Episode #28: Building my email (micro) agency 🥳 Come behind the scenes with me!
It’s finally here! Eman Copy Co., the email micro-agency I’ve been building for six months, has finally launched.
In this episode, I share the how, why, and who of it all, and I also dish on the total costs.
You’ll get my thoughts on going from a solo entrepreneur to a team leader, the building process, the challenges, and what I hope to gain from it all.
Listen to the Episode
Show notes
Check out the new emancopyco.com for more information on me, my team, and how to work with us.
00:00 Introduction
08:37 What's changing
17:20 What's not changing
18:07 Why change my business model
22:29 The team
29:58 What goes into building a micro agency
45:20 What I'm most excited about
48:02 Challenges
51:02 What all of this cost
58:13 Your questions, answered
01:14:41 A call to action
If you loved this episode, take a screenshot, post it on Instagram, and tell everyone you know that this is the podcast to listen to. Don’t forget to tag me! @emancopyco
Oh, and here’s a link to the people I mentioned in this episode:
Krista Walsh Copywriting: https://kristawalshcopywriter.com/
Mikka Cruz (web designer): https://studioelias.com/
Modestly Maha (personal stylist): https://www.instagram.com/modestlymaha/
Natalie Gates (brand voice and messaging guide creator): https://www.nataliegates.ca/
My assistant, Nicole: https://www.instagram.com/worksmartkindagal/
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Eman Ismail: Welcome to Mistakes That Made Me, the podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistake so you know what not to do on your road to success. Mistakes That Made Me is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. And I'm Eman Ismail, your host, and this episode is not an interview. Instead, I'm going to be sharing all the behind-the-scenes juicy info around my new micro agency launch, which I'm super excited to share with you. The website is officially live. So if you go to emancopyco.com, you'll see what I'm talking about. You'll see all this info there, you'll see my new website.
And this episode is going to go into all the questions that you're thinking, that you're wondering about. I've even had questions that have been sent in as well. So I'm going to answer those. Those were sent in via Instagram, via Threads, via LinkedIn. If you're not connected with me on any of those social platforms, do go find me and connect with me because I often ask for inspiration, ideas, questions, and I answer them on the podcast.
Okay, I'm gonna dive straight into it because it's late for me right now. It's late. I'm recording this late because my toddler has been sick and so I didn't get to do it in the day, which means I'm having a late night, so I'm gonna dive straight in. Let's do it.
I have just launched my email micro agency. So I'm still doing the same thing. It's still email strategy and copywriting that I'm focusing on for the same audience, but it's not just me anymore. It's me and my small team, which I'm very excited about. Now, a lot of people have been really interested in this idea of micro agency. Like, what is that? What does it mean? And so I wanted to give you the definition that Maggie Patterson from BS-Free Business came up with in her blog post.
So Maggie says that according to the Small Business Administration in the United States, a micro business is a business with nine or fewer employees or contractors, including the owner. And Maggie says, this is a quote, "A micro agency is essentially a service business operating as an agency with a small team of employees and/or contractors. The exact number isn't what matters, but rather that you're choosing to grow and run your business with a team."
So for me, the reason I decided to go down the micro agency route was because I never, ever, ever imagined building a full-on big agency. I knew that was never for me. That's not what I wanted. That's not what I want. That's not what I've ever wanted. And so for a long time, I felt like my only option was to be a solo business owner, like it just had to be me. Like if I don't want a big agency, it's got to be me.
And I used to get really annoyed because people would constantly kind of put that pressure on me, "Oh, you need to build an agency. That's the only way to scale. That's the only way to make more money. You need to build an agency." And I would fight back. I don't want to build an agency. I don't want to do that. I don't want to have a huge team. That's not what I'm interested in. That's not what I'm doing this for.
And I read Paul Jarvis's Company of One and loved it. Paul Jarvis talks about the idea that a business doesn't have to be bigger to be better, that you can keep your business small. So I loved that book and I loved the idea. And that just gave me the validation that I needed to want to keep my business small. And just because my, I guess, team was small, I could build a successful big business and not have a huge team.
And so I kind of came across this term micro agency. I think it was initially from Tasha Booth. Tasha Booth is a micro agency owner herself. She runs a seven-figure micro agency. And so I learnt it from her initially, but I'd already been thinking about what it might look like to build a small team. And so I just decided that that's it. I'm going to do it.
And I could kind of go into that with that kind of, I want to say like surety, I was sure that I wanted to do it because I'd been experimenting with it for a little while. So I'd been hiring copywriters to work with me on certain projects, to kind of help me with certain—like when my maybe workload got too much or when there was a part of the project that I didn't want to do, I would bring in someone else to do that part of it.
And so I've been doing that for about a year and a half now because I realised a long time ago that I don't want to do the parts of the work that I don't enjoy most. I would rather hire someone else who loves that part and just let them do it. And also, there have been other times where I've been maybe tired and I'm just like, "I need a break, but also this is an amazing project and an amazing client. So you know what? Let me bring on someone to help me." In both of those situations, it's been really helpful to be able to hire someone else.
I've been experimenting with this for the past year and a half, so it didn't kind of come out of the blue. I made sure that I liked the model, I liked who I was working with, how it worked, and it worked really well.
So let me give you an example. I have two customer research experts that I hire and I bring on to do projects. So when I'm doing email projects and I'm doing email strategy and copywriting for my clients, the customer research aspect is so important. It's so, so important. And I used to do it. I know how to do it. I'm trained in it. I think I'm very good at it, but I don't love it. And so I just don't want to do it. And so I've hired people who are better than me at it to come in and do that part of the project. My clients have always known. I've always introduced these people as "These are the people who are doing this part of the project," and it's just been fantastic.
And so I was like, "I need to make this official. This is what I want to do. This is how I want to move forward. As long as I can continue to make it profitable for me. As long as it continues to make sense, as long as I'm working with the right people, it works."
And I will say that I have in the past experimented with hiring other copywriters to work with me. And it's gone terribly wrong in the past. There have been times when I've had to redo all their work because I cannot send subpar work out to clients. And this was quite a few years ago, so this wasn't anytime recent with anyone that I've worked with recently, but this was maybe three, four years ago.
And in the end, I realised that that was really my fault because the rates that I had at that time weren't allowing me to hire people who were great at the job, quite frankly. That's the truth of the matter. And so that was my fault. When I started charging appropriately for my services, that meant I could start paying good amounts of money to the people that I was hiring. And I don't set their rates. They set their rates. So they know what their rate is and they tell me, "This is my rate to do this." And I decide whether it's doable or not essentially. And if it's doable, I'll go ahead and do it. And I pay a good amount of money to the contractors that I work with now because they're experts and they deserve every single penny. And so the work is always fantastic.
