In the latest chat on Strategies that Stack, we dive into the juicy world of values-driven businesses with the fabulous Ashlee Sang. Picture this: a conversation that’s not just about making a quick buck, but about creating a business that feels good and does good. Ashlee, who’s a pro at helping multi-passionate, overthinking entrepreneurs find their groove, shares her insights on what it means to market consciously. She talks about how conscious marketing isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a mindset. It’s about being intentional with every dollar we spend, every word we say, and every connection we make. You’ll hear her personal journey from the nonprofit world to becoming a brand messaging strategist, and trust me, it’s as wild and organic as it gets!

We also dig deep into the nitty-gritty of ethical marketing. Ashlee and I banter about how it’s all about building relationships founded on trust and transparency. It’s refreshing to hear her perspective on how impact isn’t just some lofty goal; it’s in the small daily actions we take. Whether it’s choosing to support women-owned businesses or being mindful of how we communicate with our audience, every little effort adds up. Ashlee’s take on conscious marketing is not just practical; it’s downright empowering. She encourages us to embrace the gray areas and make choices that align with our values, even if that means stepping off the beaten path.

By the end of our chat, you’ll be inspired to rethink how you approach your business strategy. Ashlee’s wisdom will have you questioning whether your marketing tactics truly reflect your values. We’ll cover everything from how to audit your values, to the importance of transparency in your messaging. So grab your favorite drink, kick back, and let’s get into how we can all create businesses that not only thrive but also resonate with what truly matters to us.

Welcome to another episode of the Strategies that Stack podcast.

I am so excited for this conversation because it is going to be all about having a business that feels and does good.

So I have a guest here today that I actually just met and it was one of those things where we met and we were like, you get it, I get it.

Like, we're just on the same wavelength.

And I'm so excited to introduce you to Ashley Sang today.

Ashley Sang consults multi passionate, overthinking business owners.

They can create their impact and their revenue.

Ashley Sang consulting.

And as host of the Purpose and Progress podcast, she equips entrepreneurs to take confident, meaningful action in alignment with their values.

She believes that businesses can feel and do good when it's rooted in values and propelled by purpose.

And I love all of that.

So, Ashley, I'm so excited that you are here.

I know I just read like the formal bio, but like, you can introduce yourself as well.

Hello.

Thank you.

And yes, ditto everything you just said.

I love juicy conversations about this.

You just previewed before we started hitting recorded, hitting record, you just previewed all the questions and I was like, yes, I want to talk a whole podcast about each one of these questions.

But yeah, I.

Besides the formal bio, I'm also a mama of two very small children.

I'm based in central Illinois, a traveler at heart, a thrifter.

And yeah, I care about a lot of things and I work with a lot of people who also care about a lot of things.

And so it's really intimate, personal, fun work that we get to do together.

I love it.

So let's start at the top.

I love the term conscious marketing.

That's not really something I'd ever like heard before.

Like, I go with like just ethical marketing, but conscious marketing just feels like really cool.

So what does that mean to you?

How did you kind of come up with that term?

Like, tell us what conscious marketing is and what it means to you.

Yeah, I stumbled upon conscious marketing and even sort of impact business and social entrepreneurship and anything in that realm through conscious consumerism.

Probably now, like almost 15 years ago, a long time ago, more than 10, probably more than 10, probably less than 15.

And I sort of simultaneously went down the rabbit hole of like ethical fashion, green beauty, sustainable zero waste living, veganism, like all of the things that for me align with conscious consum, consumerism.

And so even before I knew, quote unquote, ethical marketing existed or really even what like marketing was, because I come from a non profit world, they call it communications, even though it's kind of one and the same in my opinion.

In my experience, yeah, profit, comms and anyone else, marketing is the same.

But marketing is a yucky word.

I get it.

It can be right and.

But like it.

But it doesn't have to be either, right, Especially with conscious, ethical, etc.

So for me, I am, I'm an enneagram one I am have always been a cause champion.

Any like personality test I've ever gotten, I get the advocate as like the, the determination.

So ethical for me feels really, really good.

But I also see how it's like really judgmental for a lot of people.

If you're not doing, you know, prescribed ethical marketing, what does that mean?

You're suddenly unethical or if you're not shopping ethical fashion is everything you own unethical.

And you know, maybe for some of us that's how we view it, but you know, for, for a lot of us, there's so much gray in between.

So for me, conscious marketing is just that it's, it's thoughtful, it's intentional, it's thinking about that ripple effect.

It's thinking about every single word I use, every single conversation I have, every single space I step into, every single dollar I spend.

It matters.

It has a consequence in this direction or that, you know, we vote with our dollars.

We can make someone's day or ruin someone's day.

We can exclusively someone or include someone with literally one word right, let alone an entire marketing strategy.

So for me, conscious marketing is all about thinking about what we stand for, how we want to stand out, and ultimately who we want to connect with.

Because yeah, it's not going to be conscious or ethical for everyone.

It's going to be conscious and ethical for you, your team, if you have one, and then your perfect fit people, your perfect fit collaborators, the people who are on the same wavelength as you.

Yeah, I like, I love everything you just said there.

I want to talk more about like your thrifting and really like your gateway into this.

Like, that's a conversation for like Voxer or something.

But yeah, like when I think about ethical marketing, it's all about like building relationships on a foundation of trust, transparency.

