend just for that.

Don't be weird.

Oh, just don't.

Just say that. Just don't be weird.

Also, here's another fun thing that you'd want to do on a slightly different note is when you're doing your research and you're essentially data mining, but for a lot of us creatives, we look at it in a little bit more of a qualitative sense. Like, what are they talking about? And what are their biggest motivations and fears and et cetera? Well, if you look at like more of a scientific approach and you pull out your handy-dandy spreadsheet, I'm a spreadsheet person sometimes, so this happens. You can literally go into Google and start typing questions. You go into Pinterest and start typing search things and see what people are actually searching for and then creating a data list of all the things that you can answer.

Gotcha.

Then you start to develop some real content ideas based on what people are actually asking. Now it's a little bit more broad, of course, because you don't know if your ideal client is actually asking those things specifically, but you know that that question's out there.

Yeah.

Okay. It's an art and a science. It's a little bit awkward, we'll be honest, but it's an art and a science.

Well, I think just having a start place of like where to even begin. I think a lot of people when I feel like even for myself when I first started and I started doing like landing pages and digital marketing, Facebook ads for clients and things like that, I was like, oh my gosh. And I took a class, I'm sure you've probably heard of her, Julie Stoian, and she really talked about different aspects of starting your, like how to write. But she's like, don't think you have to overcomplicate it. I think we think we have to say all our feelings and all their feelings in a copywriting thing. But we just need to take little pieces, like less is more, I think, when it comes to copywriting. And I feel like as creatives, we are not less is more. We're like, more is more. Give them everything. And I think that's where we kind of get, get stuck in thinking about copywriting.

Right. And I think one thing that is not as well known as I think it could be is that copywriting often is done well when it's using a formula approach too. So it's a combination of utilizing existing tried and true formulas with personality.

Yeah.

And some of that personality comes from seeing what your ideal client actually says. If they say, "You betcha," because they're from the Midwest like I do, well, that might be something that I would use in my copy with them. So if they are, if they're Southern and they like to use y'all, well then use that. Whatever's most convenient of like similarity, I guess you could say, use those words.. But then also keep in mind there are certain tried and true formulas. So if you're really, really stuck, Google copywriting formulas. Heck, I even have a freebie that has subject line formulas to use to get better open rates in your emails. That stuff exists for a reason. It makes your life easier. You're not recreating the wheel. And they make sense for people's psychology. They want to hear about, oh, there's a problem. Oh no, what am I going to do? Oh, but look, here's a solution to your problem.

Hooray.

They love that kind of stuff. And It works. So don't try to rethink all of it yourself.

I appreciate you saying that about the formula. So you guys, this is like a personal thought. My podcast for a while, like there's different ways of like doing your podcast. Emily has a podcast too. You guys got to check it out. I'll put it in the show notes. But I had a, like, I was like, man, why aren't all of my things getting like better open rates? Like I started noticing a very trendy thing with my podcast titles. And it was basically, I was being like really creative with my podcast titles. I was like, oh, Journey to This and Creative La La La La La, basically like la la la la la, like very, I don't know, like I was like, I don't even know how to describe it. I think I was trying to be more something because I didn't want to just be like answering a question.. But then I realized that's what people want to know. Like they want to have a question answered. They are like, they're searching podcasts, they're searching wherever they're searching, if they're going to listen or spend their time on like how to do something, they're asking a question like how, where, when, what, who, all that kind of stuff. So I started framing more and more of my podcast, not all of them, but some of them with just like, here are like steps how to do this or 3 things this, like, and it became, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like it just changed the shift of like people finding me. I was like, oh my gosh, I was fighting against doing this because it wasn't creative enough. But my podcast is creative. The rest of it, I mean, the rest of it didn't have to be that way. Yeah.

So titles.

Oh yeah. They're so important. They're so important.

I have so many thoughts on titles. It's incredible. Subject lines for emails, titles, product titles. When you're, if you have an Etsy or a Shopify site or things like that. Oh my gosh. Some of those things, are so important. And if you're creative, you just love to make things fluffy. It's just like in our nature. But people aren't searching by fluffy topics.

I love it.