And sometimes it requires some—what's the word? Collaboration, which is totally fine, to get it to the point that I want it to be at before we can send it to the client, and that's totally fine. That's what I'm there for. But it's brilliant. It's been brilliant.
So this wasn't something that just came out of nowhere. I've been experimenting with it. I tried it out for a good while. And then I decided that this is what I wanted to do. So that's the background.
Now, in terms of what's changing, the biggest change is that my business is going from me to we. That's the biggest change internally and externally. And I think that's the biggest change for me and also for everyone outside of my business, everyone who's looking at my business, people who want to hire me, work with me. That's going to be the biggest change for them. So that's a really big deal. I know that.
The other thing that has changed is some of my services, like my service suite has changed. Part of this was auditing my services and figuring out what I needed to get rid of, what I needed to introduce. So one of the things I got rid of was my Borrow My Brain calls for copywriters. So I used to do these basically coaching calls. I prefer to call them mentoring calls. But they were specifically for copywriters. I used to do a lot of them. I used to get really booked out with them, and then I increased the price because I didn't want to spend all day, all week on Borrow My Brain calls.
And so then once I increased the price, obviously, fewer people were booking, which is great. That's what I wanted. But now I'm at this stage where I don't want to be on calls all the time. I just don't want to be on calls all the time. I think as a mom of two, I need to protect my time.
And also, the time zone differences are so difficult for me when I am working with clients all over the world. A lot of the time I need to be on calls in the evenings. And so if I'm going to be on calls in the evenings, I would prefer that to be with a client who's paying me thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars or pounds, whatever, to be on that call versus not, basically is the situation.
So I got rid of the Borrow My Brain calls for copywriters. I have a bunch of digital products that service providers and copywriters can buy from me. If they want to learn from me, if they want to learn what I do, how I do it, they can join any one of my digital products to figure out how I do stuff. So that's one thing I got rid of.
The next thing I got rid of is my email audit. So the email audit was a service that people would buy. It was a productised service that people would buy, and basically, it involved me auditing their email marketing. Now, there was a time, I wanna say 2021, 2022, when I used to get so many clients for my email audit, and it was $1,300. When I actually timed myself and figured out how long it took me to do an audit, it just wasn't profitable enough. It took too much time, and I wasn't charging enough because my email orders were huge.
And so they just weren't profitable enough. So I needed to get rid of that, first of all. I wasn't enjoying them anymore. So I wanted to get rid of that. I probably wasn't enjoying it anymore because I realised it wasn't profitable if I'm being honest. I like the things that I'm doing to make sense and to make me money. So that wasn't working. So I wanted to get rid of that anyway.
And then I noticed when I actually tracked it that I haven't had anyone ask for an email audit for a very long time. So the demand for that has gone down and I am so okay with just getting rid of it. So that's gone now as well.
And then some services that I've introduced. Well, the first one is an email strategy call, like an email strategy consult. Now, I know that I said I want to minimise the calls that I'm on in the week, which is true, I do. However, I think this is a really great service because it's kind of bridging the gap between those people who are thinking about hiring me and then my next lowest service. So those people in between 0 to $5,000, that's a big jump to hire someone at $5,000, which was my minimum rate.
And I just thought, "You know, I speak to a lot of people, I do a lot of masterclasses and webinars and all that kind of stuff, a lot of speaking, and I meet a lot of people who want my email brain on their business, but they don't want to hire me for a $5,000 project." So the email strategy consult call is a $550 one-hour call, and it will be going up soon. So if you're interested in getting one of those, head over to my website and book one now because they're just so valuable. It's worth more than $550. And I have testimonials already to prove that. I'm very confident about that.
But I'm happy to put those on my calendar because, number one, they are super profitable. Number two, they're really valuable for the clients that I'm working with. And number three, I also see them as like a starter service. I feel like for those people who are maybe, number one, who just can't manage $5,000, this is a great way to work with me. And number two, for those people who are unsure about spending $5,000 working with me, this is a great way to kind of dip their toes in into working with me.
And I just realised, see, even as I'm talking, it's such a huge change for me, this idea of going from me to we. I really need to start talking about us, like us as a team, because it's not just me anymore. And that's the whole point, is that I want people to get used to the idea of them hiring Eman Copy Co. and it might not be me who is doing the project. And so, yeah. I mean, it's interesting for me just trying to get my head around even just how I talk about the business and how I talk about the team. And so it really isn't me anymore, which is great, but also I guess it's going to take some time for me to get used to.
And by the way, it's my sixth business birthday next week on the 3rd of September, so this feels like a really great time to be launching this new version of my business. It feels like perfect timing.
Okay. And then the other service I've introduced is the Email Makeover. So the Email Makeover, that's actually the short name for it because it has a long name, which I won't go into, but the Email Makeover is basically my most premium service for my most ideal clients. So it's a $5,000 a month agreement for the space of a year, which altogether is a 60K a year service. So again, for what it actually includes, all the inclusions, it's a steal, and that price will be going up because $5,000 a month is actually insane for what I'm offering in that service. And that's for someone who basically wants me to evergreen their entire product suite.
So I'm very excited about this new service because it's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big service, and I have already done this for clients. And so it just feels like, again, I'm making it official. I'm making it available and making it make sense to people who might want it but don't even know that they want it. So then they go look at it and think, "Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I want."
And again, I think the difference with this website is that it will hopefully—well, the intention is that it brings in more of my most ideal clients. I've been working with my ideal clients for I want to say a few years now, which is fantastic. I mean, there are so many different reasons that they are my ideal clients, but if we're just looking at the budget side of things, or, sorry, their business size, I would say that they are mid-six figures to seven figures plus. And so that service is definitely for people who are on the higher end of six figures and seven figures, right? So I like that I have that service and then I also have the $550 strategy call. So I can serve both ends, right?
So in terms of what's not changing, 'cause I've spoken about all the things that are changing, what's not changing—my niche and who I serve. So we are still the people to go to for email strategy and copywriting and we are still serving all the same people. So coaches, course creators, membership makers, creators, podcasters, authors, service providers, all that good stuff. All the same people.
Okay, what else is not changing? Me, and the fact that I'm still the leader. I'm still leading this, but it feels like instead of me leading myself and potentially my VA, I'm leading a team, which feels really great.