And really I think a lot of it comes down to, for us in the online business space is like respecting our audiences autonomy, prioritizing that honesty over like the hype and being mindful of each campaign and how it impacts our audience and never sacrificing that for like quick gains.

So I, I really like everything that you just said there.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I.

I think there's so much also to be said for, like, doing things on your own terms.

I think so many of us start our marketing with, you know, traditional sales psychology and like 1.99 or like, whatever it is.

And there are just so many other more expansive ways to do things.

And just because it has worked for one person or one business or even an entire business model does not mean that needs to be the path that you follow.

In fact, by not following that path, you could be leaps and bounds ahead, so.

Mm.

Oh, I love that you just said that.

It's like I was having a conversation last week with a client.

She's like, oh, that's.

That's just not something we do in my industry.

And I was like, and that's exactly why you do it.

That's exactly why you do it.

So this is great.

So what inspired you to create a business with like a values first approach?

It sounds like you came from nonprofit, so, like, nonprofit is obviously amazing.

So that makes sense how that translated.

But, like, what inspired you to do this in your business?

Yeah, my entire career has been a very organic build.

I didn't, like, sit when I was 6 years old and think, I would love to be a values aligned brand messaging strategist.

You know, like, no, none of that was on my radar.

I just sort of followed the breadcrumbs and followed my interests all the way from undergrad.

I studied anthropology and French and linguistics.

I studied abroad twice.

I ended up accidentally marrying a Senegalese man.

Not in college, but I met him when I was studying abroad.

I lived there for four years afterward.

I sort of found my way to the communications department after being an executive assistant and having my hands in all kinds of things.

So.

And then as I went on that conscious consumerism journey, I found, ooh, there are businesses who are making money in a really sustainable way and making impact, like nonprofits, but they're not having to chase the donor dollars.

So I just sort of organically built my way to this.

As I learned more about business foundations, as I learned more about marketing foundations, as I learned that brand messaging even exists, as I learned that, I didn't.

I didn't know that companies had missions and visions and values.

I didn't know any of this.

Right.

It's not like I studied this formally.

This has all been a product of what's interested me and what's felt resonant to me and what has organically built.

As I've had conversations with really, really cool people on the Internet from around the World.

And yeah, it.

It just has all sort of fallen in place.

And then of course, I have formalized and I have, you know, watched a million and one YouTube videos and webinars and.

And learn from where I want to.

But then I kind of piece it together, how it works for my brain and how it works for my people.

And I always say that brand messaging and really business in general for me is a little bit of magic and a little bit of science and everything in between is where all the juicy stuff happens.

Yeah, that is so good.

I think a lot of businesses, especially right now, like, love the idea of impact, but they're not really sure, like, what that means or how to get clear on that goal.

And like, personally for me, like, I stripped back my business this whole year and I'm kind of re.

I not like, re building, not like rebuilding it necessarily, but like, rethinking every touch point in my business, both to me and to my audience.

And I'm like, okay, I know my mission, I know my values.

But, like, you got me thinking about my impact.

Like, what is my impact beyond just helping people live the life that they want to live and being free and being able to travel when they want to and take time off for, like, family emergencies and whatever.

How do you really get clear on that impact?

Because it's gotta be bigger.

It's gotta be bigger than just, I want my people to be able to take a day off if they want to.

Like, it's gotta be bigger than that, right?

Yeah.

And the.

I want my people to be able to take a day off when they want to is a tactic.

Right.

Or like a result, or it's a manifestation of that bigger picture.

Right.

And I think for impact, it can feel so lofty and weighty.

Like we.

We're either doing it or we're not, or we're sort of like winning at Impact or we're losing.

And I don't view it that way.

I am absolutely a perfectionist, but I also simultaneously believe that progress is much more important than perfection, because perfection does not exist.

So the same is true with impact.

If you can cut a single check to a single charity that you care about, or if you can repost a single post from a creator who's underrepresented for a cause that you care about to lift up a client that you care about, maybe that's part of your impact is using your platform, using your privilege, using your voice, using your audience to raise up someone else.

They didn't pay you for that.

You are Simply doing that in alignment with your values, with your mission, with the impact that you want to have.

So for me, impact can be had in all of the most nuanced details of your business as well as the biggest buckets, right?

So like I like to generally think of marketing bucket and operational bucket.

So things like the people you hire, that's a big old chunk of your bucket, right?

Even if you only work with contractors rather than employees, right?

Or the vendors that you use, maybe you choose not to work with Zoom because even though they're the big boy, even though like everyone knows and is familiar, you choose to work with like the tiny, maybe glitchy woman owned or minority owned or whatever person owned, little tiny startup that again, like there's a learning curve where there might be glitches or there might not be integrations, but like that is the impact you want to have through that decision, right?

Or even things like joining associations, right?

I was a 1% for the planet member for a while.

I have been part of a lot of really great online communities, both paid and unpaid.

The choices we make in our business, the conversations that we have, those all add up to our impact.

It's a little impact bucket, right?

Sometimes it's a drop, sometimes it's a wave, sometimes it's, you know, a little spoonful.

Everything in between, it does not matter.

It's all adding up to that bucket.

And when we look at our cumulative body of work and our cumulative impact that we've made in people's lives and toward causes that we care about, it is massive and the potential is unlimited.

So for me, that's really permission giving and that's really exciting.

And yeah, yeah, if we need to pump the brakes, we pump the brakes.

Because life happens, because finances happen, because we readjust, we course correct whatever it is.

