024 | Flexibility, Working Through it, and Survival of the Fittest with Emelie Sanders Artwork

Raising Kids & Running a Business

On Raising Kids & Running a Business host Kate Christy (designer + mom x3) talks with other mothers all about what it’s like to manage the mental load of motherhood while building a career and quite frankly how they’re keeping both the creativity and the kids alive. We have honest conversations about what we’re doing (or not doing) to chase our dreams, the lessons we’ve learned, sacrifices made, and permission slips we’re writing to pursue our version of success.And real talk. Moms get sh*t done. Which is why we’re also talking tools and mindset shifts we use to flip the script from overwhelmed and overworked to creating our own version of work/life balance. Whether you’re an entrepreneur running your own business or kicking it in corporate from 9-5. Inside these episodes you’ll find the whole truth—not just the highlight reel—about what it’s really like amidst the chaos of raising kids and building a career.

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Raising Kids & Running a Business

024 | Flexibility, Working Through it, and Survival of the Fittest with Emelie Sanders

July 17, 2024 • Kate Christy • Season 1 • Episode 24

Emelie Sanders is the head honcho at Pass the Queso. She’s a copywriter turned copywriting mentor for coaches and creatives. When she’s not wrangling her five kids, she’s coaching business owners on how to lean into their unique voices and use humor to create a personality-packed copy.

In this episode, Emelie and Kate chat about the endless to-do lists, the challenge of maintaining productivity, and the myths of time management for moms.

Both Emelie and Kate emphasize the need for flexibility and constant adaptation, sharing relatable experiences and practical advice.

Emelie discusses the challenges of time management, setting boundaries, and evolving business strategies.

She also shares her unique blend of sales and launch copywriting skills used in her business, Pass the Queso, and reflects on the changing marketing landscape and 'done with you' services.

The discussion emphasizes the significance of authenticity, humor, and human connections in business, allowing listeners to gain valuable insights on personal branding, creating meaningful client interactions, and balancing multiple roles effectively.

Highlights

Balancing Act: challenges of juggling motherhood and running her business, Pass the Queso, while providing valuable insights for working moms and entrepreneurs.
Daily Hustle: reflections on managing endless to-do lists and the impracticality of a perfect, organized day amidst parenting duties.
Productivity Struggles: difficulty of maintaining productivity amid the chaos of motherhood, with relatable anecdotes about fitting work into small pockets of free time.
Time Management Myths: effectiveness of rigid time-blocking for moms and discuss the need for constant adaptation to fluctuating schedules.
Pressure to Be Perfect: pressure to always be productive and the importance of redefining productivity to include personal well-being and hobbies.
Personal Anecdotes: story about her son's observation of her lack of hobbies, leading to a discussion on the importance of personal time.
Emelie’s Group Program: A six-week mentorship program aimed at enhancing sales copy and launching strategies for entrepreneurs.
Community and Support: seeking support from fellow moms and entrepreneurs to navigate the complexities of balancing multiple roles.
Adapting to Chaos: embrace chaos and adapt to the ever-changing demands of motherhood and entrepreneurship.
Inspiration and Practical Advice: humor, personal stories, and practical tips designed to resonate with and inspire moms and creative professionals.

Connect with Emelie online:

Connect with Kate Christy:

Kate Christy: I'm your host, Kate Chrissy. And today I'm talking with Emily Sanders. Hello, Emily. Welcome.

Emelie Sanders: Hello. Thank you.

Kate Christy: I'm so excited to be chatting with you, all things business, motherhood, whatever happens in the middle of all of that. And, really excited to hear your story and, see how you make it happen at Pass the Queso. So tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do for work, how many kids you have, all the stats and all the behind the scenes information, if you will.

Emelie Sanders: Oh, Lord, brace yourself. so I'm a copywriting mentor. It's mostly what I do. Mostly sales and copy, lots of writing, as few Zoom calls as I can, little people. have enough kids that I can't remember their birthdays. I've got four. and then we've got another one coming in, you know, late, late January, however long I hold on to her.

let's see. I barely make it. That's how I make it. No time blocking. Time blocking doesn't work. yeah, just kind of taking every day, day by day, trying to be super organized, but it doesn't always work.

Kate Christy: Yeah, I feel like we always have the best of intentions when you sit down at your desk in the morning as a mom.

You're like, today's the day. I'm gonna get it together. It's never that day. How many times

Emelie Sanders: do you actually sit at a table though? No, I find I'm like, I'm on the couch. I'm on the counter in the kitchen. Like, I don't really spend as much time at my desk as maybe I would like to.

Kate Christy: so you have four kids.

What are their.

Emelie Sanders: Ages. Yeah. So 12, he's a bonus kid. Didn't come out of my body. I am already a pretty young mom, so that would have been wild, but a bonus case, 12, seven, four, two, and then, I'm born.

Kate Christy: Yeah.

Emelie Sanders: 30

Kate Christy: weeks

Emelie Sanders: pregnant right

Kate Christy: now. Oh man. Okay. So with that many kids, so some of them are school age, some of them are not.

So what does that look like? Yeah. What does that look like? You making time for work? Is there child care involved? Is there strategic planning? Do you have a gym membership where they have child care for two hours?

Emelie Sanders: I know moms that have gym memberships exclusively for the child care. And I think that's brilliant.

I never thought about that. But no, so we're kind of like a blended mixed sort of family situation. So I just, you know, I decided to take what I already had and make it harder. you know how that goes. So, all of my kids are actually from, I joke that I love them so much that each of them, their own dad, they're from two different dads, and so the boys, like the younger two that are here, they, actually have time with their dad, and we've kind strategically put it so that it's like in the middle of the work week, so whenever the older kids are in school sort of thing.

I have every Tuesday and Wednesday and some Mondays where I can work. through the full school hours. It's heavenly. but besides that, the other days it's survival of the fittest. We don't have school on Fridays. And so, I mean, we work at play places. I wake up in the butt crack of dawn, work in little pockets.

And then they do get to a point where they're kind of not trained vessels. I don't know. I kind of trained. It's like, Hey, mom's on the zoom call. If you walk through that door, You're risking your life sort of thing, but, that doesn't happen until, I don't know, for you? Cause I think my four year old does pretty good at it, but not my two year old.

No way.

Kate Christy: I have almost a two year old, she'll be two in January and, she's not a bye bye. No, like, no, I, And the priority number one all the time. I love her. She's so strong willed. Yeah. but the boys, it was an interesting cause there will be nine and six and a half. So they. Are trained as well when it comes to me working, but they're in, school during the day.

So I've got that time where I can sit down and do work and mass the babe goes to daycare, which I was talking to you before we started recording about how my babysitter's like, she's not taking naps anymore. I can't handle her. She's a wild woman from like 3 to 4 30. Like you need to come get her, which I mean, I get it.

But at the same time, that's not what I'm paying you for.

Emelie Sanders: That's your job. Wait, did she just now stop napping? Because if so, I think you've done an excellent job. I don't know how you pulled that off.

Kate Christy: Yeah. I don't make

Emelie Sanders: kids that don't sleep much.

Kate Christy: Also, I was like, she's with you five days. Like you're her full time mom right now.

I'm like, I'm the fun parent on the weekend, right? Where Naptime happens, naptime doesn't happen, whatever happens, happens. Right. but also being the youngest too, and I'm sure that this has probably been your experience where you either cater to the oldest or you cater to the youngest, right. And so with the boys, it was like, we cater to the oldest.

So like our six year old is like, he'll just flip his shit. And we'll be like, what is going on with you? And we're like, oh, he's not nine. He's six. Like those are six year old emotion. Right. But he's always running with the big dogs, like running with his brother and his older cousins. And so we've kind of catered to like older children and which was first child.

I'm like, Schedules like this baby naps from this time to this time, and these are the rules and this is what happens. And then like third kid, I'm like, did you have breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Check. We are doing stellar, right? Like

Emelie Sanders: It was last time you bathed your feet are kind of dirty, but it's eight 30.

So don't hand me a wet wipe. You know, just like a little dip in the

Kate Christy: tub, like a little foot wash.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah, I mean, if you're lucky, God bless the youngest and the middles, but that's also they say that, I don't know who they is. but they say that all of your children are the age of your oldest, just from, I mean, think about like the movies they watch or the friends that just the things that they do are younger ones are just like, older than their peers.

And I've definitely found that to be true in like social settings where currently my seven year old is on a mission to bring justice to the world because all of her friends believe in Santa and their parents are lying to them and that's wrong. So, Whereas the oldest, I think he believed in Santa until he was like 10.

I think it was just for the presents, but yeah. So things just kind of happening earlier.

Kate Christy: Yeah. Yeah. And that's something you don't really like plan or prepare for. You think that each child's going to kind of go through the same process as the one before, but yeah, it does keep getting younger. Oh, wow.

That's kind of trippy. I've not thought about it that way.