So I guess I want to answer the question of why I did this. Why change my entire business model? I mean, this has taken six months to make happen. And I mean, that doesn't include all the thought that went into like, shall I actually do this? Shall I actually make it official? I mean, from the moment I decided yes and hired my first person to get this going. It's been six months. It's been a humongous project.
So why did I do any of this? Well, I've spoken about this in the past. If you have followed me and this podcast for any length of time, you've probably heard me say this before. I love, love, love the business I've created. I do. But the truth is I have created a job for myself when I want to create a company. I want to create a company that lives and breathes outside of me, that doesn't need me at the heart of it. I don't want to be the heart of it. And I feel like when you go on the new website, you'll see me all over the place. So you'll still see that I am heading this, but I'm doing it with the support of a team.
And I think eventually I see myself phasing—even just for example, how many photos of me there are on my website now, I see myself phasing me out of that slowly so there aren't as many, except where there needs to be, like the speaker page or the about me page, you know? But in terms of the very first thing you see when you go on the website and the hero section, is it going to be Eman forever? I don't think so. But I understand that this is the first, this is my stepping stone. So this is what felt doable and reasonable for where I'm at and also the people I'm serving as well.
So yeah, I don't want to be at the heart of the company, as in I don't want everything to rely on me and be on my shoulders. And I think this realisation came about when I started taking more time off so that I could spend more time with my family, particularly in July. So for the past three years, I've taken the entire month of July off. It's my favourite time of the year.
I definitely want to extend that at some point. I definitely want to take July and August off because every single year I come back in August and I'm like, "Oh, that was not enough time. I need another month." So at some point, hopefully, I'll get to that stage. But right now, I take July off and I've been able to pay myself every year, which is fantastic because of how I pay myself all year. I make sure that I'm able to pay myself in July, so that is paid time off, which is fantastic, but I generally don't have any income coming in. I don't have any revenue, not income. Sorry. I don't have any revenue coming into the business when I'm out of it, basically.
This year was different because I made a very, very big intentional effort to sell digital products during July. So actually, I think I want to say I had a five-figure month in July selling my digital products, but that required a little bit of work. And I had my VA to help, to be honest, so I didn't do a lot of work, but I was in the business a couple of hours a week, a few hours a week, I would say. Usually I take all of July off and I don't even step foot into the business, but this year, I was working a few hours a week so that I could do these digital product launches.
I had a summer sale. I had a masterclass, Design Your VIP Week that I was selling. So yeah, this July was different. Made about five figures, which is great, but I need that to be the case every single July. So right now I've created a job for myself. When I'm not working that job, the business is not bringing in money, and that just can't be the case. It cannot be the case anymore. So I guess I think that's probably the biggest reason why, that's the biggest reason why.
Let's talk about the next aspect of this—the team. So a lot of people have a lot of questions about the team.
Stick around. Don't go anywhere. We'll get right back to this episode after this quick break.
Systems Saved Me, hosted by Jordan Gill, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jordan was a guest on this show, and it was on Episode 16 where she shared her biggest business mistake—overhiring in her seven-figure business. If you loved that conversation with Jordan, you'll love Jordan's podcast, Systems Saved Me, where she lifts the hood to show you behind the scenes of successful businesses with freedom at its core.
She talks about how she uses systems to run her business as someone who has three chronic illnesses and a family. If I were you, I'd start with Episode 391, How You Can Stop Marketing by Accident. Listen to Systems Saved Me wherever you get your podcasts.
So a lot of people had a lot of questions about the team. Let me introduce you to my team as it is right now. This may change in the future, but I'm really happy with this team. These are people that I've worked with for a very long time, except for Nicole, my assistant, because I hired her a few months ago and she is fantastic. And I want to say one of the things that I was worried about was, and is, about people management is the hiring and the firing and people leaving and all that kind of stuff and having to retrain people. But that's just part of business. But also, I just feel like there's a reason for everything.
I parted ways with my last VA and it was a very difficult kind of time because I was in the middle of all this stuff and honestly, it couldn't have come at a worse time. But it needed to be done and it was done and I just kind of got on in terms of hiring my new VA. And I didn't think that I'd be able to hire someone so brilliant, and she is. She's just so brilliant.
And so, I'm one of those people who believes everything happens for a reason. The journey to getting to Nicole was very difficult but I'm so grateful that we got there and that Nicole's on the team and she's just been brilliant. So in terms of who this team is made up of, we have me, Eman, founder and head email strategist. We have Nicole, my right hand and the assistant at Eman Copy Co. We have Adri, who's an email copywriter. You might know Adri Kopp if you're a copywriter. She's fantastic. She joined my mastermind a few years ago and I hired her from there. She was clever enough.
And this is what I mean, like create your own opportunities, people. Really, there is no reason to not ask. She pitched me and I hired her. And it's funny 'cause I was already thinking about hiring her before she pitched me. And then the pitch just solidified what I knew I already wanted, which was to hire Adri. And I've been working with Adri ever since. She's been working with me on client stuff for a couple of years now.
Ash Chow is a sales page copywriter. We have Zuri Berry, my podcast producer. Okay, let me just go back to Ash because Ash is also amazing. I've been working with Ash for a couple of years. She's so good at what she does. And this is, again, it's one of those things where I can do sales pages. I think I write pretty great sales pages, but I don't love it. And Ash loves it, and you can see it in her work that she loves it, and she's so good at it. And so yeah, I've been working with Ash for a couple of years too. She's absolutely brilliant. I'm so happy to have her and that she's on the team as well.
We have Zuri Berry, the podcast producer. Zuri, you've met him already. If you haven't, listen to our behind the scenes Mistakes That Made Me episode. The link is in the show notes. Zuri is fantastic and he's always been the podcast producer for this show. And so it was obviously a no-brainer. Zuri is Zuri. This podcast wouldn't be what it is without Zuri.
We have Sarah, Sarah Bones, who is the editor. She's fantastic. No, she's really, really, really fantastic. I've worked with a lot of editors. And Sarah is just—I can't tell you how good she is. So Sarah has been an editor for me for, I want to say at least a year, probably more, and she makes sure basically that all the work that is going out to clients is perfection. So nothing goes out of Eman Copy Co. and to clients without going through Sarah first. And she's just brilliant.