But I don't think our impact ever really truly stops because again, every single choice we make has a consequence, positive or negative.

And so it's simply a question of being as intentional as possible with whatever bandwidth we have.

I really like that you didn't make it feel like this massive action we have to take, it can be like those small things, like you mentioned sharing a creator, like sharing a smaller creator is using a woman owned.

Like my podcast software for example.

Like the actual podcast software that I use for like hosting, that's family owned, women owned.

So like it can be those smaller things and like I really like that that actually made a lot click and that also like worked for like I'm also very multi passionate.

So that Just like clicked on a lot of different levels for me.

So I really like that.

Good.

Yeah.

So how did all of this kind of like shape your early messaging and your early marketing?

Because like, it all sounds so organic the way that you just got into this.

But how did leading in this way impact like your early stages in marketing and business?

Yeah.

So I'll be honest, I have always felt self conscious about my own marketing and messaging.

It's like such a cobbler shoes situation.

I think most marketers feel that way, most designers feel that way about their brand, et cetera, because like we're just so close to it.

I would say half of my clients are fellow marketers because they know it's super important and they know they're just too close to it to give the like, objective outside perspective that they need.

The other half are like the.

I'm not a words person.

Please just take it over.

So in the beginning, I did try to be focused.

I did try.

I think I landed on purpose driven for a while.

Cause I had seen that again as a conscious consumer.

That had resonated.

And yeah, so it has also been a very slow build.

I felt like the offerings came a lot more intuitively, but the messaging for me and things like, you know, quote unquote, niching or defining your audience, things that are really essential to business building, I have dragged my heels on just the same as so many of my clients and peers have.

So in my early messaging, I definitely was much more firmly rooted in the nonprofit sector because that was, that was my entire career leading up to it.

So I knew I had the portfolio to back that up.

I also was much more portfolio heavy at first and much more sort of like RFP responsive heavy in the beginning.

And now I do a lot more attraction marketing and a lot more collaboration and I seek out like kind of partnerships.

I seek out communities that are like minded.

That has been a very organic build.

And so, yeah, now it's more of an ecosystem.

And before it was more of a sort of, all right, I'm going to have a portfolio and I'm going to say that I'm like business for good.

And I didn't have a lot of clarity of what that actually meant or felt like.

And the more I leaned into values and the more I learned, leaned into, and the idea of being stuck in our heads and needing to take action and have empathetic accountability to get out of our heads, the more it has snowballed in, in the best way.

Yeah, that like all of that.

I know I Just keep saying, all of that is so good.

But, like, it really.

All of that really is so good.

And as somebody that, like, I'm a marketer, I work with other business owners, I work with other marketers.

That feeling of being too close is like, so on the nose.

Like, I look at my own marketing and I'm like, God, what am I doing?

But like.

Or what should I do next?

But, like, I can look at one of my friends or one of my, like, clients, and I'm like, oh, these are the steps.

This is what you have to do.

And so, yeah, like, that was really, really, really great.

A lot of, like, missions have changed.

How do you think somebody can become, like, reacquainted with their values in their business?

Oh, I love that because that's so relational, that reacquainted.

That feels really, like, special and personal.

And again, I think business is so personal even when we're B2B, even.

Oh yeah, even if you're techie, like, whatever it is, there's still absolutely a human on the other side of the buying decision and humans involved, either partners, team members, etc.

So, yeah, reacquainted.

Do a little audit, which is like the opposite of relational, but, you know, whatever you want to call it, do a reflection, hold space for yourself or your team.

Highly, highly recommend Getting outside perspective on this front.

From a consultant, from a coach, from a mastermind, from a free community, from a business bestie.

Does not matter.

Get that outside perspective.

But really sit down, take some time and.

Or all the better, go on a walk.

That's.

That's how I am able to think.

I am not able to just sit there and be like, where?

How am I doing?

My brain does not work that way, but walks.

All the magic happens then.

Or again, in, like, spaces where someone is holding the space for me and I'm able to verbally process it.

So however your brain works, take the time to really look at, okay, I said this was my mission.

Where has that manifested?

And not in, like the woo manifestation, but, like actual results manifesting into the world.

Very important distinction.

Yeah.

And I mean, if the woo works for you, also do that.

But like, really, where has it shown up?

Right?

Look at your values.

Your values and your mission and your audience in every facet of your business.

They're allowed to change.

In fact, they likely will.

You have evolved as a founder, as a practitioner.

You've Learned more, you've experimented more with projects and people and everything in between.

The market quote, unquote changes.

So if you are only sticking to the same things over and over, you're likely going to fall behind or feel stretched or whatever it is.

So I did a values audit maybe, I don't know, six months ago or something like that.

I have a whole podcast episode about it, but I looked at my core values and I, I really sort of tried to draw a line to okay, what did I actually do or what do I do in my day to day business that like actually syncs up with this?

And so I mentioned I was a 1% for the planet member for a while and I thought that was in alignment with my value of contribution.

But the more I thought about it, the more I was like, you know what?

I define contribution as feeling connected to something bigger than myself.

And while that's true, I didn't feel connected to the people in the community, even though it's a wonderful community.

I just wasn't super well tapped in.

Even though I was donating my 1%, I wasn't feeling connected to the organizations or the causes that I was donating to.

I just didn't feel connected to that act.

And so I didn't feel like it was a good, again, representation, manifestation of my value of contribution.

