The Marketing Freelancer: Unicorns Unite

Everyone wants to get on bigger shows. Fewer people talk about what it takes. Brenna McGowan spent five years building toward her spot on Amy Porterfield's show, and when the timing finally lined up, we rewrote her pitch together. We get into what made it land and what almost didn't.

She’s a pre-launch strategist and creator of Anticipation Marketing®, put Amy Porterfield's show on her vision board in 2020. She finally pitched in December 2025, right after the news broke that Digital Course Academy was ending. In this episode, Brenna and I pull apart the pitch we rewrote together. We get into the journalism news values that made it timely, writing as a peer instead of a fan, and why the who-to-pitch question is the one we keep dodging.

Conversations like this one happen all the time inside the Digital Marketer's Workgroup, where specialists talk through the real strategy behind getting results for their clients. Apply here.

Links Mentioned in Show:

• The Pre-Launch Plan Program
• Behind the Launch podcast
• Brenna' episode on the Amy Porterfield Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9S4KAMnK84
• Digital Marketer’s Workgroup
• Get Emily's 1:1 PR help: https://emilyreaganpr.com/cmo-services/

Connect with Brenna McGowan:

• @brennamcgowanco
• brennamcgowan.co

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer's Workgroup: Apply to join a vetted room of marketing specialists doing smarter, better-paid work. Networking groups pass names around. This is a peer community that vouches for you with their reputation on the line.
• Hire a Marketer: Submit your marketing or ops position opening and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted professionals in our Workgroup via hireaunicorn.com.

Ewwww! Raise your hand if you’re done giving away our best strategic thinking for free. There's a gap between being seen as the expert and getting paid like one, and it closes the moment you start charging for the strategy, not just the execution.

That's exactly what Natalie Gingrich teaches. She runs The Ops Authority and helps service providers turn that thinking into its own paid offer with her strategic mapping model. She gets into how to price it, what to do with the follow-on work, and when to walk from a client.

If you're doing strategic work and implementation freelance work, you need to be in our Workgroup – a community for upper-tier freelance marketers and marketing ops specialists who get online business and support each other. Apply here.

Links Mentioned in Show:

• Your Strategic Shift Sept 28-30, 2026
• Digital Marketer’s Workgroup

Connect with Natalie Gingrich:

• @theopsauthority
• theopsauthority.com

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer's Workgroup: Apply to join a vetted room of marketing specialists doing smarter, better-paid work. Networking groups pass names around. This is a peer community that vouches for you with their reputation on the line.
• Hire a Marketer: Submit your marketing or ops position opening and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted professionals in our Workgroup via hireaunicorn.com.

Here is part 2 of our episode with Kara Charron!

What does it take to be trusted with $1.1 million in ad spend on a $19 million launch? How do you go from a $30/hour client to negotiating a base fee, a cut of ad spend, and profit share on every contract since? And why does she still say no to good clients … even when the money's great?

Kara Charron is a CMO and ads manager who's generated more than $60 million in client revenue, including a recent $19 million launch with $1.1 million in ad spend. She built her own profit-share model from scratch, and she's telling the real story of how she got there and why she’s so damn good at running ads.

Kara's joining Darrell Vesterbelt, former growth strategist behind Kit and Mighty Networks, in Digital Marketer’s Workgroup to go deeper on profit-sharing structures, negotiating a percentage of ad spend, and what it actually takes to move from hourly and retainer work into getting a piece of the pie — live on September 15. You should be in our community of marketing and ops specialists: apply here.

Links Mentioned in Show:

• Digital Marketer’s Workgroup

Connect with Kara Charron:

• @karacharron_
• kreativedigitalmediainc.com

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer's Workgroup: Apply to join a vetted room of marketing specialists doing smarter, better paid work. Networking groups pass names around. This is a peer community that vouches for you with their reputation on the line.
• Hire a Marketer: Submit your marketing or ops position opening and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted professionals in our Workgroup via hireaunicorn.com.

What does it take to be trusted with $1.1 million in ad spend on a $19 million launch? How do you go from a $30/hour client to negotiating a base fee, a cut of ad spend, and profit share on every contract since? And why does she still say no to good clients … even when the money's great?

Kara Charron is a CMO and ads manager who's generated more than $60 million in client revenue, including a recent $19 million launch with $1.1 million in ad spend. She built her own profit-share model from scratch, and she's telling the real story of how she got there and why she’s so damn good at running ads.

Kara's joining Darrell Vesterbelt, former growth strategist behind Kit and Mighty Networks, in Digital Marketer’s Workgroup to go deeper on profit-sharing structures, negotiating a percentage of ad spend, and what it actually takes to move from hourly and retainer work into getting a piece of the pie — live on September 15. You should be in our community of marketing and ops specialists: apply here.

