Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Underwood.
Hi Emily, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
The road to Build Better Consulting has been anything but linear and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It started in 2017 with my first sales job in junk removal, which wasn’t exactly glamorous but taught me everything about building genuine relationships. Since you’re not often finding someone who needs junk hauled that exact day, I had to master the art of creating referral networks and long-term partnerships with large businesses like nursing homes and apartment buildings. That experience became the foundation of my relationship-first approach to business.
From there, I dove into the online world, building a holistic wellness business as a micro-influencer with less than 5,000 Instagram followers. For about three and a half years, I traveled while selling high-ticket affiliate products. I didn’t make millions, but I finally tasted the freedom I’d been craving, and more importantly, I learned to run everything on systems because of my ADHD. When you own all your time but struggle with executive function, you become obsessed with creating processes that work.
Throughout this journey, I was also doing side work under a general contractor for wealthy clients in the Baltimore area, transporting cars, painting multi-million dollar homes, building wine cellars. Watching how this class of people moved taught me so much about business operations and life from the inside, and many of these connections remain strong friendships today.
But here’s where the pattern emerged: every single company I worked for after that—whether traditional brick-and-mortar or high-ticket startups—had the same problem. They’d hire amazing people who would fail, not because they weren’t capable, but because the operational systems weren’t there to support them. I found myself constantly building SOPs, optimizing processes, and creating systems, often while in sales roles, just to make my own life easier.
The turning point came this past summer when my father got sick. I came home to Baltimore to care for him, and he passed peacefully during that time. It was during this period of reflection and loss that I realized I kept outsourcing my financial responsibility to other people’s visions, it was time to surrender to my own. I was tired of the feast and famine typical to my industry and startups; going into businesses as a contractor, helping them grow, but never building something lasting for myself.
That’s when Build Better Consulting was truly born, with a clear mission: to help business owners live freely through owning their business instead of their businesses owning them.
What makes us different is our partnership approach. We usually start with database reactivation on a performance basis, taking all those leads businesses already paid for but gave up on, and bringing them back to life with conversational AI-powered SMS campaigns. We front all the costs and only get paid when our clients make money. It’s our way of having skin in the game and proving our value before asking for trust.
But it’s bigger than just reactivating databases. I kept seeing Main Street businesses unable to pivot, scale, sell, or be passed down because they lacked systems. I watched founders drowning in work with no way out, and family businesses closing because they couldn’t run without the owner. These weren’t just business failures; they were dreams dying, legacies disappearing, and communities losing their heart.
Our logo is the Fibonacci sequence because it represents the natural harmony we’re trying to restore; where businesses provide freedom to their owners, employ and grow people in the community, and create lasting impact. We’re not just building better systems; we’re building better businesses, better relationships, and better lives.
Today, we’re on the path to become the go-to operations partner for growth-minded businesses who want to scale without losing their soul. We combine the reliability of brick-and-mortar strategies with cutting-edge AI and automation; not to replace human connection, but to free up bandwidth so business owners can be fully present when it matters most with their families and clients.
The journey has been windy, but every twist taught me something essential about what small businesses really need: clarity, systems, and a partner who believes in their success as much as they do.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth road? Not even close, and I’m grateful for every bump.
The journey has been anything but smooth, and honestly, that’s where the real growth happened.
One of my biggest ongoing struggles in the past had been dealing with severe ADHD symptoms while trying to build and run my first business. When I started that business, the online wellness business, I had all this freedom but couldn’t manage my own day. I didn’t know how to structure my time when I owned all of it. That’s actually what made me obsessed with systems; I had to create external structures to function, which ironically became my superpower in helping other businesses.
There was also the struggle of watching so many small businesses, especially during and just after covid, unable to pivot because they lacked the systems and operational know-how. I’d see family businesses that had been serving the community for decades just… disappear. Not because they weren’t valuable, but because everything was in the owner’s head, and when life happened or things had to radically change to keep up with the market, there was no business without them and the way they’ve been doing it.
Then there’s the imposter syndrome that hit hard when I first tried consulting. My friends kept telling me, “You need to become a consultant, you keep ending up in the same situation where you’re working yourself out of a job and not getting paid to solve all these problems in these startups.” But I wasn’t ready. I was dealing with so much self-doubt about whether I had the right to charge what the work was worth. I tried it briefly, only sold a few low-ticket projects, and got pulled back to working for a startup.
The pattern of constantly bumping heads with owners and managers was exhausting as well. Even when I was right about operational bottlenecks, it’s incredibly hard to implement change in someone else’s business without the authority of a consultant. It was gut-wrenching to see this pattern continue to play out, especially when the solutions were right under their nose. I’d build solutions, help companies grow, but then watch the same problems resurface because real change is hard, and hearing it from someone deemed an “employee” (contractor) was a hard pill to swallow.
The most challenging period came this past summer caring for my dad during his terminal cancer experience. It was hard to get anything done while I was partnered with my best friend’s consultancy, where our visions weren’t fully aligning, and the combined experiences taught me to release any remaining perfectionism I had and to trust God’s voice coming through to me telling me to go back out on my own, not just as a consultant, but to build an entire entity and scale it to help as many companies as possible. I’m grateful I could be there with him to the end, it made it so obvious that I was hiding behind other people’s visions and that time isn’t guaranteed, so start now.