I made this mistake right away when I had my glass business where I would create these products and I just created the coolest names for them. I was like so proud. It was like, this is the Galaxy Blah, Blah, Blah Pendant. And I was like, Nobody is searching for galaxy blah blah blah pendant. They're searching for blue and purple pendant silver necklace. Like literally, people are not searching because they're not in your brain. So you have to, you basically have to get in their brain and decide what are they typing to find you and use that.

Yeah.

And that's basically the gist of what keywords are. It's you getting into their brain, understanding what they're using to search and then use that as your title. It doesn't have to be so fancy.

Exactly. So fears. Has there been any fears in your business that you're trying to get through or you've gotten through or things that you are dealing with that a lot of people may be having in their business? Oh yeah.

Like every minute of every day, right? I think that just to be an entrepreneur is such a it's such a big thing to be doing, and I think we forget to give ourselves credit for that, that what we're doing is so out there for a lot of people that we kind of forget that, oh yeah, those fears are totally normal. So I actually had a really big fear, especially in that cusp of when I got diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, was I was afraid that by disclosing my chronic health condition publicly, that people wouldn't want to work with me, that they would think I was no longer fit to do a good job. That took some serious work to get through. I will be completely honest, and I'm sure with your audience, they're probably going through their own version of this where they're like, if they find out that I'm not well, that I'm a parent, like Even just being a mom, people feel like if they find out that I'm planning to keep my child, you know, at home and not in a daycare setting, they're not going to think I'm professional, able to do a good job, whatever it may be. We've all got these little internal fears, right? And as weird as it sounds, I took that fear completely head on and I was like, I'm going to talk to some friends about it, get some of these feelings out, do some thinking, feeling, journaling, doodling, whatever I needed to do.. And then I was like, I am launching a podcast to talk about this head on. If I basically just rip the bandaid off and I say, look, this does not have to limit you. It just means that you have to be a little bit more savvy with your resources and you can still do a great job. I wanted to put it out there just to break that stigma.

Yeah.

Because if I had that stigma and I was the one going through it, I knew it was part of my job, at least for me, I wanted to be part of my job to break that stigma so that other people didn't think that. And as funny as it sounds, I've had a lot of people respond saying, oh, you actually thought that? Oh, that's so silly. We did— we, you know, the general we public, we would have never thought that you would do a less of a good job just because maybe you'd have a headache one day or maybe you were tired one day. I was like, oh, okay. So there were some tips that I basically have collected over some time, like, you know, knowing, knowing what your timelines are. If you know that you're gonna have a, a tough day of the week or tough morning, or, you know, working with your schedule, figure out your schedule, what works best for you, and then build that into how many clients you can have. Maybe you only take on 2 instead of 12. I don't know. But that basically just means know yourself, then you can serve your clients. Being honest with yourself, that means you can serve your clients better.

Exactly. I did a whole episode about that very fear. Oh really? I did, I did, because I was like, I feel like there's a lot of us that feel that way and I think it's an internal fear. It's more inside than external. I feel like nobody is thinking that really. If they are, then you probably don't want to work with them anyway. So Like I did a whole episode about it because I felt that I couldn't have been the only one who had thought or felt that way or even had that question. Like, should I disclose that I have a chronic illness? And hey, love it. I love how you just put that out there too. Just head on and know yourself. I think knowing yourself is a big part of it that I feel like it's an advantage. I feel like having— I know that sounds like somebody might be thinking, that sounds crazy. I just feel like having a chronic illness gives me an advantage because I am always planning ahead. I'm thinking about how to accomplish something. I'm also working, solving problems constantly in order to be able to be more efficient or to do more, which people who may not have ever experienced that may not have that, that, that juice of being able to do that like that. And so I feel like that is a part of my superpower of being able to see things and be like, you know what, you could do it this way and accomplish the same thing but in a different way. And I think instead of being like, oh my gosh, I have this horrible thing going on in my life, I'm like, oh well, I've learned how to do this differently and other people could learn from it too.

Yeah, definitely. I think some of that also makes you just really empathetic and understanding of others as well. Yes. When I, you know, when I have clients that come to me and say, I am just so sorry, I could not get you the content you needed by this deadline. I'm like, it's okay. If anything, I will give all of that flexibility and freedom to you as well, because I know that you would extend that to me. And I feel like I create these client experiences that are, they're not rigid and I'm, basically, to use a photographer's terminology, because I hear this so much, like a shoot and burn kind of a—

right, exactly.

