Episode #37: Prepping my business for maternity leave (while my email agency runs without me) with Eman & Zuri
I’m almost 34 weeks pregnant 🤰🏽 So today I’m spilling all the details on how I’m prepping for an extended maternity leave while making sure my email agency keeps running smoothly without me.
I’m also taking a trip down memory lane and sharing what I learned from my first maternity leave as a business owner (back in 2021) – what worked, what didn’t, and how those lessons shaped the plan I’m putting into action this time.
I break down how I’ve set my finances, outlined my goals, and hired an incredible team to step in while I’m away.
Even if maternity leave isn’t on your radar, the tips and strategies I’m sharing will help any business owner plan for an extended break.
We all need a little time off now and then, right?
To help me dive into it all, I’m joined by my podcast producer, Zuri Berry. Let’s get into it!
Listen to the Episode
Links from this episode:
Get the transcript for the episode on my website: https://www.emancopyco.com/podcast
My hiring page: emancopyco.com/hiring
2022 Being Boss podcast episode: Preparing for Maternity Leave with Eman Ismail – https://beingboss.club/podcast/preparing-for-maternity-leave-with-eman-ismail
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
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Eman Ismail: Hey, 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.
I'm Eman Ismail, your host. This episode is not an interview instead. I'm talking about what I've been doing to prep my business for my extended leave, which is in this case, maternity leave. And the difference this time is that I'm going to be keeping my business and my agency running while I'm away. So it's a little different this time. But I think it's gonna be really interesting just sharing what I've been doing personally in terms of finances, in terms of goals, all that kind of stuff, to, to prepare.
And I've actually also invited Zuri Berry, our podcast producer, to chat with me through this. So, welcome, Zuri, welcome back, I should say.
Zuri Berry: Thank you. Nice to be back. I'm looking forward to having this conversation because, what you did in maternity was extraordinary. I don't know if people, sort of followed and listened to your podcast episode with, on being boss, which, was a great interview about this situation when you had your second child.
So there's a lot that's changed since then. And I want to get into it because there was a lot of lessons learned for those who are trying to take leave. And I just say this as a, as a father as well, like there's lessons for those solo entrepreneurs that are guys too, in terms of, hey, do I want to take a holiday? Do I want to take a break? There's a lot to consider
here.
Eman Ismail: There's a lot to consider. And actually, that's a really great point. I want to say that obviously my extended leave is maternity leave. So that's the context that I'll be kind of talking about this leave. in, but this is going to apply this episode and everything we talk about is going to apply to anybody that wants to take any kind of extended leave, it doesn't necessarily have to be related to parental leave. It might just be that you want to take six months off to go travel or whatever else. And so everything that we're going to talk about here is still going to apply to you. So still listening even if the parental kind of part of this doesn't apply to you.
And thank you, Zuri, for what you said about what I managed to do last time. Let me just give you some context around that in case you don't know. So when I started my business back in 2018, I had a then two year old, and then I had another baby in 2021. So that was my first maternity leave as a business owner.
And now I'm about to have, our third child, our third son, actually. and. This is my, this will be my second maternity leave as a business owner. So it's been, it's been really interesting having had this experience already and it still being very different.
Zuri Berry: And, It inspires quite a few emotions as well, right? Because there was some anxiety about what it means as a business owner to know that you're going to have to take some extended time away. And that particular, first pregnancy during when you, when you launched the business already 2021, can you, can you just remind folks sort of what went into that process, thinking through that.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. So that was my first, obviously maternity leave as a business owner. And I realized how very few resources there are in the world about, you know, that are. I guess that have been created to support us as business owners to take any kind of parental leave. It's so difficult. and also it doesn't help that most governments just completely screw over small business owners.
so that's, that's fun.which means generally that you won't get a lot of support in terms of parental allowance and things like that as a business owner, which feels really unfair as you know, tax paying citizens who deserve to be taken care of just like everyone else's. But, what happened last time was, I think I was three years into business, and so, well, that's fairly new, I feel like, still. And so I was very anxious and very worried because, I think my biggest fear was, taking time out of the business and, and being forgotten about. and I remember having a lot of conversations at the time about whether people would just forget about me and whether I'd have to build up my so called, you know, relevancy all over again.
so funny because I haven't been thinking about that or been worried about that at all this time. So that, that worry feels really alien to me right now. But I remember having so many conversations with so many different people about that fear. What if everyone forgets about me? What if, you know, clients forget I exist?
