Today I’m going to tell you the one thing that made all the difference and paved the way for me to become a full-time entrepreneur and leave corporate in the rearview mirror.

Many of us, when starting our businesses, are juggling our full time jobs alongside all the things that come with entrepreneurship.

And nothing was different for me. I built my businesses burning the midnight oil while working a full time corporate job, and was able to put in my notice in October 2022.

You can listen to the episode here:

Let’s start at the cube farm.

For over 10 years I worked in corporate for a major insurance carrier here in the U.S. – and like most corporate offices, there were cubicles as far as the eye could see.

I like to call it the cube farm, and if you’ve ever worked in a massive corporate office, you know the title of cube farm fits perfectly. They could plant or harvest new cubes at a moment’s notice for growth or rearrangement of office sections.

But inside that cube farm, I had many great friends that I still call family. And also inside that cube farm sit many unhappy people stuck on the hamster wheel being graded on detailed metrics for their performance and next raise.

Metrics that often can be broken down from monthly, to weekly, to daily, and even hourly – looking at how much work the employee is churning out. While they say it is also about the quality, I can sit right here, right now and tell you I saw the other side of it and someone with stellar quality but average metrics will not be rewarded as greatly as someone with mediocre quality and stellar metrics. I saw it with my own eyes during the last few years I was there because I saw behind-the-scenes of performance reviews and leadership meetings.

And what happens?

Stress.

Anxiety.

Unhappiness.

These environments create stressed people, working their fingers to the bone “make their numbers”

What comes along with those metrics and numbers is also the issue of time off. When the company as a whole says that a team can only have 10% out of office on any given day, and they only have 9 people on the team… well, even if you don’t like math, you know that math ain’t mathin’.

Now obviously, they don’t give someone a portion of a day off—that really would be over-the-top—but it is incredibly difficult for a person to take their hard-earned time off on the day or days they actually want.

And a two-week vacation? You better know someone or be married to someone in management or it ain’t happenin’. 

So why do people stay? 

Because of the money. Because of the health insurance. Because of the responsibility of taking care of their families.

I, too, was there for the health insurance for my own family. But I knew I despised having to ask permission to be off work to chaperone a kids’ field trip, or put in a request to go to the doctor for an annual checkup.

Not to mention dealing with passive aggressive management who would say, “hmm…can you just make the time up later?” All for that work output and to avoid going over that 10% rule, ya see.

I could get on a complete tangent at this point about how a lot of times it isn’t your direct supervisor, but instead from the entire toxic corporate culture that stems from the top and the greedy.

But, to my point of being an adult and having to ask permission to be off work… I said “no more.”

I created and designed a business that fits into my life and fits into my family. A business that works for me.

And it all is from my email list growth.

Definitely not from my Instagram growth. Sorry Zuckerburg and Meta. Y’all just ain’t doin’ it for me.

I’ll get on my Insta-soap box in another episode. Not that I don’t love hanging out on the ‘gram, but that is not where my money is made. I’m not, nor do I desire to be, an influencer.

I’m the email girl, and while this podcast will be going over all aspects of marketing, you will learn how email is the root of all your digital marketing.

My email list that grew by 78% in less than one month back in 2021 makes money when I hit send.

Sometimes it is $10 and sometimes it is several thousand dollars.

But it truly works FOR ME.

I’ve spent time engaging with my audience, learning what they want, what they need, and putting content in front of them that they actually want to read and see, and have built a list of well-connected subscribers.

Here’s a fun fact for you. In early 2022, I participated in a summit with people with MUCH larger lists than I had, yet I had many more clicks and sign-ups to that summit than people with lists 13x the size of mine!

Building a list with a well-connected audience moves the needle so much farther in your business than just building it to have that big subscriber count.

Not that a big subscriber count isn’t great, but if it isn’t built with the solid foundation of creating and nurturing a relationship from the moment they hit the subscribe button, then it isn’t going to get you as far.

My list growth has been focused on just that. Not chasing the numbers, but chasing the relationships with those people who want to sign up and hear from me and learn from me.

So hear me when I debunk your false belief today: your email list CAN work for you even with a small subscriber count. Even with 500 or less subscribers. 

Did you hear that? LESS than 500 subscribers.

This hustle-culture that surrounds us leads us to believe that you NEED a list of 10,000 or more to make any sort of decent living, but I’m your proof right here at this moment to tell you that it isn’t true.

But if you don’t start building a connection with your subscribers today, it will take longer to start hitting those goals of yours.

If your goal is to leave corporate, go full-time with your business, or hit a specific revenue in your business, your email list is the better way. 

Not spending hours on your next Instagram Reel or TikTok. Those things will come and go, and another fad social thing will be along, but the one that has been constant since…I don’t know…the 90s?

Email.

Despite the Negative Nancies out there saying email is dead. They make me giggle every time I see their little off-putting comments on Facebook posts.

They’re probably just mad because their subscribers don’t like them.

And they probably don’t like them because they didn’t spend the time building a relationship and creating a connection with their subscribers.

But you can. And you can start today.

Just like my clients that had an email list that was basically nothing, have now grown their list to 8,000 subscribers in 18 months, organically (seriously, zero paid ads)—and if their emails do not show up on time every Tuesday morning, their subscribers want to know where that email is. They are commenting in the FB group, sending Instagram DMs, or emailing them directly.

That’s because the focus on their email growth was to create emails that their audience LOVES to read, and build a relationship with them the moment they hit that subscribe button to be email besties with them.

If you want to start building a connection with your email list that paves the way for your business so that you can leave corporate or go full time with your business, I have a free resource for you, called Connect & Convert, where I walk you through building an engaged email list and increase conversions.

And while you’ve got your phone open, assuming you’re reading this right now on your mobile device, I want you to do 3 quick things: 

1. Give this podcast a follow (click here for iTunes or here for Spotify, or look up “The School of Marketing Podcast for Digital Entrepreneurs” wherever you listen to your podcasts). 
2. If you liked this episode, please leave a review!
3. Go ahead and open up your instagram app and come follow me: @themaganward. I’d love to hear from you and I’m known to reply back via DM, sometimes even with a voice message, so make sure you hit me up there especially if you’ve got a topic you’d like me to cover in an upcoming episode.

I’ll see you in episode 2, and until then, may your email list forever be larger than your Instagram following.