Emelie Sanders: I don't like to think about it too much, but I mean, even just from, okay, like a non serious standpoint, my two year old, his sense of humor, I'm like, are you really two? Or is it like an old living inside of you?

Speaker 3: Sort

Emelie Sanders: of thing, like things like that.

It's just, you can tell that they're around older kids. So it's not always bad.

Kate Christy: Yeah. Well, I took my 6 year old to his 1st grade orientation to meet the teacher and everything. He was doing something and I said something to him sarcastically and we're like, we're big proponents of sarcasm in this household.

And, he responded, like, he understood what I was doing and the teacher's like, Oh, sarcasm. Wow. Okay. That's cool. You get that. You're picking up what she's putting down. And I'm like, Oh no, I've been caught

Emelie Sanders: being a bad mom. Also, it's our family culture. Okay.

Kate Christy: Yes. Yes. Um, but yeah, they definitely kind of, yeah.

Cater to the older kid. which is why Maz hardly nap anymore, I guess. so she's like, no one else naps. Like my

Emelie Sanders: FOMO, like there's stuff going on. Yeah. I think my current. So Jesse, he's the two year old, he stopped napping. Like he wasn't even two. He was just like, he's cool as a cucumber. So it's not that big a video of the mother, the two that are right above him.

They're like Tasmanian devils. They're sweet baby Jesus. It's like, they take a tiny little nap on the way home. They don't need sleep for like three days. I'm exhausted. yeah, but they did not for a while. I remember my Nora, the seven year old now, I think she napped until she was eight. Three or four.

And then we did like quiet time, like read a book in your room sort of thing that didn't last long, so one thing I'm trying to work through right now, I guess this is one more serious now as a mom, I find that having kind of kids at home and you're kind of like working in pockets.

even though you have childcare, that doesn't cover all of the hours you need to work. Right. you still have things that. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, we're always kind of just working in these pockets of time. And one thing know that our lives are not like siloed, you know, there's work and life is, it's just part of life.

But I'm just like, I'm in the season of trying to figure out what does it look like to not make all the pockets look like, you know, is this an opportunity to get some work done? Youwhere our brains are sort of like always kind of thinking, how can we fit this in?

Speaker 3: That's kind of

Emelie Sanders: the season That I'm in, something I'm trying to figure out.

like multiple, I still, I

Kate Christy: still don't know the word. Yeah, I just had this conversation with my therapist about how I'm trying to wean myself off of that mindset of every free, using air quotes, pocket of time. Needs to be productive. Like, I should be doing something and I think that it was kind of this, like, because during covid where we were school shut down the spring of 2020 and so we had to pull at that time.

We just had 2 kids, so we had to pull them out of school, pull them out of daycare and they were home 24 7 with us and. Luckily, my husband was able to work remotely. So like we could just kind of bounce kids off of each other. But during that time I was keeping them home, homeschooling the oldest based on like, whatever whack curriculum the public school system put out.

It was like, we're doing our job, I guess. Yeah. So I'm like, luckily this is kindergarten stuff. So it's, coloring and whatever. And. But I was doing that and had the youngest one, just like free range at home and trying to run my business at the same time. And I mean, like, Oh my gosh, like going back into, I was like, those are dark days.

And like, we did not have it bad, in the grand scheme of things, like during COVID. Right. And I'm looking back, I'm like, how did I like, not just burn my business to the ground and run away or whatever. Right. Like, how did we, me and my business and my family survive. I guess it's like you kind of just get used to what your Used to, you fall into patterns, fall into routines, but she's out of daycare for a day or two, and I'm just like, Oh my God, I'm so behind.

I can't get anything done, but two years ago, three years ago, I was doing everything all at once, all at the same time, I think it was like just shoving anything and everything into pockets of time and I would get up really early, I don't work well at night. So I would go to sleep early with the kids, get up early so I could get stuff done and.

You know, technology, I'm huge proponent of that for your children, even though that's not the cool thing to do or say, but, you know,

Emelie Sanders: Minecraft.

Kate Christy: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Emelie Sanders: Okay.

Kate Christy: That is wild. What children are able to do in that game. It's crazy. They're like showing me all this stuff that I do this. I can't I'm just like spinning around in a circle.

I can't go anywhere. I do anything yeah. So I guess the answer your question in a very long drawn out way. I, uh. Would beat myself up around, you know, you're not being productive right now. You're sitting down doing nothing or you're taking a break and rest is not productive which is a really hard place to be in.

And I don't know anything different than

Emelie Sanders: mom too. I feel like,

Kate Christy: yeah, but I don't know anything different than being a creative. Professional. I mean, I worked as a waitress and a bartender and all that jazz back in the college days and that high school days, right. I did that stuff. And so, mm-Hmm.

as a professional business woman using air quotes again, 'cause I do not identify that , but I've only been a creative, and so there's this weird thing that I struggle with of. Like feeding my creative fuel or whatever, like fueling myself creatively. Right. But also being able to be structured, to be disciplined, to do the things that need to be done in order to, run a business and have clients that pay me and are happy with what happens.

So finding that balance of, I'm sure the same goes for you, right? Writing and. I know you are more in a mentor role rather than actually like doing the creative work right

Emelie Sanders: a lot, though. Yeah, create a lot of content. Yeah.

Kate Christy: I'm gonna put a pin in that. I want to get into that in a minute.

Emelie Sanders: But are we going to cry or

Kate Christy: no, I don't think so. Okay. Yeah. So like taking those pockets of time and shoving them with being productive, it's very exhausting, but that's the reality of running a business with small children without a full team of support, whatever that looks like in terms of if you have people in your business, if you have people in your house, if you have full time childcare, if you have kids at school full time, like whatever that looks like, right.

You're always trying to shove things into pockets of time and that. As just a really not cool vibe, but that's the reality of it. Yeah. It's exhausting. Yeah.

Emelie Sanders: people talk about like, there's so many conversations around losing yourself in motherhood. And then like, I know a lot of new moms specifically struggle with that.

I like, you, I don't know anything except entrepreneurship. So I had my first board when I was a teenager and I had a job, like it was a crappy, waitress job, but they were like, We want you to come back. Blah, blah, blah, baby, you know? And they were like, just kidding. And so I didn't end up going back and I ended up starting a business because the way I looked at it with every job opportunity, it's like,

I'm working to pay for childcare so I can work and I have nothing left over, you know, just cause I wasn't in like a professional field. so that's like, that's all I've ever known too. The only other thing that I've known is there was a season of my life right before my divorce, where I took a more, stable project, which was like, so it was a contract job.

So I was still a contractor, but I had very set, like, These are the projects and then it's just like, just get it done. And so that's the closest I've ever come to the whole clock in clock out. And that was sort of, I did find that that hat gave me the most like. I wasn't happy with that job because it wasn't what I wanted, but boundary wise, it was very clear, like get this work amount done.

and so for me it was more like, okay, I know I've got to piece this together with my time, but the workload is set. I feel like more with entrepreneurship and being a business owner, nothing is set. The workload isn't set, the hours aren't set. So it's like, how do you create that structure?

So the closest for me that I've ever found to creating that is like, you're saying with the support. you know, we just moved. So everything's kind of like, but I had someone clean my house once a month. Game changer. Crazy. Just like, you're telling me that I'm not really ever spending that much time just like deep clean scrubbing sort of thing.

It's just sort of, my job is to maintain. I had someone for a while that would come in. I think she was with us like two or three days a week for like four hours. Yeah. Something like that. And just like, Hey, just in my home with the kids. So I could kind of just bring them like, they're not going to kill themselves downstairs or whatever.

That was really helpful. But I've never really been able to figure out what that structure looks like in the business. Cause I'm a very, I don't know about you growing up, but I'm like, The oldest I'mjust the choices that I've made. I feel like I put myself sort of in this position where I've always defined myself by my productivity, my output.

And so it's like, now it just feels like that multiplied. And so I don't really know how to like. And learning how to limit that output and say, this is enough rather than I could always do more. So that's kind of where I'm at. And that's, I think the only structure given myself is around content. I'm like, okay, I know I need to accomplish this amount, but that's like pretty much it.

everything else, what is this? I'm going to go until I can't go anymore. And that's not, great.

Kate Christy: And that's the kicker about entrepreneurship where. You're right, there's no ceiling, right? There's no defined clock in, clock out, end of project, end of whatever, right? Because you can keep generating ideas and products and services and workshops and whatever, right?

Like, there's no one saying, no, don't do that. Stay where you are keeping your lanes. You're everything's fine. How it is now. Right? with creatives, right? Like, we just have so many ideas like,

Emelie Sanders: this is a great idea. I'd love to lose sleep over this for 3 months and nothing come of it.

Kate Christy: Right? Yeah. You're like, this is it. This is the idea. This is what the people want. This is what they need. This is the thing. And then you spend all this time and energy in it and then no one buys it. And you're like, that wasn't the thing. Whoops. Oh, well, maybe I'll find another thing.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah. And yeah, I've thought about trying, I was just doing like morning pages type of thing earlier.

