The Creative Bodega with Em Connors | Email & Content Marketing for Solopreneurs
By Em Connors
Welcome to The Creative Bodega, a podcast about email marketing, content, and personal branding for female solopreneurs who are done building their business on rented land. Here's the belief this whole show runs on: the followers you rent from an algorithm will never be as valuable as the audience you own . Instagram can bury you overnight — your email list can't. So each week, host Em Connors shows you how to build an owned audience you actually control, stay consistent without the burnout, and turn casual followers into people who buy from you again and again. From what to actually write when the page is blank, to staying consistent when life lifes , to selling in a way that sounds like you and not a pushy sales bro — Em answers the real questions with strategies straight from her own million-dollar business. And because life happens, she doesn't hold back on the unfiltered truth of running a business while raising a family — the messy, the honest, and the "here's what I'm actually figuring out right now." Every so often, Em also pulls back the curtain with other women who've built businesses their own way — real conversations about how they grew, what they'd do differently, and how they stay sane while doing it. If you're ready to stop shouting into a feed that isn't showing you, and start building something you own — alongside a community of women who get it — you're in the right place.
Download the one-page website audit checklist for solopreneurs: the 5 checks to run on your site this week. Grab it here Your business changed. Your website might not have. After a DM from a follower, I audited my own site and found my newest offer hidden from Google, a homepage still talking about social media, and a Canva workshop button for a date that already passed. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I walk you through the five checks I’d run first, and why I’m giving my website a n...
Grab the one-page cheat sheet on how to write a newsletter with AI and still sound like you, plus my cleaned-up banned phrases list: Download it here You tried AI for your newsletter, hated the result, and wondered if everyone else is just better at prompts. You’re not alone, and the tool usually isn’t the problem. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I’m showing you how I use AI to write my newsletter, what I give it so the draft sounds like me, and where it still gets things wrong. You’l...
Want to grow your email list without adding more social media? SAME! If your list growth has stalled and you're one click away from signing up for another platform, you're so not alone. In this episode of The Creative Bodega Podcast, I share the 5 things I'm changing to make the content I already create work a lot harder, including the opt-in that brought me 53 new subscribers in 8 days. 📝 Grab this episode's FREE takeaway cheat sheet: RIGHT HERE 💻 Check out the full show notes for this episo...
📝 Grab this episode's one-page cheat sheet, [the 4 steps to one freebie that converts], right here! → https://thecreativebodega.myflodesk.com/podcastonesheet Made freebie after freebie and still nobody's opting in? Or maybe you've got a 40-page guide you know is good, and your list hasn't budged. I've been there. I've made over 45 freebies in six years, and most of them cost me way more time than they ever gave back. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I walk you through The One Good Free...
📝 Grab this episode's one-page cheat sheet with all four moves and the exact steps to implement them right here! Ever pull up your own Instagram profile and realize a total stranger would have no idea what to do next? You post, you show up, you pour hours into it, and then you cross your fingers and hope the algorithm sends the right people your way. If you're tired of building your business on rented land you don't own, you're in the right place. In this episode of The Creative Bod...
✨💌 DOORS ARE OPEN: The Newsletter System: my 6-week program for building a newsletter you'll actually keep writing. Doors are open this week only. Limited spots, we begin Sept 24th! Have you ever felt called to change direction in your business, but froze because you were terrified of what people would think? You are not the only one. I spent six years known for one thing, quietly sensing I was meant for another, and doing almost nothing about it. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I wal...
✨💌 Join the Newsletter System waitlist - hop on for first access when the doors open September 14th You keep meanIng to start the newsletter. Or you started one, then quietly let it go. And every time you think about picking it back up, a little pile of excuses shows up first. No one will read it. I don't have the time. This probably isn't for a business like mine. I've had every one of those thoughts myself, so there's zero finger-pointing here. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I pick...
✨💌 CLICK HERE to hop on The Newsletter System waitlist (join for first dibs on the limited spots plus a behind-the-scenes tour of my full newsletter process) You want to email your list. You know you should. Maybe you even have the list sitting right there, ready to go. But you sit down, the cursor blinks, and your brain goes completely blank. So you close the laptop and tell yourself you'll figure it out next week. And next week? Same exact thing. If that loop feels familiar, you are not bro...
