Episode 16: The E Suite Sitdown
Episode Transcript
*Please note that when “thesis” is mentioned, it is actually a dissertation. - Emrys
00:00-07:16
Erika: Welcome to the Business Flow Formula. I'm Erika Dowell, the CEO at Signal Operations. On today's episode, I'm so glad to be joined by my Chief Operating Officer, Emrys De Sousa, who has been with me for four or five years. As you listen, I think we've lost track of time, but we've been working together for several years now, and we kind of just go through our entire journey of how we met, where we are now, and what we're looking forward to going forward.
Emrys started with me as my social media manager and really has grown over the last several years into more of an operations specialist, keeping me on track and making sure the business is just flowing as it should.
Erika: Welcome to the podcast, coming on and talking about all things Signal-related. Kind of going through how we met, how signals marketing has evolved, all those kinds of things. Why don't you kind of kick it off a little bit about your own experience in marketing? And then we'll travel back in time to 2018.
Emrys: Well, that actually is kind of where my journey starts, also, because originally when I applied to college, I was in a law program. Uh, however, had a bunch of life changes happening, and I was like, actually, I don't know if law is for me.
Um, as much as I love it as just somebody in, you know, interested in social justice, uh, and then the following year I was like, okay, I have to pick something. And I felt really drawn to kind of this program called Advertising and Marketing Communications Management, which is a mouthful, what we just call it AMC. And I learned a lot about kind of the elements of design as well as event management, lots to do with like social media, kind of the thought process behind targeting, um, your niches, et cetera. There's a lot that goes on in that program. So this is me paraphrasing, um, just to say, yeah, it was like three year program, and I ended up finishing around 2022.
Emrys: And through that program, there was a co-op where I got to kind of get a real-life experience of what it's like to work in marketing. And so I worked for an organic social media marketing agency, met a lot of great people, you. Um, and kind of got a good flow going with that. I found that I was able to utilize my creativity a lot and be fun and really get to experiment with word play, which is like really just a lot of fun for me. Like it's just playing for me and especially getting a job right through that co-op too was a big boost in being like, okay, you know what you're doing, you know, at least enough to start your career. Um, and so kind of started with there for me,
I was there for, so let's say that was, 2021 springtime is when I got the job after the co-op, but I was still in school. And then I was in school for another year. So then I wrapped it up there and was still working and decided to go abroad, get my bachelor's in marketing, and do a whole thesis that I will never use and or reference again. Uh, but it was abrupt.
Erika: Oh. What was your thesis in?
Emrys: Uh, my thesis was, I believe it was gender and sexuality, uh, inclusivity in marketing and specifically I focused on, uh, large-scale events. So mine was the Super Bowl. Obviously, there was not a lot of diversity in that. Um, so that was a really easy thing for me. I'll never reference it again, but it was also just nice to see the different ways people go about storytelling, uh, if only, you know, that was kind of the positive takeaway from there.
Erika: I know for me when I, I didn't have a thesis, but my last project in university was a business plan with a local tech company. I covered that a few episodes ago, and just like watching them take that business plan and throw it in the closet was in and of itself, just such a learning moment. It's one of those things that like, yeah, okay, you might not exactly reference that thesis, but you take that into so many other parts of your life and your role. Even here at Signal, there's a lot of diversity and inclusion work that you are doing on the regular, consciously or unconsciously.
Emrys: Yeah, I guess I don't realize it. But, uh, I think especially writing our kind of statement of, uh, DEI, um, and our kind of commitment to that was something I, if you asked me in 2021, I wouldn't have expected to do. I mean, honestly, half the things I do now on top of marketing, but especially the depth of marketing that we do. Especially like now with launching all the elements, you know, starting our Etsy shop.
Erika: Yeah, and I think like so many people talk about like finding a social media management company and there's certainly a need and a reason for that. There's a reason why I even hired a social media management company, of course. But I think we're seeing such a shift now in marketing where small businesses need to be showing up themselves. Which when you have an external party doing the content creation, that small business is kind of losing themselves in that content creation where we're sharing great educational pieces, but where we showing up human to human and that's where like the social part of social media comes into play and one that I even am working more and more on of like showing up on the camera and that kind of thing, which we're doing way better at than 2018.
Emrys: Oh yeah, for sure. Even like 2021, 2022, and I was like, Hey, film some reels. And I honestly, at that point, I was still so new and I, I, I understand how hard it is to be on camera and reels then versus like reels now in terms of the, I guess the vibe around that, very different. Like it's, I, to me it felt like it was such a task, a chore. It had to be so. Kind of like, okay, you have your introduction and you're, you know, you're polishing it. You have to have, you have to hit like three to five points to make it worthwhile. It's like, now it's like, I don't know, whatever you want.
Erika: I feel like it used to have to be under 15 seconds, and then it was 30 seconds. Now, like a whole minute seems like an eternity and it's like, okay, well at least that feels like an eternity. But like when you're trying to do three to five points in 15 seconds,
Emrys: It's so hard. It's impossible.
Erika: Like five seconds per, that's impossible.
Emrys: And then you also have to like intro it. So take a couple, like three seconds for that, which, it just brings back a vine days to me and I'm like, okay, vine was good for like quick bit comedy, what have you, but I'm like, as a like for posting for business, not gonna fly.
