EP 291 - No More Burnout Marketing: Boundaries, Pricing, and Profit at a Slower Pace

Fab: Hello, Marketing Rebels and welcome back to our Marketing School. We are the school that want to teach you how to make your marketing more impactful, human, fun, and I'm going to say sustainable for today. I think that's definitely an addition for today. My name is Fab.

I'm your Marketing Fairy Godmother and I'm the Head Teacher of our Marketing School. In today's class, I'm joined by the one and only Emma McCamdre's to talk about... building a profitable business and especially in this case, we're thinking about just showing up as a marketer. So lots of hats to wear, but not only hopefully being mindful of the hustle culture and all the bullshit that comes to it and wanting to go past it.

But I think also embodying a bit more the change that we want to see. I love the fact that we can be really aware that we want to step away from some of the old outdated beliefs, but We can fall back into old patterns. And I think when you are a marketer, especially everything feels past space, everything feels reactive. So as Anne being the founder of the Slow Businesswoman, can I think of a better person to help us looking at the concept of growing and maybe scaling, but in a gentle way that builds sustainable growth that will honor your energy, which is exactly what she does.

So super excited for this class. Thank you so much Anne for being here with us. But before we unveil a bit more of your journey, I'm gonna ask you to share with us a bit more about yourself, but in a way that maybe we're not expecting unless you've been here for a while, which is I want to hear two truths and a lie about you and then we'll guess which one is the lie. And thank you for being here again.

Can you please tell us a bit more about those? Emm McAndrew: will. Thank you by the way for inviting me on to do today's talk. So yeah, two truths and a lie about me, see if you can guess.

The first one is I used to be a worldwide vocalist in a rock band. The second is that I have two Persian cats and the third one is that my oldest child is soon going to be 32 years old. So you need to find the lie in those fabs, see if you can guess. Fab: We can all guess together and I obviously I'm going to be the one that does it publicly so if I fail miserably ⁓ I want you to have a past life as a rock band vocalist so damn badly that I'm not going to go for that one because this is like the one that I am wishing into existence as a truth so I am going to say that we're looking at you not having two Persian cats.

Emm McAndrew: Yeah. Fab: Which one is the lie? Emm McAndrew: I believe you guessed it. That one is the lie.

I can't believe that. Maybe because you knew that I had dogs so maybe that was in the back of your mind and you thought yeah she definitely can't have cats as well. ⁓ Yeah I don't have any cats unfortunately. I was a singer so you totally manifested that into my background Fab.

⁓ And yeah my eldest child is almost 32 years old which most people are shocked about. ⁓ I think probably because I dress a lot like a toddler and I look really young people don't expect me to have a child that old. So yeah well done for guessing. I wonder if anybody else has got it right.

Fab: No? Oh, I'm going, that's what we want to know. The important takeaways of this conversation is definitely whether you guessed it right, it always is, but I'm sure there's going to be a lot more. Before I ask you actually a bit more about this current life, so to speak, I have one final question about the Truths in L.

I. What was the name of the band? Emm McAndrew: ⁓ my gosh, we were called a few things. The first band was called Le Chic, we did 70s funk music ⁓ and then the second name of our band was Loudmouth and apparently I was the inspiration for that, not sure why.

And then the third one we were called Plan C because we tried to use the name Plan B but somebody already had it so we just said We just took the lazy option and said ⁓ plan C then. We kept that. Fab: I'm obsessed with that. Thank you so much for sharing a bit more about that.

Now back to your present life. Okay. Now we're going to fast forward a bit. You have a lot of experience as well in obviously what you teach and also the piece of marketing as well, which I love in the comms side of it as well.

So I was wondering whether there was a fork in the road moment that got you from... drawing from that experience and then stepping into this iteration of what you do as a business woman. So a bit of your journey, a bit of that, maybe if there was a fork in the road moment that you think really got you to do that and to transition through that. Emm McAndrew: Yeah, I mean there definitely was a fork in the road moment.

I think there usually is when we do something that's a branch away from what we did. So basically I've worked in marketing since I was, ⁓ gosh, about 21, so almost 30 years now. I started out working for myself as a web developer way back in the 90s when hardly anybody had a computer anyway. And from there it was a natural progression into marketing.

⁓ And I spent well over a decade just sort of honing my craft learning ⁓ You know how SEO had evolved ⁓ Still still developing some websites but moving more into social media as things like Facebook Started to pop up ⁓ trying to use it for business ⁓ for the places where I worked So yeah, I eventually ended up ⁓ in a marketing agency and I worked my way up to account director there. I worked on some really big brands, ⁓ mainly social media marketing. We got to some really cool stuff back in the days when Vine first started creating videos, which now we have TikTok, which is quite similar to Vine.

So it was always very creative, always very fun. However, ⁓ I think a lot of people who are in marketing agencies and the marketing industry will understand that it can be quite brutal on your health, ⁓ sometimes on your mental health as well. ⁓ And I think clients, especially the bigger the client, the more they sort of expect. So it was eating into my personal time.

It was eating into the time with my children, the two of which were still quite young at the time. And unfortunately it did eat away at my health and I suffered a massive health breakdown. So that was probably around 2015 when that happened. So I went in to have a range of tests, found out what was wrong with me.