But here’s what I learned: every struggle taught me something essential about what businesses really need. My ADHD forced me to become a systems expert. The imposter syndrome taught me the importance of being vulnerable and sitting with the uncomfortableness of having skin in the game before asking for trust and also positioning myself as a true partner, not service provider, which is why we now front all costs for our database reactivation campaigns and work on a revenue share basis for our main offer. The operational bottlenecks I kept hitting showed me exactly where businesses break down and how to fix them. And my experience with my dad’s passing allowed me the opportunity to truly show up as “Her.” It taught me true surrender, grew my capacity for leadership and stress, and allowed me to throw my perfectionism that was blocking me aside.
The struggles were research, and this business is the culmination of all of my failures and wins since 2017. Every challenge became part of the solution I’m now able to offer other business owners. The road wasn’t smooth, but it was exactly what I needed to build something that actually works.
As you know, we’re big fans of Build Better Consulting. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Build Better Consulting: Where Heart-Centered Partnership Meets Operational Excellence
Build Better Consulting exists to solve a problem I witnessed repeatedly throughout my career: amazing business owners trapped as employees of their own businesses instead of living freely through them. We’re the go-to operations partner for growth-minded entrepreneurs who want to scale without losing their soul.
What We Do:
We specialize in transforming overlooked business assets into exponential growth. Our signature approach starts with database reactivation; taking all those leads businesses already paid for but gave up on, and bringing them back to life with conversational AI-powered SMS campaigns. Our true super power is strategic operations though, I can see into a business and identify what’s working and not and pre-handle issues before we ever run campaigns. We transform businesses through their operations.
What Sets Us Apart:
Our differentiator is simple: we’re true partners, not just service providers. We front all costs for our database reactivation campaigns—CRM, SMS, AI tokens, everything—and only get paid when our clients make money. No upfront fees, no risk to the client. When they win, we win. This creates what we call “low stakes and really easy to say yes to” scenarios. From there, we’ll help you solve any operational problem once we give your revenue and profitability a boost and lock in trust.
Most consultants talk about partnership; we actually operate as partners from day one. We’re not interested in the typical feast-and-famine consultant dance or coming in to make a quick and easy buck. We want to earn business for a lifetime by proving our value before asking for trust (only works for companies with healthy lead lists, they must qualify).
Our Specialties:
– Database Reactivation: Turning dormant leads into active revenue streams through performance-based campaigns
– AI Integration: Implementing AI agents and receptionists that enhance (not replace) human connection
– Operational Systems: Building scalable processes that free owners from day-to-day operations
– Strategic Partnerships: Creating win-win scenarios that benefit everyone involved
What We’re Known For:
We’re known for our “6 C’s” approach: Clarity, Candor, Cooperation, Creative Innovation, Consideration, and Congruence. These values guide every client interaction and internal decision. We’re also known for our transparent, no-BS approach to pricing, our willingness to have skin in the game, and our clear sight into businesses true problems even at our first initial discovery call.
Brand-wise, I’m Most Proud Of:
Our congruence with our logo, the Fibonacci sequence, which represents the natural harmony we help create between profit and purpose. It’s an ode to why business owners started their journey in the first place: to impact lives, employ and grow people in their community, and build something meaningful that can scale, sell, or be passed down to their legacy. We help restore that harmony in a way that respects fair business transactions and value exchanges.
What Baltimore Readers Should Know:
We know the power of AI can replace humans, but the better way to use it and stay ahead of it is to free us to be more human and more present. When we implement an AI receptionist that can answer phones 24/7, we’re not eliminating jobs; we’re elevating that human employee to do higher-level work that makes the company and them more money and makes them more valuable in an economy where that matters.
We combine the reliability of brick-and-mortar strategies with cutting-edge technology. I learned operations from working in junk removal and general contracting, as well as high-ticket coaching and internet marketing startups then applied those principles to businesses on either side. That unique perspective lets us bring the best of both worlds together for the biggest lifts and highest creativity.
Our Mission: To transform overlooked business assets into exponential growth by partnering with businesses to unlock hidden revenue, optimize operations, and build scalable systems that free them to focus on what matters most—their families, their clients, and their communities.
Our Vision: To become the most trusted operations partner for growth-minded entrepreneurs, creating a world where businesses thrive through heart-centered innovation, performance-driven results, and lifetime partnerships that elevate both profit and purpose.
We’re not just building better systems, we’re building better businesses, better relationships, and better lives. Because at the end of the day, every business decision affects real people with real dreams, and we never forget the human story behind every optimization we make.
What I want Baltimore business owners to know is this: if you’re working 80-hour weeks, if your personal cell phone is your CRM, if your business can’t run without you, there’s a better way. And we’re here to help you install it in a way that feels like bringing the joy back into entrepreneurship.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Omg, don’t even get me started hahah, I’m a huuuge health geek so anything holistic wellness is my jam. And I truly believe and have seen that the health of a business strongly relies on the health of the founder/operator. From hydrogen water machines, to the 6-phase meditation, to my morning alignment routine and beyond I am happy to share anything to help other founders, just hit me up on my personal instagram: @emkunderwood
As for books I’ll keep it simple, business finances hold back a lot of us creatives and problem solvers that start businesses so I’d highly recommend Profit First and trying that method, because you deserve to get paid from a profitable business!!!
Lastly, all glory to the Creator. Prayer and listening to His voice keeps me walking in the right direction, especially on hard days.
Pricing:
- we do a lot on a performance basis, all dependent on the businesses unique situation
Contact Info:
- Website: https://buildbetterconsulting.co/saas
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildbetterbizconsulting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emily.underwood.948
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyunderwood/