Links Mentioned in Show:

• Digital Marketer’s Workgroup

Connect with GUEST:

• @karacharron_
• kreativedigitalmediainc.com

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer's Workgroup: Apply to join a vetted room of marketing specialists doing smarter, better paid work. Networking groups pass names around. This is a peer community that vouches for you with their reputation on the line.
• Hire a Marketer: Submit your marketing or ops position opening and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted professionals in our Workgroup via hireaunicorn.com.

What happens when AI meets two decades of copywriting expertise? Why is "fire your team and replace them with AI" the worst advice going around right now? What's the real difference between AI slop and copy that actually converts?

Prerna Malik is a conversion copywriter and AI strategist who still writes every word of her own copy and refuses to hand her thinking over to a machine.

Prerna's sharing even more on training Claude the right wOK, can you update all of them, please? ay, the setup most people skip, and building skills that actually do the job, live in our Digital Marketer's Workgroup. Apply here.

Links Mentioned in Show:

• ClaudeMadeEasy.com
• Claude Business Accelerator * my affiliate link

Connect with Prerna Malik:

• @profitably_yours
• profitablyyours.com/

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer's Workgroup: Apply to join a vetted room of marketing specialists doing smarter, better paid work. Networking groups pass names around. This is a peer community that vouches for you with their reputation on the line.
• Hire a Marketer: Submit your marketing or ops position opening and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted professionals in our Workgroup via hireaunicorn.com.

Why the ads management space has become commoditized, what's actually required to run ads well in 2026 (hint: it's not just button-pushing anymore), and how to know when a client isn't ready for the work you're offering.

Ads Manager & Revenue Growth Strategist Megan Shields (@chimehousemedia) has spent six years in the online business space running multi-six-figure ad campaigns, including work supporting Amy Porterfield's team through DCA. With a background in sales and business development at a Fortune 50 financial firm, she's now bridging the gap between ads management and full marketing strategy.

Megan’s sharing even more on performance marketing, ads management and stepping into a CMO role live in our Digital Marketer's Workgroup Apply here.

Connect with Megan:

• @chimehousemedia
• chimehousemedia.com

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer's Workgroup: Apply to join a vetted room of marketing specialists doing smarter, better paid work. Networking groups pass names around. This is a peer community that vouches for you with their reputation on the line.
• Hire a Marketer: Submit your marketing or ops position opening and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted professionals in our Workgroup via hireaunicorn.com.

> Hire a Digital Marketing Assistant: Submit your marketing or ops position opening and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted professionals in our Workgroup.

What actually happens behind the curtain of a 7-fig launch? How is the launch space shifting? What scams should we watch out for?

Welcome back to The Marketing Freelancer, new format, zero patience for how-to. First guest back: Laura Sprinkle, the woman behind $65M+ in tracked affiliate revenue, and she's here for the tea, not the tutorial.

Laura Sprinkle is the founder and CEO of Rootabl, an affiliate management platform built for course creators and their teams. Before building software, she ran affiliate programs behind the scenes for Amy Porterfield, Todd Herman, and Selena Soo, generating over $50 million in partner-driven revenue before Rootabl ever existed. Rootabl itself has now tracked over $15 million more.

Laura's sharing even more on pricing, positioning, and affiliate marketing client work live in our Digital Marketer's Workgroup Apply here.

Links Mentioned in Show:

• rootabl.com/unicorn (10% off with code UNICORN)

Connect with Laura Sprinkle

• Instagram: @rootabl / @imlaurasprinkle
• Website: laurasprinkle.com / rootabl.com

Connect with Emily Reagan:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Apply for our Digital Marketer's Workgroup

If you’ve been giving your clients strategy, stop saying you’re "just a virtual assistant." That title is costing you money.

My guest moved WAY beyond the basic VA title into a Social Media Marketing Strategist role and her packages start at $1500/month! Liz built a booked-out marketing agency by doing something most freelancers skip: owning the strategy, not just the deliverables. She's a Workgroup member and I love watching how much she’s grown her freelancer business. I finally got her on the podcast to spill exactly how she did it.

Liz Cruz is the founder of Cruz Social Co., a boutique marketing agency that provides done-for-you marketing support for service-based businesses. She specializes in social media strategy, content creation, and marketing systems and she's spent over a decade supporting brands across multiple industries. She's now focusing her work in the wellness space, a niche she found through her own health journey. Liz is known for blending strategy with execution, which is exactly what makes her the kind of marketing partner clients don't want to lose.