I had a lot of fatigue, a lot of pain, completely a world away from the person that I was before, which, you know, I was the party girl. We're doing this, we're doing that. Yeah, clients having a party, I'm there, I'll help with it. be the last to leave.

⁓ it was just a world away from that. So I had to actually stop ⁓ and start rebuilding in a different way. ⁓ I guess that was the stop point. And then the ⁓ in the road, I chose to go with a different agency.

⁓ once again, that was a world away from the other agency that I ⁓ in. ⁓ agency just completely got work life and work health balance ⁓ absolutely perfectly. So instead of having a long commute that was, know, burning me out essentially, ⁓ and having to deal with clients that were quite difficult, this other agency had a completely different way of working. It was, yeah, you get to work when you get to work, you do the work, you know, you go home, there was nobody sort of chasing you.

And I think when you're in a senior marketing role, it can be quite difficult when you are in a place where... is that sort of toxic culture because you expect that as you progress in your career that ⁓ allowances might be made or you might get more free time but I think ⁓ within some marketing agencies that doesn't happen. ⁓ then eventually my health caught up with me again despite being in another agency that was brilliant. ⁓ know they made loads of adjustments for me, they got me all the equipment I needed and I actually still do do some work with them today.

That's how brilliant they are. But yeah, my health did catch up with me again. So I just decided to step away from agencies completely. I had some time out ⁓ and then I started to build up my own business again.

Having been freelance before, self-employed, I've owned limited companies, I've done lots of different things. So I knew I could do it, but I knew I had to do it in a different way because my health and my body had already said, hang on a minute, we can't do this. ⁓ And we're not gonna do it. So I spent a lot of time learning about myself again learning what was wrong with my body and You know was eventually had quite a lot of diagnoses Is that I could actually learn more about myself because I knew what the problems were So yeah, had the idea for the slow businesswoman probably about 18 months two years ago And I was sitting there you believe it or not at my hairdressers who is also a good friend and I was saying, wouldn't it be great if all businesses start going a bit slower?

Because we were talking about, you know, environmental factors of the corporate world and fast fashion. We talk about all of these different things. And I do try and make a difference to the environment. And I sort of tied it all together and I said, you know what, we're going to do slow business.

⁓ then I came up with the idea of the name, ⁓ everything just while I was sat there getting my roots done basically. yeah, then slow business woman was born and then I just started to pile all my attention into that and it's off because I've been teaching of women ⁓ how to set and run their own businesses and building up a community. Fab: Like what is the actual framework that you think obviously can be relevant and helpful for all the people that you teach, but and support, but especially for marketers having been on that side of yourself is almost, I'm sure that you used a bit of your own experience and a lot of your experience to build this.

So as you're working us through some of this, I would love to see how that also reflects the marketer that you used to be as well. So yeah, I'm excited to hear about the framework and kind of see that nuance coming through as well. Emm McAndrew: Okay, so yeah, the framework that I teach is actually across seven modules, which I worked very hard on to make sure that they all dovetailed into each other as well, so that everything's covered and then it can be wrapped up in a practical application at the end.

But the crux of what I teach really is what I call the great unlearning. So most marketing professionals who go freelance or try and set up their own agency tend to carry that agency culture back into their new business without even realizing it. So they end up over-servicing clients, under-charging, avoiding those difficult conversations as well, because I think when you work for an agency, you can sort of hide behind that and have those conversations. And then when it comes to your own business, I find a lot of marketers are saying yes to everything that clients are asking, because they want to develop their business and they wanna grow, right?

And then they start measuring their worth by how busy they are and that's what we tend to do in agencies. And I think it's slightly different when you move into ⁓ owning your own, trying to start your own agency or working for yourself. So before any practical strategy works, all of the old ideas about marketing and clients has to go, it has to all go out the window and we start to relearn, you know, the right things that are gonna help us to sustain that business so that we don't end up burnt out.

⁓ or not being able to carry on. So yeah, we have this piece around the great unlearning and I generally teach women. So I also do a piece around ⁓ how women got from the 1950s to here. And we talk about productivity culture and all the training that women ⁓ tend to get from society without us even knowing it.

So that piece is actually quite big. And obviously I start with that because everything else feeds from it. So the next thing that we look at is boundaries and client management. And this is where my marketing experience in agencies really comes into play because I've dealt with every sort of client imaginable.

The great ones, the not so great ones, difficult ones, and I think we all sort of know of them, but we haven't all dealt with them. So this is where a lot of new marketing businesses sort of fall apart. Scope creep. The thing that we always try and avoid in marketing tends to happen to people who are newly set up So things as well like sending off emails on a Sunday or checking client emails when you're supposed to be off and not working You know, Also, we thought I find that a lot of people when they do over service, they don't charge for that as well Because once again, they want to grow their business.

They want to make sure that ⁓ got money coming in, so they tend to do the things ⁓ they probably wouldn't have accepted in a marketing agency where every minute is counted and charged to the client. ⁓ So yeah, slow business really comes into play here because it's deciding in advance what you're going to accept and what you won't. And we do that in the form of professional boundaries. ⁓ we're laying out our stall on what days we're going to work, what times we're going to work, how much we're going to charge, ⁓ if somebody asks for extras.

you know, how are we going to handle all that? And we do it before we even set up any sort of business to make sure that those protections are in place so that you're not thinking on your feet when a client is being difficult ⁓ or perhaps a client is pushing back on something, you know, that you don't have the capacity to do right then and there. So professional boundaries are really a big piece of the work as well. ⁓ And you know, the biggest sort of question I get around boundaries as well is, ⁓ will people think I'm being difficult or are people going to see me as a bit of a problem?