So, next up is Melissa, Melissa Payne. She's customer research and insights expert. So remember I said I know how to do customer interviews, I just don't enjoy doing them. Melissa loves doing interviews. And I will say as well, I have two customer research and insights experts on the team. I have Melissa and Natasha. So Melissa Payne and Natasha Blimkie, because these are really huge projects. These are projects that take a month to do often, like four to six weeks to do. And so availability can be difficult to nail down. And so if one of them is not available, I can check in with the other one. Both of them customer research and insights experts. Both of them are fantastic. Both of them are so much better than me at this, and they both love it. And they're so good at it.
Recently, I just finished a project with Natasha where she did some customer research for one of my clients. And as I'm reading her stuff, I'm just amazed. All these people blow me away. And then finally we have Yusuf Rangwala, who is an email implementation expert. So Yusuf handles all the tech-related stuff with the email marketing stuff. So I am experimenting with—and I say experimenting 'cause I might not keep this, but I'm experimenting with doing email setup for clients so that they can get their emails from us and then we put it into place for them so that they don't have to. And Yusuf does all of that stuff.
Now, I've been working with Yusuf for a couple of years. He has worked with so many of my clients, but just not as part of my team. I've always recommended him separately and then clients would go hire him separately. And so he knows how I work. He knows the kind of clients that I work with. He's loved by so many of my clients already. And so I'm excited to bring him into the team and have the option available for clients, at least for the time being, while we figure out if this is going to work or not.
So that's a team of nine. They all work when they want from wherever they want. And they only work on specific contracts, on specific projects. They are contractors. None of them are employees. They are not always working for me. They all have their own businesses. So they're all working on whatever they want to be working on when they're not working with me. And I like it that way. I like it that way.
So next up, what was involved in building this micro agency? What are the different parts of this? I think the first part, which is important to kind of know is actually just the vision, like figuring out the vision. That took a while. It really took a while. And it was a lot of thinking, thinking time, deep thinking work. And I know that we don't often value thinking, time or thinking work, but it is really valuable. And I think that giving myself time to think meant that I made better decisions and although I maybe didn't make the decisions as fast, when I did make them, I was a hundred percent sure about the decision I was making, and that meant that I could completely go for it.
So things like creating an organisational chart that mapped out what my ideal company looks like in terms of roles and responsibilities and then figuring out, well, okay, maybe I can't have my exact ideal organisational chart right now, but what would a good organisational chart look like right now where every role that I need is filled and maybe the ideal roles that I can't fill right now, for whatever reason, maybe I'll do that in the future and work towards that. So there's that, there's the vision aspect.
And then there's the new website, which is obviously a huge part of this because the website is what communicates the fact that we're a micro agency now. So to give you some background, my last website, I made that in—well, that was made, because I didn't make that, that was made, passive voice, in 2020. We were building it in 2020, it published in 2021, and it was actually a skill swap.
So me and my friend Becky Simpson, she's an amazing designer, we did a skill swap. Neither of us had the budget to hire one another, so I did her sales page, and sales sequence for a course launch and she did my website. She designed it. So I did all the copy for the website and she designed it.
Now, I absolutely loved that website. I absolutely loved it. I have no doubt in my mind that that website helped take me to six figures because the website before it was abysmal and it was not serious. It was not serious. So this was my first serious website that made people think, "Oh, I like the sound of this person. She seems like she knows what she's doing. Her website is pretty good let me hire her" type of thing.
And I think that website was amazing, and it got me to six figures. I will always be grateful for that. And it also got me my ideal clients. I think it entered me into that, that world, that realm of being able to access my ideal clients because I couldn't access them before with my abysmal website, but now I need more. And I don't need more money, just to be clear, I just need more from my website.
So this time—Oh, I should mention in 2022, I did a rebrand because I had to change the name of my company because as I was going to register my then name, I found out that someone else had registered it two months before, which was fantastic, not fantastic. and so I needed to change my business name. So when I changed my business name to Eman Copy Co., I was like, "Well, I need to rebrand." So I rebranded. New logo, new brand, new everything, new colours, everything. Everything. And it was gorgeous, but I didn't have the budget after that rebrand to redo my website.
And I did try to get it redone, but I didn't love the design that came back. And I was open with the person who had worked on this with me and we spoke about it at the time. But I just knew that I loved my website enough that I wasn't willing to let that website go. And I'm talking about the 2021 website. I wasn't willing to let that website go unless it was going to be replaced by a website that I was obsessed with.
So I decided to keep that website and obviously move forward with my rebrand, even though there was a complete mismatch between my website and my rebrand. So if you see my rebrand on social media, kind of basically anywhere, then you go on my website, it was entirely different. The only thing that was the same was the logo in the top corner. And it was kind of insane, the difference between experiences. But I didn't have the, I guess, the design that I wanted, the feel that I wanted, and I didn't have the budget that I wanted either. So I just decided to live with it.
And it was actually painful for me. And it was a painful two years, knowing that my website was not aligned with the rest of my brand. But I knew that I couldn't be a perfectionist about this. I just had to move forward. So I did.
This time, however, in 2024, I hired a website agency to do my website. So this website that you'll see up now was done by a website agency. And that is Krista Walsh's website agency. Krista's actually a friend of mine. I was gonna say an old friend, but that's funny because old friend sounds like we've known each other since childhood. But I mean, I guess an old business friend, because she was one of the first people that I met when I entered the online business world. And so she's an old friend in that sense. And we've kind of just watched each other's businesses grow and it's been amazing too. And so it felt just so good to be able to work with her specifically. I also know she's just so good at what she does. So I had like a hundred percent confidence that she was going to be fantastic.
And I was really nervous about handing over the copywriting because I did the copywriting for my last website. And I always had so many people talking about how the copy really resonated with them. And so I was worried about would the new copywriter be able to do that as well for me. But when I hired Krista, I knew that she would, so I wasn't worried about that. Also, she's an SEO expert. And so SEO would be a consideration in my new website, whereas it never had been before, quite frankly.
And on top of doing the website copywriting, her agency also did the design and the build as well, so literally everything. And wow, what an experience. I think it's really great for service providers to hire other service providers for their services because it reminds you of your value. It reminds you of why people would pay so much to hire a service provider beyond the final deliverable, just that feeling of knowing that something huge has been taken off your shoulders and handed to someone else to figure out, that is so invaluable. It's actually priceless, and so I was really excited about that.
In hiring Krista, I saw and felt the value of my own work, honestly. And working with her has just been fantastic. Working with a designer has been fantastic. I'm so happy with the end result. of the website. It's just more than anything I could have wanted or dreamed of, and I feel like this is the website that could take me just beyond what I've even dreamt up for myself, I hope. That's the hope. And I am excited to see the type of clients that it brings in and who else it is able to bring in.