And I was like, I wonder what it would look like for me to say, like, I started at this time of day and I ended at this time of day. And like, some days I'm going to probably use all those hours because, maybe the scheduled kids, but then other days, Oh, I'm probably just going to get three hours of work somehow, pocketed in there and just like, see what happens.

Cause I've tried the whole time blocking thing. I've tried the whole, like, you know, recording my time. Cause I'm like, maybe I'm just shit at like focusing and like managing that. So it's like, okay, here are all the things that I'm doing, and then at the end of the day, categorize all of it.

And it's like, I'm putting out a lot, so I've thought about trying that. Like this is when I start and end, I know that it looks way different for moms with littles at home, but

Speaker 3: might be worth a shot

Kate Christy: for I'll report

Emelie Sanders: back

Kate Christy: later. Yeah, please do. I think we put a lot of. Not I mean, pressure, yes, but I think that we are a little bit blinded to what we are actually doing to right?

Because we have this phantom to do list or goals or dreams or whatever that's going on that. We're the only person who's aware of it and then externally what we're outputting, right? Our friends are, our business. Co workers, colleagues, whatever they are, you know, like internet friends, I don't know, I don't know which categories.

Speaker 3: Peers.

Kate Christy: Peers. There we go. Peers are, you know, seeing what we're doing and I've had this exact thought about you. I'm like, how does she do this? She's got twice as many kids as I do. Right. No, that's

Emelie Sanders: not, we talked about this before where we also were talking about how, Holy crap. It was in my brain and it just left me.

Oh, we're talking about like our past selves, like before kids. And we had a conversation before where it's like, if I could go to pass me, it's like, Oh man, there's something mean. It's are you kidding me? the time that we're given, we're going to use that time. It'll take that amount of time.

It's like the other day I casually took like. I woke up and I was like, I don't leisure morning. It was, so, oh, it was like a weird Thanksgiving break. and my kiddos were, they had other plans and I was like, Ooh, we've got like two hours. I'm just gonna write. It took me two hours to write an email because I had two hours, but other days it's like 10 minute timer go and it takes me 10 minutes.

Mm-Hmm. .

You know, I don't remember what that theory or effect or whatever that is called, but it's so freaking true. It's like

Kate Christy: you will fill the space that you're given or contract the space. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what happens with basements.

Emelie Sanders: Basement. Oh, we don't have basements here.

Kate Christy: Well,

Emelie Sanders: Virginia.

Okay. If

Kate Christy: you have a basement, it will fill up with stuff. Got it. Yeah.

Emelie Sanders: that's how like a garage or a shop would go, I guess.

Kate Christy: Yeah. At a garage shop, same principle applies. Yeah. If there's space, it will get filled. Even if you're Super conscious about it. You're like, we're not going to be those people with all this stuff.

And then you're like, where are those people with all this stuff? and then you, I'm getting flashbacks.

Emelie Sanders: You started cleaning it out. My grandparents had a, Oh, sorry.

Kate Christy: No, you're fine. You start

Emelie Sanders: cleaning it

Kate Christy: out. You're like, I'm getting rid of all of it. And then it ends up in a pile in the garage or the basement.

You're like, yeah. to put a pin in that and I'm going to come back to it, you know, in three to six months.

Emelie Sanders: Yes. I'm queen of like, this is queued up in the garage to go outside even though I don't take out the trash. Yeah, I'm a chronic thrower aware, but that looks like just filling cardboard boxes until someone takes it out for me.

Yeah. It's a system. Those are the days I'm like, Oh, I have boys and they're going to be teenagers one day. And I'll be like, yes,

Kate Christy: all the heavy lifting my, six year old, he, does this thing when it's time to clean where he gets really tired. And then because he's not cleaning and he's misbehaving, he says, well, I guess I just need to go to timeout.

Emelie Sanders: That's so good.

Kate Christy: That's not how it works, dude, but cool. You've tried to work this system. I applaud you, but no. And he's like, why are you just yelling at me? I was so tired. I'm like, well, I don't know. I'm so sorry that I hurt your feelings, but, you still gotta do the stuff that you have to do. So figure it out for yourself.

Emelie Sanders: You can take your time out after it's fine. You can still have that if you want it. Yeah.

Kate Christy: I'll still exist for you if you want them to the mess and time out. That's really

Emelie Sanders: really good.

Kate Christy: I had a thought this morning on my drive, talking about how the babysitter is saying, you got to pick her up earlier because she's a wild woman and I can't manage her because she doesn't take a nap anymore.

Right. I dropped her off and I'm on the way home and I've started doing this thing. This is a side note, but I've started doing this thing in the car where I don't listen to music. I don't listen to a podcast or a book or whatever. I usually do that, but instead I'm like, okay, Kate, this is time to be with yourself, whether you like it or not.

And just think about stuff. Cause I get a lot of, it's like the same concept of shower thoughts, right? You're in there. You can't do anything. Yeah.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so

Kate Christy: I was, thinking, okay, how am I going to restructure my life now that instead of me taking her in the morning or I get up with the kids, get them to where they need to be, get the boys on the bus, get mass to daycare.

And then I sit down at my desk. Usually around nine is when that happens. And my husband will pick up her from daycare. At 4 30 and be home around five and the boys get off the bus at three. They fend for themselves for a couple hours while I wrap up work. And then usually it's like five o'clock.

Everyone's back home. Everything's back to family business. And so I'm thinking, how am I going to restructure my day now that. I have to either pick her up with the boys that they make a big old fit about it. They're at home. We're tired. We don't play video games. I said, we got to go get mad.

What about dad? Sorry, this is what's happening. It's happening to me too. Yeah. Do I leave early and go pick her up? And then I was thinking, okay, well, that means that I'm only going to have this many hours. Now I'm losing. Maybe 2 or 3 hours of a work day if I have to stop and go pick her up at either before the kids get off the bus or after the kids get off the bus.

my immediate thought was like, oh, this sucks because I have so much to do. the 2nd thought that came was. Why do you want to work more than 6 hours a day? Why do you want to work more? And I was like, hmm.

Emelie Sanders: That's an interesting thought Kate. I was working through that this morning, like literally have like my notebook next to me because I was just like, I used to hate when people are like, what's your favorite genre of music?

And it's like, I don't freaking know, I'm a big podcast, audio book kind of gal. another thing I hate is when people are like, what are your hobbies? And I'm like, Surviving working, I don't do anything else, I work, that's what I do. If I don't, if I'm not doing good things.

So for me, it's a discomfort, like okay, I'm only going to work this many hours sort of thing. What else am I supposed to do?

Kate Christy: What'd he say? He said, what's your favorite thing to do, mom? I said, I don't know. He said, well, you don't have any hobbies? I said, come to think of it, no. He said, well, you should get some. I said, okay. Thanks. what do you think I should do? He's like, well, I don't know. You can play video games.

I said, nah, I don't really, they stress me out too much and I cannot operate high tech video games. I'm like a, Nintendo, Super Nintendo is probably getting, too advanced, anything beyond that. but he was like kind of giving me a talking to about it, about how I don't do anything other than.

You know, work essentially I mean, I do veg out, watch Netflix, listen to audio books. Like I do things that are not all just work and being a mom and, yeah, I was like this eight year old's grilling me on. What do I do for fun? And I don't know how to answer that. and then that makes you kind of spiral out of control a little bit.

You're like, I'm setting this example for these small children

Speaker 3: that

Kate Christy: this is what life is when they grow up and I'm just work, work, work, work, work. But at the same time, I'm trying To do right by them in a sense of showing them what's possible, they can build their own business if they want to, they can do whatever they want when they grow up, they can carve their own path or whatever, right?

But at the same time, the realities of that kind of suck too when I'm the only one in charge of me, which means I'm the only one who can make more money. I'm the only one who makes me make less money. But, like, trying to teach children in a way that's not, giving them, like, money scarcity, or, equating, like, mom has to work for us to survive, and I don't want to, I don't know, there's like a whole bunch of shit that's, wrapped up in that whole thing that, we'll all probably be working through at some point or another.

I mean, I grew up with.

Emelie Sanders: I grew up with my mom working for herself. so I'm kind of like on the other side of that as a growing up, so growing up my, dad's a psychologist and my mom, so funny enough, her background is English and history, but when the internet came out, because I'm a fetus, I'm just turned.

So when my mom started working, she worked all these different things, but internet came out and she decided that she wanted to learn how to design websites. And everyone was like, that's crazy. That's not gonna be a thing. And she was like, I don't know, I kind of think it could be a thing. that's where she started doing that.

And so growing up, oh my gosh, and this was like, I don't want to go to rabbit trail office and these stories that I'm like, that she tells about how they designed websites. I'm like, girl, you need like a developer every time you sneeze. but she was always working. And she knew she had to have a certain amount of designs every month.