What if the people who are buying my courses and digital products forget I exist? And I come back and I have to start from scratch just to be like remembered. I'll be just so irrelevant. And so that was a really big worry for me was that how do I ramp back up after taking time off? And I think for that maternity leave, I, my business was still very, my brain was still very much on the business, even though I was out of the business.
And so what I learned from that time round was that I don't want that to be the case this time. I have more realistic expectations in that. I know that my brain won't completely switch off because when you're a business owner, it's. Just difficult for that to happen, but. I, I, I think, I mean I plan for this to be my last child.
I'm always so hesitant about saying this publicly in case I come back for a fourth round and everyone's like, thought you said this was gonna be your last one.but right now. As someone who is just so done with pregnancy. I'm just like, you know, I'm ready to put my child bearing years behind me.
And move forward with the three kids that we will, you know, hopefully have. And, so this time feels like, okay, This, I plan for this to be my last. I plan for this to be, you know, My last firsts, I really want to enjoy this. I really want to be present and I think that's the most important thing. I really want to be present.
I don't want to be like hair in my body with the baby. But my brain is elsewhere thinking about work and worrying about work. And so actually the easiest way to do that is to shut down the business while I'm away on maternity leave.
I'll be honest because even after I launched the agency, and then I, and then I've discovered I was pregnant, I did think a few times.
Maybe I just, just press pause on everything and I just close the business down while I'm away. and then pick it back up again when I come back. And that way I don't have to think about, worry about, stress about, plan to keep it running. maybe that's how I am going to be present and like living in the moment.
after I have the baby. but actually I really believe in what I've been building for the past over a year. And so what I found is that it's, this has made me move faster. And move, I think, smarter and, and really just, yeah, just do the thing. It's given me that, that like fire that I needed. whereas I might've dragged my feet on a few things and I might've been scared to hire this person or try that.
And at this point it's like, well, you don't have a choice. You've made the decision that the business is going to keep running now. So. You have to put these things into place. So yeah, that's kind of where I was at last time, where we're at this time, I think in terms of things I'm worried about now, it's not irrelevancy.
Actually, what I'm worried about now is, is people not understanding or knowing that the business is still open, that the agency is still open for business. I'm thinking that because I'm not here that, that the business is closed. Actually, I ran a workshop yesterday and, um, And the person who, the host who was running it was inviting people to get in contact to work with me.
And then, and then she said, which is, you know, quite natural and normal to say, Oh, well, actually your man is going to be on maternity leave soon. So I don't know how much longer she's going to be available for you to hire. And it's that, that's my, that's my worry. That's my concern.
And so I just need to be strategic and smart about that conversation as well. I think also last time I had shut the business down, I had a, a wait list up for inquiries that came in. It was an automated Dubsado, kind of
workflow.
And, It was painful watching inquiries come in with Dream Clients and watching them get the waitlist email and just being like, Mm, okay. So, there was actually someone, there was an inquiry that came through and I remember thinking, I know this, I know this, this name, I've seen this business somewhere.
And I went on the website, had a look at it, saw a badge in the corner and realized, As seen on Dragons Den. Dragons Den, by the way, is our version here, in the UK is, Shark Tank. So, yeah, it's our Shark Tank. I'd been watching this woman pitch Dragons Den and she got the, she got the investment as well and I remember it was just a really cool business and she inquired with me.
And I would have loved to work with her and I wasn't able to work with her and so we never ended up working together. but it's things like that, like it's, it's actually painful and so I'm excited that I don't have that to deal with this time around.
Zuri Berry: Yeah. You, you mentioned through this, about planning, and that's a great segue to talking about your goals, figuring out what you want. if folks aren't familiar yet through this podcast, Eman is a planner there. She has a very extensive, uh, Asana. Project management is her thing. If you've worked with her as a client, you probably get lots of documentation as well as videos.
And so there's all of these aspects to you that also go into the planning for leave as well. And I want to get a sense of what are you trying to accomplish? in this plan that you have for this time away this time and how that differs from your previous plans. So what are your goals for your schedule?
How long do you want to take off? Give us a sense
of that.
Eman Ismail: Okay, so first of all I just want to say that this is always the first step to planning any kind of extended leave. I know this sounds really silly but I think sometimes people forget to do this, they move like two, three steps ahead when actually the very first step is figuring out What do I want? And then the next step of course is figuring out, okay, how do I get what I want?