And it's not, it's not about being difficult. It's about being professional at the end of the day. And it's what makes your business work long term. And then we move into the actual business model.

So we do all of the unlearning piece. We do the boundaries piece. We do, ⁓ you know, setting things up for slower business. then we move into what sort of business model that they might be looking at.

⁓ a slow marketing business is structured slightly differently to other businesses. ⁓ the idea here is that we have fewer clients, but we have a higher value. ⁓ we try and do that from the beginning. making sure that people are pricing themselves correctly.

⁓ again, not doing unpaid work, which can happen very, very quickly. ⁓ And once you let clients brief in unpaid work to you or ask for extras that they're not paying for, you quickly start doing almost everything for free and you're training that client into thinking that they can do that every time. Then the conversation becomes a bit awkward and we don't know how to say no anymore. So yeah, we do have to structure things differently.

Yeah, and retained relationships wherever possible. Once again, Same as in a usual marketing agency, a bigger marketing agency, it's those relationships ⁓ that really take you forward. yeah, looking as well at pricing, that's gonna reflect your expertise. I find that there's two problems when people set up their own marketing agency.

One is they either go in their too high ⁓ and then don't wanna buy from them or they go in too low. And the second one is the one that I see all the time. People are just wanting to make I find that there's two problems when people set up their own marketing agency. One is they either go in their too high ⁓ and then don't wanna buy from them or they go in too low.

And the second one is the one that I see all the time. People are just wanting to make that they're those clients in, that they're looking successful, that they're bringing the money in, which we all need, right? So they will take on clients that are lower pay. And once again, you're just training those clients and other people into thinking that they're gonna get your work for cheap all the time when really your expertise and your experience is actually worth a lot more.

that they're those clients in, that they're looking successful, that they're bringing the money in, which we all need, right? So they will take on clients that are lower pay. And once again, you're just training those clients and other people into thinking that they're gonna get your work for cheap all the time when really your expertise and your experience is actually worth a lot more. Fab: I actually love the fact that you mentioned that the beginning, great unlearning, that was like one of the things that, one of the questions that I love to ask our students as much as I love to ask people like yourself is like, what have we unlearned as we've gone through the experience of being a marketer and showing up for ourselves.

And in this case, they are talking about specifically showing up ⁓ and obviously wanting to be own boss, which means, you know, sometimes I say the but. stops at you and it can be for good. And sometimes it can be a challenge because at the end of the day, it's having that confidence and the assurance that you're making the right decision, but actually set the boundaries that you want, which I love that you mentioned. And because there's so much literature, just say seven modules, which means you're going to go through like a framework that is step by step within that.

But if we zero in a day on one way that somebody might have applied this and actually saw a change and a positive difference. I think that can be a great way to see one change. Maybe there's more than one, I guess, people have made. But I wonder whether there are some changes that people can make that you've seen apply some of the elements of what you've taught again and again and again to people.

And it could be somebody else, it could be your own. I would love to hear what comes up for you when it comes to that. Emm McAndrew: Yeah, I mean, look, the biggest shift that anybody can make ⁓ is to put those professional boundaries in place. And I think in terms of an example, the honest answer I can give you is me ⁓ and my students that I teach.

I see it reflected in what they're doing as well. So as I already said earlier, I spent years in senior marketing roles in in some really brutal environments as well, working at a pace that I knew I couldn't sustain. So when my health forced me to stop, ⁓ I had to create that plan, obviously, I just couldn't go back to it. ⁓ So rebuilding slowly wasn't a choice ⁓ in the beginning for strategic reasons, it was for health, right?

⁓ But being forced to strip everything back ⁓ actually makes work more profitable because it's easier as well. It doesn't make it less what you're doing as well. So yeah, I see the same pattern consistently with the women that I work with. The shift tends to happen at the business model and pricing stage.

So they've done the boundaries work, they've done this unlearning and then they move from undercharging into a bit more of a retained model with the right clients and at the right rate. Now I do have to keep reminding them. So any of the students that have worked with me, end up in my community. We have a WhatsApp group and we have an online community as well.

And every day I'm seeing somebody else in either the WhatsApp chat or they'll send me a private message just asking a little bit for that mentorship again, just saying, oh, I was thinking of charging X for this project. Do you think that's too much? And then I'm straight away going in as no, I think you need to put a little bit more on top of that. I think you should add another 20%.

Because what I teach with pricing is to actually price in that rest and recovery time, which we all need. Now, my clients are on the course anyway, are women with limited energy, so they actually need to build in rest and recovery time. But I do say all the time that everybody needs to do this. It shouldn't just be those of us who have a chronic illness or a disability or have...

energy limitations in another way. I think that it's the way we're going for everybody and slow business actually works better for everybody, whether you've got a diagnosis or not. yeah, pricing is one that I see all the time coming through on my phone constantly and then the boundaries as well, just reinforcing boundaries. So I had a question this week from one of my former students who said, you know, they gave their situation and said I set up my boundaries, this person keeps pushing back.

