Inside A One Person Business - An Interview With Emily Claire Hughes
Join Ellen as she sits down with Emily Claire Hughes, a performer and singer turned marketing expert. Emily, founder of Emily Claire and Co, now specialises in copywriting for females founders and startup influencer marketing - the 'one stop shop for millennial marketing'.
Emily pivoted her career by starting a blog which led her step by step through the marketing world, to then launching her own business, Emilyclaireand.co a year and a half ago. Ellen Donnelly, Founder of The Ask®, sits down with Emily to discuss how she made the transition, finds her clients and discovered her Unique Contribution.
In this episode Emily and Ellen discuss:
How she transitioned from an education and early career in performing arts into marketing (which, much like acting, is about making people feel something)
The journey from hobby blogging about her expat life through to landing first clients
The revelation about her Unique Contribution that enabled her to build a unique one person business she loves
All things self-marketing; how Emily grew her roster of impressive clients including Clue the period tracking app
How she honed in on her niche over time
Emily’s productisation of her services; approach to scaling and the one game changing product she created that accelerated her business’ progress
Read on for the full transcript.
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Ellen Donnelly
Hey, Emily. Thank you so much for joining me on The Ask’s One Person Business interview series today. How are you doing?
Emily Hughes
I'm good, Ellen. How are you?
ED - I'm really well. Yeah. Excited to dig into what it is that you do. So do you want to kick off with a bit of an introduction to you and your one person business?
EH - Yeah, for sure. So my name is Emily and I started my business about a year and a half ago. It's now called Emily, Claire and Co. And what we are is, I say we're like the one stop shop. for millennial marketing. So what that means is I specialize in two things. Specifically, I do copywriting for female founders as well as startup influencer marketing. Also for female founders, mainly in the startup space. And mainly for people who are like less than like five person businesses.
ED - And you came into your business building journey with a really interesting route. So you started off in entertainment and tell me a bit more about your journey from singing on cruises to doing what you do now.
EH - Yeah. I always say like I have, in my opinion, a very weird background, which I have kind of come to own because I had no other choice. So yeah, I have a weird background and I, starting at the age of 16, I worked professionally as a performer. So singer, actor, dancer when I was 18 years old, I moved to New York city and I went to university to study musical theater. So like I have a university degree in singing, acting and dancing. And I lived in New York for about seven years doing exactly that. So I was a professional performer. That's what I did. And then about five or six years ago, I think after I was done singing on cruise ships, like all around the world, another quite interesting story.
I wanted a different lifestyle. I really like, I wanted to change. I wanted. To have a higher quality of life. I wanted to not be working at night all the time. I wanted to stop missing every family holiday ever. And so that's what kind of like, it was a long journey. Don't get me wrong. It's not like, Ooh, overnight made it happen.
But I started to work actually as a copywriter because I had a blog while I was on the cruise ship and starting a blog actually led me to working in copywriting and marketing and influencer marketing. And then it was like one step after another, I kind of like worked my way up and then started my own business a year and a half ago.
ED - Love that. So it's like connecting the dots, looking back. So you can't immediately see where running a business like you do today and singing come from in terms of the connection. But yeah, you've clearly plotted out where it supports you. The blog was about the traveling, about the singing. I assume that's such a cool lifestyle.
EH - Wild. I mean, I really can't lie.
It's like, if I look back, I really sometimes feel like I've lived two different lives. Like my life as a performer was vastly different than like my life is now, but I love that. But kind of going back to the point that you were making, I love that my life is still filled with elements of that other life, if that makes sense.
EH - And I think this is honestly something that I learned. Not necessarily the hard way, but it was definitely a journey because I think in the beginning when I first started out, like in the business world, for me, I was like totally filled with imposter syndrome because it's like, Oh, I have to pretend that I'm serious now.
I'm not like in costumes and singing and dancing on stage, like, like I'm, I go to my laptop every day and I type things like, but it was like the more I could, like, the more I worked, the more I finally realized, wait a minute, like. That part of me is why people like working with me. Like my creativity is unlike anyone else's that I've ever worked with. My ability to express myself because I studied this for years is totally different. So it took me a while to figure out how I could weave the elements of performing into like my career. If that makes sense, like this career, not that career. But once I figured out how to marry the two, that's when I think I really kind of came into like my zone of genius.
Like, which I find ironic because really for the longest time I was like, no, I'm very serious and professional. Like my first couple of posts on LinkedIn were like so bad because I was like, I am a professional person typing serious things. But the more that I could finally kind of open up about, yes, this is a very interesting part of my life that now has kind of formed this new part of my life.
That's when I think really things started to change.
ED - And that authenticity is clearly drawing people to you, there's like a magnetic energy to that, it's different and like the expression that you bring to yourself and your business can be transferred to their businesses when you're supporting their marketing efforts.
So, you've really tapped into what I call your unique contribution. What is it that only you can do that no one else can do? So, what are the elements of creativity or performance or dancing or singing or whatever that you can bring into your marketing agency?