You is your normal kind of thing, you know, your KPIs, but like growing up, it she started work five and then like, she woke up early to work, you know, similar to what we were talking about. And we went to school, but then we also had a few seasons of homeschooling because my dad, we traveled a lot.

We moved around a lot. And, growing up, I don't remember much besides her working. But the big difference was, she fit it in pockets. Like, I remember watching, like, shows together, but she would be on her computer working, or like, she would be with us. In a space, but something that she just did so much better than I do that I'm trying to kind of figure out even just with my kids is she was never upset or bothered to pause.

she had to get all this work done. She worked all day long. She worked into the nights. This one worked her butt off, but she always prioritized us and like we went places. She helped us with school things. Like we were her, very clearly her priority. And I'm like, I don't know how she led that with so much grace.

I know that there's a lot different than, than there is now, very heavy referral based, everyone's very heavy referral based. And now we're like creating brands and content and we have to like, I think there are more elements now, not something I really struggle with, cause I'm very like, whenever I'm set on something.

If my focus breaks, it's like, I struggled. So it's like, I have to parent myself before I can parent this child. I just walked into my workspace. I still have not figured that out.

Kate Christy: Day by day. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I definitely do not handle it well when I'm in the middle of something and getting pulled away from that.

struggle with how to be creative on command, I guess. Right. When you're trying to, yeah, you're trying to do some deep work where I'm in the middle of developing and coding or creative designing, right? Where it's not these things where I'm hopping from thing to thing to thing. It's like, you get in that session of, I haven't moved in 3 hours and I have not been aware of anything other than what is right in front of me, which I absolutely love getting into those, which those are very few and far between these days.

Right. trying to, navigate that with. Small children with trying to fit things into little pockets of time, because you just know, and I think there's the, you kind of fight yourself internally with, I know what could happen if things were going well, right? I know how long this could take me and how quickly I could wrap up this thing or check this off my list or whatever, but I keep getting disrupted.

I keep getting pulled into different things, or even if it's you getting pulled. Not just kids, right? You getting pulled from a client, emails you with a problem or whatever. Like making those boundaries and setting those rules for yourself to protect those pockets of time is a really hard thing to do because I know that there are people who are like creative.

Is a muscle that you can work on, right? You can figure out how to get yourself into this zone quickly and all this stuff, right? I'm sure there's tons of people who could teach us the ways, but, you kind of talk yourself out of this concept of. You know, if I could just have four hours of uninterrupted time, I could do all the things that I need to do when the reality is, yeah, no, that's

Emelie Sanders: good luck.

Yeah. I love one person. One person I saw post the other day and she's actually a designer, but she was talking about time management. And one thing that she had mentioned was something that she did that changed. She doesn't have kids or anything, but she has like one task a day. but when I was thinking about it, I was like, you know what, though, that would make sense from a creative standpoint, in my opinion, at least I know everyone's going to be different, but it's like, if I was just like, Hey, on this day of the week, my one task is writing all my emails for the week.

Tomorrow's task is and I know it's a little different depending on what you're creating to because it's like, okay, know, you're designing and developing websites, whereas, I mean, we're creating different things, but even just like a. mean, you'd have to be really strategic with how you think about that because then I'm thinking too, it's like, okay, if I like a sprint though, and it's a client that has Voxer access to me, we have our strategy call on Monday and then, Tuesday through Friday, we're sort of working through these edits live through Voxer or like tags and, you know, all these things, like, what does it actually look like?

I imagine that she probably has tiny, like daily sub things, you know, like, Oh, this post has to go up. But like the bulk of the thought and creativity is just kind of siloed to like That day. So that can be the sole focus. Maybe that's kind of what she's speaking to, but that's something that I've been kind of running around in my mind with kind of the context of what you're saying.

Kate Christy: And something else that I really struggle with, which is why I want to put a pin in this like content marketing that you touched on. And creating content is I sat down and was trying to map out a plan for next year of how I actually need to run my business versus how I think I could run my business.

And that's like a side note too of, the, vision of your business and yourself, like in your mind's eye versus reality and like making those two as similar as possible, but not beating yourself up if, they're not. but I sat down and I was mapping things out and I was looking at.

project timelines and things like that. And I was like, I need two days a week to run my business. And I've not been giving myself that period. I've been doing none of that, which. You know, do not do that because then you get to the end of the year and you're like, Oh my gosh, like this year sucked. And then you're like, well, I didn't do any marketing.

So that's probably why. but carving out that time to do stuff for your own business. And I've got some like hangups. I've talked about this before on the podcast where I worked before we did not have to do any marketing period. We put a listing in the phone book and that was all we did. So this concept of spending time on your business was.

Wasted time, like quote, wasted time. Right. That's not billable time. Mm-Hmm. . And so it made sense in the business that I worked in, we didn't have Yeah, but you can't bring that

Emelie Sanders: over here.

Kate Christy: But yeah, I'm like, still, this is like, I don't know, five, six years later, I'm still trying to like shake that mentality a little bit where I can't waste all this time doing all this stuff.

But then it's like, Kate, get serious. You have to market your business to get business. You just have to, period. End of discussion. Stop it. Behave yourself. Yeah,

Emelie Sanders: because you're planting, because you're planting the seeds, essentially. Like, you're prepping now, your marketing is announced that next quarter.

Like, you're not like, oh, where the client's at? But yeah, this whole, like, being your best client. Sort of thing or like what does it call treating yourself like your best client or something like whatever that concept to you When I first heard I was like, whoa So, yeah, no, I totally hear you it's kind of painful at first but I feel like as I go along I'm like man I honestly am my favorite client and if I just spent all of my hours on just my own Cool, is this what it's like to be an influencer?

Because now I want to be an influencer This is great

Kate Christy: Yeah, I, uh, definitely would not, be my best client. I would give myself one star review, probably, for how I've behaved as my own client. But I mean, it is fun. It takes time. yeah, I enjoy it and I have fun doing it, but I also still have this, it's quieter now, but voice in the back of my head that's, saying you need to be doing real work, right?

You need to be doing client work. You need to be doing billable things. yeah, so that's an ongoing work in progress for me, but. I did start putting together a newsletter template for myself this morning. So hashtag progress

Emelie Sanders: about that. No, I get it though. I like sometimes I'm like a half ass my own stuff where it's like someone else will spend way more,

Kate Christy: way more time on it.

Now, I think that people are kind of craving short, real, not totally polished stuff, right? They're just, you know, give me the cliff notes version. Give me the real quick, down and dirty, let's just get on with it version, which is exciting for me, you know, since I don't have a lot of time.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah, I'm about it.

I'm about it for sure. And I'm trying to like, one thing that's on my radar, it's a little off topic, but, LinkedIn has been on my radar for a while. I just haven't done it. It's like my LinkedIn profile. I I don't think have an active one now that I think about it. But also I'm trying to decide like what is too much, you know, I want to simplify that's another thing I was kind of working through this morning because it's like I made a 2024 plan, but then I was like, kind of thinking through these things that we're talking about today.

I was like, you know, I probably should reevaluate that because I don't want to overcomplicate it. I don't want to do more than I need to do, you know, what does it look like to do not bare minimum but just what is the most simple and enjoyable way for me to do this. And that's not really like in my programming to be like, how can I make this fun?

So, I'm not like, follow some coaches that like, it's like they wake up and they dance on their balcony and they're go do this, that, and the other. And I'm just like, well, one, obviously you don't have children, but also two, why are you trying to make all this look fun? Maybe there's like a bitter old lady inside, but yeah, I'm trying.

So I'm like, okay. Instagram. That's just like where it's at for me. I also just like love Instagram stuff. That's easy, but it's like Pinterest, LinkedIn. Like, I think that's kind of like the realm I'm sort of staying in for 2024. And I recently started blogging too, which I thought would be way harder. This is a funny, it's like, I mostly do email marketing and I'm over here like, Ooh, blogs.

What is this? I

Kate Christy: have this, lie that I tell myself that all the information's already out there. Why do I need to tell people how to do X, Y, and Z or whatever, because it already exists and it's like survival of the fittest, right? Like maybe there's exists, but maybe their SEO sucks. And maybe they're worse at it than you are.

And maybe you should just write the freaking blog posts anyways, Kate.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah, you definitely should. Cause it's, comes down like, Personality all that. Like for instance, I mean, I just think about other people. not even just like myself. I didn't start writing until my friend Natalie who connected with them on Instagram.

writes or something. She does blog stuff, whatever. I have followed so many people who blog, they talk about blogging. Oh, blogging that. And I'm always just like in one ear out the other, but like, sometimes it just takes a certain person's perspective or like you just like them. And so you listen, but she started like talking about blogging Oh, why didn't I ever think about this before?

I can do that. but it took her. So it doesn't really matter that there are literally, probably thousands of people talking about blogging online. So I mean, it would be the same for you. So yeah, you should totally just post a blog.