Erika: No.
07:17-15:33
Erika: No, no. I know it was the before times, “before Emrys” times, but when I started doing my own marketing, it was one of those things of like, well, I know I need a website. I have a whole business degree and a decade of experience in business. I know I need a website, and I know I need Instagram. And I remembered that I was sitting in my condo in Kelowna, and I had someone call me, and they're like, yeah, I found you on Instagram.
I turned around, and I wrote on my whiteboard. I said, do more on Instagram. And that quite literally was they said, yeah, I saw that you posted in the last five minutes, so I figured that you're pretty tech savvy. And I'm like. Well, um, great. Yes, but well, yes, but I post once a month, and so then that like is how I started scaling up.
But of course, no surprise to anybody. I very much like living in a black-and-white, gray-scale world. Fast forward to, I think it was 2020, 2019 maybe, and I got to a point that I was like, oh, I really, I'm not good at this.
Emrys: I wouldn't have said that.
Erika: Well, yeah. A lot of people are like, what? You are good at this. But I didn't feel good at it. Plus, I was trying to grow my business. In 2020, the fortunate thing about the unfortunate year of 2020 was everyone was ready to move into cloud based work. I was already in that world, so my business went from like four clients to 14 in a matter of weeks.
Emrys: Insane.
Erika: And then 20, and I just got so overwhelmed by everything in front of me. Um, so that's when I reached out to my business coach at the time and she synced me up with a social media agency and we hit it off. That social media agency hired me to do their bookkeeping. They did our socials and then, shortly after, we started working together with that agency, you showed up.
Then it was, I always refer to it as like a lightning strike of you just understood how I wanted signal to be in the world, how I wanted to show up, which was like not super seriously, but also not super sarcastically, and there has to be a balance.
And I remind myself of this every day, there's a balance between being serious and sarcastic in pretty much everything we do. Walk me through a little bit, like when we started working together, how did you find the brand back then?
Emrys: It felt for me very intuitive to me because I also love like a monochromatic, especially in a gray scale. So I was like, perfect. We love a minimalist vibe. I felt that.
The more I listened to you describing the brand, the more obviously clarity I got. 'Cause that's how that works. There were, there was so much to jump off with, which was really helpful, especially because I was so new to doing this professionally as a career.
Yeah. We had templates. We had kind of a, a very good structure, which, especially starting out, I needed that. Now my structure is. Chaotic and kind of whatever I want slash what, like, we want. Back then, it was very structured, very routined and I was like, perfect. This gives me something to go into. And then from there, that routine gave me space to be able to try different things.
Emrys: To be able to be like, Hey, can we post about this? Or ask you questions about things like you were so. Open and receptive, and I really enjoyed that because I did not know a thing about bookkeeping. Um, I was 21, so mind you, I didn't really know much about my own finances. So that was so helpful, especially just to like be able to talk with you, and that helps build our relationship and our comfortability with each other.
So for me, that was kind of the big sigh of relief because I was also, I also had other clients at the time. And did not have that. So that was very hard for me outside of that. But this was kind of like a good, almost like, good learning space or designated learning space that I felt I could try things. I was getting the information I needed directly from the source.
Emrys: You can search up like a million things online. Sure, absolutely. But it's your content, so it was always great to get your perspective on that and be able to take that and then turn that into a post.
Erika: I always looked at it like I'm not the expert here. I don't know. I understand fundamentally hashtags, post on Instagram, post on Facebook, do all the things. But I looked at it like you're the expert. You see the journey that's going on here. I'm over here dealing with all of my clients. 'cause I was still a party of one at the time, and I don't have time to see the journey. I'm trusting what you're doing, whatever the strategy that you're doing is working, so we're going keep doing the strategy.
There wasn't ever really anything that you sent for my approval that I immediately was like, what? Absolutely not. And so it started to build up that trust, like you said, of like, here's this idea. Is this okay? Yeah, that looks great. Yes. You're listening to, we do Canadian-only content. We're not tossing 401Ks.
Erika: And I think fast forwarding a little bit into where we actually stopped working together for a few months, where I hired someone to come and help me on my team. They were really passionate about marketing and I, as you know now, really try to help my team members grow in areas that they're passionate about.
And so we ended up bringing marketing back in-house. That team member actually ended up outgrowing me, which happens, and I love that for them. And I know now that they're at a really large marketing agency and love and support that for them.
And so then, we came back together, I came back and started working with you guys again. How did that feel on your end? How did that go for you?
Emrys: I mean, obviously, it's like sad we're not working together, but like at that time, uh, but I understood like we were very transparent with each other. I was like, absolutely love that you're bringing in house will give some fresh ideas, 'cause you know, like I have my own like perspectives and ways of writing and whatnot. So getting to see somebody else take that on was really interesting and it was really cool to see that journey for you as well. So I was like, oh, you're bringing it in-house. Okay. Work. Like perf, loving that for you. But it was interesting to see when you came back to see how your brand had grown.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: Especially when it came to colour, uh, in your brand.