You go in, you get the work done, and you say see you never. Um, that's never how I want to work with my clients. I want them to be literally lifelong friends. I'm so sorry if you didn't know this in advance, clients, but like, I want you to be my friend forever, and you're stuck with me now. But I treat them in a way that I want to say like, yeah, if you're having a really bad day or um, if you're sick or say you have an appendix burst or something— literally this stuff happens— and I want you to know that we're still going to get your work done even if that means you need to take a couple days to like rest. Totally fine. We'll make it work. That's always my slogan. And that's actually something that, um, my mom always said to me. She was like, literally the best advice she had ever given to me, or basically anybody's ever given to me, is just remember you can always find a way to make it work.

Yeah, always, always. Uh, yeah, I agree with you totally. Drop the mic.

Yes. So, um, those are expensive.

Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, they really are. So any tools that you use in your business or that you use for your clients that are like have saved you or that you think someone who's either starting a business or has a business should at least look at?

Oh my gosh. Oh, there are so many. Honestly, I have— I actually have a whole page on my website that's just dedicated to resources, which naturally also includes like 30 books that I've read. You know, a little book nerd here. Sorry about that. Sorry, not sorry. I love books. I love reading. I am constantly listening to books on Audible about how to improve mindset, about marketing, communication, all the things. I rarely get fiction in, but that's okay. But in terms of actual like web-based tools that you can use to build your business, all that fun stuff, first and foremost, um, your computer is a tool. Hooray. Good. Um, using Google Drive, Google Docs, all of that for collaborative purposes, it's a must. Um, these are basically just your things that you already have at your disposal. Your website is your greatest tool for conversion if you set it up right. You need to have a website to have as your home base. So that is a huge tool that I think people forget about. And you definitely need that.

It's your real estate on the, in the internet web, people. Instagram and Facebook is not your real estate. They're Facebook's and Instagram's real estate. Your website is your own.

Yeah. So even though it's really, really tempting to say other tools, like I believe your website is where you need to spend so much of your precious attention because if you can do all of this amazing work on social media and say, oh yeah, go to my website so you can book. Well, what if they get to your website and they're super confused and then they don't book, then they, then they abandon cart. You don't want that. So that's a bad thing. So first and foremost, get your website figured out, but then the tools that I love that are surrounding, that are kind of those extra tools that will make your business go bananas. Um, you'll want to have something good for client experience, and that's going to be HoneyBook for all of your customer relationship management. So invoicing, contracts, communications, workflows, timelines, all that good stuff. Um, I use HoneyBook and I love it. Um, I also use Flodesk for my email marketing. I use Planoly for social media scheduling, which is something that I talked about earlier. When you have, when you actually are looking at creating content that can be put out regularly, you have to have a program that's going to help you schedule it. So that's a good one. I use Tailwind for Pinterest and surprise, I had no idea even as a marketer that I had over 100,000 monthly viewers and I should probably work on that. I should probably like figure out how to, um, basically engage with that audience because that's amazing.

But yeah,.

So whatever. That's part of my, that's part of my, my little deep dark secret. I grew that organically because I just love pinning things and then I'm surprised I haven't used it at all for my business.

So that's awesome. Yeah.

Tailwind for Pinterest. And then also let's see here. We've got all of those fun things. What else?

Any copywriting things?

You know, just like my formulas that I have.

Okay.

I have some pretty awesome formulas, but as of right now, they are not for sale. But if that's something that people are interested in, that can always be templates that I can create as fun passive income streams. And down the road, I'm looking at putting out a course or two. Sweet. Some writing events and retreats and all of these cool things that are in my brain. So exciting. But I have a lot of tools that I love. Zapier being the tool of all tools because it connects literally everything. Automation, it's amazing.

Automation is a chronic warrior's friend.

Yes, yes, it is. Whatever you can do to automate or delegate to save you from doing that task on your own, the better. Yeah, totally. You have to set some of those things up, even if it feels like, oh, that feels a little extra. I don't know if I'm there in my business yet. Yeah, you definitely need it. And it's— you'll live your life so much happier when you have things like that in place.