Kate Christy: While we're on the subject of blogging, back in the day, in the golden era of blogging, right, there were blogs that You were like, it's Tuesday.

Sasha has her new post up. I'm going to go check it out. And then I'm going to go over here right. Like it was like getting a magazine orAnd then, yep. Yep. And then podcast happened. Um,

Emelie Sanders: but do you think replace that girl? I don't know. I don't know. Well, I'm like the micro blogging

Kate Christy: maybe because I think do people.

still go and religiously read blogs, or I feel like there's just so much more out there now, right? Where you can go watch a YouTube video on something. You can listen to a podcast about something. You can go read a how to article about something, right? Like we all are looking for an answer to a question on any of these channels.

Right. And I guess it really does just kind of boil down to what your preference is to digest that information, right? To consume that information. I look at blogging and I know, like, I know this as a web designer, I know that this is a great thing to have as a business. I understand the benefits of it.

I preach the benefits of it to my clients. Right. I have six blog posts. Okay. Six. But

Emelie Sanders: yeah, I'm like, do people, are people so into that? Yeah, from my understanding, and at least the observation I have around mine, is that people will find, like, I look at it as a blog is probably going to be someone's, like, one of their first, exposures to me.

for me, it's like, They come and they see this because I just want that info like you're saying, but then it's, lives on my website, which is strategically designed to keep them there and do all of whatever things. So like for me, it's just a part of that, but I also weave the blogging into just my overall content strategy.

Speaker 3: So like

Emelie Sanders: Pinterest, Instagram, email. So it's like. I'm getting eyeballs on it people find me through it, really don't think people subscribe to blogs. Like it's not like the whole RSS feed thing anymore, you know? Yeah. Okay. I used to have one of those. I can't remember what the platform was that I used to use, but it's like all the blogs I followed.

It's just like. I would just read until my feet cleared out.

Kate Christy: Wow. It's not like

Emelie Sanders: that anymore.

Kate Christy: Yeah. Maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way. I'm going to go ahead and just make this disclaimer for everything that I'm saying on this podcast episode is. This is not good advice. Everything I'm saying is not good advice.

These are internal. We're just working through eyes. And fears that I'm dealing with.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I,get it. It's because I think it used to be like blogs were, treated more like our feeds are, you know, like our Instagram feeds, but it's not like that anymore. Now it's more like a blog is like a casual article.

Kate Christy: And I like the concept of microblogging and then Instagram kind of turned into these little mini blogs. Right. It used to be. Posting pictures and, know, the caption was a sentence long at the most right? And now it's these little mini blogs and something else that I have to get out of my own way about is.

Not every single person is going to consume every piece of content on every single platform that you have it on, right? So putting the same thing in your newsletter, in your Instagram post, in your blog, whatever, like not everyone's going to see all of those things. And

I even tell people this on their website. They're like, well, we had this on the homepage. I said, not everyone's going to see every single thing. On your website, period. They're not going to read every single page, right? So having similar call to actions or having a similar message, if it's impactful, if it's important, if it's part of the strategy we've developed for your website, right?

Like this is the action you want them to take. Like. Damn it. We're going to say it multiple times.

Emelie Sanders: yeah, exactly. agree with you. cause no one's reading, like no one's scrolling your, like, oh, today I'm going to consume all of Emily's content. Well, here's your email and a blog post and her Instagram, but like no one does that, I think too, it helps for me at least with that sort of like mental boo boo is having a plan for how am I actually going to repurpose it rather than just kind of like, Pull that on my butt every time because for a while I was very like, okay, I have this email or I have this, how am I going to repurpose it?

So it's like now I sort of have like a workflow. in my head, I know, okay, I'm repurposing it in a way that I don't feel like I'm saying exactly the same thing, but I, kind of am, but nobody knows.

Kate Christy: Yeah, because they're only potentially consuming one or two pieces of it. Right. And I doubt that people will read the same thing twice and be like, this was in her Instagram post.

Oh, who she thinks she is.

Emelie Sanders: It's like, um, this sounds familiar, but also like you want people to hear you say the same thing again and because, obviously if you heard the first time and you didn't do anything about it, you need to hear it again.

Kate Christy: Yeah. Good advice.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah. If you've said something and they didn't give you money for it, say it again.

Kate Christy: Boom. Yeah. Problem solved. There it is. okay. So what was your first business? Did we talk about that?

Emelie Sanders: Okay. First, first business. You worked I am a business. Make a bunch of money, get bored, light it on fire, start all over, kind of girl.

Yeah, past the queso. Past the queso is like this is what I'm doing. This is actually like my best skill set. I'm investing career into this sort of thing. Everything else has just been like,

It's bad. I think it's bad. I don't know. It could be bad. No, people are like, Oh, I got my degree in this, that and the other. I did not. I popped out a baby. I was a teenager. I was like, what can I do? I resold used clothing, high end used clothing, luxury brands online.

Um, because people were like, you know, eBay. So I started doing and I was like, Whoa, I could make a bunch of money doing this, and I did. And then, Gary V, I don't know if you recall, like, when he started his, thrift flipping garage videos on YouTube. I don't think he still does them, but like, he started doing them, like 2017 or something.

And, could have gotten that year wrong, but anyway, it started getting like really popular. So a bunch of people started like wanting to resell and I'd already had like an established, following, like was making a bunch of money. And so I was like, Oh, I'm going to just teach people how to do this kind of thing.

So I did that and actually ended up going pretty well. I was like, wow, I can do this. That's kind of when I got into the online coaching space. Then I started, like, I self taught myself a lot of different marketing elements, specifically about, copywriting. Email marketing, I honestly coached and did contract work and all that around all of that until I took that big contract, position like she was a business coach for culinary entrepreneurs.

So like basically like chefs without restaurants. they may have like a bakery or their personal chefs or a catering business. And she needed someone to just handle all of her, like just all of her marketing. And so that's, was my first experience with like really big coaching program launches.

And so that's kind of sort of like how I ended up doing here. Got some web design experience in there, but like, it's just not my I'm kind of like one of those people that for a while I had a bunch of tools, like a lot of skillsets and I could do just about anything that made me really valuable being able to do some like left brain, right brain type stuff.

But where I always done best is like copywriting. So an email marketing, specifically around like sales and launching. then I was like, you know, I'm actually like really focused on building a brand around that. And so that's kind of where past the case came from just kind of me going full in on that rather than just start things.

Big, strong starter, not a strong finisher because I get bored.

Kate Christy: But, yeah, no, I asked that question because being in the position that you are with your business or like the services that you're offering, right? It's not necessarily you're delivering a final product, right? You're mentoring, you're coaching, you're teaching with copywriting and mentorship.

Yeah. Essentially, right? Yeah. Yeah. But you came, I took some done

Emelie Sanders: for you, but very selectively.

Kate Christy: Mm-Hmm. . Very select. Mm-Hmm. you came from. Being in that marketing position. Right. So transitioning into your own business to do this, you're like, this is the job, right? Marketing my own business, doing this work is the job.

Whereas I came from, I'm a designer and I'm like, I can design, I can run my own business. And then I'm like, Oh, I have to run a business that snuck up on me.

Emelie Sanders: That's where the done for you. And then the done, I love this recent shift. That people have been making from like done with I'm for you to done with you. for me, it's worked out really well. it just aligns with my approach, my philosophy, my personality, like it just really checks off a lot of boxes for me.

But yeah, for me, it was more like, okay, my job is like marketing all this and say, Oh, cool. I have people, holy shit, have no time to do all of this. So it's kind of like the reverse for me. It's like, no, I have clients. What do I do? So,

Kate Christy: yeah, yeah, no, I'm very into this shift as well because from a design perspective, there is a school of thought that's like designers or wizards and behind the curtain and you don't get to see how we do what we do, why we do what we do.

We just get to present the thing to you and you get to sit and bask in its awesomeness and listen to us talk about why we did this, what this means. That like, sometimes I get this as a side note again, I'm very side notey, I get very existential about what I do. I'm like, Oh my gosh, is this real? Is this fake?

I don't know. Am I in the matrix? that was a bit hyperbolic.

Emelie Sanders: So I am very much get to a point in the process where I do like to do things behind the scenes.

Kate Christy: I'd like to have my time to noodle through and chew on things and figure things out. But once I've got the direction sorted out, I'm like, come in here. I'm gonna share my screen. Like you can micromanage. You can tell me what you like, what you don't like. I can say why this is a good idea. I can say why this is a bad idea.

And at the end of the day, this is your business. You know your business better than anyone else. I know how to execute things and I kind of look at design and my role in it as being this kind of like conduit. Right. And I know that maybe some people look at that as like, Oh, like, you're like, really undervaluing yourself in that regard.

But I feel like. I mean, that's what a service provider is, right? I can do something that you can't do. That's why you're hiring me to do this, right? But that doesn't mean that my ideas about your business are just inherently the matter because I'm the designer, right? And I know this is what you talk about in Your content too, right?