Erika: What, what do you mean? (jokingly)
Emrys: Now looking at it from like the current brand, where it's like mostly colour, whereas before it was like black and white. That's good. Um, you introduced, I believe it was like the green and yellow in obviously different shades and like different tones and whatnot. But
Erika: Definitely
Emrys: Still in our current branding, it's still like the nod to the original
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: Trailblazer of colour in our branding. Um,
Erika: I definitely adopted the millennial green
Emrys: And you know what, it's still kicking.
Erika: It's still kicking. And you know what? You asked for colour. I gave you colour. And then we went to the extreme 'cause back in the day with the Signal Lantern, we wanted that fire inside the lantern, which now, fast forwarding to today, we still have this, which is so crazy to me because I hate the colour yellow. And here we are. It is one of the biggest colours that we use.
Emrys: It's the colour for the podcast.
Erika: It's not all over the place, but it's like the little pop of colour that we need from time to time.
15:34 - 22:12
Erika: When I came back, um, I was like, Hey. I use colours now. Look how much my brand has expanded. Did you feel like that was like, oh my god, so much, I can do so much with this now? Were you like really excited about it?
Emrys: I mean, fair. Yeah. Like I, it gave me more to do with in design, in terms of trying different ways to kind of lay out information. And I think I remember, I remember making memes, um, which we still do here and there, but I remember that was nice because it added a bit of depth to the feed itself. Not that like, I mean, an aesthetic feed is like, who cares? Because that's not the point. You can make your feed as aesthetic as you want, and it's like, well, if your content sucks, then what are we doing?
It does help to like add some differentiation. I think that's the full word. Who knows? Yeah. So it just, it gave me more to play around with and to think about, and especially how I use the green, because it's like, okay, well, we have green now, but I don't want to go all in green, everywhere green, because that's also not the brand. The green is an accent colour.
We're slowly, you know, using it more and more. But again, we have to kind of snowball it, and I mean into now. So it kind of works out in that favour. But it's, it's funny to look back and think of, uh, where the colour started and the like foreshadowing, especially for like our working journey together in terms of getting to be more playful in kind of what the brand looks like.
Erika: Yeah. Which kind of leads into when we stopped breaking together for the second time. Um, which broke my heart.
Emrys: I know.
Erika: And so for context, there was just like a lot going on. And I, even though I was a client, I could tell that you started checking out from work, not checking out of doing your work, just like checking out.
I remember my spouse was going to be leaving for two weeks, and almost every single time he leaves, something breaks. And I recall there was a few things that went down where we drove across the province just to go to a specific brewery to get a very specific beer. And they looked at me, and they said, that's a summer beer.
And it's like, February,
Emrys: No!
Erika: And so, I, we're driving back and I was like, could you imagine? I was planning on doing that road trip by myself while he was gone, and I said, could you imagine that you get like an email from me while you're in the middle of the ocean and it just says they didn't have the beer?
Also everything else that went wrong, and he just laughed about it.
And then sure enough, two weeks later gets an email about, oh yeah, so by the way, the car broke, the pipes froze. Our cat almost died. And also, my social media manager quit. That was in the span of, I think, six days. Like he was barely gone. I knew that you needed to go and do your own thing. That wasn't surprising whatsoever because again, we had like this lightning strike of friendship and working relationship. None of it was surprising to me. We can kind of fast forward a little bit of, you went your own way, you finished school, then you back in Canada.
Emrys: Yep. Freshly back in Canada. With no job.
Erika: I was going through some changes with client contracts, that kind of thing, but then I ended up getting six new clients. I kind of had that wave of fresh clients, and I became overwhelmed all at once. And again, my business coach just said, you need help. And I'm like, huh. Okay. Well, I've only ever hired like someone that can like actually do the direct client work.
What does that look like?
And I just, I was again, talking to my spouse and he just said, well, do you know who you'd wanna hire? And I just immediately said, Emrys. And then I think I sent you an Instagram DM and said, can we talk? Do you need a job?
Emrys: I remember this because, yeah, I just, I'd been like a month-ish back. And again, I, uh, no job. But also at the same time, I was like, I am ending my break of no work because I hadn't not had a job since, I want to say like 14 or 15. Um, and then a steady job since like 16. I was enjoying unemployed life until unemployed life caught up with me, um, which happens. Uh, but I was ready to, you know, start back up again, and I remember.
Thinking like, oh, I really need to like look more, find more. I want to put my new degree to the test, to the max. Uh, I want to use it 'cause that's why I got it. And I was in the back of my friend's car.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: And all I see is this message pop up from you. And I was like being like, Hey, um, I could really help. Like, can we talk? And I went, okay, I guess this is probably like settled. Like the universe was like, okay, you need a job. Here's something that you already know in depth about you, like and love working with this person. You were asking for a job, so time to saddle up.
Erika: Truly the universe was just like, make this better again, guys. Like, what are you doing?
Emrys: Oh my God. Yeah. I was, and we had our, our conversation kind of what it looked like. We clarified kind of hours-wise what that was gonna look like, and it was still part-time also, 'cause I had a retail job as well that I had, um. Funny enough, I started here in 2023 on the same day I started there officially, I think it was like July 11th for both jobs at the same time.
And I was like, okay, I did ask for work. So they're starting on the same day. Fair enough. But luckily, very different hours.