So hiring an agency was an experience for me. I think what was surprising for me was that it still required so much work from me. And that's not because Krista's agency did anything wrong. That's just because when you hire someone to do something as personal as a website, they're going to need your input. So even things from the briefing process, how much I had to share, which of course was necessary. I do that for my own clients as well. I mean, I think that was expected, but even just along the way of reviewing the different aspects, like the strategy, the layout, and then the copy, and then the design, it was a lot of work, and I was surprised by how much work it was, but why wouldn't it be?
I mean, it's, first of all, it's a 12-page website, so it's huge. And that's just how it goes. And I mean, I'm so happy with the outcome. And so, yeah, I'm happy with the way that it all kind of turned out. But if you were to ask me, and there is a question that actually asks me, what were you surprised about? I think it was probably that even though I hired a website agency, it still required work from me.
And it's funny 'cause I say that to my own clients when my clients hire me. I let them know that, "Hey, this is going to require work from you as well." And it does require work from them. So it's funny that I kind of forgot that in the process. And then I was surprised by that.
In terms of what else was involved in building this micro agency, I think one of the biggest things is the new positioning, the idea of us going from me to we. And so, yeah, I mean, that positioning is at the heart of everything, right? So that was a lot. It came up in my vision work, the website work, it's going to come up in the social media work and also the brand guidelines work that I did that I'll tell you about in a minute. It's a lot.
The next part is, well, I got new brand photos. I did a brand photo shoot, which was amazing, and I'm so happy with the photos. They couldn't have come out any better. I just felt like I needed an upgrade. I'd been using the same photos for four years, and I was like, even I'm getting sick of looking at these same photos. But now I have like 150, 200 new photos to use. So that should last me another four years, we hope, and I'm really happy with how they came out.
But here's the thing. When I'd finally booked the brand photo shoot and I was really excited about that, and then I started stressing out about what I was going to wear because I hate thinking about what I'm gonna wear. I can't tell you how much I hate it. You know those people who love fashion? Who love styling themselves and stuff like that? That's not me. I'm not one of those people. If I could, I would literally do what Zuckerberg does where he just fills his wardrobe with—is it black shirts or grey shirts? And just do the same outfit every single day. If I could do that and actually get away with it, I think I would because, I don't know, I get so stressed out thinking about what to wear and stuff like that.
So I kind of thought, "Well, I've spent all this money on a brand photo shoot. Well, what am I going to wear? Actually, what am I going to wear?" So then I decided to hire a personal stylist, and I hired someone called Maha. Her business is called Modestly Maha. She was fantastic. She specifically styles Muslim women who have some kind of like style requirements in terms of maybe covering certain parts of the body and that kind of thing.
And so knowing that she knew exactly what—she understood me. She knew exactly what I wanted to cover and why. I didn't need to communicate the whys or anything like that. It was just so easy. We did a whole bunch of stuff and she picked out a wardrobe for me. She told me what to order, she gave me some options. I chose the ones I liked most. I ordered them. They were sent to my house. We did it.
This was all virtual by the way, this personal styling. We did a try-on session where we tried them all on and she styled them for me virtually and told me what to do because even then I was still like, "I still don't know what the hell to do with all these clothes now." And she was like, "Okay, put this one with this one, and put that jacket with this jacket, and get that headscarf with this one, and these shoes with that." And it was just brilliant.
So then on the day of the photo shoot, I knew exactly what to do and I knew what I was wearing. And so all the clothes that you see in my new photos and across my website was styled by Maha, and she is just so talented.
And then I think the final part of this is the new brand guidelines. So this isn't something that you'll see externally, but internally, it's a big deal. I hired Natalie Gates, messaging and brand copywriter, to create brand guidelines for Eman Copy Co. And I think this was just game-changing for me mentally because it required me to think of the company as separate from me. So Eman Copy Co. became, through this document, Eman Copy Co., and not just synonymous with me, Eman, right?
And that was a big mindset shift for me. And every time I read this document, I get excited about my business all over again. This is a document that every new hire will get. It'll be part of their onboarding that they'll read these guidelines. It goes through an overview of the company, mission, values, our services, tone of voice, how we speak to clients, and how we speak on social media, how we don't speak to clients, how we don't speak on social media. Just so many different parts.
Let me see if I can even get it up. I've kind of mentioned this before so I won't go through it too much, but we talk about the company's positioning, brand personality, brand promise, values, mission, differentiators, our audience, we have buyer personas, our voice guidelines, internal client communication, our production processes, grammar and style choices, our services, I said that already, our origin story. This document, it's 45 pages of just genius.
I know what's so funny is you would really think that I had written this. I went through this document and thought, "Oh my gosh, how did Natalie nail everything so well?" You would think I, as the founder of this company, wrote this document, that's how much she was able to get inside my head and just communicate so much better than I ever could have communicated everything that I was thinking and feeling and wanted to communicate. So yeah, highly recommend Natalie if you're looking for messaging or brand guidelines.
Next up, I wanted to talk about what I'm most excited about. And what I'm most excited about is actually building the agency, doing the work of building the agency. 'Cause I realised, even though I'm launching the agency, the work behind the scenes of building it is still there. I have to still do that work. I have to work on developing my business and I love being in business. I love the business side of business. And so I'm excited to dive into that and figure that out.
I'm very excited about the website launch. Go check it out, emancopyco.com. On the website, I'm very excited about the new Podcast section because finally, it's just a lot better than it was. It's just a lot better than it was. And I'm also really excited about the Tools page on my website. So we have now a—let me find it. A recommended tools and software. Recommended tools and resources, our favourite tools, our favourite resources page and we share favourite software, favourite office essentials, favourite books.
And these are truly the resources and tools that I use and that I love. But most of this page is affiliate links. And so I'm hoping that it will, first of all, answer all the questions that I usually get, which is always like, "Okay, what do you use for your email service provider? What do you use for this? What do you use for that? What do you recommend for this and that?" So it will answer all those questions. I can send people to this page. And also, hopefully, it will bring in some extra income as well because most of the links on this page are affiliate links, and I'm using these affiliate links 'cause I truly believe in these products and I use these products and love them.
And it's been really interesting having a look at my ConvertKit affiliate stuff recently, like data, because now that I have been a ConvertKit partner for—it's been six months, I think so far, I'm getting more people than ever using my ConvertKit affiliate link and joining ConvertKit through me, which I'm so grateful for because they didn't have to use it but I really appreciate them deciding to use it.
