Wow what an interview this is! This week on my Parents in Business I’m featuring Emma Hammond who goes by the title of the Queen of Automation. Emma set up her business to help other businesses grow by putting in places processes that they would otherwise be doing manually.
Her story is one of success where she has juggled setting up and growing the business whilst being a single parent. I really enjoyed hearing how Emma has managed to separate work and family time, and only work 20 hours a week. Well done! Her one top tip is to stay in your lane, something that I’ve read a lot about since becoming a freelancer myself. Please all have a read of Emma’s interview and take a nose at her channels on social media too!
Tell me a little bit about you, your background, and your business?
They call me the Queen of Automation, I specialise in helping service-based business owners generate more revenue in less time through the power of automation.
How did I get into this though? I remember the moment it happened, I had just become a single parent and had no idea how I was going to work and support my hungry baby. Taylor was only 5 months at the time, he looked up at me with his huge eyes full of unconditional love, he had total faith in me. I just needed to have the same faith in myself now.
But what do you do when you have a dream of a future for your children and it involves so much more than just scraping by, but your anxiety is so severe that you can’t leave your home without a panic attack?
You pull up your big girl pants and you sit down and make a plan to create the life and dreams you want and you don’t stop until you have achieved it.
18 months later and I have a steady flow of client’s, a wait list of people wanting to work with me, I have scaled my agency to a team of 6 people and now never work more than 20 hours in a week.
What were your motivations for setting up your business?
The main drivers initially for setting my business up were basic needs really, after separating from my sons father I wasn’t able to manage working full time as I couldn’t afford the childcare. I live in Jersey which is a struggle, expensive rent, I couldn’t claim any benefits of financial help and had to do everything for myself so paying rent and supporting my baby were paramount.
After this came my desire to create a business that actually gave me the freedom to live my life on my own terms and then be able to help give this life to other parents who wanted to build successful businesses.
How do you balance the business around your family and childcare?
I manage to balance my business alongside family by firstly, automating my business processes. It’s incredible how many tasks people are doing manually that can be automated in their businesses, they try and do everything themselves and end up burnt out. Tasks such as invoicing, payment processing, booking calls and appointments, onboarding your new clients.
So firstly I looked at all of my business process and automated everything that could be automated, then I started hiring freelance assistants. I looked at everything I didn’t need to do personally and trained up assistants to be able to handle that for me. So I just handle my own marketing, client consultations and putting together briefs & plans, my assistants will actually handle the client work for me.
I even look into outsourcing from outside my business, I hired a cleaner to come every 2 weeks. I find by spending my time doing what I love and outsourcing what I don’t I am able to be much more focused and present with my family and there is far less stress.
I also try to keep my business and time with my son separate, I work when he is in nursery and sometimes in bed asleep but when I am with him, I am there 100%.
Since setting up your business what has been your biggest success to date?
Since setting up my business my biggest success to date was when I completely transformed my business around at the beginning of the year. In December 2018 I had a tough month with my mental health which impacted me financially and in fact I had to borrow money off family to pay my rent.
After working things through, putting a plan together and putting the work in by the end of March I had completely turned things around and increased my monthly turnover by over 800%. I remember that first month that I had such large payments his my account, I was able to book and pay for a holiday for my family all up front, I had never been able to do that before and it was an incredible feeling.
Better still, I did this without spending a single penny on advertising, only marketing my business organically and gaining clients through social media and content writing.
What’s your top tip for anyone who is thinking about setting up their own business?
My top tip for anyone starting up their own business is to block out everyone one else and stay in your lane. Just focus on you. What do you want to achieve? Break this down into actionable steps you can take everyday. Stay consistent and every day check your goals. Where you want to be and take the action required to get where you want to.
There is so much noise out there in the world and the online space and many people will try to distract you and bring you down.
It is so easy to get caught up with what everyone else is doing, comparing yourself and listening to others trying to crush your dreams. Just do you, take daily action and remember you are the one on this journey and you get to decide what your journey looks like.
Thank you so much Emma for being part of my series, I wish you all the best of luck for the future.
If you like what you’re reading and would love to be part of my Parents in Business series just drop me an email: thepramshedblog@gmail.com. Or have a nose at some of the other businesses I have featured in the series: Logan’s Plate, Tribe PR and Gemz by Emz.
Claire x