So yeah, it's a constant sort of retraining. So you don't go through the learning, apply it and then everything just happens overnight. You know, it is sort of improvements that you make over time as well. And that's why I'm sort of always there for my past students, no matter how long it was since I've worked with them.

I'm always there at the end of ⁓ a text message or whatever to just sort of like G them up and remind them why they're doing it ⁓ and to push back on boundaries because You know when you do install professional boundaries if somebody starts to push back, you know all the time I always say that's probably because they were benefiting from you not having any boundaries and they're sort of like hang on a minute You used to let me do this, ⁓ you know and now you won't. And you know, a lot of people will say, well, what if I lose that client?

And I say, well, what if you didn't have to work with that client anymore and you replace them with a client that actually didn't do that to you? So yeah, I think professional boundaries, ⁓ probably the biggest ⁓ examples that I have of things working for people because I also get a lot of emails and text messages as well that say, I put this boundary in place and now this client has stopped harassing me on weekends. ⁓ So yeah, there's a lot of ⁓ feedback that I get and it's generally around the professional boundaries and pricing.

And with professional boundaries comes what I call professional courage as well. Having the courage to put those in place. And when you have worked in an agency, one of two things happens with sort of pricing and professional courage. Either an agency is pushing you to ask for the maximum and then we get a little bit embarrassed about asking for it, right?

⁓ even when we work for somebody else ⁓ or the agency is trying to go in too low because they want the work. ⁓ yeah, pricing and boundaries are probably the biggest points of conversation, feedback, implementation ⁓ of everything that I do really. Fab: I love everything you mentioned, but one element that I wanted to highlight because I one, one thing that I also say to our students, uh, you give us a lot to think about our boundaries. So I'm to leave that with you, but the bit about the pricing that made you go like, haha, is when you talked about some of the things that we don't think to put into our price and what we are actually doing, that really matters.

And when our students, would say all the time, especially with some of the ones that are marketers, but they also are content creators. So they create content as well for brands or for clients. whatever it is and I was saying well how much time was one literally one hour students how much time do you spend you know talking in slack before a shoot or before you create some content you know you're doing like a day for the client We might do it over a couple of days. I might be in there half an hour 45 minutes.

First of all, I always say let's try and see how much that actually is. Can you actually quantify the time? Because once they do that, a penny drops and like, oh, so that time is it billed? Is that well, that is communication.

I'm like admin communication set up on boarding of boarding. All these things matter just because I don't know if you have the same thing, but just because sometimes I don't know something that I still offer. I don't push it, but I still have it because some people ask, right? Emm McAndrew: Exactly.

Fab: is a power hour or like a two hour sort of intensive, we just have a conversation, it's either pick my brain sort of situation. And I'm like, you can definitely do that for an hour. If you want, if you're not one hour students, you can still do that. And I'm like, yeah, you're not just paying for the hour with me because I always like to have context.

I always like to be able to give you an understanding, a recap, right? Emm McAndrew: Yeah, all the prep. Yeah. Fab: And sometimes I think with experience, with time, it comes to the realization that it's not even because your experience is worth more or your expertise is worth more, but it is because you start realizing what you said as well, which is everything around what we offer, especially in the online world, it's...

differently quantified because you can't see the person going there and preparing the concrete for the house building. You're not buying, you know, the concrete from the foundation, but everything else that you're using to run your business counts and also your time counts. So just wanted to highlight that and kind of re bring it up. Emm McAndrew: Exactly.

Yeah, and one thing that I do say you should take away from a marketing agency is that minute by minute recording of everything that you do, charging for tools. ⁓ Most of us in marketing will use Canva, we'll be using Claude or TrachyBT or some AI, making sure that you're splitting the cost of those across clients as well. That's a big thing that I see people doing. They forget to add in their tools, they forget to add in holiday time as well.

So normally when you when you're in employment, you would have four weeks holiday paid for By the company you need to make sure that you are charging for that in some way as well across clients so yeah, all these little like gaps and little leaks of of money that you could have charged back to the client. And like I say, some people can be really, I say British about it, where we think, ⁓ I'm not going to ask for that. That will be embarrassing. But it's one of those awkward conversations that really needs to happen.

And it needs to happen at the beginning when you, before you onboard that client, you need to discuss what your rates are, what you charge for, what you don't. And then during that onboarding process is where you would reiterate that. So it's in writing. And some of the boundaries and some of the costs and things like that, some people even put in their email signature as well to say, I don't have capacity this month or new projects need to be briefed in by this date or whatever.

So yeah, it's about looking at things minute by minute and all of the tools and all of the holiday time that you normally would have got, et cetera, et cetera, to make sure that your pricing is actually correct. I think we have a tendency to want to undercut our competitors, but a lot of the time you can't actually find out how much your competitor would charge and you end up charging about half less than what they are. And I think we know as well in the UK, we have this idea that if something's more expensive, it's probably better.

So sometimes clients will go with the higher cost anyway, because they think that it's better. So yeah, it's about looking across everything. get a spreadsheet, add it all up, split it across clients and have a look at what you really should be charging. That's one thing I think that agencies can get right is this taking everything minute by minute, adding everything in to make sure that clients are paying the correct price.