So instead I was like, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quit that organization and I'm going to set up a scholarship fund instead.

And so I'm not actually sending any money out, but I am offering pro bono quarterly options of working with me.

And that feels so much more aligned.

I get to work one on one with someone.

It makes a direct impact in their life, in their business, on their budget.

It's also a little bit more strategic, like business ecosystem wise, because if they love working with me, they can always, you know, pay to work with me next time if budget allows or if trust allows, et cetera.

And so it just felt so much more aligned to have that different representation of contribution.

I also bumped the value of freedom from my list because I like to stick to five.

Three to five is generally what I do for.

And with my clients that is absolutely not a hard and fast rule.

But I wanted to max out at 5.

And so when I was accidentally out of alignment on integrity, I accidentally posted all around the Internet, I'm hosting a free event.

I checked the little box on eventbrite saying donations welcome.

Did not realize it was forcing a minimum donation.

So therefore the event was not free and I was so deeply out of alignment.

Um, when someone flagged it to me on my email list, I was, like, mortified.

And I knew instantly integrity has to be one of my core values.

It is one of my core values.

And so when I looked at my list, I was like, you know what, Freedom?

I'm actually living and breathing that I.

I am not feeling particularly free.

So I was able to absorb that concept of freedom under my existing concept of.

And value of exploration.

So I like to be free to explore.

I like to be free to keep an open mind, to listen to other perspectives, to learn and change and grow.

So that freedom just kind of got, like, absorbed.

Exploration was now the umbrella for that vague concept of freedom.

And integrity was officially and very firmly on the list of values.

So, yeah, audit, get outside perspective.

Change if you need to.

All of the things it, your business, your values, it is constantly living and breathing.

Yeah, you mentioned a lot about, like, having a coach outside perspectives.

This is a little side note.

I have loved over, like, the last couple weeks, I've seen so many people on threads be like, my husband's the best business coach ever.

And like it.

I love that.

I love that people are really using everybody that they have now as like a sounding board.

And I think values are one of those really great places to get multiple perspectives and really, like, talk it out with somebody.

Something else you said that I thought was really interesting was your value of, like, contribution and that 1% to the planet not really feeling aligned, but making this, like, pivot to something that you felt more intrinsically connected to and like, pro bono scholarships.

That's.

I have my business as well, but, like, I've never talked about it because it just, I don't know, it just never come up.

Wow.

It's just never been something that's, like, come up.

But I love the way that you mentioned, like, auditing and feeling connected to it and that you can change actions that you're taking.

I don't think people really mention that.

Yeah, I feel like first, I feel like some of us are looking for that prescriptive, here's how to do business.

Because that would feel great, right?

Like, if someone were to tell us, this is going to work without fail, this will feel good, it'll do good.

It'll.

It'll just be magically perfect.

And we all know that's just not true.

We could follow someone's business model and tips and course to a T and it still would not be the same, because you are a different person.

You are a different Practitioner, you have different values.

Even if, of course, your values are aligned, if you're buying someone's product or following them, it will simply be different.

The people buying from you will be different or their experience with you will be different.

Again, even if we follow everything to a T that we read in a book or follow on a course or do in a free webinar or whatever it is.

So I think it is both extremely permission giving to not have any prescriptive rules for how to do business, but it's also a bit of the wild west, right.

It's also a little bit frustrating because the target is always moving and we always need to be aware and adjusting.

And that's where again, having either like one off consulting or coaching, having a standing community, having just business peers that you kind of spitball with from time to time or on a weekly basis or whatever it is like whatever again works for your brain and your bandwidth and your budget and your rate of change.

It all adds up and it all matters.

But regardless, it's never going to stay the same.

Yeah.

And that is so, so good.

So I know we're about to transition into talk about your marketing, but what advice do you have for somebody that's like creating or writing in their business to weave their values and their mission like into that?

Because it's one thing to have like a mission statement on your website or like have your values listed and stuff like that.

It's another thing for your copy and your messaging to really be like breathing those values.

And I, I think that's hard.

Especially my audience is very B2B and I think that, you know, we struggle, I struggle personally to know that my copy's weaving into my values more so my copy less so, like my social media content.

But like, what would you tell somebody that's writing their own copy for their website about their values and how to weave that in?

Okay, so many thoughts on this.

So your values should be both see and your mission and all of it, right?

Your values align.

Brand messaging should all be both seen and felt.

It should be explicit and implicit.

Yes.

It should live on your about page or your homepage or both.

It should live in your boilerplate or, you know, wherever you're showing up.

And also people should be able to feel that value without you saying, and I made this choice because of this value, right?

So in your copy, in your content, in your conversations, in your entire brand experience, you should be intentionally tying them in.

So if, for example, transparency is one of your core values, then that might show up as you sharing income reports that might show up as you doing the try in public method where like oopsies, I made a mistake or ooh, I learned this thing and I experimented.

And this is the result of that.

It might show up with you talking about personal struggles or health struggles, even in a business context.

It might show up as a million and one different things, right?

So transparency can be look, feel however you want it to be, look, feel.

So let me back up just a little bit.

When I think of values and when I do a values process, I think of it in three steps which are to determine establish what they are, right?

You have to, you have to figure out what those values are.

And again, most of us care about a million and one things, so brain dump them all and then figure out those umbrella terms.

That's how my brain works.

But yeah, if you need to start small and scale up, that's fine too.