EH - I love that. And I also, I love your your idea of the unique contribution.
I was thinking about this and I think, yeah, I mean, it's different. It's not like I'm singing and dancing when somebody gives me a brief for their website. Like that is not what I'm talking about here. But I think in general, I would say my approach to things is just slightly outside of the box in terms of, I think now.
My idea of marrying these two things, right, is knowing very, very clearly that, like, in business and marketing, you need goals, you need tangible outcomes that you can measure, right? So I think I'm very driven by those things, but at the same time, I come at it from a creative angle. You know, how can we make somebody, so for instance, I mainly work with companies that have, like, millennial audiences.
EH - So, like, how can I get people to react to something? How can this be fun? How can this be engaging? How can this be... Out of the box. How can we really tap into somebody's emotions to make them root for us? And I think like, because of my training as an actor, I literally just trained how to make, I trained with how to make people feel things like that's all I did.
EH - So then to be able to kind of take that training and go, okay, but how can I do this with words instead of being on stage that I absolutely love because I think like I was thinking about the unique contribution as well. And I think it really goes back to also the people I'm working with, right? So my ideal clients are startup female founders.
They're kind of the underdogs in terms of like the entire world of, you know, in terms of, if you look at the funding that female founders get, if you look at, you know, the VCs that are backing female founders, so many of these female founders are the underdogs. They are out there on their own. And I think I resonate so deeply with that because of my history.
Right. So like when I changed careers, I felt like the underdog, I felt like, do I deserve to be here? Is anybody going to want to work with me? Like I was just on stage for the past seven years, like. Oh, my God, like, you know what I mean? I think I felt so overwhelmed and so intimidated and it's like knowing that if I can succeed, these female founders can succeed.
And the fact that I can use my weird history as an actor, you know, to kind of like get them the right words that are going to make that happen. I love that.
ED - Yeah. And I love how you've championed the underdog by being the underdog first, going first and saying, what's worked for me? How can I use my training to support my clients? So what have some of the milestones been on your journey from where you started, where you are today to having some incredible clients. I know you work with businesses like Clue, the period tracking app. Maybe you can share some more as well as the milestones go on.
EH - Yeah, sure. So I think. Going back to the very beginning, I mean, when I first started as a copywriter, I was working for an online education company, and there I got really lucky.
Honestly, I got two female bosses who, like, totally believed in me, and I think they were like, Okay, we can see that you're really creative and you don't know much, so we'll teach you the business side of things if you bring the creativity. And from there, I think they really set me up for success. So from there, I started working more with influencers that the same company needed. So I was there part time as a copywriter, and they also needed somebody to work, to work with influencers, and because I had experience with blogging, I literally think this was the thought process, they were like, Ah! She'll understand influencers. I was like, okay. So then I started working with influencers, which is actually pretty cool because then that led to, you know, me realizing that there were two different things that I really enjoyed doing both copywriting and influencer marketing.
So when I started my own business, I was pretty clear that I wanted to keep doing both of those things. And so then for me, once I started my own business, a few milestones for sure, where, I mean, my first big client was massive. Like, I think for me, that was Kind of the fuel to the fire that I needed that I can do this, you know, like I am writing things that are being translated into 15 languages.
I have billboards in Singapore. Like, this is so cool. So once I landed that big client for me, that was a game changer. That was a copywriting client. But then I knew that I needed to figure out what my influencer marketing offer was, but I wasn't sure what that was. So I was doing some consulting for some startups here and there.
And finally, I was like, literally, my thought process was like. I'm like, I'm self employed now. I need multiple streams of income. I'm going to make a course. So I made an online course. And I would say that online course for me was an, it was another big milestone because it was a massive project, but as soon as I launched it, I'm still seeing that payoff today.
So for me, that was another really big milestone because I was able to get a bunch of leads and clients and opportunities through that online course. And then that online course led me to launch my three month influencer marketing accelerator program for startups. And that was like. The next kind of milestone in terms of having something really unique to offer that started to become really successful.
And then along the way, for sure. I mean, when I started working with Clue for me, that was also a massive milestone because they don't necessarily qualify as like a tiny underdog startup, if that makes sense, but in so many ways, they do because the Femtech industry is so underfunded. It blows my mind, like, the work that they're doing is so important.
And I think the company really functions with, like, a startup mentality. It's very dynamic. It's very. Like fast paced and that I really love. So when I started working with them for me, that was definitely another milestone. And then the next milestone, I would say, like, so I did the course. I started working with Clue, and then I would say the next milestone is me figuring out like a, like, similarly to having this three month influencer marketing accelerator program, I want to figure out what that same offer is for copywriting especially considering my target audience of female founders.
So starting next month, I'm going to be launching basically what I'm calling the Inbox Insiders, and that's kind of like a group copywriting coaching monthly program for female founders where we work on their marketing emails. So we make sure that they're always sending marketing emails, that they're great, that an expert copywriter has touched them and that they're not really just neglecting their lists.
And that will be my next milestone.