Fab: I love that it's like learning from obviously past life and learning from the agency experience. then obviously there's the great unlearning that I'm going to go back to right now. So we've got the learning, we've the unlearning as well. And I was wondering out of the big great unlearning, what do you find?

I love the fact that you also go into a bit of like the history of, know, patterns and the culture and our effect, especially as women. But I feel that the mindset piece... equally as important because it will stop you from doing what you said like you're doing them in a bad minute maybe charging more maybe because of the mindset piece is the belief that will stop you from then taking the action sometimes we're like we acknowledge ⁓ I've never done this before so I'm gonna go there and maybe adjust my pricing and as you're almost there to do it then something happens so what are some of those pieces of mindset that we might need to unlearn Emm McAndrew: So yeah, I mean, you mentioned there about the work culture piece.

We look at where it came from, why it doesn't serve us. So we're looking at things like ⁓ why rest feels wrong, right? Because it does. Most of us are taught that rest is either lazy or you should be doing something when actually everybody needs rest, not just people like myself with chronic fatigue.

⁓ Everybody needs it. It's how you function it and especially if you're in a creative role, which a lot of us are in the marketing industry, know, most of us have done content creation or we're teaching it to other people. ⁓ So in order to be creative, you need that rest and recovery time. Otherwise you end up churning out the same stuff and you're not as creative as you could have been.

So we look at why rest feels wrong. because most people have been conditioned to equate stopping with falling behind or perhaps, then I'll have to catch up, I will have missed something. know, rest comes absolutely loaded with guilt. Even when your body is telling you you need to do it, right?

We have, like you say, this ⁓ mindset piece that we have to do to teach people that rest is actually good. It always was good. ⁓ It's just that work and productivity culture has told us that it's wrong and that we shouldn't do it and that it's bad. ⁓ So unlearning that is the first step really into building rest and recovery time into your work without that mental battle really.

⁓ And then we look at the payback pattern. So this is a push-crash-recover cycle. So it's very tailored towards people who do have health crashes and flares, but it works for anybody really. You we take this idea that you have a good day, so you do more stuff because you're having a good day.

However, then that takes, you know, energy away from you. And then you could either have a crash or a flare if you do have a chronic illness or perhaps somebody just gets really tired. So then the next day we think, oh, no, I took half a day off because I didn't feel great. Now I need to catch up.

And then we just keep going around in this in this cycle. which is really, really bad news for anybody and it's actually how people end up being burned out because they never come out of that cycle constantly chasing their tail, constantly being tired, then catching up, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, you need to rest out of necessity. We need to stop feeling this guilt around rest and seeing it as a negative thing.

It's very common in the marketing industry and it also is for people like myself who are fluctuating health. but recognising those patterns is how we start to break it. So yeah, we do quite a lot on the mindset piece. Without it appearing or being dressed as mindset, it's something that's just quietly underneath all of the work that I do.

Fab: I know you already talked a lot the boundaries piece and the client management piece, obviously within what the action it ⁓ And you hinted a bit at also certain expectations and why want to start from the beginning. But I'm sure there's a couple more nuggets that might come at you that you want to discuss when it comes to boundaries that maybe come from some of these. practical example of things maybe you wish you learned or things that you have seen other students apply and learn themselves.

Emm McAndrew: Yeah, so I think the first one is, I mean, you mentioned professional boundaries. We've talked a lot already about that, but managing expectations in advance. You know, I think we come away from marketing agents, the environmental patch, you've been brand side, you start to work for yourself and it's very exciting chasing new clients, putting in proposals that we can forget about how we communicate those boundaries and how we're going to communicate our, you know, the way that we work.

Some people are really good at this, they put it in their onboarding deck and it says ways of working or this is how we're going to work together. But a lot of people unfortunately don't, just caught up in the excitement of working for themselves and getting new clients. But most of the problems that we do see is, terms of client issues, is where people haven't done that, they haven't set out their stall, they haven't given the expectation, managed those expectations in advance because they weren't...

clearly set at the beginning of that client relationship. So you need to make sure that you've got these things in place before the work begins, because that's when we get ambiguity, the awkward conversations, you know, a bit further down the line. And then following on from that is when you will get client pushback. So let's say if you said a turnaround for a project was gonna be four days and it's taking you longer, and there's a reason for that.

Clients are going to push back right however you might have already set an expectation around that where perhaps in your onboarding or in a client contract you might include a line that says Sometimes projects will run over You know this can't be helped and when that happens I will do XYZ and so it's catching things like that really But then on the other hand you're always going to get some clients who are going to push back on everything and who are going to be ⁓ You know that they will be those not so great clients Especially when you start holding your boundaries, okay?

So you are there they're pushing on you and you are actually saying hang on a minute This is how I work and clients will always try and test that even the good ones They'll always try and just get a little bit more out of you So yeah, what I teach is that we when you do get some pushback or you get a red flag client which we also discuss my advice is to repeat what the boundary is, so actually I don't work on weekends, give them an option, so I do have capacity to take this work on next week or whenever it is and then we stop, okay?