Listen to learn more about:

• How to structure your discovery calls to weed out bad-fit clients before they become a problem
• Why customizing your packages isn't a weakness, and how building client-specific offers helps you command higher rates
• What a strategic monthly report actually looks like (hint: it’s not 40 pages)
• Building a portfolio that does the selling for you and why you should include your prices & booking link
• The mindset shift that helped Liz stop undercharging and start owning her expertise

This is real honest insight from a freelance marketer who's still in the trenches doing the work. Tune in for how Liz turned her Workgroup connections into consistent, long-term client partnerships.

Sponsored by Wispr Flow*

Write and prompt faster with this voice-to-text AI tool that turns speech into clear, polished writing in every app. I’m using Wispr Flow to talk out emails, client replies, and AI prompts instead of typing everything. It’s one of my top tech tool recommendations and a real time-saver in my “4 hours of prime work time” mom life. Try Wispr Flow here (*my affiliate link)

Links Mentioned in Show:

• Grab Liz’s FREE Content Planning Calendar Template: Make content easy and not overwhelming with this simple spreadsheet.
• Listen to the “7 Ways to Land Clients” series here (Liz is in part 3!)
• Third-party social media schedulers: Rella, Metricool, Loomly
• Join us in our Digital Marketer’s Workgroup: You've done the work. Built the skills. Earned the clients. Now it’s time for the right people to start knowing your name. Our Workgroup is the professional community for established freelance marketing specialists who are serious about their work and ready to be recognized, referred, and surrounded by people who match that level. Marketing nerds welcome. >>Apply Now

Connect with Liz:

• @cruzsocialco
• Cruz Social Co.
• https://cruzsocial.co/

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• Facebook: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Ask Emily Anything here

> Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer’s Workgroup: Apply to join our tight-knit community for advanced training, ongoing support, troubleshooting, and exclusive job leads.

> Hire a Digital Marketing Assistant: Submit your job posting and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted freelancers in our Workgroup.

> Enroll in the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School: Learn in-demand, tactical digital marketing skills on your own time so you can move beyond admin work and offer high-value marketing services.

> Download my free Top Ten Most Requested Digital Marketing Tasks & Services to see what clients are hiring for right now.

Ways to drive more traffic to your freelancer website are changing fast. And if SEO is the only strategy you know, you're only halfway there. I brought on Krissy and Clarie to break down what's actually happening with search right now, including the shift from Google rankings to AI recommendations, and what you need to know about both SEO and AEO to stay visible to the clients you actually want.

Krissy Chin and Claire VanBemmelen are the founders of K+C Creative and the duo behind websites that don't just look good, they actually convert. Krissy is a business strategist and copywriter who used her own automated funnel to enroll 4,000 people into a paid offer in four months. Claire is a brand and UX/UI designer who thinks about user experience the way the rest of us think about coffee: constantly and with strong opinions. Together, they've helped service providers, freelancers, and course creators build websites that deliver.

Listen to learn more about

• What AEO actually is and how it's different from SEO (optimizing for one doesn't automatically cover the other)
• The most common website mistakes service providers make that tank first impressions before a potential client even starts scrolling
• Why your website's About page is not a resume and what it should actually do for your business
• The three specific things you can do right now to increase your chances of getting recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.
• How blogging for AEO is a completely different strategy than blogging for SEO, and why quality > quantity

Your website isn't just a digital business card anymore. It's a trust-builder, a client filter, and a 24/7 sales tool, but only if it's set up right. SEO gets you in the game. AEO gets you recommended. This episode covers both.

Sponsored by Wispr Flow*

Write and prompt faster with this voice-to-text AI tool that turns speech into clear, polished writing in every app. I’m using Wispr Flow to talk out emails, client replies, and AI prompts instead of typing everything. It’s one of my top tech tool recommendations and a real time-saver in my “4 hours of prime work time” mom life. Try Wispr Flow here* (*my affiliate link)

Links Mentioned in Show:

• Get a FREE website audit from Krissy & Claire: you’ll get a personalized mini audit on your home page! They’ll tell you what's working, what you’re missing, and recommendations for improvements.
• Video: How to Add Schema Markup to Your Kajabi Blog
• Free Schema Markup Tool: https://www.kandccreative.com/schema-tool
• Grab Krissy’s new book “Sell While You Sleep: Turn Your Knowledge into an Automated Online Business and Create a Life of Freedom”
• Join our Digital Marketer’s Workgroup: You've done the work. Built the skills. Earned the clients. Now it’s time for the right people to start knowing your name. Our Workgroup is the professional community for established freelance marketing specialists who are serious about their work and ready to be recognized, referred, and surrounded by people who match that level. Marketing nerds welcome. >>Apply Now

Connect with Krissy & Claire:

• Instagram: @kandc.creative
• Facebook: K+C creative
• https://www.kandccreative.com/

Connect with Emily:

• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
• Facebook: @emilyreaganpr
• YouTube: Emily Reagan
• Ask Emily Anything here

> Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer’s Workgroup: Apply to join our tight-knit community for advanced training, ongoing support, troubleshooting, and exclusive job leads.