ED - Well, you've, you've achieved many of the goals that one person business owners want, right? Like the, the landmark client, the stop trading time for money and scale with an online course, something evergreen, plus bring the one to one support you did together in a group in this accelerator program. And it's clearly working because you're doing it again. So that's very cool. I'm very impressed. And I'd love to know how you do your own marketing. How do you get people on your courses, on your cohorts, on your Whatever, maybe less so for the businesses because I think that tends to be a bit more word of mouth.
But yeah, when you think about your startup founder, perhaps an early stage female founder, how do they hear about Emily and get into your world typically?
EH - Yeah, I mean, I would say for people in my position, in your position, this is probably the number one, like, Thing you have to figure out. Right? And this definitely took me a while.
So I would say in the beginning I was pretty lucky because a lot of my clients were coming in through referrals. I worked with someone and they referred me to their friend. And then, or for instance, a lot of my clients, this is where I feel super lucky, are still with me. So some of my very first clients, like I would say my average length of a contract with a client right now is like over a year.
Like I have a lot of my clients for the long haul, which I really like because it allows me to get to know them more. But. In terms of getting new clients in my online course has definitely worked on the influencer marketing side of things for generating new clients for me. But in terms of marketing on my own channels, for me, it's mainly LinkedIn and Instagram.
But something I had to learn is that for me. My early, early stage female founders startups, especially if it's more of like a product based thing. They're not normally on LinkedIn. I'm finding that they're more on Instagram, which for me was like an interesting challenge because for the longest time, I only wanted my Instagram to be personal.
Like, you know, it's my life, my expat life in Germany kind of thing. And I'm now slowly making that transition because I realized I'm like, I've gotten clients through Instagram and Instagram. Why would I neglect this channel if these people are out there? So I would say for me, it's definitely very top of mind right now is this kind of balance of, you know, basically balancing the personal content with the professional content on Instagram, definitely engaging a lot with people on LinkedIn, because those tend to be my more like, for instance, more fem tech clients have found me through LinkedIn.
And that's always really fun to work on. So I would say LinkedIn is really great for me there. And then I have my own newsletter. Which honestly I feel like I have to have anyways because I'm obsessed with writing other people's emails. So I have to write my own emails. And at the moment I'm working on like a freebie in order to generate more, more signups for my email subscriber list.
ED - Yeah. So you're covering the two main social channels. You have an email list. It's kind of like you need that as a form of protection against the algorithms, but also perhaps what you preach, right? You're helping people have their email list. How do you grow that? You get them on your freebie. So pretty standard stuff, but I know it's all about the nuances about how you show up.
And I know you show up in a really fun, you know, value adding way. What's on the horizon? Like, where do you see your business going in the next 1, 2, 3, 10 years? Like what were answer the question you feel comfortable answering?
EH - So many fun questions in there. I think in general, I would say more than anything, I'm just super excited about the future.
I mean, call me naive because I've only had my business for a year and a half. So I'm sure you have interviewed so many other people who have been like, Oh, well, you know, I've learned from these challenges over the past five years. And I think more than anything, I'm just so excited to continue to grow because I think.
If I look at what's happened over the past year and a half, like, doing my online course, launching these programs that, you know, can be applied and allow me to scale, I think, for instance, for me, the biggest goal right now is just to keep figuring out how to scale. And I think, also, like, for me, that was a really interesting process of figuring out what does that mean for me, because I think at one point I thought, Oh, well, I just want to keep getting bigger clients.
So I look more cool and more professional. And the more that I thought about that, I was like, wait a minute, but those aren't my ideal clients. Like my, my ideal clients are actually lots of smaller female founders. So then it's coming up with these offers where I can still have personal touch points with all the people I want to work with, but we can assist, like, but we can.
Come up with a system for things. We can automize processes. You know, we can have onboarding, you know, basically setting up all these systems for myself that can allow me to scale and reach more people without reaching bigger people, if that makes sense. So that's really my biggest goal right now. And I would say for the next couple of years, cause I think it will take time to really get to the, I don't know, like the layer of scale that I'm looking for.
But that's definitely my goal right now. Right. And once you find the thing that starts to work and you're meeting lots of your ideal clients at scale and you're seeing results and you've built the systems, you're going to want to rinse and repeat that and get their referrals and see what you can improve here on here or whatever.
So that's very cool.
ED - So I'm sure we have lots of people watching this. You think that they could be supported by your marketing or influencing services, copywriting services. How should people find you reach out to you following this conversation?
EH - Yeah, sure. So speaking of LinkedIn and Instagram on Instagram, if you want to follow me, I'm Emily in Hamburg because I live in Hamburg, Germany, and then my website is Emily Claire and Co. And on LinkedIn, I am Emily Claire Hughes, and I would be super excited to engage with all of your followers and people there.
ED - Of course we'll link everything. So yeah, we're coming up to time. It's been brief, but super value packed and yeah, I love everything that you are doing. Nice to meet you. Thanks for your time and we'll see you each other around.
EH - Perfect. Thank you so much Ellen.