I'm making passive income through affiliate stuff, which is so cool because I get to promote companies that I really actually love and make money from doing that when actually I would have promoted them even if I wasn't making money, so it's just a really nice bonus to be rewarded for it. So I'm very excited about that page 'cause I think it's pretty cool. And honestly, I'm excited about the whole website. I'm just excited about all of it.
Challenges. I've already mentioned that one of the challenges was the website and how much work it needed from me, which, again is understandable, and I should have seen that coming, but I guess I don't think I made enough time for it.
And then in terms of—these are, I guess, the rest of the challenges that I'm anticipating. So I'm wondering if there'll be any feelings about people coming to work with us and not working with me specifically. But I also feel like that's just about training people. This is a whole exercise in just training people's expectations. And I think that's really as simple as that. I just think it's really as simple as that. There might be some people who don't like it and then they don't have to work with me. That's okay. It's okay. They don't have to work with us.
But every single person that I have on my team is someone that I trust immensely that is exceptionally good at what they do. And so I have a lot of trust and belief in them that we're gonna get the job done and we're gonna do it really well. And so I think the people who get that will get it and will want to work with us anyway.
And actually, just so you know, it's actually a—I don't see it as a negative or something to be worried about. I actually see it as a positive because now people don't just get my brain on their work, but they get multiple brains on their work. And they're not paying any more to have multiple brains on their project. And so I think it's a great thing.
Now, I guess I'm worried about people management because I see myself as a leader, but not a manager. I don't love doing that. Ideally, I would have someone in that role in the future, not possible right now. So in the meantime, I just need to brush up on my people management skills. That's what I need to do.
Oh, another challenge I'm anticipating is trying to find time for learning in terms of just building an agency, finding time for personal and business development. I struggle with that right now and I need to not struggle with it 'cause it's really important. And I really believe in how important that is.
And then the other challenge I'm anticipating is finishing aligning all my offers, my digital product offers specifically. So right now, some of them are for copywriters only. Some of them are for all service providers and consultants. And I have to figure out how to find the time to make sure that all my digital products are hopefully by the end of the year for all different types of service providers and all consultants. So it's a lot of work, and I don't know how I'm going to find the time to do that work in between building an agency.
Let's talk about cost. How much did all of this cost me? How much money did I spend? I think that's what a lot of people are going to be wondering. So I'm going to dive in and I'm going to tell you about my main expenses. So I already mentioned I hired a stylist. I'm going to give you this cost breakdown in USD. Not all of these service providers charged in USD, but where they didn't, I've just converted it to USD just for ease. So the stylist cost $573. My website cost $8,000.
And I have to tell you that I was actually part of a beta or beta, however you want to pronounce it. I was part of a beta program with Krista and her agency. I was one of her first clients as a website agency. Krista has been doing this a long time, but that was as a solo freelancer. She grew her business into an agency, just like I have. And so I was one of her first clients. And one of the benefits of being part of this beta launch was that I get a discount.
So this $8,000, it's a lot of money, I think for anyone. It's definitely a lot of money for me, but I just want to be very clear that what I got for $8,000 was an absolute steal. It's such a great deal. I think the initial offer that Krista put out there was $4,500 for five website pages, but I had so many website pages. I had the podcast section as well that needed to be done and all these other bits and bobs. And so it ended up being more. So altogether the website came up to $8,000. That's for website copywriting, website design, website build as well.
So my brand guide that I hired Natalie for, that came up to about $1,407, that's 2,000 Canadian dollars. My photo shoot, the brand photos where I got—I think it was up to 200, I think I got 200 photos. That was $2,956, so just under $3,000. Now, I mean, honestly, some people are surprised that I spent that much on a photo shoot, but I cannot tell you how great it was and how good it feels to hire someone who's really good at what they do and then to show up for them to help you do the thing and then produce these amazing photos. It was just worth every penny. It was actually a two-day photo shoot in two different locations in one week, and it was fantastic.
I mean, those were the four main expenses, but then there were also other things that I haven't mentioned, but that probably need mentioning, just things like redesigning the case studies on my website to make sure they fit my brand and also fit the new positioning of Eman Copy Co. as a micro agency and not just Eman anymore.
Things like getting my Dubsado intake forms designed by Dubsado specialist designer, which may feel excessive, but it really bothered me that the experience of my website kind of didn't follow through when people clicked on to the I'm here to inquire button or Book Eman, whatever, Book the Team, whatever, and then they get taken through to my Dubsado form, and it was just this really drab, awful form that was just like a basic Dubsado form. It really bothered me that the experience just ended there, that the brand experience just ended there.
And so I decided to hire someone to create tailored, designed, branded Dubsado forms for me. That cost $400. And I like to give people a shout-out. So let me just make sure that I have the name of the person I hired. Okay. So for the case study designer, I hired Nihaad. Her business is called Our Polished Pages, and she did such a fantastic job. She mainly designs in Canva, that's her thing, and I was blown away by what she designed. So she is called Nihaad, and her website is Our Polished Pages.
And then in terms of my Dubsado stuff, the forms, the designed forms, Fran at The Passions Collective did those. She also did a really great job. We're still in the middle of that project, but she's delivered one form and it's beautiful. We're gonna start working on the second. So for Fran, who did the Dubsado forms, that cost $400 and then the case study designs costs $300.
So altogether—and I just want to also mention that there are other things that I haven't added up, like the $163 that I spent—let me just add that 'cause I know that off the top of my head, the $163 that I spent on my website platform subscription, you know, those kinds of things. There are also things like website widgets and stuff that I bought. So lots of little things that add up, and those little things I haven't added on. But the main expenses altogether came up to $12,393.16. So just under $12,500 spent over the course of six months.
And honestly, there's so much more that I want to spend money on that I stopped myself spending money on because it just wasn't urgent. And this was about my budget. I wanted 12K really to be the max that I was spending. And then I hit it and then I just decided to be really strict with myself after that. If there's anything else that I really want, but, you know, I'm over budget now, so I can't have it, this is how strict I was being with myself, then I just put it on my wishlist. And then I'll slowly, slowly hire these people and work towards getting those things that I want over the next few months. It's not a big deal. I can wait. The main stuff is done, right? So that was the cost. That was the cost.
And also, I think another thing to mention is how much my assistant, Nicole, has helped me in terms of getting everything set up. And so really from an expense perspective, I should consider the work that Nicole has done, which, again, has been invaluable and worth every penny, but of course, that's also an expense, so that should really be taken into consideration when I'm thinking about total cost.