> Enroll in the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School: Learn in-demand, tactical digital marketing skills on your own time so you can move beyond admin work and offer high-value marketing services.

> Hire a Digital Marketing Assistant: Submit your job posting and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted freelancers in our Workgroup.

> Download my free Top Ten Most Requested Digital Marketing Tasks & Services to see what clients are hiring for right now.

Custom GPTs: Part 2

You've been using AI for your clients, but are you using it for your own freelance business?

I brought three more members of our Digital Marketer's Workgroup on to pull back the curtain on how they’re using custom GPTs to market themselves as service providers. They share the ChatGPT and Claude projects running in the background of their businesses, saving them hours every week and making their own marketing feel a whole lot less like a second job.

Jenn Mullen shares how she built a detailed Claude project and how connecting it to her Google Drive saves her 10+ hours a week on her own marketing.

Robyn Stoney walks us through how she trained her custom GPT on frameworks that led her to stop charging by the hour and move to outcome-based pricing.

Candice Tate explains how she uses AI to keep her growing agency team consistent and her GPT's most underrated feature.

Listen to learn more about

1. How to build a custom GPT project that actually sounds like you and why the personal details matter
2. Why all three guests started using AI for their own business before their clients
3. The prompting habits that separate good outputs from cookie-cutter ones
4. Real use cases beyond client work: building an AI executive assistant, connecting your calendar, planning launches, context switching, and even managing kids’ schedules

The freelance marketers doing this custom GPT work are pulling ahead. This episode shows you exactly what they built and how it’s leading to better clients.

Sponsored by Wispr Flow*

Write and prompt faster with this voice-to-text AI tool that turns speech into clear, polished writing in every app. I’m using Wispr Flow to talk out emails, client replies, and AI prompts instead of typing everything. It’s one of my top tech tool recommendations and a real time-saver in my “4 hours of prime work time” mom life. Try Wispr Flow here* (*my affiliate link)

Links Mentioned in Show:

1. Get inside our Digital Marketer’s Workgroup: You've done the work. Built the skills. Earned the clients. Now it’s time for the right people to start knowing your name. Our Workgroup is the professional community for established freelance marketing specialists who are serious about their work and ready to be recognized, referred, and surrounded by people who match that level. Marketing nerds welcome. >>Apply Now
2. Need a hand in your business? Want a custom GPT built to make your business run smoother? Our trained, vetted Marketing Assistants & Specialists ready to jump in so you can delegate with confidence and grow with ease. Share your job opening with our Workgroup here (it’s free!) or Explore our directory here and find your marketing expert today!
3. Listen to Part 1- Custom GPTs for Clients: How Freelance Marketers Are Building, Pricing, and Delivering Them #279
4. Freelancer Rates in 2026: The Truth About What You’re Really Making Per Hour with Emily Reagan #277
5. How the Trust Recession Changed Buyer Behavior & Marketing in 2026 with Sheri Moise #276

Connect with Candice Tate:

1. Fractional Inbound Marketing Specialist
2. @clevercalic.co
3. https://clevercalic.co/

Connect with Jenn Mullen:

1. Systems Strategist
2. @mindfulvirtualassistant
3. https://www.jennmullen.com

Connect with Robyn Stoney:

1. Digital Media Consultant
2. @robynthebrilliant
3. https://www.robynthebrilliant.com/

Connect with Emily:

1. Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
2. Facebook: @emilyreaganpr
3. YouTube: Emily Reagan
4. Ask Emily Anything here

> Grow your freelance business inside the Digital Marketer’s Workgroup: Apply to join our tight-knit community for advanced training, ongoing support, troubleshooting, and exclusive job leads.

> Enroll in the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School: Learn in-demand, tactical digital marketing skills on your own time so you can move beyond admin work and offer high-value marketing services.

> Hire a Digital Marketing Assistant: Submit your job posting and I’ll share it with the skilled & vetted freelancers in our Workgroup.

> Download my free Top Ten Most Requested Digital Marketing Tasks & Services to see what clients are hiring for right now.