But establish is the first step.

Figure out what those values and what that mission even is.

And then step two is to actively define what those values mean to you and your business.

Your definition of transparency or contribution or trust or anything in between is going to be different and will again manifest differently.

In my business, a lot of my clients have a shared value of community or collaboration.

Simplicity is a very common one.

But the way we co create that definition is very different.

It depends on their business model, it depends on their personality, it depends on their entire brand experience, right?

So simply define what that means to you.

And then the third step, so establish, define and then apply.

So in those business decisions, in that content you're writing, in that headline you are drafting for your website or the subject line you're writing for your emails, can you have a nod to your values?

Can you explicitly talk about your values one way, not necessarily for copy, but more for content.

Your values could even be your content pillars.

So like if you have five values, for example, and you want to post five days a week, maybe every single Monday you post something related to, either explicitly or implicitly to your value of inclusion, right?

So maybe this Monday you want to talk explicitly about it and so you talk about inclusive language tips.

Okay, maybe next Monday inclusivity comes around again and you want to implicitly talk about it by making sure that you have like alt text in the captions or something like that.

And maybe someone's never seen that before and they're like, why did you put that weird parentheses thing?

And then that opens the door to conversation of well, it is to be more inclusive and accessible on this front, right.

So again, that's not exactly copy, but your, your values can become really great content pillars.

And then on the copy front, I'm thinking of like, I don't know, website copy or something.

Can you inject values related and.

Or explicitly the values and.

Or like emotionally charged and related to your values words in the headlines?

So something like impact or ethical.

Those are pretty like charged words, right?

They have some judgment attached to them.

So if that's the camp you want to stand in, inject that if you want it to be softer.

Because one of your core values is like caring or something.

And so you want to have a really soft brand.

You can still be firmly rooted in caring by having a very soft voice and a very soft way and like sort of nurturing way of talking about business and caring in business.

Right?

So yeah, lean into the emotions, lean into the mind map of where those values could potentially lead you.

Because they're just the starting point, they're the gut check, they are the anchor, but they're not the end all.

Be all they from there there is a huge expanse that can happen in all the words you use and in all of the sentiments that you create.

Oof.

That was so good.

And that was like so actionable.

One of the things I really like is like the try in public thing that you mentioned.

I love that like that is such a great idea and I see SaaS companies do that a lot with like the build in public.

It's really big on X and even I see it all the time on LinkedIn.

Hate both of those platforms.

LinkedIn's always a little bit better, but I love seeing like the SaaS companies building in public.

Like maybe I'm just connected to a lot of SaaS founders, but like I always wondered, I was like, how could that like apply to other businesses?

And I love that idea of try in public.

Like that is so, so good.

And using your values and your voice really like click something.

Because I think a lot of us are personal brands or like, err, more on the side of being a personal brand.

And if we write the way we talk, we're most likely going to be talk or writing in the way of our values, which makes it really easy to just think about it that way.

So that was great and like super actionable.

Oh good.

Yeah.

I always say like a strategy is only as good as it is implemented, right?

I mean, this is a podcast about strategies, right.

That you have to be able to implement.

Crushes my little messaging soul when I like write a brand Messaging guide with someone, for someone.

And I am certain that it just dies on their hard drive.

Right.

Like, that is not what we want.

We want your brand, your values, your entire strategy to be evolving and growing and connecting with real people in the real world.

That's like, that is what the entire goal is.

Yeah.

And that's.

That's really important.

Like, if we're not implementing the things that we're learning, the things that we're investing in, like, what's.

What's the point?

Truly, what's the point?

So I'd love to talk a little bit about how you're marketing your business, because I know you've got an email list, you have a podcast.

I see you doing guest speaking stuff kind of all the time.

Even though we just met.

Like, I feel like I knew your name and had seen your face in, like, summits and stuff like that.

But can we talk a little bit about how you, like, honed in on your specific marketing tactics?

Yes.

Broken record and, like, probably not very useful, but sort of organically.

Although.

And I say that, and maybe that actually is useful.

Like, follow that gut instinct.

I've been really into human design lately, and I'm a generator and I.

Oh.

My God, me too.

Lovely.

And like, our authority, I just got into it.

I think you can have emotional authority and gut authority, but mine is gut.

Right.

And so, like, we're supposed to follow what lights us up.

We're supposed to follow the big yes or the big no.

Or if it's neutral, it's a no.

I'm still struggling with that.

But I love my rabbit holes.

I love the, like, let me just try this thing.

I just have this inkling, and then it suddenly becomes my main thing.

Right.

Again, Like, I literally randomly got assigned.

Not randomly, but, like, sort of by chance got assigned a messaging project years ago at the very beginning of my freelancing career.

And that is how I even.

I googled my way through that project to create a brand messaging guide.

And then I was like, hey, my brain works this way.

Maybe I should lean more into this.

And so I did more and more brand messaging projects, and now I'm the values, brand messaging person.

Right.

So in terms of marketing techniques, tactics.

Yeah.

Areas of interest.

I dragged my feet for a long time on the email marketing front because it felt very scary and very intrusive.

It also felt like a really big commitment.

But because I committed publicly, that kept me accountable.

If I had just been left to my own devices, absolutely would not have done it.

I've always been a writer.

So that always felt like a good medium that has grown very organically because people reply and it feels really good.

And it's my space to process more than anything.

And I know for a fact that it facilitates other people in their processing too.