Erika: We would've made it work.
Emrys: Yeah. I mean we did.
Erika: Yeah. Obviously. Um, it was quite simple for me in like, I need this help, but it was more than marketing at that point. I kind of looked at my marketing, which is still such a funny word for me, but like the outward expression of Signal.
And I was like, well, I mean I got it. I've been doing it now for four or five months by myself. Things weren't getting done as timely. Maybe we're only posting twice a week, but we are posting.
Emrys: And that's an achievement in itself, considering the increase of work.
22:13 - 28:33
Erika: Yes, absolutely. And. I also just said like, I have this entire list of admin, and I don't really know what I need help with. I just know that I need help. And if you can just pick up that, that'd be great. And you just said, okay, send me the list. And still to this day in our Asana board, we still have Erika Help, uh, which isn't, you need my help with something. It's, I need help. Or Erika's brain dump of just like, here's all my wild crazy ideas. Bring me back down to Earth. And/or you just make it happen and you're like, Hey, I did a thing. And I'm like, oh, that thing I've been thinking about for eight months, thank God. Finally done. I can finally find things in my Google Drive again. Like,
Emrys: Oh yeah, that was a big one.
Erika: That was a very big one. When you started, it was kind of more of like, I think your technical title, which you just know how much I love titles around here. Uh, your technical title I think was like Executive Assistant.
I think we switched to that after. But I have a Xero roadshow badge that I found actually, not too long ago. Um, 'cause it's for some reason still stuck in my bag from 2023, but it was Operations Assistant and then we switched to, I think, Executive Assistant
Erika: As it should be.
Emrys: I think there were, there was a reason at the time, obviously, but
Erika: There were a few reasons. I think I also said because you were working part-time. Mm-hmm. And again, wanting to help my team build and grow and achieve all their dreams. I just was like, whatever title you want to use, if you're gonna be going for a different job, don't leave me.
But if you wanna try for like a full-time job and keep me as the side job here, I'll definitely vouch that you were the director of whatever you wanna be the director of, because you probably are the director of whatever you wanna be the director of.
Emrys: Well, it's funny to think about, like I originally started as Operations Assistant and then, to think like what Operations Assistant has looked like throughout the years of me being here as not the Operations Assistant, um, in terms of the different tasks and whatnot, to see like where it kind of started for us and then where it's grown to, um, and where, how I have grown in terms of low key, managing a little bit of the Operations Assistant, uh, role and responsibilities and like directing that.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: So it's like, oh, like I helped set the tasks,
Erika: Including my own tasks kind of last fall. We kind of got to a point where it was like, yeah, ems, my ea but also marketing person, but also like operations person. Then I think this just this past January, we were having a one-on-one and you got really serious.
Emrys: Yeah, I,
Erika: I mean we are always serious in our meetings around here.
Emrys: So serious. Definitely.
Erika: So serious.
Emrys: No conversations about Selling Sunset or
Erika: Never.
Emrys: Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which that will be a conversation off the podcast about the current tea.
Erika: Never talking about these things we're always serious around here, and so I knew something serious was coming up and I just was like, okay, just say it. I'm not a boss that's like, no, what the heck is wrong with you? I'm just like, say the thing, and you're just like, give me a moment. I have it wrote down. I'm like, oh, we're so serious now.
Emrys: I, I'm so like the amount of prep work of just like writing out like little stuff and being like, okay, this is this, and this is why this, and me trying to like hype myself up being like, okay, you're gonna, you're gonna ask for a title change. You're gonna ask, but also for like more responsibility. And I, I don't wanna say authority 'cause I don't feel like, I don't love that term for that, but like, I guess more leadership is more accurate. And I was like, I really think this is where it's headed and it makes more sense.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: And you were like, oh my God, you're gonna leave, or something of the sort. Like I could tell, I was like, freaking you out. And I was like, no, no, no, this is. I've already changed the vibes. This is not the direction I wanted to go, but I was like, I think this title makes sense and these are all the reasons why.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: And I was like. How do you feel about that? Please, please let me know your thoughts and feelings.
Erika: Followed by silence.
Emrys: Yeah.
Erika: I mean, I just said like titles aren't a big thing. We're a pretty flat organization. We say that all the time. We also show it all the time, like it's not like someone contacts you to contact me and all those kinds of things. But it was also bigger than that in the sense of we're launching all this new stuff in 2025.
I had all this crazy stuff going on personally, and so I did some digging. I did a lot of research on my own, like what makes sense, and I'm like, is it Director of Operations? Is it Chief Operating Officer? Is it CMO? And I'm like, CMO, but that doesn't encapsulate everything that Emrys does. So then I just was like, okay, cool. We're gonna have a COO role. That's fine. And ultimately in that conversation, you also asked to be moved up to full-time work,
Emrys: Which was like one of our goals. Um,
Erika: It definitely was. Yeah.
Emrys: But I, I partially was like more for me to be like, I want to show you that I am committed to be here with you.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: So. The, the title was also like a kind of like, okay, we show commitment to working with each other in a way to have that conversation because it was like a bigger career move for me or like a, a test of being like, okay, where do you feel you can go, slash like, grow? And I was like, this feels right. And based on like the trajectory of where we were headed, I was like, this I think is going to be making the most sense. In like moving forward throughout the year. Which, funny enough, I knew my opinion. It did.
