Connect with Alli Gatlin: https://bit.ly/writing-identity

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Welcome to the launch of the Sustainable Side Hustle Podcast with Vinayak Ramesh.

Today’s episode features Alli Gatlin, a business and brand identity coach with more than 17 years of experience and the creator of the Write Ugly Method.

We talk about how she rebuilt after losing her entire digital presence, why your identity should shape the business you build, and how ethical selling can help you create offers that actually feel aligned.

>>> Don't forget to follow the show, download these powerful launch episodes, and drop us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

>>> Claim your FREE gift for supporting the launch — the Substack Notes Starter Pack + Substack Growth Engine. Leave a review and DM me on Substack: https://substack.com/@vinayakramesh1

Hey, this is your host, Vinayak.

And welcome to the Sustainable side Hustle podcast.

Today I've got Ali with me.

She's a business and brand identity Coach with over 17 years of experience across strategy, branding, sales and leadership.

She's the creator of the Write Ugly Method and runs a school community called Writing Identity.

Let's dive into the insights shared by Ali.

I teach people about writing and I'm the creator of the Write Ugly method.

The biggest goal is just to get you to write, trust your own damn voice again and rebuild that sense of self trust so you can move through life and be able to make confident decisions without having to self doubt or have imposter syndrome or spiral in those overthinkings.

We all have our own individuality, right?

And that's like our design.

I'm sure human design, people are like, yes, human design.

But our internal self, it's already in there.

We just kind of forget to listen to it and tap into it.

And the, the core part of what I do is remember how to connect back in with you so you can hear that voice, see what feels good.

Do you know what your values are?

How do you make them realize, okay, what's the problem?

What's their values?

A really easy way to go about it is what do you hate?

What do you think is just disgusting with business, with a person?

Like when somebody does this one thing, what do you hate about that one activity?

Right?

And for me, like I, I really dislike it when people lie.

Do people want what you have?

Do they know what you're talking about?

Right.

When I say the right ugly method, it comes across pretty clearly.

I'm going to teach you how to write and it's not going to be pretty.

You're going to, you're going to learn a different way of practicing.

And it's a method, it's a methodology.

I intentionally don't use the word journaling because I think that people one get lost in the thoughts, but they get lost in this idea of I'm on my healing era and all these things.

It doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to be honest.

And so the right ugly method is like what are two things?

What can be true in this moment and what can I set down on the page?

I opened up my first marketing company when I was in 2011.

Oh, it was a mess.

I mean, I had things for everybody and it was just, I put in this arsenal of work and crazy talk, just absolute crazy talk.

What I did was I took everything that I made, which Is was great stuff and I just, you just kind of have to tear it apart.

It kind of like nachos.

You just take one little chip at a time and that's your offer.

And so that's really what I do with most people.

We kind of put everything cumulative together.

What have you sold, what is done really well, what do you want to sell?

And we just kind of make this big heap of nachos and then we find the best chip with a couple of the best toppings on it.

And that's your one.

Right.

If you want a low ticket offer then you take it.

It's a smaller chip and then you kind of go from there and work your way down for.

You have your mid size, you have your community focused one, you have your group coaching, you have your the higher level of access one to one with you.

That's going to be a more of a premium ticket and then you have like a VIP coaching experience or you have an entire like a week long intensive.

Those are different things that you can do all with the same type of material.

And but that's.

You're just going to go take that same offer really.

And because once somebody's gone through the low ticket and gone their way up the rung of the ladder, well, that big giant pile of crazy knowledge by the time they're at this intensity level that makes sense to them now.

But you had to develop that level of knowledge.

In your sales experience.

You often mention that sales start long before the sales call.

And I think you have a very big framework, you know, selling aces.

So can you just walk us through for all the beginners out here?

Absolutely.

Selly Aces started as kind of like the antithesis of the ABCs of sales, right.

Always be closing, which I'm not anti.

Always be closing.

But sometimes people get really stuck on oh, I'm so bad at sales or I hate sales.

Everyone always says I hate sales.

And I don't really think that you do.

I think that oftentimes you hate scams and you hate people that are deceptive.

You hate that sleazy car salesman.

But that idea of sales, people love being sold, right?

When you get a brand new pair of shoes, you cannot wait to put them on and to run out of the store and see if they light up.

Right.

When you get your brand new blender, like the excitement to go make a new smoothie, like it's out of this world.

We love sales, we love being sold.

It feels good because you're like hell yeah.

When you're sad, you're like, oh, retail therapy.

So people like sales, they don't like being misled.

Selling ACEs stands for always Closing Ethical Sales.

You're going to get rejected.

You just have to embrace the suck sometimes.

Write that down.

That's a right ugly one, right?

You're going to get rejected.

And so if you know it's gonna suck and you just wanna get that out of the way, okay, I'm just gonna go ahead and just get rejected like seven times real quick and then I'll worry about my sales later, Focus on the rejection then just knock out, focus on, okay, I just need to get 10 or 15 more no's today and then I'll move on.

Just own it, own it.

If you lost everything tomorrow, what would your first 30 day look like trying to build it all back up Last.

Year, that's like about a year ago, like actually almost to the date.

I did lose everything and actually started over from scratch.

I had my identity stolen last year and it wasn't just, oh, lost a little bit of money or lost like an email.

I lost my entire digital presence, like my entire body of work over the last 17 years.

Everything, simple thing that I've written and everywhere it was gone, money was gone.

My social media accounts got deleted, my every single thing was gone.

So I actually had to start over from scratch.

Which is why things are kind of on the smaller end for me on Substack and all these because I'm showing up online again actually as a brand new person with 17 years of experience.

I'm a weird like in between phase.

And so yeah, when my first 30 days back in one I showed up and I just told people what was going on.

I was like, holy crap.

Like you guys, I'm brand new again.

This is where I met and I took my own advice and I just showed up exactly where I was as I was.

And I was like, well, this is what I'm going to go ahead and do.

And what I wouldn't do is just jump so hard directly and to be like, okay, crap, I need to make so much money real fast.

Don't get so caught up in trying to rebuild what you had before that you forget to ask yourself, well, what else can be true?

What else can I become?

What else can I do differently that feels more aligned with me?

So that was just a trailer.

But we are about to get into the real specifics.

How identity branding and sales actually work together and why a business that looks successful on paper doesn't always mean much if you feel miserable running it.

If you have ever felt like your business doesn't quite fit you, you probably don't want to miss this one.

Make sure you hit that follow button.

It's completely free and I will be dropping the full interview really soon.

And go check out Ali.

She provides tons of free value on her substack and school community called Writing Identity.

And if you want more of this stuff, I write about it every week on my own substack called the Sustainable Solopreneur.

Consider subscribing to it and I will see you soon.