Like this is your business. Like who knows your business better than you? No one you do. So let's get it to where you can do these things for your business. Right. And so I do love this shift of this done with you collaborative style and. little spoiler alert. I don't know when this episode is going to drop, but, I'm like really rethinking how I'm doing, one to one services next year and trying to kind of create some templated, low ticket offers where it's like, here's some website templates.

If you need a website and you need a cheap, right, go at it, have at it. And then maybe some sort of in the middle thing where It's less work, I guess, for me, where I'm restyling a template or working from a base, right, where it's kind of plug and play, it's not as customized. It's not custom all the

Emelie Sanders: way.

Kate Christy: Right, but like the one to one thing is rather than selling this. 10 page website package, right? Then it evidently snowballs into, oh, I need social media graphics and I need this and I need that, and then I'm like, oh my God, like this is, you know, turning into this beast that I'm having a problem managing because I really want this to be successful and I'm really excited, I'm really invested at this point, and these are boundaries that I have problems with.

But I'm working on it, but being like, rather than this 10 page website package, how about hire me as a creative sidekick for six weeks? And like, we're just going to get shit done, whatever that looks like for your business. That's like the rough concept. And I know that the verbiage that I'm using currently is not effective enough sell it.

Emelie Sanders: Okay. We're going to do it. No, but I love that. Cause I think this kind of there's just a gap. And I think that we've just treated this gap as like, Huge for so long, you know where it's really like you're here, you know, you need this But there's just sort of this knowledge missing.

That's where I come in sort of deal So love that and also I think just a more humble personal way to approach business too. I just think it's kinder I don't know and I find too that like people that I would do done with you work with They come back like my retention for them is way higher than just here's your website.

Bye. it's more relationship building too. Like it's more community and centric. And I think that people really like that.

Kate Christy: Yeah, because you are building a relationship, right? It's not just in exchange of currency and product, right? they, yeah. And I think that people see the value of what you do.

When you bring them into the process more, right, where you can say, this is why what I do is valuable. This is the benefits that you're going to receive from it. Or this is the transformation, right? You can tell people that, but until they actually see behind the curtain, right? They're kind of like, okay, like I kind of get it.

I don't get it because, and this is something thatthink there is that gap that you're talking about too, in this, creative space where ultimately it's our job to teach our clients what the hell's going on, right? We have to explain things to them. And some people are like, ugh, that is not my job.

It's like, no, it is your job though, because. You can't deliver an effective, content, copy, whatever to your client. I can't deliver effective website to my client unless they understand why we did what we did, how it works, what the process is, what the strategy is behind it, then even like how it works moving forward.

Right. Because a lot of these one and done services, it's like, I can build a website and give it to them. And if they don't use it or update it or make that grow, like pull it, like bring it alongside them. Yeah. It's like, well, this is like dead in the water. if they don't understand it, that connection is not being made.

And something else that popped into my mind when you're talking about that big gap, there was this I guess like mean girl marketing movement, right. Where it was like, you need professional X, Y, and Z. And if you can't do that, do you really care about your business? And it's like, Oh yeah, if you're not ready

Emelie Sanders: to invest six figures into your business, are you really serious?

I'm like,

Kate Christy: bitch, I know I need all these things.

Emelie Sanders: also a component I feel is like people, I don't know. sometimes try to disguise it too as like boundaries or like we try to disguise it as something that when in reality it's just like, no, you're just kind of being a bitch. Like, can you not treat your clients better and like set them up for success?

And then I also see a lot of creating dependency. That's another thing too. I think there's been a lot of like scarcity. Where it's like, Oh, I'm delivering this to you. So if you need anything updated or changed or you need help, you're gonna have to rehire me rather than like, Let me equip you.

And it's kind of funny cause it's like most time too, if you do teach and equip and give them context and all that, they're going to come back anyway. Cause they're going to be like, Oh damn, that's freaking hard. So I know, I think, it's kinder. I think it's better for business.

I also kind of just think it's easier. I don't know. I like easy. Yeah. Very much like same.

Kate Christy: Yeah. With kids is when anything can be as easy as possible. And I don't know, maybe that's not the way you get through life and the path of least resistance, because then you look back and you're like, Oh, shit, how'd I end up

Emelie Sanders: here?

no, I am with you on that path of least resistance all the way.

Kate Christy: Yeah. and something that I've been noodling on lately with this. there has been a shift in the market. Agree or disagree?

Emelie Sanders: Agree. Curious what way you're going here. So yes, regardless.

Kate Christy: In the creative, community with designers, it's mostly design.

Yeah. Design people that I've been talking to about this, where there was this golden era of The 10 K brand package, the 10 K, whatever creative package. Right. And a lot of that was backed by this like strategy, strategy, strategy. Like this is going to make you grow beyond your wildest imagination.

Duh, duh, duh. Like all this stuff where these people were like, if I want. This, I have to do this. There's no other path to success unless I invest 10, 000 in this person who's telling me that's what I need to do. Right. And I'm not saying that every single person who was selling the 10 K package, whatever that was, right.

That it was not worth that or worth more. Some of them may be worth less. Right. I'm not saying that everyone's a bad person because that's not true. I believe people are inherently good. And sometimes that bites me in the butt. But anyways, When there was this like shift that people were like, I can't pay.

They're like, I guess getting smart. maybe people are doing a good job educating them. Right. They're getting smart too. Okay. Say I'm building a business, an online business. I need a brand identity. I need strategy, voice. Messaging guide, right? I need all of this stuff foundational. I need a website to sell the things.

I'm potentially need some form of creative work by visuals or copy for marketing. Right. Whether, whatever that platform looks like. Yeah. So when you start adding these things up, it can turn into like thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of dollars. Right. Especially if everyone's charging a 10 K package for whatever they're doing.

Right. and then you look at yourself and you think. I started my business with, maybe 5, 000, right? And here 20 people are telling me I need to give them 10, 000 if I want to be successful. And I know that we're not supposed to be in everyone's wallets, right? Like that's bad advice to put your mind in your client's wallet, whatever.

But you start thinking about this is a reality for a lot of people, right? And I'm trying to sell this, big juicy package here, but there are a lot of people in between. Zero and 10, 000. Right. What are they going to do? What can I do for them? Right.

Emelie Sanders: So that's kind of where not a fluff.

I feel like there's been a lot of fluff, okay. For instance, like whenever I'm working with people on strategy and stuff, I've looked at a bunch of copywriters and like, they're like, Oh, for this much, you get all of these things. And I'm like, I'm looking at all these things. And I'm like, I feel like, you know, we don't need to talk about your brand values.

We don't need to talk about this that the other I see designers do that too I'm like, why do you call me on if you're like, I disagree I'm not like I want you to make a logo for this Here is what i'm doing And what I want to accomplish and here's who i'm speaking to. why do we need to talk about?

All of these things over here. Like isn't that just sort of a waste like I get that strategy is Important but like at what point is it just fluff, like at what point is it just filler busy work, you know, how can we simplify that so that's something I've been thinking about lately too.

Because sometimes I look at the copy that I do and I have like my different wireframes or, we're working through this worksheet or whatever. Sometimes I'm like, I get like a little nervous before my calls, not gonna lie to you. And I'm like, this just isn't much that we're working through, but it's like two hours later, we're still on the damn worksheet.

And they're like, Whoa. And I'm like, okay, this is telling me too, that it is telling me we're working on like what actually matters. And we're going deep instead of just like going wide to check off a bunch of, and you get this, and you get that, and you get this. and I kind of feel like I see that in design space too.

Kate Christy: Mm hmm. Yeah, I concur with that. I feel like with the 10k package, the rise of the 10k package, I'm going to go with the rise and the fall. Maybe,

Speaker 3: but there was the

Kate Christy: rise and the fall of the 10k package, right? Where it was, we have to do these things to make it worth it. We have to come across as knowing what the hell we're doing.

Right. And this is something that I struggle with as a creative, because I, I have a very different philosophy on, um, Strategy, where as a designer, I intuitively do things like I can sit and have a conversation with someone, get their vibe, kind of know a little bit about them, just really like take an assessment of their energy, how they talk, what they say, how they hold themselves, like all this stuff, like context clues.

Right. And I'm like, this feels. Like their vibe, this feels like a good representation of them. And a lot of people that I work with are individuals they're building a brand, I mean, people are very much the forefront of the brand these days, right? Where, unless it's

Emelie Sanders: all like personal brands to an extent.

Kate Christy: Yeah. So this. school of thought that's like, you don't have to like your logo. The people that are buying things from you have to like,

Emelie Sanders: Oh shit. I hate that. And I, even when I start, like when I was doing the past, the case, so branding, for me, it was like, it's gotta be balance.

for instance, My target audience, they're all women. Most of them are more feminine. I am not a super girly girl kind of thing. It's like, so whenever at first I was like, oh, I'm talking like it's a skeleton hand. We dip in like a piece of like a chip and queso sort of thing. I did have to tell like when I was working with my designer, like I know that I also do some things like I need you to help me kind of like, hold me back.