So because of the feedback I've gotten on that and because of quite honestly the direct sales I've gotten because of that, I know that that is a powerful, useful marketing mechanism for me.

One of my favorite, like lead magnets I guess is yes, speaking and hosting.

I call it an about you audit.

I've been doing it quarterly for like almost two years I think.

And both are very high energy.

I'm able to like show up but then like shut down after.

So it's like a little burst of energy and focus and it's very interactive and I'm able to respond which again is like very aligned with my human design.

But I'm able to like reach to people.

I'm able to give real time feeling feedback and insights and examples.

And I'm able, my brain works like a bajillion miles a minute if you could not tell from this conversation.

And so I'm able to pull from like all these different interests and experiences and conversations I've had in real time and it adds to the conversation.

And so that has been really useful for me for both building my list and simply building relationships with the hosts, with the communities, with the people who attend, et cetera.

It also, because I'm a verbal processor, allows me to like hone my message each time but in a productive real time delivering value to the receiving end as well.

So that's been really cool.

I have struggled a lot on social media, not the idea generation.

I have a bajillion and one ideas, not even necessarily like the caption writing or anything like that, but sort of the entire ecosystem of it.

Or like I'm very anti algorithm anti trend and almost I think to a detriment of like I'm just not getting anything from the the algorithm.

Like I'm getting nothing in return from the algorithm.

But I continue to show up on social because of the private conversations I have like in the DMs, mostly with peers who often become either clients or referral partners.

So like it's a tangential, I make the post like about the offer, about my philosophy or whatever, but like it's actually the long term kind of one off random conversations that actually lead to real quote unquote business growth.

So I still hang out on social even though I'm not officially getting anything from it.

And then, yeah, the podcast, I, I went on a podcast guesting spree.

It must have been a few years ago.

And I just loved the conversation.

I just loved how personal it is and how organic it is.

And again, I'm able to like speak off the cuff.

I think I did a lot more prep in the beginning.

I would, you know, ask for the questions ahead of time and like really refine my answers ahead of time.

But you know, the more conversations you have and just the more experience you have under your belt, the easier these conversations flow.

And so I am not sure exactly the impetus for starting my own podcast.

I cannot remember, but it came to me and I thought, you know, this is a good idea.

And I think more than anything I wanted a space to be able to like return the favor.

I wanted a space to be able to highlight all the amazing women I've met around the Internet and like really do them justice and like give them a platform, but also at the same time providing a space for the listener to absorb their anecdotes and advice and see themselves in the guest's business journey so that they felt less alone on theirs.

And so I'm actually currently in, in the process of a complete rebrand for the podcast and like a reimagination, same essence, but I want it to be a little bit more business aligned.

Right.

A little bit more like in my ecosystem.

So I'm either going to double down on the messaging front and, or the like overthinking, deep thinking front just so that it's a lot more specific and you know, in being a little bit more niche, maybe being a little bit more deeply connected as well.

So yeah, I have lots of mechanisms, lots of experimentation.

I kind of just follow like what feels good and also what opportunities come my way.

And actually yeah, following the what feels good chain bundles were really, really big like a couple years ago.

They're still common.

Yeah, I've actually turned down, I, I would, I would say yes to anyone who sent me an invitation or I would even like seek them out.

But my businesses like really not a volume based business and I don't have like, I don't have like self paced things besides a couple conscious marketing workbooks and that sort of thing.

It just most bundles are not very well aligned for my business, my personality, my audience.

So I have since been extremely selective not only with bundles, but also with summits.

Mostly only people already in my orbit that I know are values aligned people that I really, really like love everything they create so of course I want to be part of it.

Occasionally I'll say yes to something else that's random, but even then I sort of get that, like, oops, was I supposed to do that?

Probably not.

Um, so, yeah, that has been something that, you know, it wasn't bad necessarily.

It just didn't feel perfectly aligned, and so I've done a lot less of it.

Yeah, I love that.

I love that you went into how you.

Each thing kind of serves something different for you personally.

Like, email helps you process, like that writing helps you process about page audits.

Like, that sounds like it's a really big visibility and conversion strategy for you.

I love how you talk about social media not necessarily being for, like, reach per se, but like, relationship building with peers.

Like, that's actually a really cool way to view.

Our very minimal reach on Instagram is like, hey, I'm posting this sales post.

But actually the strategy here is for my referral partners and for my business besties and for the people that can refer people to me.

And, like, that's really cool.

And that had to be kind of a freeing, like, revelation that, like, social media doesn't have to be, like, the center of your marketing.

Like, I'm really big on people not being on social media or not using social media as, like, their main marketing.

Yeah.

So, like, I.

I love your approach to it of, like, it's all about the relationships with the peers.

And I'm sure you sell in DMs too, but, like, it sounds like you're really rooted in that.

Like, I'm building relationships with my peers and that's.

That's it.

Yeah.

So I think that's really cool.

That was a very recent revelation after just a year.

I mean, I'm almost six years into business officially, longer freelancing on the side, but almost six years of, like, posting into the void.

32 views, 1 like.

And.

And yet again, like, it.

I have made real friends, you know, and peers on these platforms.

Very slow build, but, you know, it does exist.

And I do outsource the scheduling and some of the graphic creation and like, real.

I always write it, I always conceptualize it, I always approve it.

But it does cost me money to post on social media and.

And all of the time for the ideation and that sort of thing.