So there's a full stop after that. What I find is that people, especially in marketing, start to over explain why they can't do that thing for the client and when you do that, all you're doing then is opening negotiations. client will then say well actually now you've told me what the problem is I can fix that. You've told me that you've got a day off tomorrow or whatever and that's why you can't do it.

So I'm going to say well why don't you take the day off on Friday or whatever it is. So what we do is we hold the boundary, repeat it, we give the options and then we stop talking and I find as well that clients find that very awkward. So if you think it's awkward clients find it 10 times as awkward because they don't have anything to argue back with, they don't have anything to negotiate with, so they tend to accept what it is that you've said. ⁓ So if people only take one thing away from today, take that away, ⁓ that we never explain, we never over explain why we can't do something.

⁓ We've all had that client, haven't we, where we've explained why we can't do something or why something is not working ⁓ and then... open negotiations and then it's back and forth, back and forth and then it becomes too much to deal with. Fab: One of the best pieces of advice that I've been given in a very long time, which now has become the answer to the question, what's the best piece of advice I've ever been given, is, ⁓ is a complete sentence. And sometimes it is, ⁓ you know, and sometimes, especially as you say, if it's reaffirmed boundaries that you mentioned multiple times before, and is in line with those, ⁓ is a complete sentence because as you mentioned, rightfully, you've done all the due diligence across every stage of the Emm McAndrew: Mm.

Yep. Fab: to people know where the boundary lays and what is happening. And so you actually have done the best service that you can. So I love that you rated that for us as well.

Emm McAndrew: Yeah, and on top of that as well, know, what clients think are urgent and not what we think is urgent. And if you're to take on that urgency, you'll be doing it forever with that client because it becomes normal. Fab: What are some of the other questions or reflections? Maybe there's a couple of things that people can think about as they are maybe looking to do one thing or reassess one thing when it comes to their business models or the tools and the prices.

There's a couple of things that you might think of that are things to reflect upon and maybe within these people can think about out of these, which one makes sense. What are some of these? Emm McAndrew: Yeah, so, you know, in terms of a business model, you need to be thinking about what does your marketing business look like, okay? So we're going to take a few things perhaps from agency life or perhaps from brand side.

⁓ And, know, is it going to make sense at a pace that you can sustain as well? It's very different coming from employment into working for yourself. ⁓ You know, that's when you start to understand just how much the employer was probably doing that you didn't see. ⁓ So you have to understand that you will be everybody.

You will be the accountant. You will be the content creator. You will be everything. So you have to think about ⁓ when you're setting up that business model in the first place, reflect on what can you actually do?

How many hours can you do? What days can you do? Things like that. So real practical stuff, ⁓ So yeah.

And then in terms of like slow business tools and automation, AI is everywhere right now, okay? people are going crazy still for it and we've got all these new businesses popping up and we've got quite a lot of fear around it as well. And unfortunately we have quite a lot of content from it as well, which is not always great. So yeah, having a think about the right tools.

So instead of just taking on tools and subscriptions, you know, because that's what you've always done, it's about scaling that down as well. Cause that's going to help with your income too. You know subscriptions for all the different tools that only get you know getting higher Costing more money, right? But also it can actually add to your workloads Which zaps energy and you don't even realize it So if you've been using a tool forever and you want to keep using it But it actually takes you a long time or it's a bit clunky or it doesn't work with something else It's reflecting upon what sort of tools and and automations you can put in place that actually help you And then in terms of pricing, the biggest reflection here is looking at your expertise and your experience.

In fact, I was just speaking to somebody on Instagram today about how I left a comment actually on somebody's ⁓ content where they had said, you know, they don't really shout about their expertise, but you got to remember that other people are shouting about it they don't always have the right expertise that they're saying they have, okay? You know what you bring to the table. you know how long you've been doing this, you need to make sure that your price reflects that rather than the anxiety you feel taking it out to clients.

Okay, so you may get an agency who charges say £100 an hour, £150 an hour for somebody and you might think, oh, I can't charge that. Yes, you can. If your agency was putting you out at £150 an hour, there's no reason why you... don't do that as well or perhaps take it down just a little bit if you do have high anxiety around that but we really have to stop worrying about what other people think including the client because the client will either say yes or no to your price and if it's and that's experience and that's data okay so if we get all the clients saying that's too high then we're going to have a look at the pricing again okay but worrying about it ⁓ so much so that you lower your prices really doesn't help because then they will tell other clients and everybody will get to know that you're putting out your work for say let's think of something that was really low like 25, 30 pounds an hour let's say when really your expertise should be around 80 to 100 pounds an hour.

So yeah it's about working out what you need to earn but also that sustainability piece, how are you going to keep that business sustainable and your health sustainable as well? We're seeing record numbers of burnout really, aren't we? ⁓ Even with people who don't have a chronic illness or a disability. So I think everybody needs to be thinking about that.

So yeah. And then of course, my methods includes, you know, adding in that rest and recovery piece as well so that everything that you have in your pricing reflects that true cost of you doing the work. ⁓ not some fantasy figure that we just made up ⁓ or a figure that we slashed in half because we were scared to tell people what our rates are. Fab: think from the sustainability piece there's one more element of thinking about obviously running the business sustainably pricing it so they reflect the rest of recovery time they were putting in it but then there's also always let's be honest the extra piece then no matter if you're doing it for others on top of yourself you also have to make sure that you are visible that you keep top of mind and that in itself even just saying the word keep top of mind feels already like to me Emm McAndrew: Yeah.