Yeah. And it's not just— I mean, I say Chronic Worriers, but it's anybody who has a business. You really should in the beginning— in the beginning, I get like trying to do all the things, but it's really important to try to focus on the things that you're really good at so you can grow faster and Sometimes that means you need to give that to someone else. I just recently hired a VA because like I said, I don't like to write, but I have all this content from the podcast and I'm like, I need to make these into like blog posts. Like they need to be blog posts because right now they're just, you know, show notes, which Nikita wrote, which ain't that great. So, um, so I'm like, I need someone who's really good at writing and who can just re— like put all that together and I'm so glad because I just got, we just started working together and I'm like, man, I should have done this like a year ago because it would have grown my show way faster. I've already, you know, things would have moved faster if you just started doing these little things that you're like, oh no, but I need that $20 or $100 a month. But then yeah, you can make that over, you know, a period of time. So, um, those are great tools. I appreciate them.

I honestly, I look at a lot of this last bit of our conversation like playing Monopoly, or if you're a little bit more intensely a game nerd, Settlers of Catan.

I've never even heard of that. Oh my gosh.

Maybe that's not your thing, but Monopoly, everybody knows Monopoly, right? So when you're going and you go around the board and you have the opportunity to invest in some real estate and you buy like a little house, right? Little guys. You buy that, but you have to spend some money to do that. But if you don't do it, what are you doing? Like, what's the whole— what's this whole game about? But the person who converts their tiny little house into a hotel, they're the ones who are collecting more rent on it as people visit. Right.

Yeah.

So the faster you can build your, your, your stops into houses and then into hotels, the better. But it does take a little investment and some trust. It feels like a little bit of blind faith. Um, but you kind of have to try it and know that it may not work out so great or that you might have to give it some time to work. But ultimately that's how you have to grow.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So how can we find you? Thank you so much for being on the show, Emily. I mean, I could talk to you forever. I like talk to you like already like 20 minutes before this. So I'm like, I could just talk to you forever. So please tell us how everyone else can talk to you and get to know you more on all the things. Okay.

Without being a creeper, slide in my DMs. I have my Instagram, it's @buoyant, B-U-O-Y-A-N-T dot marketing. I spell it out because I don't know, not everybody can spell. I love spelling, but I can't assume everything about everybody. So Buoyant Marketing is my business. So you can go to buoyantmarketing.com. Becoming Buoyant is my podcast, which you can find both on, of course, all of your podcast playing places. Alliteration. I love it. So Apple, Stitcher, etc. But you can also find me on YouTube. I made it as accessible as I possibly thought I could by putting it also on YouTube with transcripts and captions and all that goodness. And then where else can you find me? I mean, I'm on all the places. Like, I technically have a Twitter, but I don't use it, so don't go there. I'm on Facebook. You can always find me in my— I have a Facebook group as well. So, okay.

You know, you're on Instagram.

Instagram is my primary place. I just love going there. And apparently I'm on Pinterest, so you can find me on Pinterest.

Is it Buoyant Marketing on all those things too?

Yeah, it's buoyant.marketing.

Okay, sounds good.

The person who stole Buoyant Marketing was my former self and then accidentally closed the account.

Oops.

I'm a really savvy marketer, I promise. I just, you know, I goof up sometimes.

Well, when it comes to our own businesses, we're kind of all like that. That's what I tell people. It's like, don't, don't ask me about what I did because it don't— that's why I need a coach for my business and you need one. So it's two different situations. Okay. We all have room for improvement.

It's always improvement and nobody's perfect. And you know, it's like the, the cobbler's kid has no shoes situation where you do your job all day long and then you kind of don't do that, that same thing for yourself.

Right.

Totally get it. Like, don't look at how many blog posts I've written in the last couple of months. Just don't look.

Don't look.

I mean, come to my blog, of course, but don't look.

Well, thank you so much, Emily. I had such a great time. I know the audience did too. Um, thanks for being on.

Thanks, Nikita. It was really fun.

All right, ladies, that's a wrap for this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive. Thank you so much for joining me. Please share with your friends and be sure to like and subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. In the meantime, check us out at sheescrafted.com to check out the show notes for all the goodies and things that we talked about, and there'll be links there for you guys. So in the meantime, just remember, you are crafted to thrive.