How do I get what I want? So in terms of just sitting down and figuring out what do I want, last time I took six months out. This time I'll be taking I think a little bit more seven I would have liked to take more and since I recorded the year in review Last month things have changed slightly. So instead of taking the ten months off that I was gonna take off I'm taking a bit less at like seven Last time I came back after those six months and was working around the baby.
And this time I'll be doing the same thing. I'll be coming back and working around the baby, basically part time. Now, the fatal error I made last time was that I was still taking on full time work as if I had full time hours available to me. and I only realized when I was extremely stressed trying to work around baby's nap times that I had taken on these Humongous projects which is fine, but I hadn't given myself enough time to do them So I would have like the time that I gave myself was the time I would have given myself if I didn't have a baby But now I had a baby and so I needed to extend the timelines and I never did and so what I learned from that Is that?
But this time around when I do go back and I'm working around the baby, I need to be a lot more realistic about how much time I actually have in my day to get things done, which will probably only be a few hours, a couple of hours nap time, and maybe a couple of hours when the baby's asleep. And also all my other kids as well.
I say all like I've got like a whole gang behind me, but my other two kids too. So, um, I guess. Go ahead sorry.
Zuri Berry: was just going to say, well, it, I mean, there was some work that occurred on your, on your leave last time. And some, some of it was actually much bigger, right? The masterclass. And then there were some small projects as well. So there, there were some small things
that were, no, it was completely shut
down.
Eman Ismail: no, it was
completely shut down.
Um, I did launch, um, I had launches but they were all done before I went on maternity leave.
Zuri Berry: So, so, so the launches occurred before you went on leave. And explain to me what your responsibilities or duties were with that that went along while you were on leave,
if there were
Eman Ismail: were not,
Zuri Berry: So there was, there was none, nothing that
happened.
Eman Ismail: nothing.
Zuri Berry: wow. So, so are you going to take on anything this time around as well?
Or is it completely shut
down too in that sense? Because I mean, you're saying it, I'm trying to understand this. Yeah, I'm trying to understand this because I want to make this very clear to people. Like there's absolutely nothing that you're taking part in during your leave
Eman Ismail: No.
No.
Zuri Berry: now, how does that change with, agency,and with contractors and all of that?
So there are other people that will be taking on some of these projects then, huh?
Eman Ismail: All the projects. Yeah. So, this is what we've been working towards and this is what I have, I have been kind of planning for and spending so much time on. Which we'll get into properly a little later on but, actually the conditions of my maternity leave now and like parental allowance is that, I'm not allowed to do work.
So someone actually sent in a question asking about kit days, which is a UK thing, which is, I think it's the number of days that you are allowed to work while you're on maternity leave and receiving some kind of like parental allowance.
I've never had a UK maternity leave and I'm not in the UK anymore, so I still won't have a UK maternity leave. Kit, these, the kit day thingies, are not a thing that I know about or that. That I have ever been able to access, my situation now is that, when you're on maternity leave, you cannot work.
And if you want to go back to work, you should, basically do that, like let them know officially let the authorities know officially the government or whatever, the correct department so that they, so that your, any allowance that you're getting, which really isn't very much by the way, anyway, we'll, we'll stop.
So. Even if that wasn't the case though, it is the case that I wouldn't want to be doing anything because, certainly related to client projects because I don't, I just don't have the capacity to. So I, thankfully I already have the experience of having kids and postpartum and all of that stuff. And, I have really, really.
difficult births and honestly each one has been worse than the one before and each one has ended in an emergency c section and the last one I even had post surgery complications as well and so I know how difficult postpartum is for me and Now I am at the point where I have to have a planned c section.
I'm not even allowed to try anything else at this point. And so I know what comes with the c section for me. I'm hoping this time it will be easier because it's not going to be an emergency, which brings its own kind of difficulties. But I know that, it's going to be difficult. And I also don't have any extended family where I am.
Ordinarily, I would have my mum and my grandma and my aunt and they would be like, basically living in the house with me cooking for us, cleaning for us, you know, and my grandma and mum did come down the last time I had, you know, when I had my last baby, but it was for three days, which was the best that everyone could kind of do, and I was just so grateful for those three days.
This time around, I don't know if I'm gonna, if, if that's gonna be the case, if that's gonna happen, so I have no extended support. We just have the support that we have in the household and I can't handle thinking about work on top of that. It's not possible. So, and I also know it takes about three months for me to kind of, just for the fog to clear.