Erika: Mm-hmm. It definitely did.
Emrys: In your opinion, like what do you think now, nearing the end of 2025, uh, what are your thoughts and feelings?
Erika: Should we do a performance review live on a podcast?
Emrys: Yeah. Live right here. You're like, and so. Fired. Yeah,
Erika: You're fired. Uh,
Emrys: Yeah.
28:34 - 35:37
Erika: I think like the biggest thing about this year we're, we've been alluding to the fact like 2025 was a big year. 2025 was a big year for many, many reasons, both professionally and personally. We had our biggest year as a business revenue-wise, we also had our biggest year of challenges, business-wise.
Emrys: More money, more problems, as they say.
Erika: I literally tell people, I'm like, you want a million-dollar business, but you want a million problems now we're not a million-dollar business.
Emrys: No.
Erika: And we did not have a million problems.
Emrys: No.
Erika: Which is good. And we also like teamwork makes the dream work of, Hey, I'm going through a thing and you just stepped right up, or you're going through a thing.
And I'm just like, yeah. And we gave each other that space. And room to grow. But I think the biggest one is in January, we both kind of looked at each other and were like, this is the brand, like this is what we want the brand to be. How do we communicate this brand?
Emrys: That was, yeah, a big, a big moment and I think it ultimately started me thinking more about influencing the brand and, and my involvement in that process was so re-energizing, I think, because creativity is hard to keep at a hundred all the time. As I've, you know, been helping to do content for around four years, that was such an in-depth process about like planning for the future forward.
And I think, yeah, I, for me at least, it was very. I mean, obviously it has its challenges in terms of us trying to just figure out what Signal is gonna look like outside of just the lantern, colour-wise and how that created as like a brand family or like sub brands.
Erika: You basically texted me and said, draw it out and then we'll figure it out. And I said, oh, first of all, rude, but okay. And, uh, so I literally, um, went out to local coffee shop here in Kingston, and sat down and I, 'cause I'm not the most creative person, I have always been obsessed with the lantern, the Lighthouse. Signals packages were always named what they even are today. They've always been the beacon, the lamp, the lighthouse, the lantern, of course.
And I was like, well, if you have a lighthouse and that's ultimately guiding you. You have to have, I guess, where the lighthouse is, and that's on a cliff, which is kind of like the people on your team. And then you also have to light that lantern, which is kind of the fire of your business. And then you just have air.
Erika: And then I'm like. We have elements. Those are the elements. It really came together after that. And I just said like, I want a lighthouse on the rocks and we need a cloud for air because we can't just have an invisible element. And then you took that 'cause I, I still have the drawings. They're very messy.
Um, and I sent that to you and you sent something back to me and I was like, oh, that's it. That ultimately is where Signal Island came to be where you come to the island and now you get help with your bookkeeping, your finances, your marketing. You get help with your people ops, and then of course, stoking that absolute fiery passion that we have for business owners and business owners have for their businesses, of course.
I have how I came to Signal Island as a brand. How did you come to it?
Emrys: I remember like looking at your drawings. Just kind of like, I had to sit with it for, I believe it was like a few days of just trying different things back and forth in little spurts. But I really had to, 'cause I know at first we were thinking it was like a town, which it still is.
Erika: It still is.
Emrys: Because I would argue that like our Etsy shop, which is Signal Templates, um, would be like a print shop in a, like a little small coastal town. But originally, it was like, okay, they have to mean something. They have to allude to something, which was, I was like, well, that's gonna take a minute.
'cause my brain was like, huh, what do you mean? Because I remember us wanting to do like the lighthouse as like the main element, change the way I turned into a lighthouse. I was like, okay. So then when we were talking about elements and whatnot, I think that really opened up what we could do, um, in terms of like the building blocks.
And so I kind of treated it like that. Little by little, I would kind of get little inspiration. I'd, you know, go walk around downtown, 'cause at that time too, I think I was still getting like coffee with my mom regularly before the weather got like bad. Um, and like leading up to that. And so I would like look at photos that I took because that's kind of the easiest thing about being right on the water, is getting content pictures for Signal.
Emrys: And getting like boats and, and little like the, the towers and the rocks all along the water there. I'm like, oh, perfect. If I need to get content or just like, you know, background shots. Just to put words over. I'm gonna pop downtown for a second.
Erika: Ultimately, like you're wandering around, you're taking photos, and then the elements really just came together, like the signal elements. And I remember once we had that like. Oh, that's it moment The rest kind of fell into place slowly.
I mean, we started with, of course, the podcast and Signal Ember, and then we had to come up with the names, of course, and we're already on the elements kick. We did a lot of what could it be this, could it be this? Could it be this?
I'm sure if I scroll back through our chat, it's like, well, there's all this, but that sounds far too serious. This sounds too like Silicon Valley techie. This sounds too cliché. And so we eventually like the Embers, Aether. 'cause that's the void of your marketing, of course. And then Terra, which is ground, and then the bookkeeping side of it, which we still refer to as signal ops anyways, or Signal Operations is Tides. But there's the four elements of water, earth, air, and fire.