But we can't go too dark, right? Because it's like I don't want to like chase people away. Because I know who my ideal clients are, but at the same time, I want to like my logo because who's slapping it everywhere? Me. Who's looking at it every day? Me. Who has to show up for it every day? Me. So like, if I hate it, I'm not going to, I won't, I'm not doing it.

I agree with you. your job is like, you're taking their person and you're embodying it into design. I don't think that you can put that into a structured strategic, Boxes or a process per se, like I think so much of it is intuitive and that's what makes you a creative, that's what makes that work valuable because other people don't, I don't have that.

that's one of the things I learned so hard when I was in design. like, I don't have that. I missed the mark all the freaking time. And that's what people are paying you for because they don't have that.

Kate Christy: Yeah. And what you said there about, I'm the one who has to. Move this business, move this brand forward.

I'm the one who has to put in the work. I'm the one who has to, you know, that's like such a, pillar of what I believe as a web designer, I'm like, if you love your website, you are going to invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry to go check it out. Right? you are going to be jazzed about it. So therefore that's going to start this ripple effect or snowball effect, right?

I'm excited about my brand. I'm excited about my business. I'm going to do the things that I'm supposed to do, right? It's kind of like coaxing them into air quotes, right? The things you're supposed to do, right? Like, because you're excited about it and you're energized about it and you love it. And I think when people love their brand, love their website and also when it's easy for them,

it's a lot. Yes. Yes. It's just a much more joyful experience as an entrepreneur. And a lot of this shit is hard. Like a lot of it's very difficult. Very has very lows, right? It's a roller coaster all day, every day. And I think that. Yeah. This strategy thing, like someone took it too far.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah, I definitely agree.

And then it's also like, that's why, I mean, I'm thinking of someone very specific in my head, but I'll just keep it general, but it's like, I have women with like, Sparkly, pink, gaudy, like, gold websites and they're like, finance coaches, whatever. you go on there and you're like, I swear you have broken every freaking design rule in the book and your website makes me want to punch a baby.

but you are like consistently enrolling clients, even men, do you think men want your website? And they're like, damn girl, love that website. Let me hire you. Probably not. that wasn't the deciding factor. So, like, I absolutely agree with you. And, like, I mean, I think that's also where, for me, with the writing with personality comes in, because whenever I do copywriting with people, like, sales copywriters I know, they're like, here's sales psychology and, like, better behavior, so, like, we're going to put all of these, we're going to, heavily structural these words.

It's all strategy. Like, I know you, I know it might not look cute, you might not like it, but it's gonna work. but it takes a lot of energy to show up to write in a way that doesn't feel like you. So like, are you actually going to do it? mean, it's the same. I think this principle can probably be applied across all of these sort of fields that we're in, probably.

was strategy. I think in our heads that we just, I see women do this more than men. where it's almost like we have to validate why we're charging or charging or something like that. Or we have to like make it worth it. And so we have to decide that everything is Strategic.

Because if everything's strategic, then you will have no problem paying me money because you will be making more money because it's strategic. It's just like one of those industry jargon kind of things that are just like, it's so, I'm over it. Like, I'm over the strategic this. I'm over imposter syndrome.

I'm over, like, there's so many, like, snippets and sayings. You mentioned one earlier, too, and I can't remember what it was. And it's like, Brand strategy is another one too. I'm just like, okay, what else you got? I'm over

Speaker 3: it.

Kate Christy: Yeah. And well, we are in an industry where we're working with humans, right?

We're not, behind a cash register, right? We're not behind a wall of products. we're working with humans. We're offering services. And I think that on a very human level, we just want to work with people that we jive with, right? we, want to feel connected to the people that we're working with.

Right. And so you can put. a bullet point list of this is what's in my package. This is what's in this person's package. Right. It can be the same thing. It can be totally different things. Right. But you're going to gravitate towards the person that you're like, I feel this connection. I can't explain it, whatever it is.

Right. there's this reason why this person feels like a good fit for me because of. How you've seen them show up on Instagram. You feel like, Oh, like this person has the same kind of humor as me, right? Yeah. There's this connection thing. And I think that with all this strategy stuff, not saying that, things that we do are strategic people don't get it twisted.

Okay. We're not like,

Emelie Sanders: but

Kate Christy: think that, You being personal brands, being people, being humans, right. And working with other humans, there's this energetic thing that is happening, right? You're like talking about like the gold foil website, right? if that person is gold full of energy, like other gold full people are going to flock to them.

Right. And they'd be like, you are my kind of person. I'm into that. Right. They might not even be into that. Right. the visual thing might not even be a flag or a trigger for someone. Right. They might be like, this person speaks my language. Right. This person has the same sense of humor. This person has the same experience that I've had, or they're in the same boat that I'm in.

so I think there's so much more just unexplainable. That'sMagic stuff that happens, right? That can't be quantified by a bullet list of things. These are the steps. These are the deliverables. These are the things, right? Because I mean, it's creative, right?

And I know that there are rules that you got to follow and you got to behave yourself if you want to run

Emelie Sanders: a successful business. It's know the rules to break the rules too, you know, like it's, got to be both and that's something I personally, I'm a very black and white person. So for things to and makes me like, I don't want to let it sound comfy for me, but it kind of reminds me of If I was meeting, Milo in Tinselville Hob, one of my one on one clients, okay, we met yesterday, before yesterday.

We're looking through our copy and it's like, I think another thing is we're all B2B, which is kind of funny because it's like, we're kind of not, we're all kind of B2C, but also B2B. It's like, what is this sort of I don't know, I feel like another term. Yeah, I feel like we need another term because it's if I were to hire you, it's like, you are B2B to your business, to my business, but really it's

person to person. It's not like I'm a corporation sort of thing. it's just a little different, but we're working through our copy and it's kind of like, her different messaging elements in this framework I teach. And it was like, at one point we were talking to like the underlying desire and I was telling her and it's like, we have these initial desires that we're like, I really want this, but you know, it's not enough.

Like I'm willing to like, continue to compromise. And that's kind of what keeps us From hiring the person or doing the thing, but like, what's deeper, because when we speak to that, you know, that's how we make the sale sort of thing. So we're kind of talking through that. And I told her, I was like, because you are beaded, you're a B2B sort of situation, that underlying messaging is almost always money related.

but it's hard for me sometimes whenever I within this conversation we're having, because it's like, it is money related because we're businesses. And at the end of the day, we do want a website that converts and makes us people, makes us sales, and like, we do want to write copy that makes sales.

Like, that's what we're here for. but the vehicle and the delivery of it, like, that's where, like you're saying, I don't think we can quantify that. Like, I don't think we can make that part. all about strategy all the time or box it in. So it's, kind of hard cause it's like that underlying reason, very black and white, very, it's money cause we're businesses, but like how we do that is going to be different for everyone.

it's interesting conversation I've been having with a lot of my clients too, cause they're like, so I need to do things this way because of these reasons, but then I can do whatever the hell I want with the delivery of it. And like, Yes. It's just a strange conversation, but

Kate Christy: yeah, it matters.

That's wild. I'm so glad that we got down this, specific rabbit hole.

Emelie Sanders: Rabbit hole. That's a good one. Yeah. I just, written a blog post on like, and I have other content because, you know, repurposing, but it's talking about like why we even need things like humor and kind of going back to your sort of person to person thing.

And it's like, thosethings like that make us human. And that helps us with like creativity. It helps us with the resilience to, like you're saying the day to day of business is hard. and then also money. So need those personal elements. Yeah. And

Kate Christy: no, I also think that people want to be taken care of, right?

They just want to know that this person that they've chosen to work with, right, is, is Going to show up for them and going to care about them and going to care about the success of their business. Right? It's think there's so much right. Like, transactional. But I also think that.

It's kind of speaking to this. Like weird, magical thing that happens in creative work that maybe can't be explained or quantified or whatever, right, is on the other side of that are people that we're working with who just have maybe no concept of that whatsoever, right? And they want this bullet list of these are the things that I'm gonna get.

These are the, uh, deliverables, these are the benefits, these are the whatever's right. so like trying to, kind of bridge that gap of, I know what I'm doing and I care about you. Trust me. Right. And I think that's why it is so important to be yourself, to work with people that you connect with, right.

That you. You're like, Oh my God, like, this is my person. This is the, person that I need to work with because they get me. they've been in this experience. Like they're speaking directly to me and my fears, my desires.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah. Yeah. That's how like, sometimes I've had this to say, I'm not sure if you've had support where it's like, I am not in the to hire an ex, but I meet this person who sells X and I'm like, I want to hire that person.