I don't know how anyone returns to work earlier than that. I think the maternity, or sorry, the lack of maternity, laws in the U. S. are a cruel and unusual punishment. I really do. I hear about women going back to work after six weeks. Three weeks, four weeks, like, it's insanity. my, the fog doesn't even clear for me mentally, until like for three months.
And then I, it was at six months, I still felt at six months like, I could do with some more time off. But I'll be alright, like I'll figure it out and I did figure it out, but I could have done with more time off last time. And so, it really is about just more than about the rules. It's what's best for me.
Like, I don't want to be in the business. I can't be in the business. And also, I can't, like, I'm not in a place to make decisions, as well, you know, as you need to when you're in business. And so I've hired a team to help me around that. And we have like an SOS plan, but no, I'm not available for, for work.
Zuri Berry: That's good to hear. What also brings up a thought I have here. You mentioned relevance and keeping the business relevant. Do you have any evergreen marketing system in place? Or are you going to need to schedule marketing? Can you walk us through that part of maintaining the relevance for EmanCopyCo.
Eman Ismail: Yes. So,I will have scheduled marketing. It's not in place yet. As long as baby stays put and does not come for like, until he is scheduled to come,
Zuri Berry: CopyCo? Okay. Nobody,
bets on that. Nobody bets on that.
Eman Ismail: nobody, yeah, but just like, it just can't happen because I don't have time for this. So, baby just stay put and the scheduled marketing will be in place before the baby comes.
So that will be podcast episodes, that will be, email, emails, like email marketing. That will be social media, although I'm definitely going to scale down. Like the social media, it won't be as many posts as maybe I needed, as I, as many as I'll need, but it's fine. I think just being there will, will be enough.
At least I did consider hiring my social media manager for a project to help me get, you know, however many number of posts I needed ready for maternity leave. But honestly, it just became a case of, of priorities. Priorities financially. and we'll talk about finances in a bit, but there's so much to consider and to save for, it was just a question of, do I have this in the budget?
Do I have enough in the budget to also hire a social media manager? Would I prefer. To keep that for other stuff that needs to be there in the business. So, yes, I am a little bit annoyed at myself because I had a bunch of email. not so yeah, sorry. I had a bunch of evergreen funnels set up in terms of selling my courses and digital products, and then I decided to literally just turn that upside down and redo them all.
so now I have. No evergreen funnels, in place, whereas, you know, before, I would just be watching Netflix and then randomly get a 1, 300 payment, which was really nice, and will not be the case anymore, so I'm just like, damn. But it is what it is. I couldn't do everything in time. I only had, you know, a certain amount of time.
and so, yeah, I'm working with what I have. But in order for the agency to keep running, it's important for me to schedule the marketing stuff so that we don't disappear off the face of the earth.
Zuri Berry: Absolutely. Well, why don't we do this? Why don't we talk about the finances a little bit of all of this? Because that, that figure so heavily into planning and into the marketing as well.
Eman Ismail: Stick around. Don't go anywhere. We'll get right back to this episode after this quick break.
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Zuri Berry: You know, you, mentioned maternity allowance. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that and how that factors into things and what you, what you're expecting there?
Eman Ismail: Yeah, honestly, it doesn't factor because it's just crappy. I mean, something is better than nothing, but literally that's the stage where is something is better than nothing. and it's all because I'm, I'm, I'm a business owner. if I was in a different situation and I was, like traditionally employed, I'd been, obviously as most people would be as business owners, we'd, we'd be in a much better, situation.
And so, yeah, it's just really frustrating, but I. I should have known to just rely on myself, and sort it out myself, which is what I did last time and what I ended up doing this time. So last time I, had, basically I, I buckled down and made a whole bunch of money and saved a lot. I saved a big chunk of money and then I divided it.
like it was basically my kind of savings and then I divided it up over the course of my leave. So I would receive like this tiny amount from the official like allowance. but then I would, the bulk of the money that I actually lived on was my savings. that I had like meticulously, divided. So that I would receive some every month.
and so I'm doing the same thing this time, basically. and. So it's just all been about figuring out, okay, how much, how much time do I actually want to take off? And then figuring out, okay, how much money do I need to be able to take that much time off? You know, what are our bills? What are our, what are, what are our expenses?
what are upcoming expenses that you, you know, forget about, like over the summer you'll need to pay a big. book for your car insurance, you know, things like that, that I need to consider. And then of course, then that's just the personal side, but now you have the business side, which is also very different when you're running a limited company, because Whether you like it or not, you're still going to have things that you need to pay for, for the business to just stay alive.