Emrys: Very Avatar, which, I mean, I personally love that.
Erika: I mean,
Emrys: That was like perfect. Avatar The Last Air Bender.
Erika: Yeah.
Emrys: Say no more. I, I'm on it guys. I'm on it.
Erika: As we've like, that was January. We've obviously navigated through, we've launched all of the elements now at this point, and then just tossed in Templates just for funsies here at the end of the year. Through all of that, we've obviously grown in our working relationship. I've since relocated into the same city as you, at least for now, until I'm forced out again. So we're able to meet in real life and talk about things.
35:38 - 42:13
Erika: But we've always been a remote team, and so this year we also hired an Operations Assistant to come and join us. And in that whole process, I really let you try to lead a lot of that. How did that feel for you? How did that go for you?
Emrys: It's, uh, a lot of trial and error. I think, you know, the first time around it was really me finding my ground, um, and trying to figure out, okay, how am I as a leader as somebody to turn to? Now the second time around, and plus we have like another person too.
I realize that I am more scatterbrained than I think, so I really had to hone that down and reorganize my brain so I can help other people on the team to really understand the vision. It's funny when our team grows more than just, you know, obviously like you and I or you and I and a third person, but maybe they're more of the bookkeeping side.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: So they don't necessarily need to, you know, have access to a brand guideline, et cetera. Like they have it, but they don't need to full in-depth explanations. So, so for me, it was more about, okay, where are the gaps in the knowledge for the brand?
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: Because it's like, it's one thing just to do it. It's another thing to teach it. And so I think that's been my big, uh, focus, and I think I've gotten a lot better now that we're nearing the end of 2025. The amount of things I've created and updated in support of somebody supporting me, especially in those marketing initiatives
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: Um, has been huge. I definitely take a very nurturing approach. I try to be very like gentle. Relaxed. I don't like to bring stress to people. So then when there is moments of stress, I'm like, okay, how do we not do this? Because I'm like, oh no, you're stressed, now I feel that. So now I take on that being like, oh no, what did I do wrong? What do we not have? I'm so sorry. And I'm like, okay. It's not that serious, like it was a minor moment of stress. It's not that serious.
Erika: This is something that we really learned in the summer this year where I am stressed. You are stressed. Are we stressing each other out, or are we just stressed on our own accord?
Got lots going on. Again, giving space to each other and then eventually having to have a heart to heart of like, this is what's been going on. This is what's been going on. Oh, okay. Well, I wasn't stressed by you. But we're both like emotional humans 'cause humans are, and should be emotional, picking up on that.
And then of course, like holding that, giving it too much space. Like, there has to be a balance of holding space for people's emotions and then also just being like, okay, hold your emotions, but, also, I still need these four things from you, Erika. So do the things. It wasn't quite that literal by any means.
Emrys: I mean, I, I think, yeah, I, I think too, like communicating, people are not always ready to talk about certain things going on in their lives as they're happening.
Erika: Of course.
Emrys: Which again, which we, you know, like you and I realized through like giving each other that space, and I think it's balancing that space with a certain professionalism. That we're like really honing in on in terms of being like, okay, I understand that. Let's communicate in a way that we both take into account each other's feelings and emotions, and then work to a solution just right, like that's the goal. The goal is to solve whatever the problem is and move forward, and just go, okay, cool. See you in the Google chats.
Like I really think that's also been like the, the big part too is just like, like finding that balance, like you said, has been huge. And I think too now extending that outside of us is also part of it, 'cause I don't like, really, before this year I was just doing the marketing stuff and on all the other like operation stuff. But it was like you and I were like in sync. Then growing that outwards and being like, okay, we have the core decisions. We have all these things. Now we have to like extend the vibes and be like, okay, everybody, everybody, you get it. You get it. We get it. Everyone's fine.
Erika: Yeah. I think it's funny, you once referred to it as you were having only-child syndrome, where you needed to let someone else take over something, and I was like, that is a really great way of explaining that of only-child syndrome, which I personally can't relate to with three siblings, but I can understand the sentiment behind it.
Of course. And I laughed at myself because I was like, oh my God. That's how I was back in 2020 when we started working together, where I was like, I need to approve every single post that goes out. I need to see absolutely every single thing. And now things go out and they are great. And you know what? Even if they're not great and there's a spelling error, we fix it. We move on. Also, that's authentic.
Emrys: Thank God for Grammarly. That's all I'm gonna say.
Erika: Is there ever a spelling error? I haven't seen one lately.
Emrys: Not, always though. So, you know, Grammarly, if you're listening
Erika: Not sponsored,
Emrys: Would love, would love some tweaks in that. Uh, hit me up, you know, if you want some input. Uh, yeah, only child syndrome was definitely the most accurate description.
Erika: And I think now because as we continue growing, 'cause it's not just me on all these client calls. I run Ember and Tides, of course, but you're running Aether and those client calls and those client projects, and then we have someone that's running the Signal Terra side of things, and I have to let go of my control and how those client meetings are run because of course you're not gonna run your meeting like I run a meeting, just like our team members aren't gonna run the same meeting like either of us run it right.
That's where that team cohesiveness and creating that culture comes into play. What ways do you think I/we have created a culture at a remote first company the entire team just gets?