So really figuring out, like, wait, what am I trying to use social media for?

Okay.

Relationship building and list building, which I need to actually do much more of.

Okay.

If those are my two goals, it's not the direct sale.

It's I sell by getting people on the phone or I sell by getting people on my email list.

That's how I sell.

So why am I trying to sell on social media?

It's just not working for me.

It's not working for my people.

They're like, again, I work with overthinkers, right?

So of course, like some at one point it's going to be like, I'm ready.

But most of the time it's not because they saw a social post from me.

It's because they've been slow baking on my email list for three years and now they're finally ready to jump.

That speaks to like, how well you know your audience too.

Like I say all the time to my members and conversion catalysts, I'm like, how do you sell what actually like moves the needle for your audience?

What brings people closer to that sale?

What are you doing to list growth?

Like, you really touched on all of that and it really speaks to how well you know your audience, especially if they are overthinkers.

Like, they're not just gonna pull the trigger, like right away.

Are there any marketing tactics that you've tried and hated and maybe stepped back on?

I know you talked a little bit about bundles and getting more picky and like, I completely agree.

Like, I'm definitely more picky with my bundles and stuff like that too.

But is there anything you've tried and been like, you know, off with its head?

Like, I'm not doing this.

Yeah.

So yeah, bundles are the first thing that come to mind.

Even though I was not off with their head, I like probably should have been and trying to think.

I've never tried paid ads, which I know, ads and marketing again, it's like, what bucket is that in?

But I've never tried paid ads again.

I just don't think I'm like volume based enough for that to work.

So have not tried that I really wanted to and never committed to.

So I feel like there's something there.

I really struggle with like priorities and like thinking something as priority, but then like not taking action on it and therefore it's not actually a priority.

Um, but I really wanted to do a lot more like thought leadership, you know, having articles posted in Forbes, Business Insider, official business places, having, you know, guest posts on big wig blogs, that sort of thing.

And I did a little bit of pitching and like, it just never took off.

But I think it's because my heart wasn't in it.

I think I, I was like pretty generic.

I wasn't super tapped into their audience and like their needs.

So that has not been a raging success by any stretch.

It's something that I think I want for like my ego more than anything else.

Like, I don't actually think it's necessarily values or, or like business audience aligned and then even podcast guesting to a certain extent.

I went on a huge stint, like I said, and I, I loved every second of it, but it didn't have a ton of like direct ROI in terms of like email list building.

I do do specialized like URLs, so I know where people are coming from and I can see 0 signups or 1 sign up.

So like, I, I know they didn't join my ecosystem on that listen.

And yet, yeah, I have like lasting relationships with these hosts.

So like, sometimes I'm a podcast guest.

A year later they invite me to a summit.

I'm an affiliate for it.

So I make $22 on, on that podcast, you know, like sort of a year down the line sort of thing or whatever it is.

So again, that wasn't off with its head, but it was sort of like I pumped my brakes also because I have two small children and like finding time to record live on someone else's schedule is like, hard.

So it's perfectly aligned.

Like this conversation.

I love it so much.

But like, I used to pitch all the time and it was so fun and like, you know, especially when you get that, yes, it's like so momentum building.

But I have pumped the brakes on that front too.

There are probably others.

I'm not sure what.

It's all a big experiment.

And again, it is all so, so, so dependent on your bandwidth and like your commitment to it as well.

Yeah, I've learned how capacity can really fluctuate from one season to a next, even like one week to a next.

Like capacity can change so quickly and what we have the ability to do can also change really quickly.

You kind of mentioned paid ads.

Is there anything else in the future that you maybe have your eye on and you want to try but haven't yet?

Oh boy.

Let's see.

I have never tried like an evergreen ecosystem, if, if, if you know what I mean.

So like sort of, yeah, free or paid prerecorded webinar and then tripwire to low offer thing and then sales funnel to next level thing.

I have a product ladder or actually, again, it's more of an ecosystem.

Like it all kind of feeds into itself actually.

Sure.

I'm an evergreen kind of gal.

I'm not actually sure that model would work for me.

And my people, I'm like very high touch, very personality driven, very founder forward, practitioner forward.

So I'm not sure, like a pre recorded webinar from me and then like an automated sale.

It's my style.

Maybe that's like a self limiting belief and like I would be making way more money and way more relationships in that model.

Like maybe that's the case.

But that is something that I know works for so many people and I have never tried trying to think.

I don't know if you have any other suggestions I can give you a knee jerk of like, yeah, that's on my radar.

No, but yeah, those two sort of more like form.

I don't know for me, paid ads and like the, the webinar to bump sale thing feel very like traditional online business, which I know is almost an oxymoron, but like it feels a little bit prescriptive to me.

And again, I'm not great with that.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of other examples.

Pinterest.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Pinterest has been on my radar for so long and I have never committed to it.

Think I think I'm a little bit afraid of like not quote unquote doing it right.

Think I think my, my social VA is like posting to Pinterest sometimes for my podcast.

But I know I'm not doing it properly because like I know I don't have my boards.

I think I need to like pay a strategist one off.

I went down the YouTube rabbit hole a little bit on that front and then just got distracted with other things.

But I think I didn't do enough research or I was like stuck in that research like route for too long and then never actually went onto the platform to implement.

So I think I am technically posting my podcast to.

Which sounds ridiculous to not even know, but I'm fairly certain I'm posting podcast episodes to Pinterest but again with like zero strategy tied to it.