And I don't mean for the, like, for the agency to keep running. I mean for the business to be alive. So, like, even my accountant, who I pay a sizable amount to every month, I have to make sure that I save enough. business expenses to be able to pay my accountant over the course of six months, even though I'm not earning anything.
and things like all the tools that keep my business, running, whether it's just like keeps my website up or, you know, my asana. Cause I don't want to lose everything. You know, you have to pay for that kind of stuff. Riverside, things like, well, I can't lose all my podcast episodes and just let my Riverside account go.
So I, you have to pay for that expense too. so there are loads of things that you have to consider that, our business expenses that you won't be using, but that you need to keep paying for.and then of course, Now that I work with a bunch of people, I have a small team. actually most of my team is paid on a per project basis.
So if we, if we don't have a project, then there's nothing I'm paying for. But then there are certain people like accountant, for example, who I don't consider as part of my team, but it's a, you know, a people expense. my assistant is definitely one who I will. continued help to, even if we have a zero clients just to keep things running.
so yeah, there's, there's the personal expenses, and then there's the, the business expenses.
Zuri Berry: Absolutely, well, okay. So we've got through finances a little bit here and we're talking about over a course of seven months by the way. And so this is. Substantial for all of these things. you also talk about those people that you're saying and some of the work that they'll be doing for the business while you're away?
because there's still sort of these ongoing projects and other things that you're doing as a company. can you walk us through
that?
Eman Ismail: Yes. So the, Basically, the business will still be taking on clients as normal as if I was here, but I'm not here. So, I guess the first thing I had to consider was, how do I remove myself from the business? And if I remove myself from the business, what are the roles that I usually do that I would probably have eventually, well, I was going to eventually hire for anyway, but now I really need to hire for now.
and so, What I kind of figured out was the roles that really couldn't be left unfilled were Project manager and sales lead. So that is someone who's taking the sales calls and The things that I was doing basically that was just even just outside like the execution of projects was I was managing inquiries I was managing sales calls.
I was project managing the execution of projects or making sure that you know The right projects were delegated to the right, contractors that they were delivering on time, that, you know, client communication was fine. I was the client facing person that clients would talk to. And so all this stuff needed to be done by other people.
So, I hired a sales lead. To do sales calls.and again, that role is
Zuri Berry: little
Eman Ismail: a sales call, you get paid. If there are no sales calls, then you don't get paid. it's a small flat rate plus commission.then I hired a project manager. and this has been, this is very recent. So we're on like maybe two weeks, but I think we've, we're working.
Really kind of well, we're getting stuff done very quickly And this project manager is both for the internal company stuff So she's helping me get everything together that I need to get together in order to be able to leave but then it's also for the execution of projects and the management of client projects, so She's me Projects with clients now and so she's doing everything I used to do and she'll be the main point of contact for contractors
Zuri Berry: Can I
just,
Eman Ismail: she'll be managing contractors.
Zuri Berry: can I just point out that this is the big difference between the last leave and this one, right? Which is to say last time it was mostly you and maybe some contractors that you have a team and that you have hired people to put in place for these. Critical, critical roles. I mean that's pretty, that shows the growth of your business just in general,
right?
Eman Ismail: Thank you. It does it does I guess I don't give myself credit for that It does actually last time it was just me and my assistant and I actually let my assistant go, it was actually mutual, because she was getting married anyway, so her brain was on getting married, she just wanted to get married of course, and so it was mutual that we were like, okay, so my maternity leave's coming up, you need to go get married, so let's kind of end this here, and we did, and so I went into maternity leave with, No one, there wasn't a team.
It was just me. I was a truly a solo business owner. so this time it's very different. Yeah. So sales lead, project manager, and my assistant Nicole. So Nicole's job is, is admin. she is also the techie person as well. So she's the person that everyone will go to for any, admin support. They need any tech support.
They need, same with as well. Just the helping, if any clients have any issues with tech stuff, like everyone will just go to Nicole and be like, Nicole, can you just handle this? she is the one who will be paying invoices. she is the one who, is responding to emails So, Nicole, my assistant who's, she's been with me for nearly a year now, actually we're on, I think we're on like nine, 10 months. so that's great because she knows the business really well and she's brilliant. I absolutely love working with her. and I trust her,
Zuri Berry: I can vouch for her as well. I think she's pretty awesome, yeah.