42:14 - 48:18
I would definitely say we are good to communicate and we have regular check-ins, like I think above all else, being remote that is one of the most impactful ways to establish kind of the expectation of communication and transparency as well as like vulnerability. 'Cause you know, we have team calls, uh, where it's like the whole team, and we get vulnerable. Sometimes we cry sometimes. I mean, a lot of the times we laugh when we like, make jokes, whatnot. We always check in with each other and I think that's probably one of the most effective ways.
Erika: Yeah, we had a team meeting a few weeks ago and our Operations Assistant. She said, yeah, Erika, I've been doing some research on boss-related things, but making sure that I'm not finding anything that's like girl boss, I'm not creating anything that's girl boss. And I said, oh yeah, we're not doing pink and sparkles and glitter and Hey girl boss, how you doing? Pretty much everyone on the call right then and there.
Emrys: No
Erika: Was like, oh yeah, that's not at all what we go for.
Emrys: No, it's very much the opposite of that ain't us.
Erika: Yeah.
Emrys: I also just think it's our personalities. I think there is, uh, a type of sense of community in being authentically ourselves and showing up authentically. Obviously, like we all have our own insecurities, but we show up as ourselves. I would make the argument fairly secure in ourselves, and we bounced that energy off each other, which remotely, very hard to do, but we have personalities that just mesh well. And that's part of, you know, hiring for culture fit and hiring, you know, obviously for skill, but also who are you as a person, like how you are as a person will shine greatly in our culture and will really uplift you in our culture. And so just finding those hits I think has also been part of that.
Erika: And I think that really goes back to like the summertime blues, as I refer to them so fondly now where we're bouncing that energy off of each other, of course. But then you had some things going on, and then I had some things going o,n and neither of us really wanted to talk in depth about it except for to just be like a gut check of, this is weird, right? And I just said like, you need time. I need time. I don't hate you.
Emrys: Yeah, the hate, hater-check as, as we say.
Erika: The summertime blues were strong this year, and then we kind of got back into resyncing towards the end of August, beginning of September, which of course 'cause the season is changing, but that really helped and it was just kind of one of those like, alright, like this too shall pass.
Emrys: I, a hundred percent. Yeah. I think a part of it, too, was just like knowing that we would get through it, I was just like, I think by. Around this time, whatever is happening in both of our lives will to an extent calm down enough for us to like be able to reconnect with each other and be like, Hey, so yeah, this, or you know, I'm notoriously famous for being so vague in speaking that someone's like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
And I'm like, I'm trying to be vague, but specific. And it's like. No, you're just being like very vague and I have no idea what's happening, but I'm like, oh yeah, that's true. And I'm like, oh yeah, so was this. And you're like, What?
Erika: No, no. I think the great thing about running a small business is my team. I just have really complimentary personalities to that, but also strong personalities and we, oh my God, knock on wood, have never had like, a fight. We've never been like. Don't do this, and then you do the thing or you say, don't do this, and I do the thing. There's obviously the, Hey, I'm kind of thinking this might be better. Can we have a conversation about this? And like it's an open door policy around here all the time. And I mean, you remind me regularly to like slow it down.
It's okay to take a breather on this. Not critically important, just operational thing. And I had to remind myself like, no one even knows that we're launching this thing. We can do this in a month. We can do this in six months. Like no one knows that we're doing this.
Emrys: Yeah. I, I also just think it was just like understanding we're, you know, I think you've said like a, a few times on the podcast too, like moving that goalpost. I think we need to sit in the stillness of achieving this accomplishment. Being like, Hey, we launched these four brands in the year, we've expanded the business. That's such a huge milestone to the point where you, I think, have a, a bottle of something that you were like, I'm gonna like pop this as my celebratory like this is for this, we launch all these things.
Erika: Yeah. And fun fact, I still have not yet done that.
Emrys: And you know what, and I knew it,
Erika: The goal, because this was in January, my household, we wrote down our goals on two champagne bottles, mini sized bottles, because I am far too cheap to buy an actual bottle of champagne.And also like. You open that up, you gotta drink it all at once, and that's just not my vibe these days anyway. It's a mini bottle of champagne and on the side of it, my goal says, launched the four elements. And that was January that I wrote that down. It's now December. We got to pop it. I look at it every day and I'm like, oh yeah, I've got a pop it now.
Emrys: We've done the thing.
Erika: We did the thing, they're launched. We've had projects in all of the brands. It's not like the brand launched and we didn't do a thing. That's something to be celebrated. And I think that leads us to kind of a wrap-up of, through this whole journey really of lightning strike moments and those kinds of things.
48:19 - 53:05
Erika: How are we taking care of ourselves outside of work or even at work, but like what is our self-care? What's a piece of advice that you would give someone who's just starting out part-time at a small business and then goes full-time?
Emrys: You operate from a, a mindset of part-time for so long, and then when you move to full-time, you go, oh, now I get things that my mom would say would be like, I don't have time.
And you're like, I, I get that now. I understand, but it's, it's reframing your time in a different way for me. So I am getting back into art. That's something that I just really, set aside. I used to do art all the time, like as a kid, as a teenager. Um, and I kind of put that down for a while because I was using my creativity elsewhere.
