Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emily Reagan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Emily, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I’ve always been a trailblazer and never liked doing things the same as everyone else. When I first started freelancing with my PR and marketing skills, I did not use a specific job title. I struggled to box myself in with a label since I was doing a variety of marketing tasks.

At the time my clients called me their “VA” (as in Virtual Assistant). But this term always bothered me. It was too vague and sounded too underling. It didn’t describe what I was doing: helping my clients grow, nurture, and sell to their audiences.

A few years back VA coaches and programs popped up a dime a dozen, selling the promise of working from home as a virtual assistant. And I saw tons of new VAs struggling to find work because they didn’t have any skills. They weren’t employable and they certainly didn’t know how to market themselves.

So I’m over here screaming from the top of my lungs, it’s because VA is NOT an actual job title. It’s an industry.

There’s a huge number of remote workers who fall into the VA category. I coined the term digital marketing assistant to describe this role. It makes so much sense because you have a specific scope of work with one single business department, instead of trying to be all things to the business owner.

I always encourage freelancers and VAs to claim an actual job title based on specific hard and soft skills.

Just like we need to “dress the part” for our dream job, we need to take on the job title we desire, even before we’re ready or feel qualified enough.

I see it’s catching on in the VA world, and I’m seeing more people copying this positioning. But I know it resonated with my audience who have previous careers, education backgrounds and lived experiences that add up to so much more than being a VA.

Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a military spouse who moved every 1-3 years. Long story short: my career suffered. It was nearly impossible to keep my career progressing and keep starting over. No one wants to hire you when you are going to leave and I couldn’t hide the fact that we moved a lot on my resume.

I even had one boss tell me he could “get me for cheap”. What he meant was other people would skip over my resume because of our active duty status and be afraid to take a risk on me, and he knew I would haven’t have many options. The cheap part came from being a nonprofit, I’d be less competitive in the corporate environment where you need to be known to get hired.

So that hurt. It finally got to the point where I had my son and couldn’t keep starting over. I had zero desire to learn a new media market, my energy was zapped. So I fell into freelancing accidentally. I had helped a few business owners with press releases and social media marketing and one of them asked me to stay on after I moved away.

It worked so well. I ended up having four children, moving (or PSCing) seven more times in those 13 years. Every time my clients came with me! One client I stayed with for 6 years, I knew her business so well. I helped her grow to 80k email listand we had a $1million launch of her membership. Another client, I’ve been with coming up 8 years. A complete change from my “new-job-every 18-months” military spouse resume.

I booked out so quickly because I had a coveted skillset of public relations and marketing. I was able to think on my feet, be creative and apply marketing strategies to different businesses.

I also loved being a part of a team again and working toward a common goal. And when we made the client money, it was even more rewarding

Since I was booked out, I hated turning clients away. They struggled to find someone like me. I called myself a unicorn because I was so rare. But then I had idea to teach my fellow military spouse friends, who are statistically over-educated and under-employed, exactly what I do for client work.

At one point I had the commander’s wife working for me in my agency! She was an industrial engineer who wanted work while her girls were in school, but didn’t want to go back to the 60-hour work week either.

I taught her everything I knew and she quickly because a content manager and then a launch manager for one of my clients. It was so rewarding to see her get back to work after a baby break.

Eventually, I turned those agency trainings into a course and launched the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School — a unique training program for marketing assistants to learn marketing services and how to build and launch their service business.

I’ve had 350 students go through my program and every time a new “unicorn” gets a job or starts making more money than she did in her last job, I just burst with pride.

I love giving women options so they can take care of themselves and great a financially independent future. But I also love hooking up fellow business owners with their own unicorn to help them in their marketing.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

My business was totally a side hustle. I didn’t have the fortitude to see that this work could unlock agency or high-end projects. In the beginning, I was just a mom who wanted to keep her brain busy and pay for piano lessons. I played at it for years, and that was ok. I was raising babies and quite often doing it on my own while my partner deployed or traveled.

The turning point for me was when my husband had severe PTSD. I didn’t know if he’d make it to the 20 year retirement without being medically discharged, I didn’t know if i could count on military retirement pay. We had sacrificed so much and were about to lose the benefits. The rug was pulled out from under me. But I realized I had the skills to take care of myself.

That’s when I got smart about scaling with a course and a membership. I knew it was the fastest way to serve more. My agency was tapped out and I could not manage anyone else.

The key milestone was me deciding what I wanted for my future. As a military spouse, I always went with the flow, I lacked any kind of control. But once I set my mind to a specific vision and goal, that’s when things got serious.

I regretted not building my own business all those years behind the scenes in everyone else’s. I didn’t want to be the face of my business, but I knew that’s what it took. to grow an audience and launch a couse. I really had to get over myself and just show up, especially on video.

I was consistent. It didn’t happen overnight. I launched five times before I reached the six-figure mark. It was steady, slow growth over three years.

What put me over the edge? When I got clear on the job title and I went all in on that.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I teach my students this, but it’s going above and beyond and really treating your client’s business like you would your own.

People can tell when someone is just collecting a paycheck and doing minimal viable work. But I understood that my clients wanted a loyal, all-in teammate, not any one-night-stand freelancer from Upwork.

Take the time to do things correctly, fix them when you get them wrong, show up prepared for a meeting and contribute ideas.

For one client I recently took the time to make sure all her graphics were sized for mobile and desktop. She’s thrilled I was so extra and recognized that attention to detail.

It’s also been my ability to from connections to help people. Years of bring a military kid and military spouse, paid off. I love to meet people, refer them to another so they can help each other. My business is even built on it and I didn’t realize it at the time. I take job openings from all over the Internet and my biz peers, and share them with my community. I know what it’s like to start over when no one knows you, and this is a way to join a network (my Workgroup) and feel instantly included, in the know and apart of something bigger. Crazy how that came full circle.

Contact Info:

• Website: emilyreaganpr.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyreaganpr/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilyreaganpr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyreagan/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/emilyreaganpr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@emilyreaganpr
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@emilyreaganpr