I'm not even, like, I have no business hiring them right now, but like, I want to. And when I get there, I will because of exactly everything you talked about. the sort of, you know, the marketing, like, the no, like, and trust, part of me is like, but it's true. Like, you've got to have those things for but for the reasons that you just said.

especially the like one, I am constantly floored by how many people I've worked with where they are like, Like, you know, we sort of hop on our first one on one call and we're talking about sort of, what are you trying to get out of this? Like, what are we on? Like, really setting these intentions.

And so we can set a timeline because I'm all about getting shit done and they come up and they're just like. I've got these things to work on, I just wanted to like, just work with you. okay. And I'm sure that you've experienced that too, where it's like, I want to work with you on my business because like you said, like working on your business is something we've got to take seriously.

And sometimes it can get lonely. So like bringing people in that we like to do that work. I mean, I can even personally speak to like how amazing and energizing that is. a business owner. So it's just people by people.

Kate Christy: Yeah, 100%. okay. So we have been chatting for a while and I want you to tell. No, no, no, love it.

I would talk all day and avoid work. that's also something I'm working on. Oh,

Emelie Sanders: yeah. you should just podcast. That's it.

Kate Christy: You know, that's like the goal is to just be able to podcast and people pay me money to do this. that's where the disconnect is right now, right?

Finding the people who want to pay me to do

Emelie Sanders: this. Okay,

Kate Christy: I want you to tell everyone.

About what you do and what you can do for them because I'm excited to hear because I know you've got some new stuff in the works for January. Yes, I want to hear about it because you've been, spewing. Do people still say that you're spewing, spitting? Good information about marketing, content, marketing, copywriting, all that jazz.

So I I want you to talk about what you got in the shoot and what people can get excited about.

Emelie Sanders: Yeah. So I'm shooting baby in February, but then after that, we're starting a program that's called copywriter. And, so excited about this cause I've done one on one. Copywriting mentorship for a while, but this is a launching sales group program.

So it's like six weeks limited butts. Cause it's a pretty like high touch, but it's sort of like, bring all your launching elements and we're going to optimize them with like, you know, sales psychology, you know, all that sort of stuff. But we're also brand defined these offers. So it's like, we were talking about before, like, how are you making this fun so that you can show up for it and like, be really excited and kind of create this universe around your brand.

So, We're doing that in the first part and then applying all those elements in the second part where we're going to design these really fun launches for your offer as well. So the whole purpose is like not adding more elements, but like optimizing what you've got and then being able to launch it and make, my clients have been making about 20 percent more on their launches when they launched this way.

Andthere's like no audience building in there either. So we're not like, hey, spend six weeks building your audience. It's just all. Sales, copy based and launching. Also,And then, got a wait list going right now.

and I guess you can just find me on Instagram. That's where I live.

Kate Christy: Okay. so the thing, copy riders, R I D E R S, right? Yeah.

Emelie Sanders: Riders, R I D E R S, yeah,

Kate Christy: I was going to do a horse. No one can see me.

Emelie Sanders: do a horse. yeah, no, it's like Americana, kind of themed.

I don't know. We're running with it. It's been fun.

Kate Christy: No, I love it. I, 100 percent support this. that's going to be in

Emelie Sanders: the first people. I told you the of whenever I was like, I figured out the name.

Kate Christy: Yeah. no, that's always exciting. I love that feeling when you hit on it and you're like, I'm too good at what I do.

Emelie Sanders: Like, you know, a day's over. I came up with this bad ass

Kate Christy: name. Yeah. That was the one thing I checked off my list done. no, I love that. so that'll be launching in February. Is that what you said? Yeah. Or the baby's launching

Emelie Sanders: baby's launching in February, late January, early February, but we're starting later in February, but like, okay, we're doing now like wait list.

So, Yeah, blend that wait

Kate Christy: list. So excited. That's exciting. Do you have a price point for that? That you want to share or not share?

Emelie Sanders: ask me any of the questions. So we're, it's, 90 for the program, but wait list, which you can join by, I think the cutoff for that is end of December. You get like a thousand dollars off the program.

I have an extra extended payment plan for the wait list too. So you can pay on it for six months. And then also you get a one on one launching call with me. So I've got three of those available and then I'll have three more butts for public launch. And I decided I hate doing public launches with these crazy layered bonuses.

So when it launches to the public, it's just launching to the public. Nothing special for you.

Kate Christy: So I have one final bone to pick and then I will get off of this rise and fall of the 10k package. okay. So we're picking on other people. Okay. Go back to that. No, yeah, yeah, When. People list something that they're selling and they put line item things in, like bonuses or whatever, right?

And they put a monetary value beside it. Like a 647 value. Yeah. I'm like, But how? But you can. I don't, but you can buy it for $98. Yeah, and I'm like, I'm very skeptical of this pricing system, and so I'm also like going through this process of, do people really fall for, maybe that's too brash of a way to say it, like, do people really still buy into these tactics, right?

One of them that I asked on my stories not too long ago, maybe it was a long time ago, I don't remember, was, When you read something that's like America's number one or voted best or, like it's a very big claim. It's not like, small podunk town people choice a word best taco stand in this, you know, 2, 500 population.

Place, right? You're like, that's an award right there, right? Like that's legitimate. That's recent. but when it's such like a big broad claim, I'm like, do people pay attention to that anymore? I don't know. So I'm asking these questions. and I'm like, well, if I'm asking myself this, maybe other people are,

Emelie Sanders: yeah, I think it's kind of going to be like, know, when you see books and they're like, it's a New York times bestseller, but some people just are like, cool.

Some people are like, and then some people are like, I know that you can easily get on that list is application based, you know what I mean? So I think that it's probably a mix. I imagine it really depends on like, who is your audience sort of thing. Yeah. And we're in the launching world, you know, we're in the launching world.

So we know that's bullshit.

Kate Christy: I didn't realize it. Forbes. 40, like those lists where you apply to be on it. And I was like, dang, what have I been doing 30?

Emelie Sanders: That's when like, I go to websites too. And they have like those, like I called them street cred banners and it's like all these different like and stuff.

I'm like, don't care.

Kate Christy: Mm That's funny. I just had a call with, a potential client for a website project and she's worked with some big name brands. Like she does packaging and she's worked with some really big name brands on their packaging. And she's like, does that matter? Like, does that not matter?

She's like, I feel like that's kind of like me now. And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, like, I feel like we should mention it, but I don't think we need a big old banner on your homepage. It's like, that's the sound of the ticker tape.

Emelie Sanders: And show it differently though. Like, I think there's a difference too, though, between like, here's their logo versus.

Here's the packaging I made where people are gonna be like, Oh, dude, I bought the other day, making it more, tangible, you know, like throwing a logo. I could throw logos on my site too. I don't think I could.

Kate Christy: Let me think about it. I'm not saying,

Emelie Sanders: Oh, no, I mean, Maybe, my goal. what I'm saying is I could put any logo I want on my site.

So could you, that's what I'm saying.

Kate Christy: Yeah, but maybe the goal is to get the most obsolete. No one knows what the hell this thing is, like, Oh, she's been featured in what?

Emelie Sanders: That's the free thing,

Kate Christy: the free things that you get at a grocery store, right? They're like real estate magazines. Do you know what I'm talking about? Where they're? Those are like free flyers and what to do in town. They're like three feet long.

I'll go buy ad space and all those and then be like, I was featured. This is a waste of my time. And these are the ideas that just totally derail me and I need to cut it out.

Emelie Sanders: Those ideas could totally be repurposed into like actual cool or funny ideas or content, though.

Kate Christy: Yeah, I spend too much time on it, but, sometimes that just takes the edge off of the bad parts of being a business owner, right? Yeah. Anyways, okay. Yeah, that, I infuse a lot of humor, Because I don't know any other way, A, and, it just feels right, so. There's strategy behind that just feels right. So that's the strategy feels good.

Emelie Sanders: Oh, intuition,

Kate Christy: intuition. Yeah. oh my gosh, this was such a fun conversation and a lot of good little nuggets. some really bad advice on my part. Some really good advice on your part. So thank you for that for really bringing the value up. I can't try to pull it down.

Emelie Sanders: I think we did a mediocre job.

It's good enough to ship. So let's ship it.

Kate Christy: Yeah, I think it's good. We'll seal of approval. check that one thing off our list today. Successful conversation for a podcast. thank you for giving me so much of your time. I'm always so grateful and thankful for any mom who comes on here and gives me a big chunk of time like this to have a conversation, this is going to sound so silly, but it truly is cup filling and like validating, right.

to just bask in the experience that we're all sharing and wading through and surviving and sometimes thriving. And, know, it's just. I'm very much thoroughly enjoying having these conversations. And so thank you for entertaining me.

Emelie Sanders: I love it. I get to say, yeah, I worked today. I got to talk with someone I like for a couple, hours and it's good for me too.

It's a good break. This guy has work. I love it. Let's keep doing

Kate Christy: it. Disguises work. Yeah. No, we'll do.