“I wanted to be intentional and present for my children.”
That’s the sentence that explains how Emma Johnson built her OBM business, Emma Johnson & Co. Not a launch calendar. A school pickup schedule.
Emma used to be a business strategist and coach, the kind who’s on stages and inside big launches. Today she’s an Accredited OBM who’s fully booked, working behind-the-scenes, and she got there by designing her hours around her kids first and “business” second.
That’s exactly what this week’s episode of The OBM Show is about.
Click here or on the preview below to watch now:
Prefer to listen? This episode is also available as a podcast on the OBM Show Podcast here.
From Business Strategist to Behind the Scenes OBM
Emma spent years coaching coaches and course creators, running a launch-based business with quarterly launches and a lot of visibility. It worked, financially. But it was feast or famine, and it required her to be fully present, on a schedule, every single quarter.
When her circumstances at home shifted, she didn’t walk away from her business. She rebuilt it around a different priority. So she leaned into the part of her coaching work she’d always been quietly great at… the systems, the structure, the behind the scenes implementation her clients kept asking her to just handle herself, and became an Accredited OBM.
A Business Built Around Pickup and Drop-Off
Emma now works mostly between 9 and 3:30, the hours her boys are at school. She communicates asynchronously with clients across the US, the UK and Australia. She does the work while they sleep. They review it while she sleeps. Nobody is waiting on her at 5:30 or 7pm.
Her drive to be more present for her family shaped everything about how she structured her OBM business, from her hours to her client load to how she communicates.
What “Second Brain” Actually Looks Like
Here’s how Emma describes her role to her own clients: “I’m essentially your second brain.” That’s not a tagline. It’s what it takes for a business owner to actually hand something over and stop thinking about it, and it’s the same standard every Accredited OBM is trained to deliver.
Psst… if you’re a CEO who’s tired of keeping literally everything running smoothly in your business and wants to finally take the load off, check out our Matchmaking program where we pair CEOs with one of our certified Online Business Managers.
Why She Doesn’t Need a Full Roster
Emma is intentional about keeping her client list small. In her words, “you don’t need tons of clients to have a full roster. In fact, sometimes less is more, and the more that you get to know a client, the better you are, the faster you are, the more intuitive things become.”
That’s the trade she made. She gave up the scalable, feast-or-famine coaching model for something steadier: consistent, recurring retainer income from a small group of clients she knows deeply, without giving up her afternoons.
The Trust Question Every Business Owner Has to Answer
Emma is honest that not every client is a good fit, and she’s not afraid to say so. Her read on a discovery call comes down to one thing: is this business owner actually ready to hand over the reins? If the answer is no, she’ll tell them directly, and invite them back when they are.
That kind of clarity protects her business. It also protects her clients, because the ones who do say yes get an operational partner who is fully in it with them, on a schedule she’s designed to last.
The Next Step
If Emma’s story has you thinking about what a partner like this could do for your business, start by booking a Matchmaking call and we’ll help you find an Accredited Online Business Manager that fits your business style.
If you’re the one reading this and thinking, “I want to build a mom-friendly, work-from-home business like Emma’s,” the OBM Accelerator is a good place to start!