Fab: somebody who lives with anxiety, anxiety inducing, is that your idea to keep, right? Is that, is naturally quite a pressure building thing because that's the way they've been ingrained to think about it. So I was kind of wondering if we are adding also a bit of visibility, ⁓ thinking and ⁓ yeah, I guess piece into. Emm McAndrew: Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, pressure. It's pressure, isn't it? Yeah.

Fab: kind how to run a slower business as much as it is about the operations, the way that we set boundaries, the way that we actually do the work and we price the work, that obviously the way that we market the work matters as much. I'm sure that's a big part they also you see your students maybe bringing back again and again. Emm McAndrew: Yeah, exactly. ⁓ So yeah, the first piece here is that channel selection.

I think a lot of us think we have to be everywhere all at once because that's the way that we are in an agency or that's the way that we've taught our clients. So when we're dealing with big brands or businesses that have a lot of budget, a lot more than we do as a self-employed person, let's say, or a freelancer, we've already been advising clients to be on this channel, that channel. When you work for yourself, you can't do that. It's not sustainable for anybody to be everywhere all at once.

It's just too much. ⁓ So I ask people to choose one or two channels, based on what they like, which channels you enjoy using. For example, I mainly use Instagram and email. That's because I love using Instagram and I'm on there personally as well.

And lot of my content bleeds into my personal life too because that's also business content, right? So I just ask them to choose a couple of channels. Not something that's trendy at the minute, not something that everybody's just jumped on, but what they like to do and what they think they're good at as well. Because consistency on those fewer channels is always going to outperform something sporadic on say six channels.

So I'm not on TikTok. I know that there's a massive business opportunity for me on TikTok. I choose not to use it. One, for political reasons and two, because I just do not have the capacity to also run a TikTok channel.

I can barely keep up with my LinkedIn messages. Instagram messages, I'm your girl. But for anything else, it's just not sustainable. And then secondly, having another look at email.

know, email has sort of had its, having a bit of a second wind, isn't it? People sort of fell out of love with email and we do all get... too much email, let me be honest. But yeah, building up that email list has become really, really important now.

We all know that we don't own anything on social. know, Facebook could cancel your page if it felt like it tomorrow and there's nothing that you could do. You wouldn't be able to reach those people ⁓ using your page anymore. So building up that owned audience, that's not gonna depend on an algorithm either.

Email gets delivered when you say it's going to get delivered. It might not get read straight away but you have some control about when it's sent to people right? And that email list is yours. Nobody's coming away to shut that down or say we're banning you from this app unless you're a bad marketer and you're misusing your email list But email is the most reliable long-term visibility.

channel really, especially for slow business because it's less of that urgency that you see on social media. Everything is planned a little bit more thoughtfully and you get to explain what you want to say more. So yeah, I find that really valuable. And then there's the obvious one, okay, ⁓ content planning, doing your content in batches where you can.

But there's another piece here that I teach ⁓ is that what I call ignoring that call of the algorithm. So I am a social media strategist. teach that to big brands. I teach it to ⁓ multi-location brands as well.

So I'm teaching their people on the ground, social media strategy and content strategy and also content creation. However, they are big brands. When you are working for yourself, you cannot keep chasing the algorithm. that's the quickest way to, ⁓ know, help problems, burnout, ⁓ you fall out of love with your business as well, ⁓ content creation become a chore because you're thinking, well, I've got to get six reels in this week.

Otherwise, you know, ⁓ Instagram ⁓ algorithm will drop off for me and people won't see me. ⁓ that joy back to content creation. Yes, we all know ⁓ we need to do on there because we are strategists, right? But it doesn't mean that you have to do that for your business.

You know, I teach people to just ignore that call of the algorithm, put out that natural authentic content, which as we all know as well, gets higher engagement and it sees higher retention rates. you know, another reason is because they don't have a big budget. You're doing this yourself as well as being the, you know, as I said before, the accountant for the business, the one who takes the bins out, you know, you're the paper shredder. doing literally everything for your business, ⁓ don't have an agency helping you, you don't have a big budget, ⁓ down to that algorithm also ⁓ not always likely to bring in leads.

mean social ads are the best bet if you want to bring in leads and you want to see conversions, ⁓ at scale. ⁓ There's no way you would be able to ⁓ that business without ads. So yeah, I think that ⁓ chasing the algorithm is a nice to have and yes it's what we teach. But at the same time, it's not really sustainable for a small business or for a one woman band as it were.

So yeah, that's something that I think people are shocked to hear from me, particularly because it's what I teach. I teach a couple of days a week this and I'm showing other brands how to do it. But when you are a freelance or you just set up your agency, it's not sustainable and it's probably not what's going to bring in the leads for you either. So yeah.

do have another phrase but it's ⁓ watershed friendly. I'll tell you that one after fab. tell you what ⁓ other phrase for not chasing the algorithm is. ⁓ Fab: Now I'm gonna keep on guessing it in my head, but I cannot wait to hear that very very very very soon very shortly First of all, thank you so much for all the languages of wisdom But also like all the little things that we can think about and not just do I think is going back to what I said The mindset piece might be what stops you from taking action with a practical thing So I wanted to give us a couple of little things to reflect upon and maybe write down based on what we talk about Emm McAndrew: Mm-hmm.