But I think now feeling more stable in my professional creativity, that now I get to be creative as a form of play, which is a form of self-care for me. Um, so I just started using oil pastels. So I think being creative just for you, especially if you're in a small business that deals with, like if you're a marketing small business, uh, a maker small business, not monetizing all of your creativity, I think is a huge one, because then that leads to burnout and you resenting it and it's just like, that's not fun. That's not what creativity's meant for.
Erika: I think that's such a great reminder because. I mean, we see it all the time on social of like how to monetize your hobby. And we just don't need to monetize everything because you monetize something, and that actually is gonna make it work because now you have to deal with taxes, and ultimately you're gonna come and hang out with us, which would love to have you, but also then you need a new hobby after you monetize that hobby, where do you find the time?
Emrys: That's the thing now. You're doing that all the time as your job, your hobby turned job. Now. Yeah, you've gotta get a new hobby. It's like you have to figure out in your timeframe and your new business where to do that. It's like, okay, well are you gonna monetize that hobby too?
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: No set boundaries with yourself.
Erika: Yeah. Set boundaries, maintain them.
Emrys: This year has been my big year of boundaries setting and just that whole thing, and so I think that for me, boundary setting was my time, my energy. And finding, I don't wanna say necessarily balance, there is balance in things, but finding purposeful time management that.
Erika: I think ultimately, if I can summarize the last five years, like the growth that you've had from brand new to where you are now. From when you were still in college to where you are today as a working professional in a C-suite level job, technically speaking, it's quite the like, breadth of experience that you have had.
Emrys: It's, it's funny, I, I just, I guess being in it, I don't see it, I suppose. 'cause I'm, you know, I'm in it so I, I never see it. But I really appreciate you saying that, and also I appreciate you reminding me of that hat because like I just, I'm like, okay, this is life. You just go.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: And you figure it out. And that's kind of been my mantra for like all of existence. You just go ahead, figure it out.
Erika: But this is where, um, you and I have had this conversation a couple of times this year where I like get really frustrated about something and then I zoom out and I think I even said in our quarterly and year-end financial review of like last year. I was feeling some type of way about the year-end numbers, and we just didn't cross this made-up fictional number that I had in my head. That wasn't even like a round number. It was just like, oh, that would feel good for whatever arbitrary reason. And then fast forward to this year, and I'm like, oh, I did a thing and I really did the thing. I felt some type of way last year, but I didn't actually. And sometimes you just have to zoom out and look at that compound growth of you have this little bit of growth and then this little bit of growth.
And then you're gonna have a few things that makes it maybe feel like you went a little bit behind in your growth, but you didn't actually, because it makes you grow 10 times more.
Emrys: Imposter syndrome.
Erika: Yeah. That's what, if I had to summarize even where we were at the beginning of the year, if you say, write the logo, draw the logo. To now we have this logo that we can tear apart and build back up because it's all puzzle pieces in the all of the elements.
53:06 - 55:49
Emrys: Yeah, I think, I also think it's like the tearing it back down too is, is such a like good way of of saying it too. 'cause it's like you can build something back up, but you can also tear it down, look at the pieces individually, refine them, do what you need and then build that back up. Not from scratch, but from a different place and perspective.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Emrys: I really think that's 2026 for us.
Erika: Oh, definitely.
Emrys: I think that we're like brand clarity, brand cohesion, really just like refining and, and tuning what we've now officially launched, put out into the world and created is Now it's like, okay, now it's launched. We put it out there. Now in the background, just making sure everything. Looks and feels the way we want it to, and maybe there's a better way to present the information. Maybe there's a different structure that works better.
Erika: But I mean, if you've rewind to 2018 and how we presented, even just Signal itself to where it is now, and then where it'll be in a year, it's gonna be massively different.
And I know, I see the content planner. I know what the plan is. I know that we're looking all the time at like, how can we present this education piece in a different way that resonates better? Isn't just noise actually resonates, is actually important to what the audience cares about now?
Emrys: Yeah. I think that's, that's, yeah. We're always trying new things. We're always trying to make things better,
Erika: And that's the beautiful thing about a small business. You can make your role what you want it to be.
Emrys: You can, I mean, your business. You can do, at the end of the day, whatever you want.
Erika: What's your new title gonna be Emrys?
Emrys: Oh yeah. Um, let's see. My new title next year is gonna be, um, Resident Artist and me getting really into art, and then we're gonna launch, uh, on Etsy, a little side that's just selling art. Sure.
Erika: Okay.
Emrys: No, I'm not, I'm not monetizing my art, but no, it's also not, it's a work in progress.
Erika: Okay.
Emrys: Okay. Yay.
Erika: Thank you.
Emrys: Thank you.
Erika: Alright, so thanks again to Emrys for joining our podcast. Uh, it was, seems funny to say since Emrys has helped me with this podcast and the idea that I had several months ago now to start a podcast and has been championing it the entire time, been my cheerleader and that kind of thing.
If you want to work with Emrys or I, feel free to visit www.signalember.com and learn more about how you can work either with us on the finance side, the coaching side, or even in marketing, which is obviously Emrys's area of specialty.
Thanks so much, and we'll talk to you next time.