And I do have a couple Pinterest people in my orbit that I should probably just invest in.

But yes, that is so I'm so glad you remind.

I feel like that's a sign that yes, that has been on my radar for a long time.

Are you on Pinterest?

Do you use it?

Gosh, no.

I struggle with Pinterest because I don't use it as like a consumer.

So like I just don't understand the.

I don't understand where it fits for me.

Like I'm creating content, I know I should be pinning it and to be honest What I'm doing is, I don't know if you know, Tara Reid.

She has, like, a.

I think she calls it pin perks.

I'll link it.

And she has, like, an automated system for pinning, and I've tried that a couple times.

I honestly love it.

I just reset it up.

So, like, you basically add your pins to an airtable and it just, like, puts them.

It just publishes them for you.

2019.

But I fell off.

I didn't love it.

It's something I want to do because, like, I'm like, I've got a YouTube channel I'm starting.

I have the podcast.

Like, it makes sense to be there, but it just doesn't make sense for my brain.

Like, it.

It's not something I use.

So I don't get it.

Like, I don't get it if that makes sense.

Yeah, I don't understand it from a business perspective.

Like, I'm not on Pinterest Googling anything.

Well, or, you know, searching.

I got.

See, I don't even have the right, like, vernacular.

So, yeah, I.

I totally understand that.

And I do think that, like, certain platforms just don't work for our brain.

Right.

Yeah.

Like when.

When Twitter was Twitter.

I only learned it because my nonprofit organization that I was working with used it for their comms.

And so that was the only reason I used it.

And then I suddenly, like, I get it now, finally.

And then I, like, dropped off that chain immediately after I left that role.

But there are just some platforms that work better for our brains than others.

So I feel like we have two options on that in, like, in that case, A, outsource it, or, like, you found a tool which is, again, outsourcing it in some capacity.

Or B, like, just shoot.

Just sort of let.

Let that traffic go, let that audience go.

Like, just choose a platform that does resonate so you can put your all in it.

And again, not like, all your eggs in one basket sort of thing, but, like, all of your focus and your energy and attention and just sort of hoping for the best in the place where you can show up best.

I don't know.

I feel like those are our two options.

Yeah, and that's, like, that's really important.

Like, I've definitely outsourced that, like, level of Pinterest to, like, the system that I invested in from Tara.

And it is one of those things where when it's not aligned, just let it go.

And I felt that way for TikTok for a while, but now I'm creating TikTok and it's like the easiest content that I can just make, which is really nice.

Okay, you said like, what are you.

Doing anything on TikTok?

I have, I've literally never even downloaded the app.

I have never opened the app.

The only TikToks I've ever seen are on Instagram, like a true millennial or in like articles that they like embed it.

And I'm like, play.

So yeah, I have, I have never done TikTok.

But you, you asked about something that is on my radar.

I feel like long form YouTube would be perfect.

I think I would love it.

I think it would really resonate with me.

I think it would work for my audience.

I consume so much YouTube both on the business front and on the personal front, but it's very scary, daunting for me.

So I have never tried it.

But yeah, in terms of something on my radar, Pinterest and YouTube are like the platforms that I would latch onto.

Yeah, YouTube is interesting because, like we both have a podcast.

We're kind of like, we already have a little bit of a workflow set up.

Like it doesn't, like when I started my channel, it didn't feel like a heavy and it's a baby channel.

Like I think I have like three subscribers if that.

But like it feels approachable and it feels kind of easy because like we're coming to it with an experience in podcasting which like, isn't the same, but like, there's enough overlap there that it feels pretty easy.

Any other tactics that you want to try?

Oh, I feel like we just, we just added a lot to my to do list.

So no, I think that is it for now.

As we wrap up.

What is one piece of advice for someone wanting to create a values aligned strategy?

What would it be?

Okay, I have opposite advice either.

Okay, the advice is follow where your brain goes, right?

So either start big picture and scale down from there.

So start with the big umbrella values, the big picture impact, whatever it is, and then work on the tactics, the little day to day details that you can modify or implement, or do the inverse.

Start with what feels really small and easy.

You know what, I can add this one word to every single sales conversation I have or I can change the name of my discovery call.

That will feel really values aligned and that will be my drop in the bucket today and then just sort of scale up from there.

Or it's not even a scaling up, it's just sort of an amalgamation.

So, yeah, I would follow where your brain is, follow where your heart is, take that values align action in everything you do and go from there.

And it will absolutely snowball very, very quickly in all the best ways.

Awesome.

So let us know where we can find you online.

And of course I will have everything linked down below in the show notes, but I want to make sure that our listeners can hear it from you.

Like, where can we find you?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

So home base is ashleysang.com My podcast is currently named Purpose and Progress Podcast and that is and will live@ashleysang.com podcast.

It's all things values align business conversations like this on social, I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Technically my X and Facebook exist but I am not on there.

And then I would love for you to enter my orbit via a free guide to elevator pitches.

It's my framework for talking about what you do, why it matters with real live humans.

So I have that available@ashleysang.com stack.

So yeah, I would love to chat all things values line, business impact, purpose, conscious, marketing, all the things.

I love to chat it all.

Awesome.

I love that so much.

I will have all of that linked down below.

Ashley, thank you so much for being here and I can't wait to just see where you go from here.

Yes.

Can't wait to be connected.

And thank you so, so much for having me.

Cool.