Fab: What is the one thing based on our conversation today, maybe you do less to create space for sustainable growth. And what I mean by this is we talked a lot about some things you might want to add. want to review, for example, have you got the right boundaries in place? But hopefully today we've also given you permission to do maybe less of explaining yourself.

As you said, when you are setting a boundary and you're saying something, maybe is fewer platforms to go on and to, and I love that you are. somebody who is a social strategist and also the fact that many great social strategists and experts that I know are saying exactly the same thing. Less is more in a lot of ways. So it's just good to hear it again and again.

So that might be the less. So the question I'm going to repeat is what's the one thing that you'll do less of to create more space for sustainable growth? And then secondary piece, and then we'll stop on the third question. But the second question I have is as well.

more on the boundary piece, maybe on the pricing piece. Probably mindset is in there too, but what is the one maybe revenue driving, maybe risk-giving activity that you need to protect time for, right? Can you think about something that you might want to start protecting more and based on that, can you think about what do you need to do to make that happen? Maybe it is actually having proper recovering on the weekends or maybe having a day without meetings to allow you that recovery in between the week, whatever that is.

Now, hopefully we've given you some tools and ways to then communicate it effectively and obviously put it in in right places. But what would that one be? And the final question that I have, then I got a little follow up for ⁓ on this one, but what is the one boundary that you will set to make your sustainable rhythm, non-negotiable out of all the things that we talked about. What is the boundary that maybe you already have and you just need to find a way to make it clearer.

Or maybe it's a new one that you just, again, never had before and you want to bring it in. That can be for the team, it can be for your clients. If you have obviously a team, maybe it's for yourself. But I want you to think about what is that boundary?

Who is it for? And how are you going to communicate it? is there one slow boundary that you can think of that you see has also benefited everybody in their relationship? a lot more clearly.

And I love when that happens. So it will be that slow boundary. Emm McAndrew: Yeah, so for me it's about letting clients know that I don't respond to messages straight away. So in my email signature, it says allow up to three working days for a response.

And that was the very first boundary that I put in for my clients. And the reason was because when I was working agency side, I had such anxiety about getting emails, because in agencies, you usually have a turnaround time that is included in the contract. And most of the agencies I worked in, it was four hours. So the client would email you, you had four hours to respond, that was part of the actual contract with the client, right?

And that used to give me such anxiety because sometimes I might have been going on a school run when my children were young, you know, I've worked from home for a long time ⁓ and it could be that I just maybe didn't get the email, internet issues and I'm... You mentioned having ⁓ anxiety around this as well, Fab, but I'm like that too. I'm thinking, what did the client say? Is it bad?

Is it good? When do I need to respond? ⁓ when I set up the Slow Business Woman, I decided that was my first one ⁓ and I'm clear about it. And I let them know that I don't always answer messages straight away.

And I give them the other clear boundaries around messages like I don't respond on WhatsApp or I don't do business on Instagram or whatever it is. ⁓ ⁓ actually did expect some pushback with that but all the clients that I work with on the marketing side of my business actually appreciate it and I actually come across as more professional. So I have had feedback from my clients that it is more professional of me to do that. And they see you as a bigger outfit rather than just like I said, that one woman band because you have, you then have that professional respect because they also don't want to reply straight away, even though they're, you know, brand side.

They don't want to do it either. Nobody wants to think, ⁓ I've only got four hours or two hours to reply to this. So yeah, and I've seen a lot of other people doing the same thing. I've seen a lot of people who I've worked with when I get their email responders back and I see it in the signature I'm like yeah because the more of us that do it the more commonplace it's going to become ⁓ and that will mean that it's better for everybody.

⁓ and then hopefully ⁓ you know it will help with with that anxiety, it definitely does me. I actually am quicker to respond ⁓ because I know my clients aren't waiting for it. They know I'll respond when I can. So sometimes I might respond quicker and then it's a little bonus for them and they feel a bit loved.

But just constantly having that boundary in place and having it visible in different places like on your email signature, it's actually become a mark of my too. ⁓ Fab: ⁓ If people have more questions, want to find out more you or want to slide in your Instagram dms Emm McAndrew: Yeah, so if you go to theslownbusinesswoman.com you will find I have some free guides on there. I also have a blog which I call The Pause Blog.

You can also sign up for my weekly newsletter that lands on a Monday. Monday morning, sets you up for the week, reminds you of all the things that we need to stop doing. So there's mindset things in there, more about slow business and slowing down basically. So yeah, it'd be great if you signed up for that.

And as you already mentioned, I'm very active on Instagram, so that's probably the best place to catch me. ⁓ But I also have a code for a freebie as well. If people want to download that, you can get my Employee to Entrepreneur course for free. It's a course, so you don't have to spend hours on it.

Yeah, and it's of like everything that we've discussed today, but in a smaller version. Fab: thank you so much everybody for tuning in. As always, we'll be remiss not to say, especially today, don't forget to be kind to yourself and others. Honestly, don't because you're doing great.

And never stop learning because kind of helps and practice does make progress, as I say all the time. But until next time, classes dismissed.