Okay, that's everything. That's everything that I wanted to share with you. That's everything in terms of the behind-the-scenes. I guess I could have shared a lot more but I don't have forever to share this and you don't have forever to listen to me sharing this, right?
So I'm gonna go on to the Q&A. I had a good number of questions come through, and the most popular one was, "Are you hiring?" The answer to that is not right now. I'm really happy with the team that I have. However, I know that things change. And so I have a database of contractors that have got in touch with me because they are interested in working with Eman Copy Co. at some point in time.
So if that's you, drop me an email at hey@emancopyco.com. I'll say that again. hey@emancopyco.com. Nicole, my assistant, will pick that up for you. And what you need to do is ask her for the form that expresses your interest in joining our team and working with us. And Nicole will send you the correct form. And you fill in that form for me, whether you're a copywriter or a designer or a, I don't know, an ops expert, whatever you are, if you're interested in working with us, fill in the form. And then we'll keep your info on this database. We'll keep your info on file. And then if anything ever comes up, this list is the first list that we'll go to, to find the people we need. So there's the answer to that.
Now, I got a few questions from Shlesha. I really hope I pronounced your name right. I hate it when people butcher my name. So I hope I pronounced Shlesha correctly. Now in terms of the questions, the first one was "How much did your rebrand cost?" So I've already answered that one. And the second part of that question is "When did you decide it was the right time to invest in the rebrand and did you save for this or was it something more spontaneous?" I think that's a really great question.
So if you listen back to or if you listened to my year-end review and the things that I talked about wanting to do in 2024, one of them was I wanted a new website. I knew I needed a new website. It was time. I'd outgrown my existing one and I just knew that was something I wanted to do in 2024. And so when Krista announced that she was turning into a website agency and that also she had basically these beta prices. I can't decide if it's beta or beta, so you'll hear me say both. But Krista announced that she had these beta prices, and it just felt so perfect.
You know, one of those things that just feels so perfect, but you can't say no because there's no one that I would have trusted more than Krista to do my website. There's no one that I would have trusted more than Krista's team to work on my website. It was very difficult for me to hand that over because I had done all the copy and positioning and messaging and everything for my existing website, all the research, everything, and I was so proud of it and still am.
It was very difficult for me to hand that over, but I knew that with Krista, it would be easy because I trusted her and I knew how good she was at what she does. So when that opportunity arose, I knew I had to say yes. It was a fantastic deal as well. And so, although I'd planned to do my website in 2024, I guess how it happened, it just kind of fell into my lap, everything just aligned. And so I went for it.
Now, in terms of saving for this, I didn't save for it, but I had the funds in my business and decided that it was worth the investment. And it definitely feels like an investment. And I hope I'm right in this. The entire time, this has felt like an investment. I mean, $12,000, $12,300, I can make that back in one project. So if this new website gets me one new client, one new project, it will have given me a return on investment—or, sorry, at least I will have made back the money that I spent, and then anything more on that is a return on investment.
And so while I didn't save, I guess because of—I mean, I had a great year, I had a great business year because of how I managed the business money as well, the money was there and it was possible. So that was great.
Shlesha also asks, "Did you worry about people wanting to only work with you? How did you overcome this?" I feel like I already answered this, so I won't go into it again too much, but I think it really is about, first of all, just training clients' expectations. So people will expect what you tell them to expect. So if I tell a person that they're coming to me or if they come to my website and it says, work with Eman, I'm going to be working on your project, I'm going to be the person who's doing this and that, then of course, they're going to expect to only work with me. However, if my website doesn't say that if my website talks about working with a team and working with a team of experts or whatever else, then they will come to expect that.
And you know, there are going to be people who want to only work with one person, and that's fine, and then there are going to be other people who trust me and my expertise enough to know that I would have built a great team and a team of people that I trust and that they can trust as well. And so those people, those people who trust me, that trust any team that I would put together are my ideal clients.
And again, I don't see it as a negative. I see it as this brains trust. It's multiple brains coming together to work on things. And it's a benefit, it's an advantage to the clients. So that's how I view it.
In terms of existing clients, I am not worried about that. I think I just have to communicate it well and talk to them about it and be open about what the changes are going to be and I guess listen to them if they do have any concerns and see how I can assuade them and assuade those concerns and make them feel better if possible.
"Was it easy to get the designer to implement your vision? I'm so worried a designer won't get my vision right." Okay. So I don't think it's ever easy to get a designer to implement your vision and to understand your vision. But I think that there are things that we can do to make it easier for them to understand what we want. First of all, I think the key is for us to understand what we want.
And so with this project, I had a lot of things in place. I had a lot of tools for everyone who I'd hired on this project. I had a lot of tools in place to help them with that. So of course there was all the briefing stuff that I did with every service provider, including the designer, and Krista on the website. But on top of that, I had my brand guidelines that my branding designer had done for me, which is very clear, which is very clear about what my brand is visually. So there's that. There's no way you can get it wrong if you just follow the brand guidelines, that's it. That's all you gotta do.
And by the way, I am not—what's the word? I am not minimising the work of designer, that I just mean that when—and I know this as an email strategist and copywriter, when someone gives you guidelines and they're actually good guidelines, it makes your job so much easier when you know what to follow, you have some guidance. So there's that.
And then also, the brand voice and messaging guide that I did with Natalie was also really helpful. And while that wasn't a visual guideline, it was a messaging positioning kind of guideline, but I think that was also really helpful for everyone that I hired, including the designer, because while it wasn't about the visual aspects of my brand, it was about who the brand is, you know? And I think that was really important for them to understand.
So I had all these different things in place. I had these tools available to the designer so that I could communicate effectively to the designer what I wanted and also what I didn't want.
And also, I think I'm very good at giving feedback, I have to say that some of the feedback I got was that I'm great at giving feedback because I'm very clear about the feedback that I give. Because I've realised after years of not giving clear feedback because I was too worried about offending people, I realised it's actually kinder to just be clear in your communication. And so I give very clear feedback. People aren't confused, and they usually thank me for the clear feedback, and I think that's really important as well.
So when you're hiring people, whether it's a designer or someone else, I think just clear communication, clear guidelines, clear expectations on both sides, clear feedback, and also, just generally treating one another nicely always helps because there are times when things can get sticky and there were times when things did get sticky or could have gotten sticky, but, again, with just being kind to one another, trying to understand each other's perspective, things cleared up.
And by the way, that wasn't with the designer. That wasn't with Krista's agency at all, just to clarify that. And again, nothing happened, but you know, something could have happened had we not cleared up the communication in a certain case. That was not Krista or her designer. So yeah, there's that.
