Embody Creative Co.

Embody Creative Co. is a Social Media Management company that works with clients to create content that sparks meaningful conversation and builds community. Brooke handles everything from social strategy and monthly outlines to captions and video editing!

In 2023, Brooke decided to bring Mckinley on because she was finding herself in a cycle of wasting time on organizing and re-organizing her business back-end while always feeling scattered and overwhelmed. We worked together to create a few centralized platforms that she could run everything from, while keeping the process simple for her clients when reviewing and approving content.

SERVICES PROVIDED:

  • 12-week Serene Systems Build-out including...

    • Full systems audit

    • Project management systems build-out (ClickUp)

    • Streamlined Content Calendar (all moved to ClickUp)

    • HoneyBook onboarding workflows updated

    • & more

  • Ongoing Operations Partnership including

    • Annual and quarterly planning

    • Weekly client check-ins

    • Systems Strategy

    • & more!

Section Styles grid-lines-full-width

Challenges

○ Re-inventing organizational structures because the current ones kept failing

○ Feeling overwhelmed and behind

○ No repeatable system for client onboarding

○ Multiple different systems for content calendars, which made keeping track of everything confusing

Goals

○ Creating uniform, repeatable processes

○ Getting content systems organized and in order

○ Getting ahead on client work and freeing up time to work on own marketing

○ Creating an easy system for building out custom proposals and onboarding clients

In my clients words…

“Working with you changed how I run my business, and I won’t stop singing your praises until the day I die! While you did help me with the structure and organization of my business so I could stop rebuilding my back-end every few months and get ahead in client work, the biggest impact you had was helping me actually feel safe in my own business. You built systems around the way my brain actually works instead of the idealized version of myself I was trying to force myself to be. Not only was this incredibly helpful but you helped me accept that my brain worked differently to most but that I still deserved to be organized and supported. You are so wildly competent at what you do that any time something felt wobbly I knew I could come to you and you’d know what to do. Even when my ideas were silly, you were always up to explore them with me and you never made me feel bad if we spent time on a project that I ended up wanting to scrap completely. You are so kind and funny and I always looked forward to our calls. You completely changed how I run my business and I’m so happy to call you a friend and to always have you in my corner!”

Brooke Basso — Founder of Embody Creative Co.

Strategy & Implementation

When we first started, Brooke had made a habit of fitting into the system her clients had created, rather than having a space that worked for her and inviting them in. When growing a business with no real business background, there is so much trial and error and unknowns, and Brooke's systems and general organization was one area that she just could not figure out. The key problem we needed to solve across each area of the business was reducing the number of ways the business ran and creating one consistent place for everything to live. We decided to build this space out in ClickUp because it would give her a lot of flexibility and make it easy to grow her team. Everything from content calendars to marketing strategies to SOP libraries was moved into ClickUp. This allowed her to stay in one platform and do everything she needed to do. It also made it easy for her clients to get her the information she needed without anything getting lost or confused.

Over time, we collaborated to create systems that work for her and her brain. Having one space with everything as visible as possible in ClickUp helped to avoid distractions. The next thing we needed to tackle was her expectations of herself and her schedule. She was in a pattern of procrastinating things till the last minute, and then working a 12-hour day to try to get caught up.

The system we found that helped her create consistency in her work was having one task each day to complete. It could take as long (or as short) as it needed to, and once that one thing was done, she could shut off her computer and go do something else instead. In addition, we stopped scheduling any work during her luteal phase. If she decided to do more work after the one thing got done, or wanted to get work done during the luteal phase, she could, but there was no expectation for her to do so. This might sound counter-intuitive, but this system is what allowed her to finally get a month ahead on client work and begin to work on her own business development along the way!

In 2026, the vision for her business has changed, so we have further downgraded and simplified her systems. Now she runs the front end of her business through Rella and the back end through Notion. We connect as friends and peers, but she has all the tools she needs to run her business without support from an OBM or subcontractors. Just her and her creativity!

Embody’s current dashboard, 2026