Eman Ismail: she is.
And,and you know, I really trust her and then I have my sales lead, um, he was actually one of my best friends, Bri, um, that worked out really funnily. And even though she's one of my best friends, we still went through the whole like hiring process from beginning to end and she was up against some great people.
And I told her at the beginning, I was like, well, this, we're going to keep this fair. We're going to go right to the end of the process. and she was.the best candidate for this role, I think. And there's no one I would trust more than Bree with my potential leads and on sales calls. So that's great.
And I just hired Chandra, project manager. she is so great. We were on a call the other day and I said something like, Oh, well, I'm not really sure I need to do that. She was like, yes, you do. Yes, you do. You need to do that. Yeah, we need to do that. I was like, yes, this is the energy that I need, that I'm looking for, you know?
And so what Chandra has been really great at is like, I was pretty overwhelmed by how much I needed to do. And Chandra helped me figure out, okay, this is what you need to do.this is why. Sent me a list of things to do and I've just been working through the list for the past two weeks and so what's really great about that is it's Taking away the thinking work that I don't have energy to do and there's still obviously a lot of thinking work, but she's taken a big load of that and Has just been, has just like giving me tasks to do, to get on with and I go do it and I take it off and it's done and, and then she goes and handles whatever she needs to do with that and, it's, so yeah, it's been really great.
Those are the three kind of key internal, internal hires. And then of course there's the contractors who actually do the projects. So, I have been working with contractors since 2023, so I have some really trusted ones that I've worked with for a long time now. And it's interesting with them because they kind of have to come along on the ride of stuff changing because things are getting much more formal, you know, there are more processes and more systems and we do things in a specific way now.
They're a little different to how we were doing it before. And they've been great in terms of Like taking the changes on board and just kind of rolling with it. And then I've, I've, I've, hired some new people as well.and I kind of basically just realized like what the, what the gaps are. And often it's just about availability and making sure that we have potentially.
a couple of people available, at any one point, you know, you might go to one contractor and say, Hey, we have this project and they're on holiday that month. And so it's making sure that we have the right people in place. So I also needed to hire some, some contractors. I actually still haven't finished hiring contractors.
I thought I had, but I was like, Oh, I see another missing gap. So. I think probably there's space for maybe one more person, one more contractor and in terms of when I say contractor, I mean, copywriters, we have email copywriters, sales page copywriters. we have our editor, Sarah, we have, also researchers who do the.
Customer, interviews and surveys and things like that and put the message and reports together for us and stuff like that. So yeah, it's a lot.
Zuri Berry: So, if you're one of those people, maybe reach out, huh?
Maybe.
Eman Ismail: people I have sorted.
Because we did it. I did it. But, who am I? It's a sales page copywriter that at the moment, I, I need another one. I have an amazing one. I need a sales page copywriter, but I think I actually have some applications in from people. so I'm, I'm going to check those. Uh, go to
Emancopyco. com slash hire ring and there's a form on that page, to send a speculative application, and just let me know that you're a sales page copywriter and that is the best way to do it. Please don't email me because I get so many pitches a day. I'm about to lose my mind, a little bit in that it's not even the pitches. I love the pitches. When they're good pictures. It's the follow ups. I'm so exhausted by the follow ups. because if you imagine 10 people following up every day, I'm just like, oh my god, it's so much. So just fill in the form and if we're good to go, I'll get in contact.
Zuri Berry: So we've gone over your goals for this leave, the finances portion of it. How are you going to stay relevant and the people that you have in place that are going to help continue the business and make sure it's thriving. Right. you also did a call out. For any questions that people might have with respect to, how did you prepare for instance, and one of the first questions that, folks wanted to ask you was, well, actually, when did you start preparing?
How, how early in, I guess, the pregnancy, did you start preparing your
business for the leave?
Eman Ismail: Transcripts provided by Transcription
kids or you're going to start trying, is probably the best time to prepare.
That's probably the best time to prepare. Now, if I'm being completely honest, this pregnancy is a very much wanted pregnancy But it was very much not planned so Once I kind of got over the initial shock, which actually took a couple of monthsI don't know.
I feel like I'm still in the shock maybe but Definitely took a couple months and then my brain just started to like, immediately kick in. Honestly, it was from, from the very moment I found out. I was like, okay, what am I gonna do? What am I doing? What am I doing? And I was like, oh, I've done this before.