You started an email list. You were proud of it. And then...you never emailed it. 😅 Now every time you think about sitting down to write, the cursor blinks, your brain goes blank, and you tell yourself you'll do it later. Later never comes, and the guilt just keeps stacking. If that's the loop you're stuck in, you're not lazy, and you're not flaky. You're missing one thing. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I break down why consistency with your email list was never a discipline problem...
💌 Join The Newsletter System September Waitlist — first access when doors open September 14th, limited spots available! Have you ever been genuinely good at something, even known for it, and still felt a quiet pull that it is not the thing you want to keep doing forever? For years, I couldn't name that feeling. I just felt scattered and a little off, pouring most of my energy into the platform that gave me the least back. It took three weeks completely off Instagram to finally see it clearly....
You've poured hours into a post, hit publish, and watched it land with a thud. Just crickets. And in that moment, the question creeps in: is something wrong with me? Should I just pivot to something else? If you've ever wondered why you're still showing up when the growth is slow and the engagement is low, you're not the only one. In this final episode of my Nobody Told Me series on The Creative Bodega, I'm sharing the one thing nobody told me would end up being my superpower: consistency. I'...
Episode 79: Why You Think Everyone's Watching You (And Why They're Not) You've got that post sitting in your drafts. The one that feels a little too loud, too niche, too much you. You keep telling yourself everyone's going to see it and judge it, so you don't hit publish. I've been there more times than I can count, and this episode is for you. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm telling you about the first time I learned this lesson (a CrossFit gym in 2008, terrified everyone was wat...
Do you ever feel like you're doing everything "right" online, posting, following the tips, showing up consistently, and still getting completely ignored? It's not your strategy. It's not the algorithm. It's a handful of small, sneaky habits quietly keeping you invisible, and once you spot them, they're easier to shift than you'd think. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm walking through exactly what those habits look like, why personality gets remembered while generic content gets ign...
You know you're supposed to share parts of your life online. But what, exactly? You're private. Your kids don't want to be content. And you have zero interest in crying on camera for engagement. I hear some version of this from the women I work with every single week, so if that's you, you're not alone. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm introducing you to a concept I call your core story bank: the 4 to 5 stories and personal themes that make you relatable without making you an open ...
Your Canva templates are perfectly on-brand. Your color palette is locked. So why does your content still feel a little cold when you hit record? You're not imagining it, and you're definitely not alone in wondering why the visuals aren't translating to connection. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm getting into the part of visual branding nobody talks about: the energy you bring to camera, and why it might matter more than any font pairing you've ever agonized over. If your branding...
Do you ever wonder if the discomfort of putting yourself out there is ever going to go away? You post, you wait, you check the numbers, and some days it still feels like nobody's out there. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm kicking off a new series called Nobody Told Me, six honest truths about what it actually takes to build a personal brand. We're starting with the one nobody warns you about: how long everything really takes. If you're deep in the reps and wondering when it starts...
If your Canva account is a complete disaster — designs floating in space, uploads you've had since 2017, and templates you used once and can never find again — you are not alone. Most solopreneurs are working inside a cluttered Canva account without realizing how much time and mental energy it's costing them. The good news? Getting organized doesn't have to be a full weekend project. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm joined by fellow Canva Verified Expert Brenda Cadman, whose entire...
Have you ever posted something, checked back an hour later, and felt your stomach drop? You poured real energy into it. And the response was...crickets. If you've been using your follower count, your likes, or your email list growth as proof that you're good at this, I want you to know you are so not alone. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I get more vulnerable than usual. I share what happened when I finally got on a call with my business coach and therapist, Ash McDonald, what she sa...
If the thought of writing a newsletter every week makes you want to close your laptop and never come back, this one's for you. I get it. I've felt that exact dread, staring at a blank screen, deleting what I wrote, and deciding I just wasn't a "newsletter person." In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm sharing how I went from avoiding my newsletter completely to sending my 285th consecutive issue, and the simple format that made it possible. If you've started a list and let it go quiet, ...
Have you been showing up consistently, posting tips, sharing your face, doing all the things, and still wondering why your offer isn't getting signups? You're not doing it wrong. You're just not showing it. There's a real difference between posting about your niche and showing people what it's actually like inside your world. And that gap is exactly where signups disappear. I know because I found myself in it, weeks into a stretch of almost zero new Coven signups, before I realized I hadn't s...