Robert on LinkedIn asks, "What's one task that took surprisingly longer and/or was harder than you expected?" Again, I think just the level of feedback and involvement needed from me for the website, which, again, it makes perfect sense, but it was a surprise because I guess this was my first time hiring an agency. So my assumption was the agency just takes everything off your hands. And while they do, they take all the hard stuff off your hands, it doesn't mean that you're left with nothing to do. They still need your involvement. They still need your input. So that was an interesting learning experience for me.
McKenna and Kellan, I hope I said the name Kellan correctly, on Threads, they both kind of asked me a similar question so I've just bunched it together. So they wanted to know what my time would be spent doing now. And I see myself as heading this micro agency, I see myself as the leader, but I also don't want to not do the creative work. And that's why I'm not interested in building a humongous agency where I can only be the manager. That's not what I want to do. I want to still be connected to the work. The reason I'm an email strategist is because I love this work. And so I want to be able to still do it when I want to on the projects that really grab my interest or the clients that really grab my interest.
But then I also see myself doing—and have been as well in the time that I have been hiring different contractors and bringing them onto different projects—project managing, overseeing work, quality assurance, making sure everything that goes out is exactly at the standard that it needs to be.
But then I also think a big part of this, if I am getting more people to help me with the execution and I'm spending more money on—I have higher expenses because I'm paying people to be on my team. On the other side of that, I need to make sure that I am doing more and have more time for marketing and sales. So I need to be doing more effective marketing activities, lead generation stuff. I need to be bringing in leads. I need to be doing the stuff that's going to bring in more leads. I need to be on more sales calls. I need to be closing more sales calls.
I think over time, my goal is to not be doing sales calls, is to not have to be the person who's doing sales calls. So that is a goal of mine, but for now, that is going to be part of my role. So yeah, I mean, I guess that's still—we'll figure it out as we go along.
So Christina asked a fantastic question on Instagram, which was, "Thoughts on adjusting pricing if you plan to?" This is a great question. I actually already adjusted my prices with the additional expense of working with people. I already took that into consideration and adjusted my prices based on that because, again, remember, I've been doing this for about a year and a half anyway.
So I was really happy with my pricing, but we all have a problem. And this is not just me. This is you as well. You have a problem too. We all have a problem. Because the price of everything is increasing, the cost of just having a business and maintaining a business is increasing. I feel like I'm getting an email every single day from a different tool, from a different software that I use, from different service providers, that their prices are increasing dramatically.
So what that means is I now have to increase my prices. So I think I'm going to stick with my pricing as it is until the end of the year. And I'll probably use that to get people to book in their projects before the end of the year because come the new year, my prices have to have to increase because it's just costing me so much more to maintain this same business that I've had. It's just costing more. And so the only way for me, for us, to survive is to increase our prices at this point.
Amina asks, "Will you only work with service providers or are you expanding into SaaS and ecomm?" So I'm still working with the type of clients that I've always worked with, which is basically creators, service providers, coaches, course creators, membership makers, that type of sphere. I have worked with SaaS companies in the past. I've worked with Interact, the quiz platform, for example. I get some inquiries still from SaaS companies. Now, I say yes sometimes because sometimes the project interests me, but that's not who I'm targeting. But if they come my way and it's a really interesting project—and this is what I love about just being a business owner is being able to follow your interest—I can say yes, just because it interests me.
So, yeah, that's that. I used to work with a lot of ecommerce brands. I'm dropping really the work that I did with ecommerce brands. Sorry. I will say that I am no longer targeting ecommerce brands, product-based businesses, but if they come to me and, again, I'm interested in the work, in the project, in the product, then I will do it because I know how to, and I'll be able to get them great results, we'll be able to get them great results. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see what comes our way. But in terms of who we're targeting, we're targeting who we've always targeted.
And I did get a question from Aleffia about what the hiring and operations process looked like, but I think I already went into that in terms of there wasn't really a hiring and operations process that happened now. These are people that I've been working with for at least a year, in most cases more than a year, in some cases I've been working with them for a couple of years. And so it was really a case of assembling the people that I really trusted, that I already had a relationship with, and having individual meetings with each of them and seeing if they wanted to be part of the Eman Copy Co. team officially. And every single one of them said yes, which I was really excited about. So I was very excited about. And yeah.
I think for me now, the challenge is also helping them get to know each other and feel comfortable with one another because I know that they will come into contact with one another, they'll need to work together sometimes, and so I don't want them to feel like strangers, I want them to feel like they know the people that they're working with. So rather than it feeling like just a bunch of individual contractors, that we actually feel like a team. I want them to feel like they can contact Nicole, my assistant, for whatever they need, when they need help or whatever else, and me, of course, and whoever else is working alongside them on that particular project.
Okay. Those are all the questions I'm going to answer. I hope that this was interesting. I know that maybe you're listening and you're just curious about what this looks like for me. Maybe you're listening because you already have an agency or because you're thinking about wanting to build one, or you just want to know what it's like. Whatever the reason, I hope you enjoyed listening. I hope this was interesting. I hope it was helpful. I hope it was useful.
And if I could ask you to do one thing—actually, you know what? I'm going to ask you to do one of three things. If you're really generous, you'll do all three, and I will love you for it, but at least one of three I would love. Number one, go check out the website, emancopyco.com. It's live. I'm so excited. I hope you love it as much as I do. Number two, if you are someone whose business needs email marketing support, get in touch with us via the website, or if you know someone who might, if you think a social media shoutout link into my website might bring some people our way, then please do. I would be so grateful for that.
And the final thing I'm going to ask—this one's a little bit cheeky. Remember I mentioned that I'm really excited about my new website page, which is the, like, Our Favourite Tools & Resources? So under the Software section, there's Office Essentials and Books, right? And most of those, nearly all of those, are Amazon affiliate links. I need you to go buy some stuff that you're interested in, please, because I need you to activate my Amazon affiliate account because if people don't start buying, and granted, the website went live like two hours ago, but if people don't buy something from my Amazon affiliate account, they're going to shut down my account. So I need at least three sales.
So if there's anything on my Recommended Tools page that you like the look of, please do buy it through my affiliate link because it'll activate my account and then I can remain an Amazon affiliate, which is something I'm experimenting with. So then that is pretty cool, I think. All of these things are things that I use personally, that I love personally, so go check that out.
Okay. I'm going to leave it here. I'm not going to keep you with me here forever. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you for just being a part of this and celebrating this with me. I'll be back in your earholes in a couple of weeks.