I can do it again. This is, these are techniques I've learned from therapy, okay? so I started. you know, talking to myself like that when I felt myself getting a little bit anxious about, Oh my God, I have so much to do. I've done this before, I can do it again. I've done this before, I can do it again.
And so I spoke about the fact that in the last. In my year in review, I did speak about the fact that I was diagnosed with perinatal depression at one point and I don't know if I mentioned that my anxiety as well was off the charts and it just felt totally uncontrollable and very much like not me. and so for a long time, as much as I wanted to plan and start putting things into place, I couldn't, like I physically and mentally just couldn't.
And then actually after that we even had, well in the midst of this, and then my ankle injury, which I've spoken about a few times, so I won't go there again, and then like literally in the middle of that we had this period of time where we, basically the doctors, were like Your baby might have down syndrome.
So we need to do some more testing and we had to figure out, you know, what testing we wanted, the risks of the testing and, and all that stuff. And it was, it was very interesting. It was a very difficult time at that time, just thinking about, first of all, how we all just assume that we're just going to have a healthy baby.
and then also then you've got a plan for, well, what if we. Don't have a healthy baby. Like what if that, I mean, this changes everyone's lives, everyone's lives. And, and for, for both me and my, there wasn't really a discussion of that ever being another option. It was always going to be, we'd continue on with the pregnancy, assuming that it was a viable pregnancy, which is, which it was anyway, it was a very difficult time, but it was actually that I think that, that, that eventually kind of took me out of the depression haze fog, anxiety fog, because it just.
Reminded me of how much we can't plan for this stuff as much as we want to plan and as much as we have a plan. you know, God plans. Life has other, plans for us often. And so, you just do what you can. You just do what you can with the cards you've been given.
Thankfully the test results were fine, everything was fine, the doctors were happy and so, there is, from what they can see, no Down syndrome to be concerned about. However, it was just still a really difficult few weeks waiting for those results to come back in.
And so, once that was kind of, once I was out of that, that depression, anxiety, kind of fog, I could then like think clearly and that wasn't really until the middle of my second trimester.
I'd say like four, five months in and then I got to the point where I was like, okay, I'm ready to plan now, which of course, looking back, I just feel like I wasted so much time being anxious and depressed. It's like, great, was there not like an opt out button where I could have just opted out of all of this stuff?
and just got to the, the planning part? But, that's what happened, and, and so it wasn't until like month five that I actually started putting things into place. but once I did, we started working pretty quickly, and I think I've done by we have in this short amount of time because
Pronunciation
isbasically creating a company that I can run without me and that
represent
whole different Mindset and also it's a whole different
individual opinion. you
of I Like I've, I've spent so many hours just creating SLPs, standard operating procedures, workflows, tutorials, videos, training, all these different people in the way that I do things and then also really having to think about, okay, how do I do things?
so for example, I've always said to clients, look, These are my payment policies and those were my personal preferred payment policies, but now it's, oh no, this is really the, this has to be the payment policy of the company because we can't have me just changing the rules every so often and other people just changing the rules every so often.
We need a standardized payment policy. So what is my payment policy? Where do we, like, what am I deciding on this? You know, it's been so much thinking work, and then so much doing work. And yeah, I am, I'm pretty happy with where we're at. I obviously, I wish I'd started earlier and sooner, but it is what it is and I'm doing what I can now with the time that I have left, which isn't long.
Zuri Berry: Thank you for sharing all of that. I do have one other question before we get going here. There was a person who asked, I'd love to hear how you're feeling this time around and what feels different. And you've kind of gotten at this, but it's also specifically for the business and then you personally. How are you feeling this time?
Eman Ismail: Yeah, it's funny because I've planned so much for the business, that I have to keep reminding myself that I also have to plan for the baby. because so much of my energy and time and thought process has gone to the business. but I think that's because this is my third kid. So, at this point, I'm like, I know what I'm doing.
Hopefully I won't get any crazy, you know, surprises.so, as long as that doesn't happen, like, I know what I'm doing. And the fact that we're expecting another boy is very helpful because I kept a whole bunch of clothes from my, from my last son's Just all these different ages that he was like he kind of went through I saved a lot of clothes I still have you know, the pram the big the biggest purchase I think I've had to make is a new car seat And so a lot of that just feels like I'm just kind of taking it in my stride.
It's like it's cool I also realize Now that I'm on my third child that you really don't need as much as you think you need for a kid so, I am NOT Like, overbuying, I'm not, you know, like really, I've, I've, the only thing I've bought is a car seat.so maybe I need to go shopping and do a little bit of shopping.
oh, I did also buy some, I made the most of Black Friday and bought like loads of wipes, which is fantastic. I was very excited about my wipes purchases. I would have also bought nappies. But the issue is that I have, well, I've had a really huge baby. My first son wasn't, was 4. 2 kg or nine and a half pounds.
So he didn't, he never fit in. Oh, he was humongous. He was a newborn. I remember him being three weeks old and people thinking he was three months old. And he genuinely did look three months old at three weeks old. but that means like, I don't know whether to buy, I don't know what size nappies to buy because I have big babies.
So I'm like, we'll just figure that out close to the time, you know, I'll just send someone out for nappies when the baby's here. Anyway, Yeah, I probably do need to do some shopping. also there's stuff around the house that I need to do like just wardrobe like get wardrobe space ready and things like that.
so business wise I feel like we're getting there. I think I'll be there by the time baby comes as long as he doesn't come like crazy early. life wise, I'm just like just yeah, keep it moving. It feels like You know, we, we, our family has a way of doing things and we're super excited to welcome a new baby, but also it's like, come on, you know, just come aboard the train, baby.
Like the train's not stopping, just come on board and we'll keep it moving.
Zuri Berry: Well, it's amazing. And listen, I hope for Not only just a great and smooth pregnancy and birth, but obviously a healthy baby boy as it comes along and of course For my interest and I think for everyone else's you know, I hope that things go smoothly while you're away Which is what you hope which is really what you want and that Hopefully that the people that you've put in place are good problem solvers and and can deal with issues as they arise that way You can be stress
free.
Eman Ismail: Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And just before we go, so do you have time for one more question.
Zuri Berry: I sure do.
Eman Ismail: question. Okay, great. Because someone did ask a really great question, which is less about the, less about parenting and baby stuff, but more about hiring. So someone asked, you were hiring a sales copywriter for your team.
Did you hire one? If yes, what stood out? And I thought this was a really great question. So I would just, I thought I would just say really quickly that, actually I hired two. I was, I was only going to hire one, but I ended up hiring two. I haven't finished that hiring process cause I'm still looking for a sales page copywriter, so I'm still looking through the applications.
but what really stood out was for one of them, honestly, their writing, their writing samples were just, were great. but for this person specifically, it was the training that they had had. they had trained with a bunch of different people. They'd done a bunch of different courses and it was, it was.
evident and I felt really comfortable knowing that they had been trained by these people and these, you know, companies and etc. So, yeah, their training and how they'd invested in themselves really showed up in their, in their portfolio, their writing samples.and actually that person had been in my mastermind, a few years ago, a couple of years ago.
And so, I knew her and I knew that she was a hard worker and that always helps, I think. So that was one person and the other person, her writing is so good. I think at one point I was reading one of the email sequences that she'd submitted as part of her writing sample and I literally, I just stopped reading.
I think I hit my, like, hands on the table on my desk and just started screaming YES at the top of my lungs, thankfully no one was home. But just reading, just such amazing writing, just chef's kiss, I was like, yes, yes. So, Yeah, those were the, those were the reasons. They also, also had great, you know, client results and testimonials, which was very important for this particular kind of work for a sales sequence.
I wanted to see that their sales sequences have been able to get results for their own clients. So they were able to, to prove that as well.
Zuri Berry: Well, that's amazing. And shout out to all the writers out there who know they have a chance now.
Eman Ismail: Yes.
Zuri Berry: You man, this has been wonderful. I'm glad that I can work this out with you and talk to your plans for the, the, this upcoming leave that you've got now, hopefully your listeners have learned a little something to also. You know, just keep it on theme here, but learned also from your mistakes, giving yourself a little bit more time as you get back with that new baby and, allowing yourself to, rest as you need to, as you come out of the fog and other things. I think there's a lot to be learned here from your, from your experiences and, and, and your planning.
Eman Ismail: Thank you, Zuri. And thank you so much for being here and for chatting with me. It's been super fun. And hopefully people, yeah, will take things from this, whether it's for parental leave or whether it's for any other kind of leave. I hope this helped.
Zuri Berry: Yeah, absolutely.
Eman Ismail: Great. Okay. We'll be back soon. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode.
So we'll see you then.
Zuri Berry: Bye.
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